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

[RickshawFan]

To suggest that anthropological race classifications are no longer valid due to the existence of mixed race peoples is like saying that if we have the number 3, then the numbers 2 and 1 are invalid. It doesn't work like that.

Thanks, Otto: very well said. I have had to deploy the Ignore button....

 

[otto]

Yeah but I think no one is suggesting that exactly.

Good to hear. As long as no one is suggesting exactly that due to over the counter DNA analysis, anthropological race classifications are no longer valid, or that each time a mixed child is born, a new race classification is defined, I think we're on the same page.

 

[IndianSummer]

Variety ‏@Variety 9m9 minutes ago

Watch @MayaRudolph completely nail a #RachelDolezal impression http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/maya-rudolph-rachel-dolezal-impression-watch-late-night-1201526254/ …

this just came across my twitter feed and i haven't even watched so don't kill me if it's not worth posting LOL....

but if it's priceless, you're welcome

 

[nightwatch]

View attachment 76939

Lol toooo funny!

ciao

 

[wenwe4]

Here is An article I had not seen previously focusing on some of the same topics discussed here.

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/22/wha..._dolezal_a_master_class_in_white_victimology/

 

[Hope4More]

I think there was at least two noose incidents (allegedly), and maybe a third too, one on a Tuesday, one on a Sunday and one on Saturday.


http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_80067e32-d52e-5cd9-9f77-42e8fd54a032.html


This report here straight after the burglary says there was a noose a few days after the burglary, September 2009, in Spokane, so maybe not left at the same time after all.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/sep/24/rights-educator-finds-noose-on-porch-of-spokane/






Then here's Rachel blogging to say there was a noose on an undefined Saturday, apparently in Idaho:
http://www.inlander.com/Bloglander/...k-on-growing-up-black-in-the-inland-northwest





She says nooses in plural.


This AP article says the incident in Sept 2009 happened both in Idaho and Washington simultaneously (is the AP reporter confused about geography?)
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/60829052.html




This was in June 2010 so strawberries would make more sense than September, but this says it was Tuesday and not Saturday:


This was the incident explained by the landlord.


http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/questions-raised-about-naacp-hate-mail-report/33512308

I'm a bit confused about where she lived when, I thought she moved from Idaho to Spokane but the reports seem to suggest a bit of a back and forth.

FWIW, Spokane WA and Coeur D'Alene Idaho are only 30 miles apart.

And IIRC, she reported nooses twice, once in ID and once in Spokane.

 

[gitana1]

As Rachel Dolezal played her game, many of us played along



I'm not sure this makes sense to me. Why would her biological family need to hire a private investigator to probe into Rachel's background and uncover her Caucasian background? They already know what her background is. Maybe they'd benefit in hiring someone to probe into her current life of lies... but they wouldn't need anyone to find out that she's been born white.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/jun/17/as-dolezal-played-her-game-many-of-us-played-along/

Defense attorneys hire PIs to investigate witnesses, accusers, and even their own client's stories or histories. They do not take what their client tells them at face value. Because what are you going to do put the defendant on the stand to testify? When an independent third-party professional can testify as to what they found during investigation? Who would be more credible?

It seems clear to me that the brother's defense attorney hired a PI to investigate. And what they found is great for the case.

 

[jjenny]

Defense attorneys hire PIs to investigate witnesses, accusers, and even their own client's stories or histories. They do not take what their client tells them at face value. Because what are you going to do put the defendant on the stand to testify? When an independent third-party professional can testify as to what they found during investigation? Who would be more credible?

It seems clear to me that the brother's defense attorney hired a PI to investigate. And what they found is great for the case.

But brother's PI would not be investigating whether Rachel was white. Brother already knew that Rachel was white. I wonder how Rachel planned to show up as a witness at her brother's trial. If she were to show up as a black woman, would she claim she was adopted?

 

[Nova]

No way is that woman totally "white". Her African ancestry is very obvious to me. Even
more so when you see a photo of her with her sisters after they reunited. They look nothing alike. Clearly they have different fathers.

