Dolezal controversy is about our racial delusions (Leonard Pitts)

[struggle4progress]

... it’s hard to be too exercised over this. Dolezal doesn’t appear to have done any harm, save to her own dignity and reputation. One suspects there are deep emotional issues at play, meaning the kindest thing we can do is give her space and time to work them out.

Besides, this story’s most pointed moral has less to do with Dolezal and her delusions than with us and ours. Meaning America’s founding myth, the one that tells us race is a fixed and objective fact.

It isn’t. Indeed, in 2000, after mapping the genetic codes of five people — African-American, Caucasian, Asian and Hispanic — researchers announced they could find no difference among them. “The concept of race,” one of them said, “has no scientific basis.” The point isn’t that race is not real ... Rather, it’s that it’s not real in the way we conceive it in America where, as historian Matt Wray once put it, the average 19-year-old regards it as a “set of facts about who people are, which is somehow tied to blood and biology and ancestry” ...

... ultimately, her story is the punchline to a joke most of us don’t yet have ears to hear ...

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article24669073.html

[bemildred]

1. Yes, there is no such thing as "race".

Everybody is just different. If one must divide humans into categories, strains, what we call "race" is a crappy way to do it. If Ms. Dolezal wants to say she is black, there is really nothing to prevent her. And if she wants to say she is white, she can do that too. It's like saying you are a Democrat or a Republican, it's up to you.

[struggle4progress]

6. People define themselves, but in various ways they are also defined by others

[bemildred]

8. We sure are. nt

[Cal33]

14. And people love their delusions - racial or any other kind. One would only rouse their

angry indignation, if their delusions are questioned or disturbed in any way.

[Nitram]

2. I agree with all your points, but the concept is not unique to Americans.

In fact, the idea that ancestry, blood or bloodline is a factor that determines one's character is almost universal. Japan, where I lived for 20 years, is a perfect example. Brazilian society is another interesting example of the relationship between perceived race and social status.

[struggle4progress]

4. It is certainly true that biological reproduction is often used to "reproduce" social structure.

In England, for example, both peerage and serfdom were hereditary; and the surviving system of last names shows this was true also for the craft classes, so one is a Chandler or a Smith or a Tailor or a Wright if one's father was. Something similar occurred with the traditional caste system in India

[catrose]

3. If I were Rachel Dolezal,

assuming that I sincerely identified as AA, I would get a DNA test, which (depending on how long her family has been in the USA and in what part) might very well show a drop or two of non-Caucasian blood, which traditionally would be all that was needed to declare her AA. Then I could say, "I instinctively knew it all along!"

But a lot depends on that assumption.

[struggle4progress]

5. "Caucasian blood" and "non-Caucasian blood" are complete fictions. It's possible to say that

such-and-such a gene is more common in such-and-such a geographical region, but the results are rather blurry, a situation not improved by considering collections of genes. The actual trading networks that have existed throughout history have had a vast geographical reach, and along these networks people have happily been making babies with each other from time immemorial. Most of the genetics of a human population is simply not evident by visual inspection

[catrose]

7. I'm sure you're correct.

I was thinking of Amy Tan's husband, whose DNA listed .7 Sub-Saharan, which was a great surprise to him.

[Cal33]

12. I am also reminded of Craig Cobb, the white supremacist who tried to turn a small town in ND

into a town for whites only. He appeared on the Trisha Goddard Show and had a DNA test
taken. The next time he appeared on the show, Trisha Goddard told him that the DNA
test showed Craig Cobb was 14% black. He was astounded and incredulous!

If we wish to maintain the attitude that many Americans (especially in the South) have, that
"one drop of black blood" makes a person all black, then especially those who can trace
their American ancestry back to the 1800s and 1700s will have to take the DNA test to prove
to their own satisfaction that they didn't have that "one drop."

Craig Cobb looks all white. He didn't know he was part black. Apparently one of his ancestors
who had black blood but didn't look it had "passed for white" by leaving the place where he was
born and settling down in some distant area. That ancestor had apparently chosen not to tell his
children. So, his descendants never knew. We all know that "passing" exists. Now it seems
that it could be more common and widespread than we thought, and with the descendants
not knowing anything about it at all.

