And, as long as we're on the subject: "A Texas woman considered herself African-American for 70 years before she found out she’s white, according to reports."
Verda Byrd... who grew up with an adoptive black family in a small central Kansas town, drew a marked contrast between her astonishing saga and that of the NAACP leader who described herself as African-American for years before her parents outed her publicly.
“She lied about her race,” Byrd told KENS. “I didn't lie because I didn't know.”
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You should read Jeff Goldstein's take on this. Hilarious.
Link, Rusty?
The past week has been dominated by two mentally ill people who seized on the zeitgeist. I remember when they all used to claim to have been abducted by aliens. That was a big thing in the '70s.
tim in vermont: The past week has been dominated by two mentally ill people who seized on the zeitgeist. I remember when they all used to claim to have been abducted by aliens. That was a big thing in the '70s.
Never any alien abductors around when you need them.
"You mean I'm gonna STAY this color?"
Here you go, Original Mike.
Defining astonishing saga down.
Oops. I went to Protein Wisdom and thought I'd found what Rusty was talking about, but it's a Jonah Golberg Twitter post, not a Jeff Goldstein essay. Sorry about that. - - It's still funny, though.
If you believe in forever
Then being a politically useful idiot is just a one-night stand
If there's a liberal celebrity victim heaven
Well you know they've got a hell of a band, band, band
Cindy (Sheehan) gave us absolute moral authority
And Rachel took a piece of our soul
And Mattress Girl Emma made us all feel rape
At least until she released that sex tape
They've all found another place
Another place to play
If you believe in trigger warnings
Then being a useful idiot is just a one-night stand
If there's a liberal celebrity victim heaven
Well you know they've got a hell of a band, band, band
The alien abduction claim is being revived by mentally ill hipsters looking to express a retro vibe.
"You mean I'm gonna STAY this color?"
Ha! I thought I'd get the chance to make the first reference to The Jerk.
At least his adopted momma had the good sense to say "Navin I'd love you if you were the color of a baboon's ass!"
I always thought that the white SNL cast member who did the definitive sketch impersonation of President Obama was Fred Armisen -- who is white. After Armisen left the show, the role was taken over by Jay Pharaoh, who is black. The Jay Pharaoh impression just seemed so wrong to me. And I don't think it was all a matter of Fred Armisen's consummate comedic skills, although there was a lot of that. (And think of the almost outrageous difficulty of doing what is essentially a black face character in the 21st century!) I just think that Barack Obama is a lot more white than he is black. His racial background is of course mixed. But his cultural roots are almost all white. His spoken voice is basically a white dialect of accent. (I'm not quite happy with "dialect" or "accent" in this setting, btw.)
Maya Rudolph -- another great comedienne -- would probably do Rachel Dolezal very well. I'd like to say that it would be ironic for someone who was truly biracial to do a person who was so notoriously faking being a biracial person. I'd sort of prefer Amy Poehler doing Rachel Dolezal. But comedy really does go beyond race in interesting ways; the Fred Armisen case demonstrates that.
For those of us who think the Confederate flag is the most important issue America faces today seeing Rachel Dolezal fade into oblivion is a good thing.
I'm anxious to see the roof of the General Lee photo shopped to show an NAACP logo in the Dukes of Hazzard reruns.
In any event, Rachel Dolezal will have her own reality TV show soon enough.
The McKinney pool fight also fell out of the news, somewhat surprisingly.
I think you may have offended A Reasonable Man by doing another post on this topic.
We had 12 posts from Althouse and more than a thousand comments on a nothing burger of a story about a disturbed white women pretending to be black. Now we have another manifestation of white people's obsession with the control of black people's lives.
In any event, Rachel Dolezal will have her own reality TV show soon enough.
Or maybe she can find her sex tapes and sell them:
Rachel Dolezal claimed ex-husband forced her to make sex tape, abused her during bitter custody battle
The Dolezal story gave us the advantage of recalling Eddie Murphy's "White Like Me" sketch.
Maybe Ms Byrd was caught by surprise when she found herself listening to big-band music with unusual interest.
There are plenty of people of mixed race who legitimately have some flexibility in deciding what race to identify as; Rachel Dolezal just isn't one of them. And even so, I doubt many would have cared if she'd just chosen to pass as black socially (instead of making a career out of it).
Then again, Rachel Dolezal could be seen as threatening to the dominant left-leaning discourses on race and perhaps that might have something to do with a reluctance to discuss her?
(Although de-sanctifying that holy trinity of academic mediocrity, race-class-gender, would surely be a win for a higher quality higher ed.)
I love that Rachel called for a boycott of Gods and Kings" due to casting white actors as Africans.
I'm reminded of the hilarious Dave Chapelle bit about a black blind kid who grows up believing he is white, and becomes a virulent White Supremacist author.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u__W0Qa8v0k
"I think you may have offended A Reasonable Man..."
And that's a bad thing?
Rachel Dolezal and the Confederate Flag perfectly bookend the theme that Black Lives Matter, at least in the same sense that polyvinyl chloride matters given the wide variety of useful and interesting things one can manufacture with either.
And even so, I doubt many would have cared if she'd just chosen to pass as black socially (instead of making a career out of it).