Which is likely why she was placed with a light-skinned family. In that era, her race would've been crucial to the decision as to who would adopt her. The agency and authorities knew who her parents were purported to be and there is zero chance, no way they would've placed her with a black family had they believed her parents were who they stated they were.

It it is an interesting case to me- of a woman raised black who later believed she was actually white but who is, in the end, of "mixed" ancestry.

The social and historical implications of this lady's life are remarkable.

That makes sense if, as the article suggests, she is assuming she was born white only because of the appearance of her birth brothers and sisters. Given her mother's history, she may well have had a different father.

But I'd identify her as Latina or Native American, at first glance. I won't recapitulate our discussions above, but our perceptions are often determined by where we live.

Shifting gears for a moment, my mother's family spent several generations in the small, Kansas town (Newton) where Ms. Byrd was raised with her adoptive family. Our two families almost certainly knew one another. (I was born there myself, but we moved to Florida when I was 7-weeks-old, so I claim Ft. Lauderdale as my hometown.) Newton is or was a pretty Caucasoid place, settled mostly by Mennonites and other German-Americans. I'm sure it was easy for young Verda to appear African-American in that context.

And, of course, she IS AA, since that's how she was raised and how she defines herself. Just as I am "from Florida" because it's the only concept that has any meaning for me; I visited Kansas twice, but claiming to be a Kansan would be entirely alien to my experience. Similarly, why should we demand Ms. Byrd change identities to fit our racial categories? In neither case is anyone inventing an identity in the manner of RD.

 

[Nova]

To suggest that anthropological race classifications are no longer valid due to the existence of mixed race peoples is like saying that if we have the number 3, then the numbers 2 and 1 are invalid. It doesn't work like that.

But that's not what I said. Reread my post.

I assume that children of mixed race parentage inherit traits attributed to both (or all) of their forebearers' races. If that is true, the increasing mixing of races we see all around us in the U.S. will make it more difficult for a forensic anthropologist of the future to say with any certainty that bone structure correlates to, say, skin color.

But the more important point made by Blumenfeld and others is that the criteria that scientists used to determine "biological" races were always driven by sociopolitical concerns, i.e., ideology, rather than objective, scientific criteria. That doesn't mean race doesn't matter insofar as humans believe in it; but it does mean there is no scientific underpinning that makes such judgments legitimate or objective.

 

[Nova]

...I learned in an anthropology class that if you take two random people from different laces in Africa and compare their DNA with that of one, Anglo person from Europe, they would in all probability each have more genetics in common with the the European than with each other, as Africa is that diverse genetically....

(Emphasis added.)

Great post, however I can't help but object to what is obviously a slur against Asians. (j/k)

 

[Hiandmighty]

Did anyone post yet the clip of Maya Rudolph's impersonation on the Seth Meyers show? Lol

 

[Nova]

Thanks, Otto: very well said. I have had to deploy the Ignore button....

I suppose a discussion of passive-aggressive behavior would be too, too off-topic...

 

[Nova]

Did anyone post yet the clip of Maya Rudolph's impersonation on the Seth Meyers show? Lol

See post #143 on this page. The link is in the quote from QueenBee.

 

[Nova]

Here is An article I had not seen previously focusing on some of the same topics discussed here.

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/22/wha..._dolezal_a_master_class_in_white_victimology/

I love the phrase "racial tourism".

 

[flourish]

I think there was at least two noose incidents (allegedly), and maybe a third too, one on a Tuesday, one on a Sunday and one on Saturday.


http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_80067e32-d52e-5cd9-9f77-42e8fd54a032.html


This report here straight after the burglary says there was a noose a few days after the burglary, September 2009, in Spokane, so maybe not left at the same time after all.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/sep/24/rights-educator-finds-noose-on-porch-of-spokane/






Then here's Rachel blogging to say there was a noose on an undefined Saturday, apparently in Idaho:
http://www.inlander.com/Bloglander/...k-on-growing-up-black-in-the-inland-northwest





She says nooses in plural.


