There has been a lot of talk in the news this week about Rachel Dolezal. She is the former president of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP who has been presenting herself as a black woman for the past several years. She has had the proverbial finger wagged at her from all angles since her parents called it to the attention of the NAACP that she is a white woman of Czech and German heritage. She has been accused by some critics of putting blackface, though she claims that she identifies as black, as she said when interviewed by Matt Lauer.
Some newscasters have referred to her as transracial, and compared her to Caitlyn Jenner, and for a while that had me going. "Maybe she was not happy in the body she was born with," I wondered. "Maybe she had the wrong label like the crayon in RED." But there is a flaw to that connection, and I think it is insulting to Caitlyn Jenner (and Laverne Cox and Isis King and Lana Warshowski and Chaz Bono and people you may know and love) to attempt the comparison.
Deuteronomy 22:5 says, "A woman shall not wear the trappings of a man, and a man shall not put on a woman's garment, for there are an abomination to Adonai your God, anyone who does this." For years the Reform movement has interpreted this along with other liberal Jews explaining that this is not simply about wearing clothing that "belong" to the opposite sex. There are plenty of cultures that have different views of what men wear compared to what women wear. My wife Natalie told me once that some Ethiopian men who emigrate to Israel are embarrassed by being forced to wear pants, which are seen by them as women's clothing. Just last week I sat near a man at a Bat Mitzvah service wearing a kilt. Deuteronomy 22 is not about the actual clothing, it is about intentionally trying to deceive people in order to be treated in a way that would garner personal gain or avoid a particular responsibility.
So Rachel Dolezal has missed the mark on two points. First, as an interviewee on CNN put it, "It doesn't flow both ways." It is much easier for the average white person to darken their skin and perm their hair than it is for the average black person to do the reverse. There is such a thing as a light-toned black woman, but there is no such thing as a dark-toned white person. Though there may be some rare cases where someone has passed for white, the typical black person could not turn the tables and do what Dolezal did.
Second, it was done as deception. Caitlyn Jenner, to use the most recent pop culture example, came out openly and honestly. After careful deliberation and discussion with loved ones and friends, she made her courageous announcement to the world stage on which she spent a great deal of time as Bruce, Olympic champion and television personality. She now feels she can be herself, and probably has a great sense of relief after years of living as Bruce.
Dolezal was not honest. She may have been mistaken as black at first, may have never come out and said, "I am a black woman," but she never corrected anyone, either. She took the post as NAACP president while those who supported her believed she was a black woman. She derived personal gain from this deception, directly violating the biblical injunction to not protray yourself as what you are not.
Had she come to the NAACP as the blond white girl whose picture we have seen all over the news and said, "I identify as a black woman," who knows what would have happened? She could have been a pioneer for the transracial movement. The NAACP's leadership is not restricted to people of a particular race, so they probably would have welcomed her as someone who feels more comfortable in a skin other than that to which she was born. Instead of having a conversation about what race means or if it is possible to transcend certain boundaries, we are having a conversation about someone who tricked us all, and turned it into a joke or a shaking of the head.
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