...then we should respect it, and she certainly shouldn't lose her job over it, IMO.

How do you self identify of a race you are not?

I fail to see a difference between Rachel Dolezal's dilemma and Caitlyn Jenner's.

Caitlyn Jenner was born with the software in her head that makes you feel like a different gender than the one her body's chemicals triggered.

She didn't just decide, I'm a woman now, not a man. She corrected her bodily type to match her brain's gender software. She always was a woman.

at least externally. i do not question how he felt internally. i am sure it was not an easy experience, however, i don't think it compares to ms. dolezal's choices.

I was agreeing with you.

However, I'm not sure Rachael's case will turn out to be that. Her brother just got an interview too. http://www.people.com/article/rachel-dolezal-brother-ezra-interview

Body dysmorphism is an extreme dissatisfaction with one's appearance. What we're seeing here could be some kind of extreme attention-seeking behavior, which -- if this is indeed the case -- is probably linked to some other issue.

with the sports and having 100 children (or at least it FEELS like there are 100 little Jenners running around) and everything else. Like he (when he was a he) was trying very hard to squash that bit of himself and felt that he had to overcompensate to quiet that little voice inside that was telling him all was not right.

The comparisons between Rachel and Caitlyn are astonishing to me. Caitlyn has undergone mocking, ridicule, and even death threats from the unhinged to be who she truly is and be happy. Rachel lied about who she was to fit in and be happy. If anything, the comparisons between Rachel and Bruce make a hell of a lot more sense to me than the comparisons between Rachel and Caitlyn.

My cousin, who is MtF trans gender, was the one who used the "software" metaphor years ago when she let people know she was transitioning. I thought it was a smart way to describe the phenomenon.

I think I read an article that said that the sports victories by Jenner were a way of trying to wipe away the feeling that she was a woman. I think it was an interview, but I can't remember where I saw it, or I'd link it!

I was astonished by the comparisons too. Rachel is basically on a long-con. I guess people who think those two situations are comparable think they are being "conned" by a trans person into accepting that they are now expressing their gender.

I don't even get people who think you can "self-identify" as Black and everyone should be ok with it. A Black man on Twitter said something like "Oh, does that work when I get stopped at gun point by cops? I just announce that I'm white?"

It's especially fucked up after the year of #BlackLivesMatter and trying to get the US to examine how deeply racist the criminal justice system is, and every conversation is trolled by "Oh, it's not race, blah blah blah." Now it's just a matter of "self-identifying?" and you can just be a tourist?

around with my husband and our two bi-racial children? I'll suddenly Transracial (as a verb) into a white woman and all will be well! Ooo, can I choose how I look too??? I wanna be Lynda Carter, circa 1980!1

I think I read an article that said that the sports victories by Jenner were a way of trying to wipe away the feeling that she was a woman. I think it was an interview, but I can't remember where I saw it, or I'd link it!

That would make perfect sense. It's often how some men in denial of their own homosexuality are absolutely INHUMANE to other gay men, particularly if they happen to be smaller than them. Society has made it damn near impossible for so many different types of people that stray from the "norm" (white, male, Christian, heterosexual, cisgendered etc.) to be who they are or to even find positive depictions of themselves in the media that people that don't fit those narrow characteristics go through hell and back trying to find a place where they can be happy. And unfortunately for alot of them, that means beating up on themselves or on others until they get there.

I hope that your cousin is able to find profound happiness in their new identity. It's pretty cool that they were able to put what they are going through in terms that anyone can relate to and understand in the process.

I love Lynda too! Yes, my cousin is doing great! She saw me post on FB about this hot mess about people comparing Rachel to Caitlyn and said something like lolwhut.

I hear you on the dearth of positive media depictions. Don't even get me started!

the comparison. dolezal is more like a con artist, imho. i believe she has some issues that drove her to misrepresent herself, her life, and her being, but that is precisely what she did. and frankly, i don't understand all the ANGER directed at me for stating the simple facts.

savage racial history (and present) ever happened or has no impact today.