If we wish to carry the "one drop" belief still further, let's recall that England was a colony of
Rome for 400 years, until the time of Christ. We also know that the Roman army had Nubian
soldiers (Nubians were blacks), so Englishmen could also be having that drop of black blood.
Attila and Genghis Khan invaded and occupied Europe up to and including Germany in the
5th and 12th centuries, respectively, so Central and East Europeans would have some Asian
blood. The Arabs invaded and occupied all Southern European nations some time or other,
up to the southern half of France, and for long periods of time. They, too, had some black
soldiers in their armies. So, Southern Europeans probably have a little black and quite a lot of
Arab blood.

What a silly and meaningless attitude to have! In all likelihood, there never was such a thing as
"a pure-blooded race." Also, as far as science can tell, all human beings originated in Africa
anyway. So, what's the beef about?

[Igel]

10. They need to talk to a semanticist.

After all, the problem is that "race" has a variety of meanings, depending on who you're talking to.

If you're a biologist, you want a very close correlation between a set of alleles and each "race." Except that that's not what they tested.

They tracked down people identified using one definition and then applied another definition to it. Some popularly used definitions for specific races are fairly good. Not up to the standards necessary in a lab, but still fairly good. Others are crappy because they're "in between" some versions of the definitions.

One thing field biologists realized decades ago is that people are good at categorizing things. If you give a new plant to somebody well versed in plants (but not formally trained) and ask them to give it a name, they usually call it by a name that they already use. And almost always that name is in the same genus or family. Sometimes taxonomists reclassified a plant only to have DNA folk reclassify it the way "commoners" would have classified it, but those are examples at the margins.

The problem is scientists don't have the idea of a "prototype" in the semantic sense: A "pure" example of what the word is, where similar but different objects are more or less that thing. A lot of words are fuzzy. Take the word "chair" (it's a standard example). A chair has 4 legs and a back and something you plant your butt on. We all agree on this. A rocking chair has no legs, so it's not a chair. A recliner's back moves; it's not a chair. A stool is not a kind of chair. An armchair's a chair; but if it's 2 feet wider it's a love seat ... Is that a kind of chair or a kind of sofa? The difference between some modernist chairs, stools and tables in the early 1900s was often in the function and not in the design. Now it's a chair, now it's a table, now it's art.

I guess the only conclusion is that no such thing as "chair." I'm sitting on nothing. Or I'm forced to say that there's a sort of ideal chair (Platonic Form, if you like), and mine might not be exactly like yours but they're really close. Then when I'm given a concrete item it's more or less "chair-y". Most of the time we'll agree; on rare occasion we won't.

I'd note that in Africa "we" used to have two "races" south of the Sahara. Then, for purposes of politics and identity (in the West) and purposes of greed and land appropriation (in Africa) they were merged. The genetics of the two groups was pretty distinct; physical anthropological differences were fairly overt and obvious. Skin hue, hair, teeth, blood types, numerous alleles, height, etc., etc. all differed and clustered in ways that made sense to prototype theory. The people involved saw themselves as different. But then the gold standard was how they compared with white oppressors, and while the people on the ground still differed, politicians and anthropologists agreed: They were both black. That let the politicians claims that there was nothing special about that particular group, so they could dispossess them of their land, language, and culture. And it served Western anthropologists well, because no longer were blacks accused of a history of what amounts to genocide of an entire race and, well, a it helped unify American perceptions of race. It suited everybody at the time (which is late '60s to nearly the present, just when you'd expect from the politics). In the meanwhile, that particular ethnic group's really taken a beating ... and apart from a few activists, nobody cares since it doesn't play into Western concepts of racial politics.

[yurbud]

15. DNA tests can tell where your ancestors are from and percentage of each place

which isn't quite the same as race, but it's something.

[Cal33]

9. Even within the same race, human beings will invent and create differences, where there is

nothing visible to begin with. This is a situation created entirely by human beings in ancient
times. Then it gradually became established and systematized, and became worldwide. People
were enslaving others of their own race.

