There is another controversy over the veracity of representations of minority status in Washington. We previously discussed the controversy raised by the allegedly false claims of Senator Elizabeth Warren that she is a Native American. In this case, however, the accused is the head of a NAACP chapter and she is being accused of lying by her own mother. Worse yet, some have suggested that Rachel Dolezal, who is the head of the NAACP’s chapter in Spokane, planted hate mail at her office.
Dolezal has described her ethnicity as white, black, and American Indian in past papers and applications. However, her mother, Ruthanne, said that she is Czech, Swedish, and German, along with some “faint traces” of Native American heritage.
That has led to angry responses from different groups that she represented herself as a minority when she was selected for different positions. Dolezal has called the controversy a “multi-layered issue” and insisted “That question is not as easy as it seems. There’s a lot of complexities … and I don’t know that everyone would understand that.” She then added “We’re all from the African continent.” Many have interpreted that statement as a claim that, since mankind itself has been traced to Africa, everyone is an African to some degree. The definition is not sufficient for various groups. It raises, as did the Warren controversy, the basis for claiming minority status — a status that can give an edge in applications or hirings.
In addition, critics have raised suspicious racially motivated incidents reported by Dolezal while she was in Coeur d’Alene, including the discovery of a swastika on the Human Rights Education Institute’s door. Likewise, Spokane police records for February and March of this year showed that a hate mail package Dolezal reported receiving at the NAACP’s post office box did not bear a date stamp or barcode. Dolezal denies responsibility for those incidents.
The question is how to handle such cases in not only definition how to prove or what constitutes minority status or how to respond to allegedly false claims. If one receives payment for holding a position secured by assurance of minority status, can it be an actionable from of fraud or misrepresentation for the purposes of criminal or civil liability?
Source: Spokesman
John Smith, you have a point in the unite not divide issue and that mlk seeking to band together all economically disadvantaged peoples is what led to his demise. However I think it’s a mistake to call him anti white or assume that this woman pretended to be black because it gave her some unfair advantage.
She went to an hbcu for which she would have been diversity scholarship eligible if she applied as white. Blacks are discriminated against in hiring, financial assistance, and by police. Is that really an unfair advantage? Do you want to go get a Caitlyn Jenner esque procedure done so you can become black and enjoy the perks of being charged higher interest rates on loans, getting to worry about your kids being profiled or killed and thn being made a mockery of and looked down on, given dirty looks or worse by half of America and people like Squeeky Fromm who think it’s a flip of a coin whether you posses human intellect or are a “drooling feral savage”?
The girl in this story seems to have claimed it as her racial identity because she can historically and the community welcomed her since she set foot in an hbcu. People like her parents and Donald Sterling want those in their circle to be as far from black as possible because it is such a stigma to this day. She’s not even the whitest looking black person out there. Fairer people have passed or not with recent African ancestry. You want to go tell them that they’re not black?
” People like her parents and Donald Sterling want those in their circle to be as far from black as possible because it is such a stigma to this day. She’s not even the whitest looking black person out there. Fairer people have passed or not with recent African ancestry. You want to go tell them that they’re not black?”
I don’t recall seeing anything from her parents that would support that statement. My recollection is her parents adopted black children. To me that would seem to undercut the claim that her parents are trying to distance themselves or their family from the stigma of black identity.
Many of us care not a bit about the personal choices of Dolezal. Her personal identity and the organizations to which she belongs are her business – so far as many of us are concerned.
We don’t know if she used her black identity to gain advantage through affirmative action programs. However, if she did claim special status under affirmative action programs that would seem to be problem between Dolezal and the programs and possibly the government if public funding were involved.
What ever the objections and however imperfect the programs might be, the fact is they are intended to identify and provide support for those who have been disadvantaged by racism. Based on the statements of Dolezal’s parents it is simply not the case that this Dolezal suffered disadvantage due to racism – at least not before she adopted her black identity sometime around her entry to college or perhaps a graduate program after college.
My guess is that all we have to do is wait a short while. I am pretty sure that NAACP will work out whether they still want her as their local leader. And if Dolezal did make used of affirmative action, I am sure those programs will review the her situation to see if any remedial action is required.
It seems to me this incident indicates great confusion regarding two overlapping spheres 1) individual understanding of one’s personal, ethnic identity, and 2) advantages conferred by society to correct for a history of disadvantage based on race. The two overlap. But they are not the same. Adopting an identity is not the same as being abused by racists or living a life disadvantaged by racism.
I had a hard time wading through these comments but back to the story. It shows that the preferences and victim-status conferred on blacks now is so compelling that a white women of the supposed oppressor race will fake her way into being black. Anybody ever seen “SHOWBOAT?” Nobody tries to pass for the un-favored race, only the favored one.
