Look it's not just gender that got fluid...

innonimatu

innonimatu

the resident Cassandra
Joined
Dec 4, 2006
Messages
15,068
I'd love to see this happen in the US, just for the heads explode effect in the media:

Anthony Ekundayo Lennon: White theatre director who described himself as ‘African born again’ given job meant for people of colour

Actor who won paid traineeship as 'theatre practitioner of colour' said he 'went through struggles of a black man' despite being born to white Irish parents
...
Writing for The Independent, Paula Akpan, an advocate for black women, said his claim of being “African born again” was “not how race works at all”, while black actor Luke Elliot said he was “fuming” that Mr Lennon was “taking up the little resources” awarded to black artists.
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Pay a lot of attention to "race" and get this...
What do people from that side of the ocean think about this little polemic?
 
So it's what, like officially blackface?
 
Reminds me of the South Park episode where Kyle's dad got a Dolphinoplasty.
 
If this is meant to be some kind of argumentum ad absurdum to show what happens when you have a non-materialist analysis of concepts like race and gender well...

you win?
 
I'm surprised there haven't be statutory rapists who claim they are actually a 15 year old in a 44 year old's body so it's ok they had a relationship with a high school student.
 
Narz said:
I'm surprised there haven't be statutory rapists who claim they are actually a 15 year old in a 44 year old's body so it's ok they had a relationship with a high school student.
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I can't find the story now, but I remember reading a couple of years ago about an adult woman who "identifies as a teenager".
She went to high school and had a boyfriend there. Not sure if she did something illegal.
 
Farm Boy said:
So it's what, like officially blackface?
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Why does no one rag on Voudoun bokor and certain Melanesian and Papuan shamans? They're literally Black men who wear "whiteface" in their ceremonies.
 
innonimatu said:
I'd love to see this happen in the US, just for the heads explode effect in the media:
Pay a lot of attention to "race" and get this...
What do people from that side of the ocean think about this little polemic?
Click to expand...
Its pretty funny that you think this is "new." Racial "fluidity" has been a thing in the US since like... the very beginning? "Passing for white" has always been a pretty common phenomenon among "light skinned" folks, blacks in particular, but by no means limited to blacks. The main reason the "fluidity" tended to only go in one direction was essentially because pretty much every single incentive without exception was in favor of being white.

As it becomes less and less of a socioeconomic burden to be nonwhite and/or some actual incentives slowly start to trickle forward to be something besides white, you will see more instances of people feeling free to and/or trying to take advantage of those opportunities by "passing" for something other than white. It seems pretty obvious that there would be a direct relationship between those factors and the frequency of folks claiming some other race/ethnicity. The fact that this phenomenon is apparently new to you is actually pretty conclusive evidence of how strong the negatives for being nonwhite have been historically.
 
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One supposes its a kind of victory when they become something institutional to tear down.

Wonder if 'don't color your pigment' or whatever it was for costumres will start morphing into swiping at tanning. Though that's kinda already getting it a bit of it as is. Dunno!
 
Race was always a construct, mostly to create a racial hierarchy with whites at the top, particularly in the US. Placing a high value on the "purity" of ones' whiteness helps reinforce that notion of whites being better. A means of perpetuating that outlook, has been to regard anyone with a nonwhite parent as no longer being "white", thereby encouraging white folks not to procreate with nonwhites, lest their children lose their preferred racial status. This also creates a strong incentive for folks who have a nonwhite grandparent or great-grandparent to nevertheless claim to be white, if their appearance allows them to credibly do so. Keeping in mind that any "impurity" makes you nonwhite, this means that "black" folks can come in a much wider variety of skin tones, etc., than whites can. In America, a person with any racial ambiguity, no matter how slight, can credibly claim to be black, which is how/why Rachael Dolezal was able to do so.

So when you have a person who has a black grandparent or great-grandparent but has nevertheless lived their life a s a white person... then having children with another person who is doing the same, you may get a child who draws from their ancestry enough characteristics to establish slight racial ambiguity, which is all it takes to credibly claim to be black... despite the fact that both of their parents claim to be "unquestionably white". I'd guess that's probably what's going on with the guy in the article.

TBH, I'd guess that very few folks, particularly Muricans, would receive a 100% genetic rating for any particular ethnicity... and the negative incentives to being black make it seem unlikely to people that any sane person would "falsely" claim to be black. So a "white" person who is wanting to live as a "black" person would have an easier time of it than vice versa. But it seems clear to me that things are getting better for black people if occasionally otherwise white people are choosing to live their lives as black people instead.

Post-race, post-gender society here we come!
 
So we have a person who passed for black and was bullied at school because people thought that he was "mixed race".
He gave up saying he was Irish and accepted the label but still said he was Irish when asked.
So why all the hate because someone accepted the black label.
 
Sommerswerd said:
Its pretty funny that you think this is "new."
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To me the funniest part of the OP is the implication that the "identity politics left" or whatever started "paying a lot of attention to race" recently. You know who really started paying "a lot of attention to race"? Europeans in about 1650.
 
Rachel Dolezal. Mentioned in the OP's article and in an early post here.
 
Lexicus said:
To me the funniest part of the OP is the implication that the "identity politics left" or whatever started "paying a lot of attention to race" recently. You know who really started paying "a lot of attention to race"? Europeans in about 1650.
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Well, by now brighter ones have realized it does not really warrant all that much attention - but I realize the US is a bit slow on the uptake in this regard...:mischief:
 
Yeekim said:
Well, by now brighter ones have realized it does not really warrant all that much attention - but I realize the US is a bit slow on the uptake in this regard...:mischief:
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If you think the fact that race is a strong determinant of a vast array of socioeconomic outcomes does not warrant all that much attention, you may be many things but certainly not very bright.
 
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