WA - Civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal pretending to be black, parents say #2

[DEPUTYDAWG]

We have to reprint old paper money with some frequency. So I doubt a redesign will really be that expensive. (Of course, it's Washington, so I may have to eat these words. LOL)

Yes, right there is part of the problem, ha! Washington is so special.

I work with counterfeit currency in my job. I guess I think of all the security identifiers that would now have to be modified into a new note, and the change in documents that we use to educate banks, merchants, etc. The watermarks would need to change...and I'm going to assume (yep, a problem on my part!) they'd try to add the newer identifiers that are in the new $100 (different inks, etc). Those do cost $, and wow what a huge mistake they made in printing back in 2009...which meant the destruction of over 3 million that had been printed (and some stolen...excuse me, came up missing)...which delayed the actual roll out into October 2013. And just a tidbit regarding that, OT...within 2 weeks of the official *updated* roll out date of those $100's, banks were already forwarding counterfeit new $100
s into our offices. Counterfeiters had 4 years to study the new notes, haha.

Okay, back to Rachel...maybe she could put herself in as a possible female candidate. She is a trailblazer, dontchaknow.

 

[DEPUTYDAWG]

Maybe I should send her a reminder that coins are considered currency. Susan B. Anthony, active in the anti-slavery movement and women's rights and Sacagawea, a Shoshone Indian, are each on $1 coins whereas Kennedy, Washington, FDR, Jefferson and Lincoln are all on coins of lesser value.

LOL, oh please do! That would be so funny.

 

[Nova]

As usual, Donjeta, you put the matter beautifully!

Of course, Gitana1 is NOT a knucklehead! Nor is otto.

And I'm not saying "race doesn't matter". Alas, nine dead people in South Carolina remind us that race mattered all too much to one disturbed young man last Wednesday night! Social constructions do matter if we allow them to dictate how we view the world--which is why the AAPA no longer confers scientific legitimacy on racial classification systems: the very idea was born in pseudo-scientific efforts to prove the superiority of European males. (I learned a lot from otto's and Gitana1's links: some of the earliest definitions of race included not only skin color, but clothes, arts and crafts, and even forms of government!

(Gitana, as I read one of your sources, it's not that racial classification has become "unscientific", it's that the AAPA decided it wasn't scientific in the first place because criteria were chosen based on social pressures (often unconscious ones) and "race" as a sort of subspecies lacks a clear dividing line such as "the inability to mate with nonmembers" that defines a species.

LE of all stripes may use race as a shorthand for victim and perp alike, but, as you suggest, a forensic anthropologist can only tell us a subject shares certain characteristics with people of a certain geographical area or--at best--that the victim would have been perceived by most Americans as belonging to a certain ethnic group. I realize there are professional standards and these judgments shouldn't be entirely subjective, but we can all imagine how uncomfortable scientists are with opinions based on subjective impressions of the subjective impressions of others based on an originally subjective list of criteria. (Repetition intended. LOL.))

 

[Nova]

Please do not twist my words.
European countries other than France also have problems with people from the Magreb although this was not a colony of theirs at all but of France.

Please be aware that not everybody shares the American view of race and anthropolgy. Exporting these views regardlessy damages situations where people used to be able to live together before those views were imposed upon them.

Who's twisting words? I wrote "immigrants from former colonies" (meaning Africa and the Near East) not "immigrants from colonies of the country having the conflict". Since you brought up people from the Maghreb, obviously I wasn't talking about Danish colonies. (But while we're on the subject, France didn't rule the entire thing. Libya has been a colony for much of its history, but in modern times of the Ottomans and Italians, not the French.)

I'm perfectly aware that not everyone shares American views of race. I have said that ethnic conflict is widespread and often shares characteristics of what we call "racial conflict" here in the States; world history is my evidence.

As for views of anthropology, I qualified my remarks as they were qualified in the articles linked by others: western anthropologists have changed their view of race and biology in the past several decades. If you want to talk about Chinese anthropologists, by all means do so.

Thank you for giving me so much credit, however I rather doubt I can damage any country with my views. I am rather surprised you haven't noticed that I am arguing AGAINST an ideology (as one anthropologist calls the notion of biological race) that has so heedlessly lumped together people of different nations and cultures.

FWIW, I don't really understand your point about the Maghreb. It's not a term one hears often here and I had to refresh my memory by looking up its borders. Seems to me the Brits have had their problems with immigrant Pakistanis and Afghans. I'm sure those countries were neither in the Maghreb nor ruled by France. If you only mean to show that my knowledge of French politics is superficial, I will readily admit as much. But I don't see what point you are making against my arguments.