Now if people can’t get that, they don’t get the story. It’s the proverbial man bites dog story.
White people’s latent rage over this unfairness is bubbling up unconcealed now. So they get called racists. Pretty soon they won’t give a damn about that epithet anymore. Then ethnic-nationalism and tribalism will surge back in force as it always does in the waning days of Empire.
There is no way to stop this. What I would like to see however is a focus on social justice that deals in the color we all have to reckon, GREEN. The social justice we should be considering, both as black or whites, or mestizos or mulattoes or whatever, concerns income inequality. The gutting of the industrial base of America in favor of “financialization” has been a disaster for whites and blacks. Maybe the first generation of immigrants (legal or not) fare bettereconomically than their parents but they in generations down they are stuck in the same asset stripping equation as the rest of us.
Meanwhile, as we continue to divide Americans with the phony electoral regime that we have, where both parties support globalization and endless war, there is no genuine political choice.
And we circle around the same old non-issues of yesterday.
I recommend white people on the one hand, stop with the racial guilt and self immolation. Then they will obsess a lot less over black people. Yes, white folks should be able to be proud of their own kind. But they should seek peaceful coexistence, and, if they want to be kind to nonwhites, start with ending the real violence of today: vote to stop wars of aggression on nonwhites in the middle east. That’s the racism of today.
I recommend black people on the other hand, stop with chasing the phantom of white v black “racism,” develop a more healthy and less antagonistic group identity, and instead focus politically on economic issues, eschew handouts for self empowerment, join labor organizations, develop trade skills, oppose globalization, ie, do all those things that Marcus Garvey and others suggested before a certain faction took over the NAACP and set up the current phony agenda.
I notice that when Malcolm X started to really embrace Islam and tried to hop off the anti-white bandwagon, he got killed. I also noticed that when MLK shifted from the antiwhite issues to antiwar, and economic empowerment, he got fragged too. Now here we are decades later, and they still want to keep the masses distracted and they seek deeper and deeper into debt.
Their not there.. Last sentence… Was there ever an edit button here?
@CK07
OK. You keep telling people that when drooling feral blacks loot a liquor store and a tennis shoe store, that it is a philosophical statement protesting the history of racism in this country, and that more welfare will solve the problem.
Meanwhile, I will tell people that the drooling feral black just want something for nothing, and they know that there will be a lot of excuses made for them by silly white liberals, who also tend to control most of the media.
Plus, maybe you can put your intellect to work making up new excuses. I will even start you off with one! You know why little Black Tyrone, aka T-Pack, didn’t do his English homework??? Because his great, great, great, grand pappy was a slave!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Right… Because the kids loot stores everyday and didn’t send out a wave of text messages planning out flash attacks in response to the manslaughter of Freddie gray of which the perpetrators will most likely serve no time for.
When people riot at hockey games I suppose in your mind its because they are always dangerous savages who should be profiled, treated with mistrust, and labeled so that neither they nor their children feel hope.
And once again you hark it back to slavery ignoring with your shades everything that had come between, from segregation and Jim crow to the current discrimination you don’t beleive exists. If little Timmy doesn’t think he will make it out of his projects alive or without serving prison time because no one else does and all that surrounds him is negativity,and he’s been hauled off to detention and juvie for initially minor actions, how much effort do you expect him to put into his studies. You expect nothing of him and no one else does. Even if he expects something of himself he’s got to make it out of his current predicament first. Who said anything about slavery? Is that your argument for the kid whose tormented by his parents divorce while living in a trailer park? That he’s some sort of unthinking feral savage whose brain is too feeble to allow him to concentrate? It’s obvious that you like many of your cohorts are bigoted. Democrats don’t just want unlimited aid sent to anyone, and it matters that more whites take advantage of welfare than blacks (not percentage wise but if you get into percentages there’s more native Americans on ebt as well).. Something that is missing from your racist rant. Democrats want it controlled and directed. Just as there are limits on what you can buy with SNAP. The solution isn’t gut every program that helped Carson overcome discrimination to get where he is today. The solution is to pay closer attention to these neighborhoods and the violence and discrimination that makes the youth there feel there situation is hopeless. The same discrimination your views spread.