Being able to make a career out of being black is the problem. Not for her, but for our society.
"Rachel Dolezal and the Confederate Flag perfectly bookend the theme that Black Lives Matter, at least in the same sense that polyvinyl chloride matters given the wide variety of useful and interesting things one can manufacture with either."
PVC pipe revolutionized the plumbing industry: It is inexpensive, easy to work with, durable, rigid and resists plugging. Sewage met its match with the introduction of PVC pipe.
I'm guessing there is a larger tie-in with sewage here, but I'll leave that to more astute commenters.
"I think you may have offended A Reasonable Man..."
It will make his day.
When trying to figure out why a story that dominates the news cycle one week can vanish without a trace the next, I find it useful to keep in mind the fact that, for most of the Lickspittle Media, "newsworthy" means "what will help Democrats the most."
Blogger Roy Jacobsen said...
When trying to figure out why a story that dominates the news cycle one week can vanish without a trace the next, I find it useful to keep in mind the fact that, for most of the Lickspittle Media, "newsworthy" means "what will help Democrats the most."
Exactly. Have you heard about Gruber and how the White House lied?
Of course not.
At least until some oil-eating bacteria mutate to stomach PVC.
@Hagar, nice Ringworld reference!
-XC
PVC pipe revolutionized the plumbing industry: It is inexpensive, easy to work with, durable, rigid and resists plugging. Sewage met its match with the introduction of PVC pipe.
I'm guessing there is a larger tie-in with sewage here, but I'll leave that to more astute commenters.
A randomly picked utilitarian commodity serves as a veritable Rorschach test around these parts, doesn't it.
SHe had all this white privilege and dint' even know it!
Dolezel is old news, barely had legs in the first place. Nothing much left but reality show theater. NY fugitives are still going strong, a perennial that will always be available to fill the slack, at least until they're caught (hopefully never, at least from the newsroom perspective). Charleston has a lot of juice left, but should soon take second place to something new. That one will probably be more "human interesty", e.g. Dolezel, unless they really get lucky.
kzookitty
Exactly. Have you heard about Gruber and how the White House lied?
Or how NOBODY is responsible for the biggest hacking of government info ever?
You aren't seeing lots of images of Hillary's Dixie flag buttons from 2008 on TV either, it might be noted. I bet they'd do the same if Cruz had those...
Dolezal was a "slow news day" sort of case--got a lot of people thinking about what makes one's racial identity. The awfulness of this woman--not just claiming another racial identity, which in itself is fine, because who cares, but actually trying to use this fake identity to preen and curry favor--only made it more a viral story than it should have been. Then some bigot goon shoots a bunch of black people--mostly church ladies, no less!--and it brings back a perspective that makes Donezal look all the more awful. Being black in this case meant getting killed by a white racist, and while this is a very rare occurrence these days, it did harken back to half a century ago when such things happened much more.
More interesting to me is that the initial calls for more gun control have become muted (particularly when it is clear the killer in this case would have passed a background check, and used a gun that is not subject to any proposed assault weapon bans) so the activists turned on the rebel flag (helped along of course by the fact that the rebel flag was waved by the killer in some photos).
Ol' Rachel was worth 15 seconds of fame on a slow news day. The Caitlyn Caper took some of the glow away. Meanwhile a good part of the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and our fearless warriors of the press are constantly on the prowl for the next, "Oh look a squirrel" moment.
And come to think of it, Rachel and Caitly were in fact pretty squirrelly. Not to worry, the faithful newshounds at the NYT will find another squirrel to amuse the rubes.
I didn't mention yet that Rachgel Dolezal didn't just play the part of an African-American women - she played the part of a somewhat bigoted black woman.
damikesc said...
Or how NOBODY is responsible for the biggest hacking of government info ever?
That should be NOBODY is responsible FOR LETTING IT HAPPEN.
Naturally, since, the way Obama thinks, once you've met the minimum requirements, everybody is equally good at a job, and there's no reason to think one person would be better or worse than the other, distinguished only maybe by how hard they work.
He feels this way about doctors, too.
@Kzookitty New York fugitives.
They were holed out for a long time in a hunting cabin owned by correctional officers
http://nypost.com/2015/06/22/escaped-killers-dna-match-came-from-underwear/
A group of correction officers — including a high-ranking guard at the Dannemora prison — own the upstate hunting camp where the two escaped killers hid out and left their DNA, sources said Monday...
..All of the owners are correction officers, according to the Plattsburgh Press-Republican. And a source told The Post that at least one of them holds a high position.
They left after somebody spotted them.
This was an inside job, and it looks like some pretty high ranking people in the prison and/or law enforcement were involved - and may be involved in the chase, and very interested in them not getting caught (because they'll talk)
This might be just part of a gigantic corruption case.
I wonder who wanted them out.
Sammy, I hadn't heard that (I started tuning that story out pretty early in). Definitely gives life to the story...corruption, follow the money games...corrupt corrections officers (almost as good as bad cops!). Practically something for everyone. Anchors and anchorettes must be piddling like puppies in delight.
And a terrified rural citizenry to boot!
kzookitty
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