 

[Donjeta]

LE of all stripes may use race as a shorthand for victim and perp alike, but, as you suggest, a forensic anthropologist can only tell us a subject shares certain characteristics with people of a certain geographical area or--at best--that the victim would have been perceived by most Americans as belonging to a certain ethnic group. I realize there are professional standards and these judgments shouldn't be entirely subjective, but we can all imagine how uncomfortable scientists are with opinions based on subjective impressions of the subjective impressions of others based on an originally subjective list of criteria. (Repetition intended. LOL.))

Yeah I think one problem that the scientists face is that when we classify people in certain races as lay people in the course of our ordinary lives, we do it on the basis of certain subjective mental heuristics or cognitive rules of thumb that may have little correspondence to the actual biology. We don't know their DNA, we don't know their biological markers, for the most part we only know the surface. The most reliable biological markers for correlating people with their ethnic groups might eventually end up being some combination of allele frequencies in various genes but we might know nothing about that when we look at them.

In this simplified view, if someone looks black, he's black. If someone looks white, he's white. But the scientist might inquire more closely and both of them might have several different ethnicities in their background.

And our expectations will influence us. Is this a place where we expect to encounter people of a certain ethnicity? Does the person act like we expect the representatives of a certain culture to act? Does she tell us what group we should categorize her in? Is her name a clue?

If there's an ambiguous looking person will we make the same classifications if we meet her at the NAACP rally or at a predominantly Caucasian church or at a spray tanning salon? If Rachel Dolezal had the same tan and the same hairstyle but didn't talk about her African heritage and instead was an animal rights activist, would as many people have made the same mistake? If she gave interviews wearing a hijab and talking about the struggles of Algerian migrants what would we assume her ethnicity to be?

When we classify people we tend to focus on what people look like or how they act and what our expectations are. Some of the surface is learned, some of the surface is alterable, and sometimes we see what we expect to see. And the main points that influence our decision making don't necessarily have anything to do with biological facts that anthropologists could find out from human remains.

If we report one of our loved ones missing we presumably know more about what their ethnic background is but it's not necessarily very well reflected in the categories that they tick in the database.

 

[Hope4More]

Thanks, especially to Nova, Otto, Donjeta and Gitana, for the discussion about race. It is by far one of the most informed and well reasoned discussions I've ever read here at WS.

 

[Elley Mae]

Skeletal differences between black and white men and their relevance to body composition estimates

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...ionid=D50D1D46C8A90B354737DDA106E84FFD.f03t03

 

[Donjeta]

We might find that different ethnic groups differ significantly along some characteristic when averaged, but you need to know the variability too to know how useful the measurement is in determining whether someone belongs to which group. There might be significantly different group averages if you take a group of black people and a group of white people. But if there is a lot of overlap in the range of individual values of the group members it's not going to be very helpful in reverse reasoning, trying to find out if an individual belongs in the white group or the black group.

I can't see the details, it's behind a paywall for me.

 

[Donjeta]

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyNewsletter

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 63% of Likely U.S. Voters believe Dolezal was being deceitful by claiming she was black. Just 13% disagree, while 23% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

However, while most white (65%) and other minority voters (68%) believe Dozelal was being deceitful, just 46% of black voters agree.

In fact, 52% of black voters think Dolezal should have stayed in her position as President of a Washington chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a view shared by just 20% of whites and 32% of other minority voters. Majorities of the latter two groups think she should have resigned from her post.

I wonder if the opinions are a function of how deeply the voter has followed the story. Obviously I've been obsessed with it but it seems to me that you could read only a few articles and arrive at the conclusion that she's a pathological liar. Who wants a pathological liar in any prominent public position?

 

[gitana1]

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyNewsletter



I wonder if the opinions are a function of how deeply the voter has followed the story. Obviously I've been obsessed with it but it seems to me that you could read only a few articles and arrive at the conclusion that she's a pathological liar. Who wants a pathological liar in any prominent public position?

I think so. I mean, it's not that she identified with another ethnic group than that she was born into that bothers me. People actually do that not infrequently. It's her horrible lies - lies that hurt people, caused ill will, terrified her son and frightened a community or two. If more people knew about all that:

“Be careful what you believe.”

A law enforcement source spoke those words to me more than five years ago and they've always stuck with me. That source was referring to Rachel Dolezal, who had just reported for the second time that someone had placed a noose on her porch.
The story was unusual on several levels. First, Dolezal was working for the Human Rights Education Institute in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. It's an area that, more than a decade ago, was home to the Aryan Nations and known as something of a haven for extremist views. But, this wasn't that time. The Aryan Nations compound had been toppled and leader Richard Butler was dead. While there are always a few bad apples, the hate that once permeated this area had begun to dissipate. Also, we'd never before heard of any north Idaho groups placing a noose on anyone's porch.
Dolezal's story was one to listen to, but also to be cautious of. There were no witnesses, no written threats, no leads. Like other reports she made to police, she was always the only intended target. Also, we learned of the incidents because Dolezal contacted media, not because police put out information that they were searching for suspects. Each case she filed was suspended when the leads dried up. No suspects, no resolution.