Squeeky,
That was mildly humorous, however I can see this isn’t going anywhere. You’ll either ignore or selectively respond to my arguments. Then there’s the whole zingers approach right out of the Rove playbook of “he’s a flip flopper” or “they’re race-baiters”. That’s the only way you can justify stories showing that 4x the number of preschoolers of a particular group are likely to be suspended, and then later in life referred to police. By pretending it doesn’t exist, you can’t hear me, lalalala, throw on your rose tinted glasses and accuse me of race baiting while you act as if discrimination doesn’t exist or have any tangible effect while finding and elevating the 1/1000 minority who is confused enough to agree with your statement. Until next time on a topic you can’t ignore because it’s actively affecting you…perhaps climate change.
@CK07
I am not mad at you or anything. I am just an intense debater type person. I used to play kid soccer, just to have an excuse to kick the other little kids. Sooo, don’t take it personally.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Paul,
apologies for my lack of civility.
Tone is a hard thing to judge in writing and your comment appeared condescending on first read. The “You may want to be familiar before you run off at the mouth on the subject” was more snarky than necessary. I think tensions are a bit high after the back and forth with Squeeky and her own disparaging remarks. I’ll take some time off from here. You are a gentleman and a scholar. I’m mainly familiar with the section 8 housing projects in cities like Chicago and DC, which mostly litter already bad neighborhoods. Thanks for the additional info.
@CK07
Here, let me correct your canard!
You
can’t fan the flames of hatred singling outaccurately characterized half of a minority group in this country as being feral beasts and thenpretend to be their friend while blamingslammed theonlygroup that cynically makes excuses for them to race bait and get their vote,gives a damn about their civil rights for all their problems,and I will do everything in my power to convince peopleexpect themto not believe you, because I am in that cynical race-baiting group!”There! That’s a lot closer to the truth!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
BTW, you have to decide to put your unit on Section 8.
Paul,
I’m well aware how section 8 works . You seem to be leaving out the details of the govt covering the difference. Are you even aware of the recent debate related to this which I’m bringing up. You may want to be familiar before you run off at the mouth on the subject:
http://thehill.com/regulation/244620-obamas-bid-to-diversify-wealthy-neighborhoods
Show me where the rich liberals are spreading venom on the subject. I can find several conservative sites where the message board has devolved into little nuggets like:
“way2confused southernsue • 3 days ago
yeah, you never know when the Obama daughters will need that abortion.
Lurch47 way2confused • 3 days ago
Obama’s Mama, is the one that should have gotten an abortion! =0))))))))))))))))))))))
mrallcaps1 Lurch47 • a day ago
the maobongo is AN abortion that survived
and
Beamer Beamer The redhawk • 3 days ago
More white people in section 8 housing than blacks what is wrong with you people, have you no decency?”
CK07 – Section 8 can be used for any unit that qualifies for the person or family, the person pays the difference from what the city payment is. Each city has a standard payment. Personally, I like the idea better than the old blocks of low-rent housing.
“You can’t fan the flames of hatred singling out half of a minority group in this country as being feral beasts and then pretend to be their friend while blaming the only group that gives a damn about their civil rights for all their problems, and expect them to believe you.”
*******************
Hear hear CK07!
My previous post should have said ‘disadvantages situations’ not ‘disadvantaged solutions’. Had to leave in a hurry so no time for proofreading. Apologies.
Squeeky,
If libs throwing money to the wrong people is the problem then why does Drudge Report have people freaking out when they talk about moving section 8 into afflent white neighborhoods as part of the solution? The conservatives that flooded the sites linked there have a serious problem with section 8 being moved there. Instead it’s been forced into black neighborhoods both rich and poor and no one gives a damn. You say we don’t read yet I have two copies of the book Karen’s urged me to read which is why I’m well aware that her point is a perversion of the message therein. Aid to foreign nations has nothing to do with the safety net that we set up for our fellow Americans. The problem is unless they look like you most neocons look at them as foreigners anyway and buy into the myth that they’re the ones taking the majority of domestic aid. It’s not that liberals don’t read, it’s what we read that you really find fault with.
Either that or it’s the way we read it. In addition to books I frequently read and listen to conservative media. It’s not that you don’t have arguments. It’s that those arguments are typically shallow and short sided. And when you hear the liberal response you write it off as excuses. The video you posted was bs because she is discussing a ‘satirical’ video she made that begins with a ‘psa that this is where your taxpayer money goes’. It goes on frame blacks as plagued by an epidemic of welfare queens abusing the system. Most blacks are not on welfare, do not take food stamps, and even the vast majority of those that do are not abusing it in the way she claims. If you’d bothered to read the link I posted that you claimed left a whole lot out you’d know exactly why I said your response was bs.
“According to USDA, households may use food stamps to buy foods, such as breads and cereals; fruits and vegetables; meats, fish and poultry; and dairy products. Also they can buy seeds and plants which produce food to eat. (In some areas, restaurants can be authorized to accept SNAP benefits from qualified homeless, elderly or disabled people in exchange for low-cost meals.)
