So you're trying to say race IS a scientific thing, and that there are genetic differences on the fundamental level between blacks, whites, Asians etc? You DO realize that doing so is not only inaccurate (scientists, whom I trust a lot more than some random writing this article, have debunked that idea), but also implicitly supports the pro-Nazi eugenics types who imply that IQ is determined by race, and that certain people are inferior to others...*right*?

There's nothing unique about being black; black isn't a culture, it's a term people use to describe people racially as having immediate African-like descent. That's literally all it means; saying there's "black culture" is as stupid as saying there's white culture, as it's a disservice to all the different European groups like Swedes, French, Italians, Greeks etc. You can't lump that into a monolith, and you shouldn't lump things like Ethiopian, Jamaican, Egyptian, or even black British into some monolithic "black culture".

You're also misunderstanding what a "social construct" is in this case; it doesn't mean that the things labelled in a way have no effect on reality; it's that there is no naturally-occurring substantive presence of them without human conjecture. In this case, the idea that race is genetically defined at the biological level, when differences in intelligence, strength, values/morals, hobbies etc. have been proven by neutral scientists for decades (even centuries) to not be driven by genetics. The closest some of those things are driven by genetics is nutrition, and unless it's some rare condition or allergy most people can eat pretty much any type of food if they wish and are able to access it.

Please do keep this in mind before trying to slam someone like Dolezal (who is a complete idiot, tbh) by implying that things like "race is a social construct" are inherently wrong or that stuff like "black identity" are influenced by something any more substantive than the concept of race being biologically defined among different groups of people (which has zero scientific credibility) to begin with.

I don't think you understood the writing. She never implied either of the things you're accusing her of implying. I think she'd agree with your points.

OMG, why is everyone obsessed with this obviously mentally ill person?

I have from the beginning thought it was a big political mistake, and a unscientific mistake, to go after Dolezal so hard. It's basically arguing for and defending the concept of race that includes the defining characteristics of quadroon, octoroon, hexadecaroon, etc. But I've seen few people in agreement with this view, so maybe I'm missing something...

Pardon me while I run off to start a batch of popcorn.

Rachel burned her and she doesn't even know it. Love it!

Is that four pictures of Rachel in bright posterization of herself above her own couch?
If so that kind of sums it up for me. This blue eyed blond/straight haired girl from Montana is very involved with herself, to where she makes herself up in different colors. She believes her made up fantasy is as important, maybe more important, than actual lives of POC. That is some mental health issue, right there.

The editor's note at the top reads: "She was not black at all." This completely dismisses the central identity claim of the interviewee straight away and disallows any possibility that one of Seattle's most fawned-over writers on Blackness and Whiteness might generate something new and interesting from the interview. Instead, we are left with: "She's a liar and she ignores Black voices and she's bad". This is only slightly less obvious and boring than: "She's a liar and she loves Black people and she's crazy." If this excerpt is indicative of the rest of the story, it will be predictable and disappointing.

Well, it's been almost 12 hours since this "Exclusive" excerpt has been up, and I only see 12 comments.

@10, has your popcorn gone stale as you've paced around, lifting up pillows, looking for that clickbait cat fight that never showed?

God, if everybody had just moved on from the internet when my back was turned (myself included), and we all also agreed to not analyze (on the internet) how that happened... I'd donate all my dvds to Goodwill, and I wouldn't even ask for a tax write-off receipt.

What would it take to make a white person be black?
- raised black
- they have no idea of being anything else
- nobody has any idea of them being anything else
Can you do without any of those?

You can bend on the last, say a black person who discovers they can pass as white to people. Nobody would tell them they're not black, but you might get to "you've been living as white with white people for thirty years, you don't remember how it is for other people."

What about that plus they were raised as white, and then when they're eighteen they learn the cribs were moved in the hospital and their biological parents are black? They're not going to know much black experience, but can they conclude they are black?

(I would think no, not in any generally recognized sense of the word.)

Funny how easily we accept that gender is a social construct, but race can not be, when both are physical characteristics derived from cold, unfeeling genetics.

Or are they not? and If they are not, who gets to decide what a "real" woman is, or what a "real" black person is?