Fast-forward to February. Dolezal posted on social media that someone sent a package of hate mail, addressed to her, to the NAACP office in Spokane. Police confirmed they were investigating; Dolezal organized rallies of support. We interviewed her and reported the story, but the words of that law enforcement source from those years ago rang in my ears.

From Wenwe's link, post #52.

 

[gitana1]

For those questioning the motives and ethics of those of us concerned about this story and appalled by this fraud, also from Wenwe's link, I felt this sums it up:

Why this story matters
So, why does it matter? Our community was misled. We trusted this voice to speak for those without a voice. We trusted her to teach our students. We stood by her when she said she and her family were targeted and afraid. We rallied alongside Dolezal and her family in front of city hall, with community members carrying signs of support. We're a trusting community and she broke that trust. At best, our community will continue to support the causes for which Dolezal once advocated. At worst, people will be less likely to trust and support the minority community and believe in the very noble cause of advancing civil rights in the Inland Northwest. http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/rachel-dolezal-the-story-behind-the-story/33608002

 

[Donjeta]

For those questioning the motives and ethics of those of us concerned about this story and appalled by this fraud, also from Wenwe's link, I felt this sums it up:

Why this story matters
So, why does it matter? Our community was misled. We trusted this voice to speak for those without a voice. We trusted her to teach our students. We stood by her when she said she and her family were targeted and afraid. We rallied alongside Dolezal and her family in front of city hall, with community members carrying signs of support. We're a trusting community and she broke that trust. At best, our community will continue to support the causes for which Dolezal once advocated. At worst, people will be less likely to trust and support the minority community and believe in the very noble cause of advancing civil rights in the Inland Northwest. http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/rachel-dolezal-the-story-behind-the-story/33608002

I think the false hate crime reports are particularly bad because one day there might be a real hate crime and the person reporting it might get the yeah right tell us another reaction if people are still cynical about Dolezal.

 

[meanmaryjean]

For those questioning the motives and ethics of those of us concerned about this story and appalled by this fraud, also from Wenwe's link, I felt this sums it up:

Why this story matters
So, why does it matter? Our community was misled. We trusted this voice to speak for those without a voice. We trusted her to teach our students. We stood by her when she said she and her family were targeted and afraid. We rallied alongside Dolezal and her family in front of city hall, with community members carrying signs of support. We're a trusting community and she broke that trust. At best, our community will continue to support the causes for which Dolezal once advocated. At worst, people will be less likely to trust and support the minority community and believe in the very noble cause of advancing civil rights in the Inland Northwest. http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/rachel-dolezal-the-story-behind-the-story/33608002

Well said.

 

[Donjeta]

http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/2158/1776/original.jpg

Found in the comments of this story
http://spokanefavs.com/an-interview-with-rachel-dolezal-the-new-spokane-naacp-president/

I also just finished filming our trailers for a new “Diversity Matters” TV show, which will air on Channel 14, CMTV. We’ll be going into the community with cameras to show a day in the life of diverse families, such as a refugee family who just arrived, a Native family that has ties to pre-white-settlement, or a black family who has been here for several decades. This will be a really positive show, exploring experiences people won’t see without this sort of true reality TV series.

The “Diversity Matters” team includes Raymond Reyes and me as the co-hosts and Ben Cabildo and Dean Ellerbusch as the co-producers, as well as a vast array of Advisory Council members.

The show will also address the history of diversity in Spokane.

We’ll be doing a lot of research, working with the MAC and Gonzaga’s library to find historical footage and images from when Spokane was first colonized. We’ll honor Native populations who were here before white settlement, look at when white immigrants came, and explore the other populations that arrived afterward. What did early diversity in Spokane look like? We’ll highlight achievements such as our black mayor in the ’70s and frightful situations such as the MLK march backpack bomb, and look at daily life for affected populations in Spokane.

Each show will be an hour long.

I can't find it if this was screened already, but
this sort of sounds like it hasn't been:

http://community-minded.org/diversity-matters

We will focus, will be spotlighted, will be featured, we will discuss... sponsorship opportunities are still available...

Rachel as a host might cast a shadow on all the topics they cover, however important they might be

 

[RickshawFan]

Thanks, especially to Nova, Otto, Donjeta and Gitana, for the discussion about race. It is by far one of the most informed and well reasoned discussions I've ever read here at WS.

To me, the discussion seems very Caucasian-centric. I wish we had more diverse voices represented.