This AP article says the incident in Sept 2009 happened both in Idaho and Washington simultaneously (is the AP reporter confused about geography?)
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/60829052.html




This was in June 2010 so strawberries would make more sense than September, but this says it was Tuesday and not Saturday:


This was the incident explained by the landlord.


http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/questions-raised-about-naacp-hate-mail-report/33512308

I'm a bit confused about where she lived when, I thought she moved from Idaho to Spokane but the reports seem to suggest a bit of a back and forth.

Okay I just have to reiterate how repulsive I find this woman! And having grown up in Idaho, I can say that while I'm glad I don't live there anymore, I'm not familiar with freaking LYNCHINGS! (Eta: not saying they never happened so no need to dig and prove me wrong, but that certainly isn't the Idaho I'm familiar with which granted is essentially just "extra-north Utah" but still)

Argh I'd read that before but for some reason it really rubbed me extra wrong this time. This is just wrong in so many ways!

 

[gitana1]

But brother's PI would not be investigating whether Rachel was white. Brother already knew that Rachel was white. I wonder how Rachel planned to show up as a witness at her brother's trial. If she were to show up as a black woman, would she claim she was adopted?

Yes. His PI would indeed be investigating that. The brother knows the truth but his attorney does not. And what the brother "knows" isn't as good evidence as a report from an independent PI.

Evidence substantiated by a professional third party is very helpful to a defense attorney especially when it establishes that a key witness is an incredible fraud.

 

[otto]

But that's not what I said. Reread my post.

I assume that children of mixed race parentage inherit traits attributed to both (or all) of their forebearers' races. If that is true, the increasing mixing of races we see all around us in the U.S. will make it more difficult for a forensic anthropologist of the future to say with any certainty that bone structure correlates to, say, skin color.

But the more important point made by Blumenfeld and others is that the criteria that scientists used to determine "biological" races were always driven by sociopolitical concerns, i.e., ideology, rather than objective, scientific criteria. That doesn't mean race doesn't matter insofar as humans believe in it; but it does mean there is no scientific underpinning that makes such judgments legitimate or objective.

Hopefully, people in the future will know their ancestry in the same way as people in the past - they'll care enough to ask questions, parents will care enough to pass along family history. Forensic anthropologists will continue to do what they've always done, which is make identifications based on known race differences such as bone density and shape. There have always been demands to identify people of mixed origin - definitely not a problem of the future.

Please explain how this distinct difference is a sociopolitical concern, and where it lacks scientific criteria:

"The pelvic inlet was wider among 178 white women than 56 African-American women (10.7+/-0.7 cm compared with 10.0.+0.7 cm, P<.001). The outlet was also wider (mean intertuberous diameter 12.3+/-1.0 cm compared with 11.8+/-0.9 cm, P<.001).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18378751

"White women have a wider pelvic inlet, wider outlet, and shallower anteroposterior outlet than African-American women."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2593128/

 

[mikkismom]

Just looked at a picture of a family reunion 5 years ago. There were over 100 people there. 40 percent 'light skinned', 50 percent 'medium skinned' and 10 percent 'dark skinned'. If you asked them right there what they 'were', 100 percent would say 'Italian'.

jmo

 

[otto]

Just looked at a picture of a family reunion 5 years ago. There were over 100 people there. 40 percent 'light skinned', 50 percent 'medium skinned' and 10 percent 'dark skinned'. If you asked them right there what they 'were', 100 percent would say 'Italian'.

jmo

When my daughter was born, my mother-in-law announced in shock: where did those slanted eyes come from! We don't have slanted eyes in our family. I could not stop laughing. Then I mentioned, for the first time, that my grandmother was born in Surabaja. That could have been the moon, as far as she knew. People from redneckville can't see beyond the next hillbilly. Blond hair, blue eyes, a tan that comes easily and lasts long, and slanted eyes ... what's one to do! I still think it's funny - even though the poor mother-in-law never fully recovered.