Households may not use food stamps to buy beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco; pet foods; soaps, paper products; household supplies; vitamins and medicines; food that will be eaten in the store; hot foods.” http://billmoyers.com/2013/10/08/six-myths-about-food-stamps/
Just because she’s educated and black doesn’t mean she’s right. Most educated blacks who actually study economics, sociology or the subjects she’s discussing would disagree with her.
Meanwhile the neocons here are happily perverting written works and other copyrighted materials. Dead Aid speaks of the issue with giving NGOs and corrupt politicians money that you could be giving direct to small businesses in those communities and teaching them how to make the things you’re selling them like mosquito nets. How do you get a message that the libs are at fault for giving any aid at all from that? Besides one being written about foreign aid vs domestic aid. Most first world nations have some form of welfare. You’ve just bought into the conservative propaganda around it. And how are you going to teach those in need domestically how to do anything, when Perry’s agenda is to eliminate the departments of education, commerce and the EPA and every other republican wants to gut them?
Then you give Groty a pat on the back for pulling an interpretation of Gentleman’s Agreement (which I referenced earlier when I suggest you attempt a similar journalistic study just to see how advantageous life is for black people) I’ve never heard. The actual line in the film was ” Millions of people nowadays are religious only in the vaguest sense. I’ve often wondered why the Jews among them still go on calling themselves Jews. Do you know, Mr. Green?”
“Because the world still makes it an advantage not to be one. Thus it becomes a matter of pride to go on calling ourselves Jews.”
In the film the character experienced frequent discrimination and bigotry as a result of him pretending to be a jew. The line it self is more akin to “Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud” than Groty’s claim of everyone wanting to feel a victim. These are people who have been beaten down, and half of them killed due to hatred. You don’t fight that hatred by running from it and pretending not to be what you are. You fight it by taking pride in what you are and teaching one another not to be ashamed even if you’re hated simply for being born into a particular group. You can’t fan the flames of hatred singling out half of a minority group in this country as being feral beasts and then pretend to be their friend while blaming the only group that gives a damn about their civil rights for all their problems, and expect them to believe you. Your example of Baltimore ignores the fact that violence and poverty is rampant there. If pubescent children actually believe they can make it out of their circumstances through school and aren’t surrounded by death and discrimination you’ll see a change. Maybe you should be the one reading some of the studies done on the school to prison pipeline and the role the discrimination you claim no longer exists plays in it.
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/21/292456211/black-preschoolers-far-more-likely-to-be-suspended
Or if you’re lazy you could just google the hashtag #crimingwhilewhite. Any sociological study would show you that moving section 8 into affluent areas would be good for the youth in those situations. Yet your party is against it. Why?
CK07 – Do you know how Section 8 works? One of the problems is that rich people, many of the Democrats, have to be willing to rent their property to these people.
@Groty
Great comment!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Karen S,
I will respond to you first. I have read Carson’s life struggles for well over 20 years. That does not make him an expert on political solutions for people in disadvantaged solutions anymore than it makes a Senator who is also a brain tumor survivor qualified to act as a neurosurgeon.
He survived life on the deadly streets and turned from using a blade for protection to using it to save lives. That’s a great example and a positive role model for people of all races in similar circumstances. Instead the GOP parades him around as an example of why any program with the possibility of benefiting minorities needs to be abolished and why discrimination is dead. Completely ignoring the fact that he grew from a single parent, food stamp household, and benefited from Affirmative Action. He’s not in touch with the black community. You’d do better to listen to Professor Michael Eric Dyson on the subject: http://wdet.org/posts/2015/06/11/80724-on-redline-michael-eric-dyson-sounds-off-on-ben-carson-cornel-west-presidential-politics/
around 10 minutes to 12:30
As for Dead Aid, let me see if I can find the signed copy I lent my brother. From everything I remember the book speaks on misappropriation of funds to Africa and a lack of oversight. Her solutions aren’t to stop sending any form of aid, it’s that you can’t keep sending it to corrupt individuals. Instead we should focus on building infrastructure there. We’re talking about the situation for blacks in America not some foreign country. And you have yet to propose a solution. The Conservatives solution has always been to act without oversight.
I’ll address Squeeky’s comments later. I have to be going.
I watched the movie “Gentleman’s Agreement” on TCM last week. I’d heard of it before but had never seen it. It was produced and released in 1947 and highly regarded. It was nominated for several Oscars and won for best picture and a couple more. The plot is that a highly regarded writer is recruited by a liberal NYC magazine to do a piece about anti-Semitism in America. The writer was not Jewish but decides the best angle for the story is for him to pretend to be Jewish and experience the anti-Semitism first hand. Nobody knows he is faking his Jewishness except the magazine publisher who hired him and his fiancée.
