General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: If Jenner can be a woman while still sporting a penis, why can't Rachel Dolezal be African American? [View all]lovemydog
(11,833 posts)Critical thinking considers a weak argument and rejects it. I saw that interview. Yes, I saw some sympathy from Melissa Harris-Perry toward a troubled individual. I didn't see her pushing the notion that 'trans-racial' is a legitimate concept. An argument that suggests that race is a vague or fuzzy abstraction can be considered and rejected. Tamara Winfrey Harris addresses this in her New York Times opinion piece:
'In the days since this story broke, many people have been quick to point out that race is merely a social construct as if that fact changes the very real impact of race on the lives of minorities. The persistence of systemic racism means there are penalties for blackness in America.
Black women real ones live at the nexus of that oppression and enduring sexism. The gender pay gap is steeper for them. They are more likely than their white counterparts to live in poverty, to be victims of domestic homicide and sexual assault. If Tyisha Miller and Rekia Boyd, black women who were victims of extrajudicial violence, had been able to slide into whiteness for just a moment they might still be alive. (Perplexingly, Ms. Dolezal told Matt Lauer that her decision to identify as black was a matter of survival. That is rich, indeed.) But racial oppression is not as easy to shrug off as racial advantage. This is partly because America has spent centuries ensuring that certain people can never be white.
Being able to shift ones race is a privilege. Ms. Dolezals masquerade illustrates that however much she may empathize with African-Americans, she is not one, because black people in America cannot shed their race. We cannot proclaim the black race a nebulous concept, while strictly policing whiteness and the privileges of that identity. I will accept Ms. Dolezal as black like me only when society can accept me as white like her.'
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/opinion/rachel-dolezals-harmful-masquerade.html?_r=0