Dolezal

petallus said: "If we are prepared to tolerate people redefining their gender, why not their race?"

Exactly. For me the issue here is why it still matters what 'race' one 'identifies' as. There is one human race. One. This story shows how skin colour is still felt to be A Thing. It shouldn't be. Why don't people just 'identify' as persons?

Rough thoughts. I'd appreciate responses.

We do all come from Africa if you go back far enough so saying that is not a lie.

Transgender I'm learning to cope with but now transcolor? Think I'll find a nice deep hole, climb into it with a spade ( shovel so as no to upset any bodies susceptibilities) and back fill it over myself!

I'll join you Galen
The world's gone flippin' barmy! Why not just make up whatever race blend you fancy and effectively deny your genetics and ancestors?

Genealogy will go out the window as will tracing genetically inherited conditions, plus, I suspect, a number of other things.

She's claiming a heritage which is not hers, and a history of oppression which is not hers.

All in order to get/hang on to her job?

I don't think genealogy will go out the window. There will only be a small minority of people who wish to change their genealogical 'identity', just as there is only a small percentage of people who wish to change (or actually do change) their gender.

I'm not putting it very clearly because it isn't clear in my head. I think what I'm objecting to is the 'identity' thing. Why has it become an issue? Identity politics, identity skin colour, identity gender, identity whatever...

I find it rather sad / pathetic for a person to latch on to what they perceive as "right on" instead of being proud of (or at any rate accepting) who and what they are. This (to me) weakness of character disqualifies the woman in question far more from what she aspires to, than whether she is black, white, pink or beige.
I do not believe you have to necessarily actually share a heritage or an experience to fight on its behalf. The most prominent Abolitionists were not black, but white Englishmen/women and Americans who recognised the injustice of slavery. Would William Wilberforce have been considered ineligible to speak out against slavery?
Stupid.

I read a comment somewhere that she wasn't chosen for the job because of her supposed 'race'. She certainly appears to be a very mixed up person.

Well said, soutra.

Exactly Soutra, which is why she didn't need to pretend to be someone she wasn't for the job, although I didn't get the impression that was the reason behind it.

It seems that she's convinced herself her version of her ancestry is the truth - athough apparently she posed with a black man for a photo, then told people he was her father!

thatbags, she appears to have told several lies, not just the, we are all from Africa, so I am too, one.

There's nowt so queer as (some) folk, as they say.

She appears not to want her parents to have been her parents either.
She seems to have a major identity crisis. Nothing wrong with that, but no need to be dishonest about it all.

I think that society has made identity an issue. Buton the other hand, we, as a society, always say we are born in whichever country. Or area. Or region, or whatever.
All due to wanting to belong to somewhere and someone, in my opinion.

From what little I have read and heard, she seems to want to carry on effectively lying to herself.

I agree with Soutra.
Perhaps she felt that her adopted siblings were better treated than she, and it's a bit of attention seeking. Or maybe she's just a Walter Mitty type.

Is there a psychiatric illness that causes people to do this? Perhaps she is unwell?

A bit like Michael Jackson in reverse who morphed from a person with an attractive dark complexion into someone with an unnatural ashen white skin over the years and damaged himself in the process.

There is a man in the USA called Erik Erikson who says that it is psycological.

I sometimes wonder if he would do that nowadays TerriBull. I suspect that he wouldnt.

I'd like to think he wouldn't soontobe, he wrecked himself in the end.

Many in America like to think they have Native American blood, although Pochahontas is buried in England, I believe her husband and one child returned to Virginia and now practically everyone in that state lays claim to have descended from her

Soutra your post of 14.33 is spot on. If she's good at her job what does it matter what race she is? Sad story on lots of counts.

I have noticed that on Gnet sometimes we bend over backwards to give someone the benefit of the doubt and sometimes we bend over backwards not to!

Why assume that this woman lied about her race to get a job, is weak etc? We don't have all the facts.

Apparently it is going to be looked into as to whether she has lied on various forms. Because US public money was involved.
But specifically about her job, it doesnt matter which race she is. But ironically, she may still have lied.

I don't think it matters what race she is either. Nor do I think her problems are all of her own making.
This is from CNN
"Rachel Dolezal's adopted brother, who is black, sought emancipation from Ruthanne and Lawrence Dolezal in 2010. The adopted brother, now 21, said the Dolezals used "physical forms of punishment" and had sent his brother and sister away to group homes because they didn't cooperate with the couple's religion and rules.
The adopted brother wanted to live with Rachel Dolezal "in a multiracial household where black culture is celebrated and I have a connection to the black community," the court papers said. The papers did not specify Rachel Dolezal's race.
The petition for emancipation was dropped. In a separate legal action in 2010, the court appointed Rachel Dolezal to be the adopted brother's guardian with the consent of Ruthanne and Lawrence Dolezal."
So the parents are not the goody goodies they seem to be, their adoption of 4 black children was unsuccessful for some reason. One wonders what her upbringing was like .