I don’t think Rachel got much money from Howard. I don’t think anyone gets a lot from Howard aside from undergrads. Most masters programs don’t give you a ton of money, whether they be HBCUs or PWIs. Now PHd, JD, etc are a different story.
“religion may not be a good example, when strongly held religious belief has been used to deny trans people and others the right to self determination”
I see where you’re coming from, but recognizing and respecting the fact that someone is a Pentecostal Christian (for example) is quite different from agreeing with their point of view or supporting their political positions.
“strongly held religious belief needs to end at the person who holds it when it comes to affecting others, someone’s religious belief, no matter how strongly held, should tell someone else how to live their life”
The belief doesn’t need to end, only the action. We are not questioning the identity or the reality of any person’s Pentecostalism or their right to hold whatever Pentecostal self-image they have. That’s what we are doing to trans people if we question their very existence or hinge its legitimacy on scientific validation. Pentecostals just are, and trans people just are.
Local Spokane publication quotes Dolezal on her bisexuality:
“As a single mom who has lived on the poverty line and identifies as bisexual, perhaps some of my other demographics are also a first for Spokane."
Article posted on SpokaneFavs.com, written by Kelly Mathews.
Dolezal doesn’t have just “identity issues” … she has a subscription.
What does her sexuality have to do with anything?
I don’t think her sexuality per se has anything to do with the furor over her race but points to what may be a pattern of falsely claiming membership in marginalized groups and manufacturing specious stories of victimization.
At this point I think anything she says about her identity is questionable and I find it interesting to see the drama that she created unfolding in the media.
@GMTplus: There is no ‘legal’ basis for identifying as any race. If someone is 50% black/white or 25% black/white or 2% black/white, they can call themselves either black or white. In the Jim Crow days anyone with one drop of black blood was deemed to be black, I don’t think we want to go back to that.
The point is the law does not define by genealogy what race a person is.
Thanks for making my point for me. If there is no legal basis, then how can “racial spoils” be fairly doled out?
Clarifying point #224 about sexuality – I am not saying that any certain sexuality predisposes people to misrepresent their identity.
My point was that Rachel Dolezal has a credibility problem and her statement about her sexuality may be another example of the false claims she has made by either commission or omission (about her race, her art, etc.).
I agree. Perhaps I wrote imprecisely. Rather than “to be rational” I should have written “to be seen or understood as rational.”
To put it in context, I was thinking of numerous comments I have seen on various websites that equated Jenner’s transition with people confused about what species they are. Seriously. They were linking to this guy: (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232523/Stalking-Cat-Daniel-Avner-dead-possible-suicide-years-transforming-face-look-like-feline.html ) and implying Jenner’s physical alteraton is a symptom of mental illness. So I think that the best way to counter erroneous misconceptions is with science…to show incontrovertibly that gender dysphoria has a basis in prenatal biology and neurology and that it has been so for thousands of years and across all human cultures.
Legitmacy of the decision to transition doesn’t have to hinge on scientific validation…if all people were openminded and accepting of aberrations in what they define as the natural order of things, of “God’s creation.” But they are not and jawboning doesn’t make it so.
When you say, they just “are” and we should accept whatever self image people want to project, the answer I’ve seen to that is outrage (at foisting liberal anti-religious nonsense beliefs on everyone and not being tolerant of the other person’s opposite views) and sheer ridicule (why don’t we also accept as normal the cat guy or the lizard guy or anyone who thinks they were born in the wrong body for their true species.)
Pursuing the science behind the development of gender identity, I think, is important to pull the issue out of the realm of “what do I think about it” or “what does God tell me I ought believe about it” and into “this is what it is because science says so.” Not that everyone will believe it even with the science behind it but that’s another topic.
@GMTplus7 - I would prefer a world in which a child is judged based not on skin color but on the content of her character. (But I suppose MLK would now be considered a microaggressor).
