I don’t think it would be a story at all in that case. The NAACP obviously has no problem with parts of its leadership being white, which is as it should be. IMHO, it’s only a story because she claimed some random old black guy was her father.
There is a book I found on Google Books, called African Americans of Jackson, published in 1997 (CORRECTION 2008 the picture appears to be from 1997.) . There is a picture of Dolezal in the book (page 124). It appears to be just a group of artists that participated in a particular art exhibit, but it’s strange. The whole book is:
The African American community of Jackson comprised an eclectic array of architectural styles reflective of the economic and social stratification of its urban dwellers. Images of America: African Americans of Jackson illustrates through vintage photographs the lives of the city’s African American residents as seen through their struggles and triumphs.
One of the books’ authors is also in that picture. I’m guessing that’s why it was included, and not to imply that every one of those artists is African-American.
Yes, but her appearance (big curly hair and tan skin) lends itself to assumptions about her race when you have overlay it with her activism, her husband, her kids, and other aspects of her life. She would not need to say she was black to create that impression, in other words. Which is the true test for being able to pass.
The difference between race and gender is that race is a cultural construct and gender is determined by our genes. So the CJ analogies really dont work here.
True. But while I think it’s a bit… odd for her to try to “pass”,* I don’t think that’s dishonest or anything.
*Though perhaps I shouldn’t. Brown people try to pass as white all the time.
Possibly the most clueless thing you’ve posted here.
Much like Elizabeth Lieawatha Warren, you know the one with the high cheekbones like a Cherokee…
But it is only ordinary common decency to refer to her however she wants. What she was at birth means nothing - what counts is what she wants now. It doesn’t hurt you to do what she says, and refusing to do so is incredibly rude and petty.
How she appears, physically, matters not at all - whatever she feels on the inside is what is important. And there can be no suggestion that she did it for attention, or to gain financially - clearly it must be assumed that this is something that has been building for years. Now she is finally brave enough to claim what she really is inside.
The only possible reason anyone can have for failing to respect her choice of what she wants to be is hatred.
And after all, she won the Olympics. 
Regards,
Shodan
The funny thing is I can get behind everything you said, if some blonde chick tells me she is half Japanese I…really couldn’t give a shit either way. And unlike he/she racial or ethnic identifiers come up so rarely in every day discussion it wouldn’t be an issue.
Odd story. Best tweet I’ve seen about it: “Is it a black women in a blue shirt or a white woman in a gold shirt?”
Exactly. Trans people don’t generally lie about their past. At most, they just don’t talk about it.
There was this one business person who also did a sort of scam. They made up fake credentials and a new identity–one that was female. No one had any sympathy for them, either.
The attempt to equate this woman’s scamming with the 100% public transition of Caitlyn Jenner seems to just be transphobia to me.
So claiming that her parents were not her parents, and claiming to ?be abused, claiming to live somewhere where she never did: none of those count as lies to you
Or maybe you care so much about shitting on Caitlyn Jenner that checking any of the facts is not something you cared about.
It would be pretty much true–had she not lied. If she were otherkin for black people, I’d say nothing.
Now whether or not transitioning is the right way to treat her condition would be another issue. You’d first have to prove that there were no other solutions to the racial dysphoria.
Seeing as most otherkin don’t have to transition, I think this is likely not one.
Thing is, transgenderism, unlike these other situations, has an observed biological component. (So does being gay.) So there is actually a rationale for treating it differently.
Like BigT points out, people comparing this to transgender issues seem to be forgetting that there are rigorous ties between transgender transitions and mental health treatment.
If she were truly engaged in a racial transformation or having identity issues, I don’t think anyone would give a shit. Or they’d give as many shits as they do about Caitlyn Jenner, who’s obviously of sound mind and body (hee).
Pathological lying is an entirely different disorder, and unfortunately/ironically(?), much harder to treat. And much harder to expose.
This is basically a freak side show on a slow news day, and she doesn’t seem to be harming anyone or herself. Eh. I admit to having laughed over it, but now I feel bad.
What about her claims of child abuse by her parents?
I think the thing most people here don’t understand with regard to the jibes being made in regard to transgender/transracial people is that the funmaking isn’t aimed at transgender people themselves so much as it is at the social justice warriors hellbent to make sure everyone else conforms to their ideas about how to think about and deal with transgenderism and their hostility toward anyone who doesn’t. Bruce/Caitlyn him/herself has been pretty mellow and unconcerned with whatever pronoun people want to use, but plenty of other people here and elsewhere have been damned determined to make sure everyone else immediately adopt their view or be damned forever as unremitting assholes.
As for Dolezal, I actually feel kind of sorry for her. Her case goes far beyond her simply being a pathological liar; she is living the lie! I actually do think of her in much the same way I’ve come to regard transgender people: she’s identifying as black, living as black, and working for the betterment of black lives. To me, that’s far different than someone lying just to fool people into thinking they’re someone they’re not and don’t even try to be, or to bask in reflected glory as in the case of people who’ve never been in the military but dress up in military gear, etc.
I haven’t read anything so far to indicate that she’s a bad person, and it seems she’s trying to do good things with her life. I don’t think she intended to cast aspersions on her parents with her tales of being whipped and so forth. I think she just figured they were out of the loop and nobody knew who they were anyway, and the stories gave her street cred that she probably felt the need to establish as a result of the masquerade she’s engaged in.
Gosh, I wonder what she would accuse them of if she did want to “cast aspersions” on them.
They’re not forgetting, they just don’t (want to) believe that it’s true.
Why? one has to wonder. I guess they have some internal commitment that gender should always match sex organs; perhaps, as with some of the most rabid homophobes, there is something within them that they don’t want to acknowledge. Or perhaps they are just too rigid to accept any new ideas, even with compelling evidence.
What I meant (and said in the part you omitted) was that she likely thought no one knew who her parents were, so her claim to have been whipped as a child would’t have been something anyone would associate with them.
This did make me laugh.