 

[al66pine]

She resigned from the NAACP and was asked to resign from the police ombudsman's committee too. However, she refused to do so, and was consequently voted off by the city council.
http://www.krem.com/story/news/loca...zal-off-police-ombudsman-commission/28941571/

Donjeta

Tthank you very much for correcting my mis-post about Ms D resigning from Police Ombudsman Commission, rather than city council terminating her from the panel. My mistake, all my fault.

 

[gitana1]

To me, the discussion seems very Caucasian-centric. I wish we had more diverse voices represented.

Facts are facts. Besides, "Caucasian" is a broad term that includes many people not considered "white". I'm half Spanish Gypsy -no, not those fake Irish travellers or watered-down "Gypsies" on reality t.v. - but real, dark-skinned, Gitanos, (although my family ranges in skin tones), persecuted by the Franco dictatorship (and all over Europe, now and throughout history), and not able to get work outside entertainment (which is a big reason my dad came here).

I'm sure there's even more diversity among the posters here.

 

[Nova]

Yeah I think one problem that the scientists face is that when we classify people in certain races as lay people in the course of our ordinary lives, we do it on the basis of certain subjective mental heuristics or cognitive rules of thumb that may have little correspondence to the actual biology. We don't know their DNA, we don't know their biological markers, for the most part we only know the surface. The most reliable biological markers for correlating people with their ethnic groups might eventually end up being some combination of allele frequencies in various genes but we might know nothing about that when we look at them.

In this simplified view, if someone looks black, he's black. If someone looks white, he's white. But the scientist might inquire more closely and both of them might have several different ethnicities in their background.

And our expectations will influence us. Is this a place where we expect to encounter people of a certain ethnicity? Does the person act like we expect the representatives of a certain culture to act? Does she tell us what group we should categorize her in? Is her name a clue?

If there's an ambiguous looking person will we make the same classifications if we meet her at the NAACP rally or at a predominantly Caucasian church or at a spray tanning salon? If Rachel Dolezal had the same tan and the same hairstyle but didn't talk about her African heritage and instead was an animal rights activist, would as many people have made the same mistake? If she gave interviews wearing a hijab and talking about the struggles of Algerian migrants what would we assume her ethnicity to be?

When we classify people we tend to focus on what people look like or how they act and what our expectations are. Some of the surface is learned, some of the surface is alterable, and sometimes we see what we expect to see. And the main points that influence our decision making don't necessarily have anything to do with biological facts that anthropologists could find out from human remains.

If we report one of our loved ones missing we presumably know more about what their ethnic background is but it's not necessarily very well reflected in the categories that they tick in the database.

Indeed. Nothing better illustrates your point than the uniquely U.S. (as far as I know) racial category of "Hispanic". Hispanics/Latinos come in all skin colors and from all "racial" backgrounds. So when an ME or a witness says somebody is Hispanic, s/he could mean almost anything in terms of biology and even appearance.

Somebody above mentioned Amber alerts. Of course it's nice when TV shows a picture of the missing child, but as far as radio and text messages go, identifying a child as Caucasian or African-American is likely to prove problematic. Each listener or reader will construct his/her own concept of that race as s/he imagines the missing child; many if not most of those concepts will be inaccurate.

 

[Nova]

To me, the discussion seems very Caucasian-centric. I wish we had more diverse voices represented.

I wonder why we don't?

 

[otto]

We might find that different ethnic groups differ significantly along some characteristic when averaged, but you need to know the variability too to know how useful the measurement is in determining whether someone belongs to which group. There might be significantly different group averages if you take a group of black people and a group of white people. But if there is a lot of overlap in the range of individual values of the group members it's not going to be very helpful in reverse reasoning, trying to find out if an individual belongs in the white group or the black group.

I can't see the details, it's behind a paywall for me.

Anthropometry doesn't work with one number. For example, the height of a man from the US is not one number. Think back to babies. Doctors tell parents that their child is in the 3rd, 5th, 10th, 25th, 50, 75th, 90th, 97th, and 97th percentile in terms of height and weight - I think head circumference too? Those same percentiles are used for adults, with most of the population falling into the 50th percentile group. There is overlap in terms of height between Negroid and Caucasian, but Mongoloid is entirely different. In fact, there are separate anthropometric measurements for the British population because the Brits are typically shorter.

The differences between the three races identified in anthropology are more subtle than the length of a femur. For example, some differences are pelvic bone: "White women have a wider pelvic inlet, wider outlet, and shallower anteroposterior outlet than African-American women." (link; 2008), teeth, skull, bone density (link; 2002), etc.

To give you an idea about how anthropometry works, this is the standing height/sitting/reach dimension chart for a 75th percentile North American male: