Passé noir

22nd June 2015   ·   0 Comments

By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor

Who in their right mind would want to pass for Black?

Apparently, Rachel Dolezal, the president of the Spokane,Wash. Branch of the NAACP who stepped down last week after it was learned that she is a biologically white woman masquerading as a sister.

When I heard the story and saw the picture of Ms. Dolezal in cornrolls a la Bo Derek, I wondered out loud if she might be the mama of white rap sensation Iggy Azalea, the chart-topping artist who talks like a Valley girl and raps like she is the niece of the late rapper Notorious B.I.G.

I chuckled to myself and thought about the book Everything But The Burden and reflected on how some of our white brothers and sisters who immerse themselves in Black culture want to be Black everywhere but the bank, the police station and the courthouse.

I also thought about how her shenanigans give new meaning to Dolezal’s concept of “identity theft” and wondered how this happened decades after John Howard Griffin “blackened” up himself in order to travel across the Deep South to conduct research for the book Black Like Me.

As one might expect, social media poked fun at Rachel Dolezal, calling her everything from “Ain’t Jemima” to “Blackish-ish.”

As the story unfolded, it became painfully evident that this woman has some personal issues that need to be worked out.

She considers herself Black but sued HBCU Howard University for discriminating against her as a white woman. She said she was “transracial” and questioned her biological parents after they “outed” her. She also hired an agent and began fielding pitches for a reality show about her life as a “hybrid” or transracial Black woman.

But she’s hardly alone with regard to racial confusion.

Remember former childhood star Raven Symone’s interview with Oprah during which she said she is American, not African-American? She later said she is Black and traced her biological roots to “all of the continents of Africa.”

Uhhhh, yeah.

Dolezal has been criticized by some for wearing “blackface” and doing whatever she could to get ahead.

Would she have been elected president of the Spokane branch of the NAACP if she had run for that office as a white woman? Who knows?

Conventional wisdom among conscious Black folks suggests that there are three Cs that constitute Blackness: Color, culture and consciousness.

Ms. Dolezal is obviously melanin-deficient but has demonstrated some degree of a grasp of Black culture and consciousness. What we don’t know — and probably never will — are her motives and mindset.

But she did care enough about the Black experience to pursue a career teaching Africana Studies.

An argument can be made that she could have done more good for the cause as a white woman sharing her understanding of the global system of white supremacy and giving personal examples of how her life has been shaped by white privilege.

To be perfectly fair and honest, Ms. Dolezal has done more to further the cause of Black enlightenment, empowerment and liberation than many of the Black elected officials in the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana.

She also appears to be more focused on fighting for social justice, voting rights, civil rights and human rights than a sizable number of Black folks who spend countless hours on Facebook, watching mind-numbing television programming and partying like there’s no tomorrow.

We will probably never know or understand her motivation for doing what she did or why she used the term “transracial” to refer to herself.

Does she consider herself a Black woman trapped in a white woman’s body? Is she a skin-hopper or a culture vulture?

Again, we may never know.

But you can bet that Oprah is already angling for a sit-down interview with her.

The important thing is that we don’t allow this story to distract us from the need to police the police, push for major reforms to the criminal justice system and a repeal of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

We don’t have the time and energy to devote to discussing Rachel Dolezal’s saga ad nauseum. We need to stay focused and keep our eyes on the prize.

We also need to keep talking about the struggle Black people face daily in the U.S. and devise strategies for doing away with the system of global white supremacy.

Let’s talk about that and a whole lot more.

• How many people who saw Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell block the prison release of “Angola 3” inmate inmate Albert Woodfox would cast a vote to re-elect him?

• Why are there so many contractors from neighboring parishes holding contracts with the City of New Orleans, Sewerage &Water Board and the local school system?

• Why are we still allowing the Black legislators who paved the way in Baton Rouge for the state takeover of the New Orleans Public Schools and the mass termination of thousands of New Orleans teachers, administrators and staff people to continue to hold public office?

• Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, how many Black homeowners in New Orleans thought they were treated fairly by New Orleans Deputy Mayor and CAO Andy Kopplin, former head of the state of Louisiana’s Road Home program?

• Why does the U.S. and United Nations allow the American Red Cross to get away with using hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for victims of natural and man-made disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti to use the lion’s share of those proceeds to line the pockets of its top executive and bail itself out of debt?

• Why should the people of New Orleans allow members of the New Orleans City Council, Landrieu administration and Louisi­ana State Legislature who either supported the building of Cohen College Prep and the Rosenwald Center atop the toxic landfill or did nothing to prevent it to remain in office?

• Didn’t those white women fighting with Black girls at a recent pool party in McKinney, Texas bring to mind the overzealous white women in New Orleans who terrorized and spat on Ruby Bridges and other Black children as they integrated the city’s all-white public school system?

• After the recent severing of a Black man’s spine during his interaction with Baltimore police this spring, why would a law enforcement officer think it was a good idea to kneel on the back of a Black teenage girl in McKinney, Texas?

• While many are fuming about Rachel Dolezal’s decision to present herself to the world as a Black woman, why hasn’t anyone said anything about all of the leaders of civil rights organizations across the U.S. who use their posts to “hook” up their friends with business opportunities and their well-to-do friends’ children with college scholarships?

• After enduring the presidency of Geor­ge W. Bush, why would anyone even consider electing a presidential candidate who thinks the nation’s name is spelled “A-m-e-r-i-a” and tells his supporters that he wants to make “our country great again”?

• Given the way Charleston, S.C.’s Dylann Storm Roof was taken into custody after last week’s killing spree at the Emanuel AME Church — stopped by police in his car, 200 miles from the shootings and with a gun in the vehicle — do you think had he been a “suspect of color,” would there still have been no incident in his arrest?

• Why is it that so few elected officials of any color, creed or political affiliation will acknowledge that the ”Uptown Rulers” of the white business community are really running New Orleans, as they have been for nearly three centuries?

• What would the Landrieu administration say to the family of New Orleans firefighters who have died while waiting for the City of New Orleans to give them the back pay that is owed to them?

• How disgusted are you by the City of New Orleans’ stranglehold on the Essence Festival and its plans to use the annual summer event push its propaganda and agenda on tens of thousands of unsuspecting Black visitors to the city in the wake of the national protests over police killings of unarmed Black people?

• Can you name one aspect of Black life or commerce in New Orleans that is not controlled and/or closely monitored by white people?

• How can any Black person — local or otherwise — continue to patronize businesses like Club Razzoo, where Levon Jones was choked to death by four white bouncers on December 31, 2004?

• Is anybody out there itching to grab a meal at Huck Finn’s in the French Quarter after an employee typed the N-word on a Black woman’s receipt?

• What would happen if Essence Fest-goers who attend the Empowerment Seminars year after year after year actually made up their minds to only spend their hard-earned dollars at Black-owned businesses during their visit to the Crescent City?

• With major movements already underway to undermine voting rights and public education across the U.S., what is it going to take to wake people up?

• When was the last time you read a nonfiction book about the Black experience/struggle?

This article originally published in the June 22, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.