Does Rachel need mental help? I honestly don't know. Is she a con artist? I don't know that either but considering I don't know a single black person that hasn't known at least five white folks that want to be "Down" soooooooo hard they make total assess out of themselves on a semi-regular basis, my gut feeling is that she's closer to Column B than Column A.

after reading about the intensity and depth of her lies. yep...lots of folks want to be down, but...this is a whole 'nother thing. i think she really believes her hype...which is neither here nor there. however, the lies and distortions she's told to convince other people, that's in the con artist arena. i don't think she did it for financial gain: it think she just hates who she really is.

and commented, "I'll bet she spends a fortune keeping her hair did!"

Mrs. 1SBM cut me a side eye and responded, "That's a wig!"

I can't imagine it isn't a wig. I can't even get my hair to keep a loose curl. I couldn't in the 80s with perms. How do you get naturally straight hair to do that? I don't see it.

It's the one with the braids. How could that be a wig? If they are, they must cost a fortune.

I was thinking of the tight little spiral curls.

I'm thinking I'll just nod my head to what you write!

I will try and shut up and learn more about hair!

That doesn't make sense.

Caitlyn was born a woman internally. Caitlyn is just going to make bank *now* "reality show" after fully putting herself, her career, her being known as a male Olympic hero on the line.

The woman in this case - it appears opportunistic. And if she took a scholarship based on the lie - she either needs to give the money back.

She won't own who she is and what she did.

Caitlyn owns who she is and is laying bare to America the process and pain she has experienced.

Caitlyn is still a hero. Was as an athlete - is as a woman.

This woman -


Surely you can admit - she is inherently dishonest - right? Lying on applications for money and such . . .

Your post is full of assumptions. Until you can define what this person felt when she decided to self-identify as another race, your missive is invalid.

why in the hell should i respect her delusion?

she is a transgender female. not a white woman who lied about being black and got a scholarship based on her pathological lies. caitlyn isn't lying. so no...i have no respect for her...period. she is not black, and i do not accept as black: because: she is not black. she can self-indentify however she chooses.

I dare you to post that you think Kaitlyn Jenner is actually a man because of the gender she was born with. It's the EXACT same thing, you know.

caitlyn transformed, physically and i am sure psychologically as well. and...bruce jenner lived his life as a man, with all the privileges that white men have in this society and world. is he a female in the same sense that i am: no it does not. and if you or he have a problem with that, then you have a problem with reality. so, again, i do not accept this white woman as a black woman...because she says so. nor does the fact that caitlyn jenner had surgery and took hormones make her former life as a male anything other than what it was, and that is an experience i cannot relate to at all a woman. nor can i relate to rachel dolezal's former life as a white woman.

...you actually doubled down.

do you know any transgender people? i do.

"I have a black friend, therefore I am not racist."

Really? I have friends who I refuse to categorize. You REALLY are dancing on the edge here. I'd self-delete before your day is completely ruined by others who will find your threads patently offensive.

point being made. And your "black friend" comment is just needlessly antagonistic.

Instead of being so hostile, you could just actually read what noire is saying to you. Or not.

this person insists on reading something that i did not write, and it went on from there.

how can you have a discussion with someone like that? good riddance

This woman is gaining from a lie. She has multiple memories of persecution that have not, according to her family, including her siblings, never happened and claiming her adopted brother is her son. She has claimed a man that is her father is a man that is not her father.

Caitlyn Jenner hid her struggle for decades because of fear of persecution, she didn't use it to gain from it. She suffered in silence. She didn't claim to be someone she isn't, claiming a completely false personal history.

I don't know how much of Dolezal is suffering some type of psychotic break or it's a deliberate ruse, but to claim that gender dysphoria is the same as this is, I will be nice and just say, far reaching

Tell me what you think?

Absolutely not. Nor did she make up a parent, or a child, or a life filled with abuse

not understanding the difference.

I agree with Heaven that we're too dependent on labels. Especially being bisexual I see it. But this is different. Without the stories that are obviously false, and had there been truth in her statements, they might have a point. But with those in consideration, not so much

I'll say it again - some people will only defend the virtue and honor of a black woman when she's actually white.