As I think I’ve said before to people comparing trans people to people like Cat Guy, when Cat Guy can take cat hormones and grow whiskers and pointy ears and a tail and live among other cats and be accepted by them as a cat, I’ll believe it’s comparable. Until then, nope.
"Local Spokane publication quotes Dolezal on her bisexuality:
“As a single mom who has lived on the poverty line and identifies as bisexual, perhaps some of my other demographics are also a first for Spokane."
Wonder what she thinks is a first for Spokane. Single moms? People living on the edge of poverty? Bisexual? Along with Spokanes first pathological liar?
I’m starting to think of that Kristen Wiig character on SNL.
There have got to be SNL writers crying in their beers that this is unfolding during the summer when SNL is not on, @busdriver11
I’m looking forward to Amy Schumer’s take on it.
“When you say, they just “are” and we should accept whatever self image people want to project, the answer I’ve seen to that is outrage and sheer ridicule”
Yeah, but at a certain point (forgive me for the phrase), haters gonna hate. My support for scientific study of trans identities is not based on any hope that the results will enlighten ignorant bigots, though that’s a nice plus if it does happen.
If people deny my identity and think I’m crazy, that sucks, but unless they are abusing their power as employers, elected officials, etc., as my grandmother said, I tell them gei gezundt…which means some combination of “go in good health” and “go to hell.”
Oh no, they need to bring back Maya Rudolph to be Rachel, omg Im laughing just thinking about it.
“he belief doesn’t need to end, only the action. We are not questioning the identity or the reality of any person’s Pentecostalism or their right to hold whatever Pentecostal self-image they have”
I agree totally, people have the right ot their beliefs. In one sense, I understand where the poster who said that having science behind being trans is a useful thing (even though it shouldn’t be needed). Sad to say, one of the reasons that acceptance of gay people has happened is because so much has come out that this isnt a choice, isn’t mental illness, is tied in some way to genetics not fully understood, and so forth…in a perfect world, people would take the words of Tom Paine to heart, that the concepts of tolerance and intolerance are both at heart the same ill, that that you have the right, through your beliefs or whatnot, to judge others in how they live their life, especially if in doing that they are harming no one.
The ones I feel sorry for are her two sons. She has dragged them into this whole mess.
Are they actually her sons? They’re not her adoptive brothers?
Franklin, the younger boy, is her son. The other was her adopted brother and now is her adopted son. I disliked what she said about not being able to be Isaiah’s mom if she were white. (It begins about 5:50 or so in during the Matt Lauer interview.)
There are plenty of people who are the parents of children who appear to be of a different race than their parents… Sometimes this is due to the race of ther other parent. Her son Franklin’s biological father is black. Franklin looks black or bi-racial. Obviously, a biologically white woman gave birth to him. Is she trying to say that her adopted son Isaiah can’t have a white mom because his skin is darker? That’s nonsense. Children of mixed race couples don’t automatically “present” with skin coloring half-way between the skin color of their parents. It is quite possible for a white woman with a black male partner to have a child as dark as dad. MOST African-Americans have some non black ancestors.
I have relatives who have parents of different races. Some of them are tri-racial. In some case, full siblings look like different races. Recently the internet was circulating a photo of fraternal girl twins. One looked bi-racial; the other looked wholly white with red hair.
(Any of you remember the case of Sandra Laing? She was born to an Afrikaner couple during the apartheid period in South Africa. Though both her parents looked white, Sandra herself did not. https://abagond.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2009/05/13/sandra-laing-a-black-girl-born-to-white-parents/ ) This caused her a lot of problems in a nation ruled by apartheid.
Dolezal says she couldn’t be white because then she wouldn’t be Isaiah’s mother. The only reason for Dolezal to “present” herself as black to “legitimize” her role as the mother of a dark skin son is to deny that he’s adopted. That’s offensive too. There are many, many people who have adopted children of different races.
So, saying that she couldn’t be Isaiah’s mom if she were white amounts to saying (1) there’s something wrong with being adopted and (2) it’s not possible for a white woman to have a biological child who is black.