Doubling Down

Mark Thompson says:

As to the Rachel Dolezal situation specifically, I think Jamelle should be required reading: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/06/rachel_dolezal_claims_to_be_black_the_naacp_official_was_part_of_the_african.html

As to Dolezal, he says that the problem with what she did isn’t that she claimed to be black, it’s that she told a whole ton of lies in the process and it’s unclear whether she accepted both the costs and benefits of being black.

Jamelle’s piece also leads me to my bigger point – I don’t see why “transethnicism” is inherently a problem, much less dangerous.

Race and ethnicity are complicated matters, but at root they’re primarily social constructs, of which skin tone and other genetic traits at least should be the least significant elements. To be sure, they’re the easiest identifiers because they’re visible, but what makes a person truly part of an ethnicity is – or at least should be – a common cultural heritage, shared trials and tribulations, shared language, and shared interests.

What’s more is that historically the concept of race and ethnicity have been very fluid, and in most cases it really has been the cultural identifiers that are the most important markers.

For instance, despite my last name, I am primarily of Polish descent. I have plenty of Slavic features. I like kielbasa and pierogies and various other Polish things. But if I were to change my name tomorrow to my mother’s maiden name and move to Poland, I’d be viewed as no more Polish or even Slavic than LeBron James or Mitt Romney. I’d be viewed as an American – and rightly so. On the other hand, if we kept our last name and we raised a child from birth in Poland, then wouldn’t it be fair to say that the child was Polish, last name and lack of Slavic features aside? To push it a bit further, what if I moved to Poland, kept my last name, but learned to speak fluent Polish, was heavily active in my local community, raised a child as a Pole, paid Polish taxes, and did everything I could to become fully Polish, including renouncing many of the benefits of my American citizenship – at some point, it seems at least possible that my neighbors might come to see me as damn near fully Polish.

Similarly, is Paul Pogba, with his gloriously French hairdo, any less French because his parents were from Guinea and he has dark skin? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Pogba

What makes the Dolezal situation unique (besides the lies involved) is that it’s someone who has the genetic markers to be a member of a locally advantaged group identifying as a member of a locally disadvantaged group.

But is that necessarily dangerous – assuming for the moment that the person’s self-identification is complete and that she did not shirk that identification in situations where it was advantageous to do so?

Such a person would need to live in a black community or travel primarily in black social circles. In other words, they would need to be largely accepted as a member of the community. So what would be the harm of them identifying as a member of that community or becoming a leader of that community, particularly if that community has chosen her as a leader?

Indeed, wouldn’t the effect of this being done on a certain scale be to demonstrate the arbitrariness of skin tone as a marker for race or ethnicity?

But again – the key here is that the individual’s self-identification would need to be complete rather than self-serving, which will be exceedingly rare. Nonetheless, I fail to see how it would be in any manner dangerous.

It seems to me that at some point, in fact, the effect of transracialism/transethnicism would be to seriously undermine the ability of racial prejudice to function, as immediately visible features became a less reliable way of determining race or ethnicity.Report