15 year old black girl in a bikini with a copy's knee in her back - well she had it coming.

it's white people saying that shit.

Yeah, line up for all that "advantage!" The police are handing it out at pool parties!

The kindest and most compassionate words about this story on the TV in Boston came from black voices.


I don't think she deserves any praise, but I do think she might need some help.

There's a reason why she feels a need to identify culturally, and I think it goes beyond her marriage or her gaining CUSTODY (what is up with that) of her younger brother, or even her attendance at Howard.

I think there's a piece of this puzzle that is missing. Maybe that piece will explain a lot...?

because she has been lying to herself and everyone else in her life for years.

In a weird way, though she has been humiliated and ridiculed around the globe, her situation is moving the goalposts on the discussion about race and privilege. I saw a couple of florid white guys on my tv "complaining" that she was "taking advantage" of all the "special treatment" she could get as a member of a minority group....and I just had to SMH. The kindest comments have been from POC...even those saying "WTF?" aren't getting overly personal and tearing at this woman, but instead sensing that this has something to do with something else, maybe a desire to belong and be appreciated. Like I said, who, in their right mind, would perpetrate this kind of charade? "Gee, I want to have a harder time getting credit, I want to be followed around the Macy's, I want to be stopped and frisked for walking down the street....golly, Wally! Such privilege! Such advantage!"

I mean, it's not funny at all...but it is. In a bass-ackwards kind of way...!

It's not quite an "I'm Napoleon" or an "I'm Princess Anastasia" moment in the mental institution, but--to riff on a recent story-- she really has jumped all the way into the POC "cultural pool," and found solace in the welcoming waters. I don't know what will happen to her when she's handed her towel and thrown out of that metaphorical pool!

I think she had positive goals; she must have, given her NAACP work. And she might end up having a very positive impact when it comes to how people talk about race and privilege and issues of that nature--it's just not quite the type of impact she probably anticipated having.

and then there's that.

I only hope you follow the same rules in the MIRT forum.

My fellow MIRT team members can attest to that. I'm also not heavy handed with giving people the boot.

Now stop posting here. I called out your lack of participation - called you to the floor - so go back to not participating.

The keyword to MIRT is "consensus". You're not big on that, are you?

I feel safe in posting - this was a disruptor - who came at noiretextique with an argument already taking place in GD.

Try also had two posts in March 2015, and one in December 2014. I went back two years.

She was nice enough to warn you serveral times.

Looks like he's going to ask the admin if we are allowed to block him. My objectivity.



Cooley Hurd
Re: Re: That was just... beyond belief.

No worries. I won't. Already posted in ATA: http://www.democraticunderground.com/12598055
CYA!
:
> Don't ever send me another pm.
>
> You go right to admin. I'll defend it to the end.
>
> > That's okay. I've been here since 2k2. And, well before that, I *literally* FOUGHT racists like Matt Hale (*literally* in the street!) in Pekin, IL in 1992 (resulting in injuries on my part), I'm banned from the AA group because I defended someone who CHOSE to self-identify with African-Americans? I'm sorry but your objectivity seems to be in question here. Yes, I'm going to the admins with this one.
> >
> > About Matt Hale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_F._Hale
> >
> > And, before you choose to ban people from DU "unilaterally", you should check with others in the MIRT forum (you've been remiss in that).
> >
> > I don't want wedges. I want bridges. The OP in the AA forum was a wedge, not even being close to being a bridge.

Just wow.

Hosting can be fun!

Very dissappointing to see this all play out like this.
Funny he suggested deleting posts, because I suggested he delete his posts. That would be best for everyone.

I found the suggestion that the op be blocked, bizzarre, quite frankly. I cannot wait to see what Skinner says. Going to be something funny, Im sure.

Myself, yes. I get wild...
HIS consensus? I thought he meant mine. This is crazy. I got another one.
I'll send it to you to see if you understand the problem.
This is one of the strangest things I've seen in AA.

