Rant #1,457: Why? (Part 2)

Coming back from vacation, there were a number of news stories that tickled my fancy, both negatively and positively.

One of those was the intriguing case of Rachel Anne Dolezal, the civil rights activist and head of the NAACP in Spokane, Washington, who was forced to resign, under much pressure from the media, from others, and ultimately, from herself, because although claiming to be a black woman, she was actually caucasian.

Getting numerous Florida-based news stations in our room onboard ship, during idle moments we did watch some television, and let me tell you, they were all over this like butter is to bread.

Why this woman decided to affiliate herself with another race--and justify it all after all of this came out in the open--is beyond my comprehension.

She obviously has some severe mental issues that need to be addressed. She also has some family issues that need to be looked into, especially since her lily white parents were the ones who broke the story, who outed her, stating that their daughter, who had claimed to be black for decades, was actually white.

Did she believe that she could only get her job done if she were a black woman? Did she think that she would not be as effective in her position, or in her station in life, if she was white?

We will never know, but the woman, for all the good that she has done, has a screw loose.

She obviously used some type of cream, or went to the tanning salon often, to get a darker complexion. She kinked up her hair. She was a white woman who could have passed for either white or black in this situation. She wanted to be black.

Now, let's not get crazy here. Nobody said it as a negative to be black, just as nobody said it as a negative to be white. But why did she decide to go this route, which put a mark on whatever good she had done with the organization?

She said she identified with African Americans as a child, and would use a brown crayon to portray herself when drawing her picture when she was a kid.

Funny, pictures that came out of her as a teen showed her to be as lily white as can be.

That doesn't mean she didn't identify with the plight of blacks in this country, which is all fine and good and nobody is going to argue with.

But to actually try to put yourself over as a person of another race--and then justify doing this--is wrong, and leads to major credibility problems, and that is why she had to resign from her post.

This is not a Michael Jackson situation, where a pigmentary probably supposedly led to his skin lightening. And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you if you believe what he said.

But this woman is not an entertainer, or someone who can get away with such a ruse, where it doesn't really matter, as Jackson sang, if you are black or white.

I will tell you two stories that came up in my mind, from my past, when this story was playing out. I had completely forgotten about them until this incident came up, so I guess they were stored in the back of my mind for safekeeping until I needed to remember them. Funny how the mind works.

Whatever you think about me and the beliefs I have, I come from a very, very liberal tradition and background.

For instance, my uncle, who originally studied to be a rabbi, is a psychologist, based in Westchester, New York. He has had a very successful career, both in his own practice and in academia.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was a professor at Lehman College in the Bronx. During his tenure there, he became head of the Black Studies department.

Yes, this white, Jewish boy, originally from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, had become the head of a department representing a race that he did not personally represent.

And yes, there was uproar, and if I remember correctly, he did have to resign ... all because being white and Jewish and leading such a department is not akin to actually being black, a point made by those who opposed his leadership of this department.

However, unlike the woman in the current case, he did not say he was black, but he obviously was fascinated with African American history, did his studies in this area, and was proficient enough in its understanding to rise to head such a position.

This is not as freakish as it might appear to be. There is a link between the Jewish struggle and the black struggle, both history-wise and in this country. In fact, the NAACP, the organization at the very center of this current mess, was founded by both blacks AND Jews.

Back to my uncle ... does this story sound familiar all these years later?

Second story: when I was in school, at I.S. 72 in South Jamaica, Queens, New York, during my senior year of junior high school, we had a variety show, where a group of students showed off their talent on stage of our auditorium.

This took place in 1970 or 1971, when racial tensions were quite high, and quite high in this neighborhood.

To make a long story short, the variety show became a hate fest putting black versus white, with supposed performers spouting hate about whites and Jews. Black Power fists lunged to the air from both the stage and much of the audience, and people were scared, including teachers, about what had happened.

The school pretty much was put on what we now call lockdown, and classes, while they were held that day, were directed toward what had happened. The school was in chaos, and to have held regular classes that day would have been a waste of time.

Rather, a dialogue was encouraged, and that is what we did pretty much the rest of that day and I think into the next day.

Anyway, a girl in my class, Michelle M., participated in our class-wide talk about racism and anti-Semitism and what had happened in the auditorium.

We got into the notion of what it meant to be black, how it differed from being Negro, and what it all meant in the greater context of what had happened.

Michelle M. described to the class in one fell swoop what it meant to be black and what it meant to not be black by saying--and yes, I am paraphrasing all these years later, but not as much as you would think: "You can pretend to be black, you can dress to be black, you can wear your hair to be black, but if you ain't black, you ain't black."

That pretty much sums up this entire current case, doesn't it?