I did not think that the movie was as good as all of the acclaim its gotten over the decades. But there was one very brief scene that I found very interesting. The writer pretending to be Jewish (Gregory Peck) meets a Jewish scientist at a dinner party. Peck’s character tells the scientist he’s doing research to write about anti-Semitism and wonders what the scientist thinks about it. The scientist says he’s not religious and so he does not consider himself to be Jewish, then makes a joke that with his face (presumably stereotypical Jewish features) the rest of the world may not agree.
He then tells Peck’s character that there must be many millions of people who are only religious in the very vaguest sense, and he wonders why the Jewish ones among them continue to call themselves Jews. Before Gregory Peck’s character can respond, the professor answers his own question. [This is the interesting part.] He says the reason why so many non-religious Jews continue to call themselves Jews is because it is a DISADVANTAGE to be Jewish. As I interpreted it, he was saying there is a certain pride in being associated with a disadvantaged group.
When I heard that brief piece of dialogue I remember thinking this movie character in 1947 in describing the white social justice warriors of 2015! They get a lot of psychic satisfaction thinking they are helping people they perceive as being disadvantaged. I think that is what happened to this Dolezal person. She deeply wants to believe that black people are disadvantaged and in need of her help. In her mind she is so committed to her cause that she assumed the identity of a black person herself, and probably even sent herself a bunch of phony hate mail.
We see this over and over with progressives on college campuses. There are not enough instances of actual campus rape, misogyny, racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia etc. to keep the social justice warriors occupied and in business, so they invent them. See: Duke lacrosse, UVA, Columbia, Oberlin, Middlebury, Matthew Shepard, and on and on and on. It is a sickness.
Squeeky and Karen S
Just a little musical entertainment to lighten the mood. The clip is from Royal Wedding, with a young Jane Powell and Fred Astaire singing and dancing to a song, so appropriately titled, HOW COULD YOU BELIEVE ME? Dolezal will probably tell her detractors, HOW COULD YOU BELIEVE ME? 🙂
Do I sound old if I say that they don’t make movies like this anymore? Lol! Amazing how Jane Powell, who really isn’t known for her dancing ability, is capable of keeping up with Fred Astaire, who was known for being a perfectionist. I prefer to remember her for these musical numbers and not for the Polident and adult diaper commercials that she made later in life. 🙂
@CK07
The “BS” about the song was actually the poor girl telling the interviewer what it was like growing up in a welfare home, and the type of stuff that is endemic in black society. If you are an honest person, who can be swayed by evidence, then it would not hurt you to start listening to the “other side” of the argument. One thing I have noticed is that the conservative types around here read a lot more books on these topics than the liberals, who tend to just spout off tired old canards and campaign talking points.
Unlike many conservatives, I am more of an economic progressive. I believe in “redistribution” of resources. The problem is, under current conditions, we would just be redistributing most of those resources to drug addicts, thugs, and feral individuals. They would be dead broke again in less than a year and up to their same tricks. Exactly what kind of jobs are you going to bring to Baltimore that those drooling feral blacks who were looting the liquor store could do, huh??? Gonna make them computer programmers, or accounts payable clerks??? Sheeesh, half of those savages can’t read, write, or speak intelligible English.
And WHY??? There are schools for them. Baltimore spends more per student than almost everybody in the rest of the country??? What you don’t want to face is that the little black heathens pretty much don’t want to learn. They think they are entitled to something, God knows what. The poor little black kids that do want to learn and get ahead are bullied, and teased, for “acting White.”
Then here comes your typical average liberal dumba$$es who want to blame it all on Jim Crow, and slavery, and some stupid thug like Trayvon Martin getting shot. Anything except dysfunctional black families, and thug mentalities. Even when intelligent black people are telling them the same thing.
Go figure.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Plenty of resources have been listed that discuss, in detail, why the Liberal Solution creates negative effects, and suggests solutions to the problem.
The lack of fiscal conservative proposals is a false narrative perpetuated into the realm of urban myth.
Please read Pearl Cleague, an African American author, “I Wish I Had a Red Dress” which explores the themes of combating self destructive behavior and peer pressure to make a mess of your life. She does not condone cutting spending in her novels, but rather explores the issues from the perspective of the black community and its unique peer pressure.
Please read “Dead Aid” and “How the West Was Lost” by DAmbisa Moyo, a Zambian economist, for concrete statistics and the downfalls of the Liberal Solution.