Now Let’s Talk about Rachel Dolezal

Late last week Homeschoolers Anonymous pulled its posts on Rachel Dolezal out of concern that these posts were contributing to efforts to minimize or excuse Rachel’s actions. After seeing this I thought about pulling my post on Rachel Dolezal’s parents, but have ultimately decided against it, largely because I stated upfront that the background I was providing does not to excuse Rachel in any way. But I’ve realized that this is not enough. As I’ve read comments on my post and elsewhere on the internet I’ve found that many feel that Rachel’s background does in some way excuse what she did. I’ve seen bloggers and commenters say that it’s no wonder she wanted a new identity, and surmise that Rachel came to identify with the struggle and life experiences of her black adopted siblings, and so forth.

I have become concerned by the tenor of this conversation, for several reasons.

First and foremost, having suffered abuse as a child does not excuse an adult for their actions in the present. We make our own choices. Sometimes we repeat cycles of abuse, but more often we don’t. I work very hard not to repeat problematic parenting patterns I grew up with on my own children—and work hard I should. We have agency, we make our own decisions, and when we hurt others we are fully responsible for it. If you still think excusing the adult actions of someone who was abused as a child makes sense, I’ll remind you that Michael Pearl was abused as a child. Does that excuse him for his actions in writing To Train Up a Child and promoting the abuse of children? No.

I know a homeschool graduate who is in jail for crimes against children because, as an adult, he solicited sex with an underage girl. Yes, he almost certainly had very inadequate sex education, likely devoid of concepts like consent. Yes, he had little contact with girls his own age during his formative years, and was not allowed to date. But none of this excuses his actions. What he did was wrong, incredibly wrong, and he did what he did as an adult in full control of his own faculties. He made a choice. If the reports are true, what Rachel Dolezal suffered at her parents’ hands—and what she watched her siblings suffer at her parents’ hands—is terribly wrong. But that in no way excuses her actions as an adult.

If anything, Rachel’s past should call attention, once more, to problems Kathryn Joyce illustrated in her book on the evangelical adoption complex. There are plenty more stories where black children are adopted by white evangelical parents working to create their own home mission field by growing their family, only to have things go terribly terribly wrong as national patterns of racism are played interfamily.

This shifts the framing, doesn’t it? It places our sympathy primarily with Rachel’s adopted black siblings and widens our concerns to the plight of other adopted black children in their situation, children like those adopted by Rebecca and Jeffrey Trebilcock, Ardee and Penny Sue Tyler, and Richard and Christine Dodson. Our thoughts should be with Lydia Schatz and Hana Williams, young black girls who lost their lives at the hands of their white adoptive parents. We need to talk about and be aware of the ways racism can be replicated in situations where white parents adopt black children, so that we can prevent other children from suffering.

But we can’t have that conversation, can we? Instead, discussions of Rachel’s past become all about Rachel, as though this really is all about Rachel and what she did rather than a piece of a bigger conversation about race. The truth is that too many white people would rather gawk at this strange white woman who decided she wanted to be black than have an actual conversation about the role race continues to play in our society. The story of Rachel Dolezal came sandwiched between the brutality show by police against black teens in McKinney, Texas, and the shooting deaths of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, at the hands of a white supremacist. We need to do more than gawk.

There’s another piece that I’m finding concerning as well. I’ve read (white) commenters across the internet (and on own blog as well) question whether there was anything wrong with Rachel’s decision to pass as black. I am uncomfortable with this because I don’t think that we, as white people, are qualified to answer that question. After reading a variety of articles by bloggers of color, I stated at the beginning of my post last week that what Rachel did was wrong and inexcusable, yet because I am white I felt ill equipped to go into detail as to why it was so. I can see now that leaving the “why” out of the conversation without boosting black voices providing the “why” is not enough.