You may not agree with Dolezal, but you have to at least admit that she raises questions that are not as easily dismissed as Oluo wants them to be.

I too was disappointed with the accusations Oluo leveled at the interviewee right out of the gate wanting to give us a preconceived notion of her judgement before we even get a chance to hear her speak for herself.

@15 - it would take having a tone of skin that your entire life is judged by and NOT BEING ABLE TO CHANGE THAT. She can go back to being white at any point. She will benefit from all of that privilege all over again. Black folks can't do that. They can't just "be white." Even light skinned black folks still face extreme oppression that they will never come out from under. That's why it's so insulting for Dolezal to claim this.

Also, author explicitly stated they know that race is a social construct. Author ALSO explicitly stated that it's a social construct that has very real consequences and that you can't opt out of. Black folks can't just say they're white and not still be subjected to the oppression based on their upbringing or color of their skin. Not all social constructs are created equally.

Rachel Dolezal has lied and mislead, purposely claiming the false ethnic heritage but or maybe because she did believe she was doing something good and purposeful with her work/life not merely because she wanted to lie on a application to get a job. Any way, people wants to turn this into some meaningful conversation about race and identity when it is not, it is really nothing more then the definition of a media distraction.

As a black women I have no hate for Dozezal at all, she is a curiosity that's it. It's not that she doesn't have the potential to kick start a conversation about the social constructs of race in this country but she inspires nothing more then like #13 said, ""She is bad, she is a liar and she drowns out authentic Black voices" the end.

I would say that only those with an income in excess of 80K a year truly have the privilege of being white. Those of us, meanwhile, below the 20K line are living lives so completely similar that we are neither black nor white, but totally gray.

@5

> and that there are genetic differences on the fundamental level between blacks, whites, Asians etc? You DO realize that doing so is not only inaccurate...

uh bro, genes are kind of the reason that there are such differences as black vs white vs yellow vs everything in the first place. it's why we don't all look like herds of deer.

@17 >Funny how easily we accept that gender is a social construct

That has only been accepted in the fringiest far-left circles. Most people still assume that everyone they meet is the gender they look like because that's now 99% of the population continues to operate. We are never going to live in a world where we learn each other's names and preferred pronouns before anything else because 99% of people are cisgendered and don't need to give a shit.

@17 - Yeah, I agree with @23: "Most" people don't accept gender as a social construct. In Seattle's hyper-progressive (haha) bubble, sure, some do. But even here we have trans bashings. Go elsewhere and they write laws to crystallize majoritarian gender perceptions.. and discrimination.

And race IS a social construct, it just is a construct that results in passed over job applications, lynchings, and spray-painted swastikas. In late 19th and early 20th century Irish immigrants were considered a different 'race', and were actively discriminated against on that basis. But that all faded when people stopped being able to tell them apart from majority white society.

Dolezal sounds crazy, but still suffers from fundamentally racist perceptions. She clearly has not done that much deep thinking about what she's doing, and appears to not really want to (or is incapable).

As to who gets to decide who is a "real" black woman? Well, the NAACP-Spokane sure made a clear decision.

Nobody is saying transgenderism isn't a real thing. It's just a bit silly to try and foist up the idea that gender and all various things associated it is somehow a construct of society rather than an aspect of biology.

Transgender people unfortunately got their biological facts and their psychological facts crossed up in the same body and that really sucks for them to deal with, but the answer is not to make society act like the key item that T folks struggle with is somehow not real and concrete in general. Assuming and acting upon gender norms isn't trans-phobic when 99% of the population identifies with the parts they popped out of their mom with.

If I meet a trans person I will accommodate them as will any other decent person, but it is positively and completely unreasonable to expect a transformation of society at large to the extent where everyone is at first assumed to possibly be a member of the 1.something% trans population vs the almost everyone else on the planet who is cisgendered and all associated biological processes and socializations therein.

Tl; dr: I understand that trans people are real and have problems, but they can't expect gender as a concept itself to be bent by the vast majority of non-trans society to their preferred perception.

It's fucked up that Oluo and others take this woman's mental health issues as a personal affront.