Local Washington State NAACP Leader Outed By Parents As White

[KUSA]

It's irrelevant, it's just how society perceives you and your physical features + culture (african one)

Why doesn't this apply to other groups then?

It's terrible that we are only what society perceives us as being.

[Pyrrho]

Is this some sort of minstrel show she's putting on?

Interesting question.

Here is a bit of another article on this:

Ezra Dolezal, 22, compared his sister’s decision to conceal her race to blackface.

“Back in the early 1900s, what she did would be considered highly racist,” said Ezra Dolezal, who described himself as “25 percent black.” He added: “You really should not do that. It’s completely opposite – she’s basically creating more racism.”

Zach Dolezal, 21, said when he visited his sister in Spokane, he was told not to speak of Lawrence and Ruthanne as their parents.

“It’s a farce, really, is what it is,” he said, adding he thought Rachel had posted a photo of a black couple from Spokane on her Facebook page and referred to them as her parents.

The Dolezals, it should be noted, are a family divided. Parents Lawrence and Ruthanne and brothers Ezra and Zach do not speak with their sister because, they say, she alleged abuse in the family and obtained custody of her 21-year-old brother Izaiah. Izaiah, who is black, lives with Rachel Dolezal in Spokane — and Rachel says he is her son, the family alleged.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morni...-be-white/

[Tiberius]

For purposes like this (An institution fighting for civil rights) it's obvious people have to be black - I don't see why it should be any different.

Because no white person has ever fought for the civil rights of non-white people. </sarcasm>

In all serious though, your statement is absurd to the highest degree. Firstly, because civil rights apply to everyone, and secondly, because to say only black people can be part of an institution fighting for black people's civil rights would be contrary to the entire purpose of fighting for those civil rights.

Gaining equal rights doesn't mean the tables turn, and the discriminator becomes the discriminated. It means the discrimination is no longer allowed on either side.

It shouldn't have to be said, but the people who voted to ban slavery in the US were white. Fighting for the rights of black people was literally a white person thing at one time (not to minimize the efforts of freed slaves and other black civil rights activists at the time).

[Longhorn]

Where does white end and Asian begin? What are 'brown people'? What race is an Eskimo?

Race has little meaning besides appearance. And the lines are too blurred to make any clear distinctions....doesn't it basically boil down to 'you people all look the same to me'? -_-

[Dystopia]

That's a bullshit criterion.
Are you ready to enact a fixed rule that only those with a majority of (recent) African ancestors can work for such social justice causes. That criterion would exclude President Obama, for example. Would you have a caucus about who's black enough?

I never said other people can't work for it - I'm just saying what society considers black (and white).

I apologise for what I said - it's not what I meant - What I meant is that, for an institution fighting for black civil rights, they need people who are black (because those people are the ones who have many experiences to tell about the issue as well as higher interest) and lying about your ancestry seems dishonest - Obviously, I think other races should work together for civil rights. I didn't literally mean "whites can't help blacks in civil rights". Sorry. I still think that, when society clearly doesn't/wouldn't perceive/consider you black, it is bad to lie about it even with good intent. For many reasons, people who hold the ancestry fighting for civil rights have higher interests and their voices have higher importance. It's not that you, as a white person, can't help them - But you can't tell their stories for them, and you can't really know as well as them what's like to live as a black person.

That's another bullshit term. Africa is the most genetically diverse place on earth, and there is no such thing as a clear definition of "mixed race.

It's someone who noticeably has a higher diversity of ancestors - Yes, we all have different ones but it's more noticeable in some people. Obviously, because most (presumably) of my family tree is Mediterranean, I look that way - Brunette skin, dark hair, dark eyes. I don't look mixed race. Someone like obama, for example, looks clearly biracial. It depends where you live. Even something like "white" depends on where you live and has changed trough time, but generally it's how we socially perceive people. Or would you say that it's hard to classify someone like Morgan Freeman as black and someone like Brad Pitt as white?

But hey, don't take my word for it... Why don't you ask a black person? After all, they are the ones who know it better

Until it is dilute enough

On this I agree

[Minimalist]

As a private organization isn't this for the NAACP to decide?

[Longhorn]

Northerns are scandinavian, eastern Europeans are slavic,

there's a problem right there. slavs are and have always been a very genetically and culturally diverse group, with lots of mutual hostility. and they inhabit south and central Europe as well.

For purposes like this (An institution fighting for civil rights) it's obvious people have to be black - I don't see why it should be any different.

how black is black enough for you?

[Pyrrho]

It's irrelevant, it's just how society perceives you and your physical features + culture (african one)

Why doesn't this apply to other groups then?

It's terrible that we are only what society perceives us as being.

However terrible it may be, it is completely relevant to who the KKK types are likely to want to lynch, and who gets discriminated against.

If you do not appear to be black to someone who is bigoted against black people, then the bigot will not discriminate against you on that basis.  How you feel or perceive yourself to be is completely irrelevant to whether others will discriminate against you.  It is their perceptions that matter for that.

In the case of the subject of this thread, it would appear that the woman looked very white growing up, and is unlikely to have been discriminated against for being black as a child.  If that is true, then if she says that she suffered such discrimination as a child, she is either a liar or delusional.  And one may legitimately criticize her for that.

[Anomalocaris]

And how do you decide "being black"?

Having significant/noticeable African ancestry? I think it's a fair criteria. It's what society decides is black - For the most part, that's people with a majority of African ancestors - For mixed race people, they get to decide which side they wish to identify with, but they mostly pick non-white ancestry because, for some reason, we tend to perceive fully caucasian people as whites but anyone with a little of non-white noticeable ancestry is automatically not white.

Hate to tell you, everyone on earth today has 100% African ancestery.    Even the Neanderthal bits you may have are still ultimately African in origin.

[Nope]

Why doesn't this apply to other groups then?

It's terrible that we are only what society perceives us as being.

However terrible it may be, it is completely relevant to who the KKK types are likely to want to lynch, and who gets discriminated against.

If you do not appear to be black to someone who is bigoted against black people, then the bigot will not discriminate against you on that basis.  How you feel or perceive yourself to be is completely irrelevant to whether others will discriminate against you.  It is their perceptions that matter for that.

In the case of the subject of this thread, it would appear that the woman looked very white growing up, and is unlikely to have been discriminated against for being black as a child.  If that is true, then if she says that she suffered such discrimination as a child, she is either a liar or delusional.  And one may legitimately criticize her for that.

Maybe I misheard their interview but I thought the parents said that they and their daughter were from European heritage. Her adopted siblings are black.

Edited for clarity