The reaction to Rachel Dolezal illustrates America’s dysfunctional relationship with race

The reaction to Rachel Dolezal illustrates America’s dysfunctional relationship with race

The reaction to Rachel Dolezal illustrates America’s dysfunctional relationship with race

Two peas in a pod. Both of their stories are mixed up in race, while one pretends to be mixed-race.

bal-when-rachel-dolezal-met-marilyn-mosby-2015-002Marilyn Mosby, on the left, is the recently elected prosecutor for Baltimore, where she has staked her claim to Warrior for Racial Justice on the massive overcharging of six city police officers for the still unexplained death of Freddie Gray. Since the indictment, Mosby has made several missteps exposing her inexperience or incompetence, and most of all, her bias. What she has done has not furthered racial healing, but exacerbated feelings of injustice and the inevitable corruption of people in power.

Rachel Dolezal’s story is more personal, VG wrote about her “race narrative” here, but since her story is now national news, her actions have brought about strong feelings of resentment, manipulation, and unfairness. Her actions have also prompted an enormous amount of mockery including an #askrachel hashtag frenzy, which really serves to undermine any good advocacy work she may have done. Her tweets are derisive of white people, and are just downright disappointing coming from an educator and community leader. As a white person she could have set an example of her vision of nondiscrimination. Instead she fed into the meme that all whites are racist.

These two women have both shown themselves to be morally flawed but criticism toward them has been met with seemingly the same reaction, perhaps because of the color of their “skin.” When Mosby is criticized for legitimate weaknesses in her case, the tinge of the basis for the criticism always remains that she is only being criticized because she is black. It is impossible to escape this caveat for criticism for any person of color – even if the criticism comes from a person of color.

In Dolezal’s case, since she identifies as black, she too is being insulated from criticism. Her outright lie about her race is being tacitly supported by the NAACP:

One’s racial identity is not a qualifying criteria or disqualifying standard for NAACP leadership. The NAACP Alaska-Oregon-Washington State Conference stands behind Ms. Dolezal’s advocacy record.

So the NAACP won’t comment on the issue of appropriating a false racial identity so long as that person continues to advance its objectives. That seems to be at the heart of all progressive agendas – support their ideology and they’ll circle the wagons if you mess up.

Frequently in these situations we like to substitute the race of the person to say, “If this person was white, she would never get away with that.” In this case, it proves how powerful a card race has become – this woman is white, she is brazenly lying and she is getting away with it, but only because her lie is about race.

In the meantime, white police officers, and whites generally, are under extreme scrutiny when every interaction they have with any person of color, regardless of how minor, will be examined under the lens of race. See this article on all the white people getting in trouble for the McKinney pool incident. (The black girl at the center of the incident was never arrested, and was in fact released at the scene.) That doesn’t seem like white privilege; that seems like racism. And hypocrisy.

Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye. Luke 6:41-42.

peas in a pod

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