You are one of the kindest posters here.

Love you Jag!

Hi Number 23. In the words of MLK I haven't finished reading this thread so I'm going to shut up for a while and finish reading it.

I don't understand all this trying to preach to anyone else about their own experiences or their own culture. Or getting all super pissed off about it when someone else tries to tell you about their experiences or culture. I guess I can say that it's entertaining when anyone gets too bent out of shape about it. I'm not trans so the most I can do is listen to what trans people say. Same goes for black or female. Sometimes I laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes I learn more about hair.

You are such a good egg.

to this con artist. we should be grateful to you too, apparently. got it

to have to put 'labels' on people. Comes from our apartheid history. Methinks....

...and how some DUers are so offended by self-identified labels. The MOST progressive site on the internets shows its ugliness in this particular thread...

on a daily basis. i have no time a for self-serving, privileged white women who wants to play black to massage their ego needs.

"...their ego needs."

See how that sounds? Are you actually going to TRIPLE DOWN on your biases?

Last edited Sun Jun 14, 2015, 12:02 AM - Edit history (1)

and which label is the 'best'. When we start accepting people as human beings, then we can start defeating the hate that is everywhere in this country started by the misconception that one race was 'better' than the other. As long as there isn't any corruption in the tenure of Ms. Dolezal, she can be whom she wants to be, a self proclaimed human being who identifies with the, here's one of those labels, black race.

In my humble opinion,

Labels are what keeps us humans divided, methinks. I could be simplifying too much. But I do believe it's one of the major tools of the rich and evil to keep us at each others throats while they go about their dirty work that negatively affects us ALL.

Eloquently, as always.

I don't think this is about that though. I think this is about a woman who has some serious psychological problems. There is much more to it than just passing as a race she isn't.

I think it's a damn shame that years of good work are now brought into question because of all this. And I truly hope that they are not dismissed. I think the NAACP is taking a perfect stance.

It doesn't change the fact she has seriously hurt people with her, either lies or delusion

100% -

Is she effective? Yep.

But - if she did anything shady/corrupt - then that's a problem.

And I could see how use of the organizations communications systems could be used as a reason. IE - I'm reading disturbing things about emails she received.

That is they are group identifiers, rather than individual. You can feel a super-deep connection to, I dunno, mongolia, you can love its culture and people and even learn its language... but unless Mongolia says "Yep, you're a Mongolian" you are not a Mongolian.

Odds are if you live in the United states you know someone who claims to be "part native american" of some sort. Well, does the tribe i question recognize that claim? If not then that person simply is not a part of that people.

Same with Rachel Dolezal.

she can think, feel, and believe she is African-American, if that's what she wants. It's her mind, her conscience, her expression. But, if African-Americans are shooing her off, then the rest of us should probably be accepting their determinations of who is and who isn't.

My dad's father - his mother grandmother was full Seminole - but she was a slave. So she was swallowed into the 1870 census as black. There are many pictures of her - Miss Gracie or Grandma Gracie as my aunts nd uncles refer to her.

His maternal grandmother Cherokee and Irish. Her mother - full Cherokee.

My eyes and torso give me away. So do my politics when it comes to Native Americans. Its in my blood.

But I don't identify as native. I'm a black woman of bi-racial (black/white) parents.

My father idenitified as black. <--- I think a result of growing up in the Jim Crow system, a mixed mom who married the blackest black man she could find to save her children from what she experienced, a fear of of his Native and Slave elders - a mix of things.

The only great great he adored was the Off the boat from Ireland - who used to teach him Irish poems, toasts, taught him Gaelic, etc etc. But by all accounts - he was a hoot and spoiled all of them rotten.

Still me dad identified as black - and would only offer up the rest if someone questioned hs heritage.

The Seminole wars and trail of tears are there - I respect the suffering and horro of the genocide -

But shame on me if I claim that heritage and take a desperately needed opportunity from omeone in hell on a reservation in the Midwest, or Western NY, etc etc

It would be disingenuous. It would be a lie.