I'm having a hard time getting too outraged by the fact that Rachel Dolezal, an NAACP executive director in Washington State, turns out to be a white woman pretending to be black. I'm having a hard time mustering up any enthusiasm for mocking her either.
It sort of seems like an internal family squabble for the other side, and I'm rather inclined to let it be their problem. And to the extent we're talking about another human being's troubles - which appear to be quite extensive considering the obvious bad feelings with her parents and sexual assault accusations aimed at her brother - I am not interested in piling on.
But I do think the left should think about this: Why are you surprised that someone would pretend to be black after everything you've done to create distinctions and levels of moral superiority between blacks and whites? The people who can't stop talking about race - yes, the very people who constantly accuse everyone else of being racist - are the people who created Rachel Dolezal.
They're the people who created the idea that it's more virtuous to be black than white, and gave a troubled young woman the idea that she could and would feel better about herself if she could invent a fictional family history involving mixed-race parents, and if she could get away with a little darkening of her skin and some manipulation to her hair.
I don't know if you read many left-wing publications and/or web sites, but if you want all-race-all-the-time, it's the place to go. You'll read all about white privilege. You'll learn that there's this thing called a racist micro-aggression, which you almost certainly commit about 10,000 times a day without realizing it. You'll see all kinds of snark directed at people just for being white, including lots of apologies from the white liberal writers for being born the way they were.
On the left, you don't have any street cred unless you're a minority. You lap this stuff up every day, and it's no wonder you start thinking there's something wrong with you for being white, and it's no wonder you start thinking that maybe you should do something about it. It's not as if you have to mutilate your genitals like Bruce Jenner is apparently about to do. Some time in the tanning booth? Some hair product? You fit in!
And by the way, if you're a white person and you want to fit in among black people, you don't have to pretend to be black. Just be a decent person. I'm not even sure it would stop you from getting a leadership position at the NAACP if you're qualified for the job.
Of course, this is not a new idea, is it? It's just that in the days of C. Thomas Howell, it was funny. Now it's the product of one ideologies borderline obsession with the very thing they accuse everyone else of being obsessed with, which is projection in the extreme, but at least it brings back memories of this:
I'm having a hard time getting too outraged by the fact that Rachel Dolezal, an NAACP executive director in Washington State, turns out to be a white woman pretending to be black. I'm having a hard time mustering up any enthusiasm for mocking her either.
