#youcantsitwithus

Looking for her book deal!

I will admit that I was entertained by Miz Rachel and her various hairdos the first few days of this story. Maybe I related to the tan skin, braids/curly weave aesthetic.  Perhaps, I even admired how, according to her parents, she used "her artistic skills to transform herself."  However, today when she stepped down from her position at the NAACP, and instead of apologizing for her dishonesty, tried to quote critical race theory it stopped being funny.  

According to Miz Rachel, "challenging the construct of race is at the core of evolving racial consciousness."  Huh? Since when is white people making money explaining black people to white people something new?  Using her logic, because blackness is a social construct I should be able to choose to be white from this day forward. But it doesn't work that way does it?   Yes, race is a construct but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.  If Tamir Rice didn't have the power to challenge how race is defined neither should Mz. Rachel.  The fact that she thinks that she can declare that she is black because she wishes to be so is an example of the white privilege that she claims to be against. 

I wonder . .  Did Mz. Rachel decide to "challenge the construct of race" before or after suing Howard for discriminating against her because she was white? (She lost, by the way, and was ordered to pay Howard $3000.00 for wasting everyone's time).

Clearly, this woman does know when to admit that the jig is up. My prediction is that after weighing her options, Miz Rachel will do an interview in which she depicts herself as a victim of her parents, Howard University, and several abusive men. Then she will describe how she "saved" her brothers by raising at least one of them as as her son. She will talk about the ways in which she sacrificed for the black community and how betrayed she felt by some of us (of course she will give a shout out to the good Negroes who supported her). She will answer questions about how she began 'passing':  she braided her hair once because she liked the style and people began assuming that she was mixed. She liked the feeling of acceptance after the rejection she felt at Howard-so she went with it. In other words, this whole fiasco is actually our fault.  We have heard this story before.

Clearly, Mz. Rachel watched about half of Stephen Colbert's interview with Toni Morrison.  The function of the construct of race is racism, because who would some people be without it?  Why be a mediocre white woman struggling for approval when you can be Maureen Peal?

One Drop

This February I was teaching my 6^th graders about African-American artist Romare Bearden.  After projecting his image onto the Smartboard I turned around and confronted fifteen very confused faces. "He's white, Ms. Cardwell, why are we learning about him during Black History Month?" they asked. Despite, seeing the black subjects in his work, I had a hard time convincing them that Bearden was, in fact, black.  I started explaining the One Drop Rule and one of the boys looked at me and said, in all seriousness, “yeah, but Ms. Cardwell, where’s his drop?”

Romare Bearden

This week those of us with Facebook pages and Twitter accounts discovered that, despite her cornrows and tanned skin, the chair of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP had no drops.  If there is one thing that the controversy surrounding  Rachel Dolezal has reminded me, is that blackness is a social construction based on the One Drop Rule.  Part of what makes Rachel Dolezal white and Angela Davis black is that drop.

Rachel Dolezal and Angela Davis

Despite the fact that the One Drop Rule originated in slavery, black people cling to it as a means of  defining and unifying our community.  Ironically, the only way that Rachel Dolezal was able to get away with claiming blackness as long as she did was because of the One Drop Rule. 

But why do we care?  Being inundated with images of black people being treated worse than animals has a negative psychic impact on all of us, whether we are aware of it or not. In a year that we have had to endure images of black men being choked on city sidewalks and black girls tackled on the grass at pool parties- Rachel Dolezal is a flattering and curious distraction.  If Rachel Dolezal and her frizzy perm (weave?) can remind us that our culture is enviable - so be it.  It's been a long year; we are entitled to a little comic relief.

If you are as fascinated as I am with Rachel Dolezal and the idea of racial passing, check out these books.

1. Passing, by Nella Larsen

2. Caucasia by Danzy Senna

3.  Boy, Snow, Bird, by Helen Oyeyemi

4.  The Sweeter the Juice: A Memoir in Black and White, by Shirley Taylor Haizlip

5. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, by Henry Louis Gates

5. Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin

6. Passing Strange: A Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line, by Martha A. Sandweiss