I’m going to point you to some posts by people of color, but first I want to note that Rachel is suspected of having made up some of the hate crimes she reported to police, which is serious serious problem. First, false reports of hate crimes make it that much harder for people to report hate crimes and have them taken seriously. Think of the way people point to false rape accusations to discredit rape victims, for example. Second, some of the hate crimes suspected to be fake included threats against Rachel’s son, which had to have been terrifying for him. Anyone arguing that people should give Rachel a break because she has done great things for the black community needs to remember the (probably) faked hate crimes.

Transracial Lives Matter, by Lisa Marie Rollins

The crucial difference here is that I had and continue have no choice in my blackness. I cannot hide my skin or make myself invisible when I am protesting police terror or creating theater art for other Black women with skin like mine. I cannot manipulate what race is for my own pleasure. Ms. Dolezal is a white woman, who made choices, who used and is still using every bit of her white privilege to maintain the power and elite status she has accrued from her deception. 

Rachel Dolezal Is Ruining My Light-Skinned Black Life, by Andrea Arterbury

Maybe she really does relate to the lifestyle of a black woman. That I can understand. But there aren’t enough spray tans and curly weaves in the galaxy that could justify lying to others and being something you aren’t. Especially not when there are real-life people in the world who have to authentically live this light-skinned black life everyday. I won’t stand for having my blackness questioned and ridiculed just because people are claiming that I and other light-skinned black people I know look like Rachel Dolezal. She can have a stadium of seats because I am not down with her faux-black cause.

57 Questions Black Women Have for Rachel Dolezal, by Sylvia Obell

13. What magical part of America did you live in that celebrated black beauty so intensely that it got the attention of a white kindergartener?! 
14. What happened in between you drawing black stick figures and suing Howard for discriminating against you as a white woman?
15. How concerned were you about “the cause” then?
16. Or does money in your pocket trump money needed to educate black students?

Transgender v. Transracial, by Keyshia Coleslaw

Those of us who are upset with her aren’t mad because she’s white.  White allies are great.  White people have always been involved with the NAACP.  They were there when the organization was founded.  We’re upset because she put on a caricature of the people she supposedly supports because it was easier to do that than to be a much-needed white voice in support of our community.

How Rachel Dolezal’s Lies Hurt Black People, by Ijeoma Oluo

As a teacher of African-American centered classes at Eastern Washington University, she misrepresented her teachings as those coming from a black perspective, when they were not. White teachers can and do teach African-American-centered courses all the time, and often do it very well. But it’s important for students to know if they are getting first or second-hand perspective. It’s important to know if opinions being discussed come from people who have actually experienced what they are talking about. In addition, according to accounts by white anti-racist activist Tim Wise, Dolezal used her status as a “black” woman to try to prevent him from speaking at EWU, arguing that as a white man, he wasn’t qualified to speak on issues affecting black people. She used her fake identity as a black woman to try to control the education on black issues that her students received.

An Open Letter, by Lost Daughters

Dolezal and others have perpetuated the false notion that a person can simply choose to identify as a different race or ethnicity. As extensive evidence-based research and first-person narratives have shown, we do not live in a so-called “post-racial society.” Damaging forces like racism make it virtually impossible for those with black or brown bodies to simply “put on” or “take off” race in the same or similar manner that Dolezal has employed. For transracial adoptees, navigating and negotiating the racism in our families, schools, and communities is a regular and compulsory part of our lives.

Rachel Dolezal: You Need to Sit Yourself Down, by Peter Mosley

That’s what Dolezal never seems to acknowledge — that although most black people are proud of our skin tone, for many of us the pride is survival.  And if you have not felt that necessity of feeling proud of being black in order to just survive — not because it’s fun but because you need  the pride to face the next moment with dignity — you have not experienced what it’s like to be black. 

I should probably note that some African Americans disagree with this take, and don’t have a problem with Rachel Dolezal’s decision to “pass” as black. See for example Rachel Dolezal Has a Right to be Black, by Camille Greer Rich. For another interesting read, this time by a white woman, see I’m a white woman who dated a Black Panther. I could have been Rachel Dolezal, by Hannah Miet.

If you know of any articles I should add to this list, please link them in the comments.