Even within the same race, human beings will invent and create differences, where there isn't any.
It has been so ever since humans evolved from living in small tribes to form larger entities called
nations. Humans evolve and change, of course, but we do this ever so slowly.

Not so long ago, before World War I, the nobility of Europe thought themselves to be above the
commoners, and royalty thought themselves to be above all their subjects. Royalty only married
royalty of friendly countries. Male royalty, however, always had an unlimited supply of mistresses
from the lesser classes, of course. (It's been said that 70% of all Europeans are descendants of Emperor
Charlemagne, who lived around 800 C.E.). And that's talking about only 1 royal. How many royals
have there been throughout history?

If we can trace our ancestry far back enough, there isn't a single one of us who has not had a royal
or a slave for an ancestor. And this includes the royals themselves. They, too, have had slaves among
their ancestors. Most former royal families have been overthrown and replaced by the new royals, who
established their family as the new dynasty. What happened to those who were overthrown? They were
usually executed, enslaved, imprisoned, or those who could manage it, escaped to live in exile.

Society was strictly divided into classes. Few ever crossed the lines. This is less and less so in modern
times, but there are still many conservatives around, who would love to bring back the "good old days."
These are mostly among the people who have not yet learned to rein in their own primitive drives to
control and manipulate others. Most socio- and psychopaths have this quality.

Today, the English still do take royalty and nobility at least half-way seriously. Not in Continental Europe,
though, where there are only traces of it left -- more in some countries, less in others.

[Igel]

11. Yes, they do.

It's worth noting that such distinctions are readily erased, though.

In fact, there are a variety of psych studies in which people suddenly fail to notice skin color. One such example is showing video of athletes on teams as they make goals or score points. If you ask about skin color ahead of time, you find that people remember the color of the person scoring the point when asked later. Usually, though, if you don't prime the subjects ahead of time they fail to even notice the color of the face, legs, and hands. "Who scored the first goal? Who scored the second goal?" You don't get "th only black man playing" or "the only white man playing." You get "the red team" or "the purple team." What matters much more than race is the color of the cloth or the team insignia. In other words, race only matters if you're told that race really matters. Otherwise some other sign of group affiliation is what counts.

There's a lesson there for politicians and activists.

That's a harder thing to pull off with sex. If the sex of the players can be easily determined, that category is noticed fairly consistently. That's not just a group affiliation; it's something we're pretty much wired to notice, and it's hard to construct situations in which sex is noticeable but unnoticed.

There's a lesson there for politicians and activists, as well.

[Cal33]

13. I concur that she doesn't appear to have done any harm. I am using my imagination to construct a

possible background for her, and one that was probably instrumental in helping her to develop into
what she has become today.

It would be reasonable to expect that her parents, being white, would live in a white neighborhood. I
would also expect that her black siblings would have been teased, called names, and occasionally even
bullied, by white kids in the neighborhood, at school and in other social situations. They must have been
crying frequently, and she, as big sister, would try to comfort and (whenever possible) even defend them.
Over their entire childhoods this must have happened hundreds, if not thousands, of times.

The unfairness, bitterness and resulting anger and rage probably grew stronger with each occurrence.
Every time they were insulted, she felt insulted. Every time they were bullied, she felt bullied. Their pain
became her pain. It's not hard to suppose that her identity with the big-sisterly role of comforter and
protector of her black siblings became fixed and a permanent part of her personality. And her kid brothers
and sisters, in turn, loved and trusted her as she did them. Might this have been a cause for her to
eventually identify more with the black than with her own white race?

It is exactly in childhood, during our growing-up years, that our personalities are the most sensitive and
vulnerable to the experiences that play important roles in influencing the formation and growth-direction of
our later personality and character as adults. This can be especially important when there is present some
prolonged and traumatic stress situation that is frequent and repetitive throughout one's childhood. The
situation becomes similar to one of a chronic and traumatic stress.

The NAACP is an excellent place for her to continue in her role as comforter and protector of her "extended
kid brothers and sisters family." I'm not saying that she is fully aware and conscious of the above. I just
don't have enough information at this point.