I feel lured into talking about Hilaria Baldwin, but what do I want to say? What did I say about Rachel Dolezal... and is this the same... or worse... or better?

I thought I could get away with dropping this one seemingly juicy sentence from The Washington Examiner....

But while, say, the New York Times decided that Hilaria's cosplaying as a Latina stereotype was off-limits — even as they wrote growing profiles of her as well, including uncritically her "slight Spanish accent" — the paper of record has celebrated children having their college admissions revoked for a video of them singing the N-word along to a song when they were 15 as a "reckoning." 

I found that because it has Rachel Dolezal in the headline ("Alec Baldwin's wife became Hollywood's Rachel Dolezal because of our sniveling, bootlicking press"). 

But come on — "they wrote growing profiles." Presumably, that should be "glowing profiles," Hilaria Baldwin has posted many selfies where she's standing sideways to display her pregnant belly. But no, that's not something the NYT can write. Here's the glowing profile in the Times, from back in 2014: "Hilaria Baldwin Holds Her Center" ("Her voice betrays a slight Spanish accent, remains of a childhood split between Boston and Spain").

I wonder how many people are faking accents... and why (and when) we feel a person acquires a pleasing air about them because of that. Oh! Just by chance, last night I watched an episode of "Friends" where the Friends were extremely irritated by a woman who'd acquired a fake English accent:

 

Interestingly enough, that's the episode with blackface...

...

That episode — "The One With Ross's Tan" — has more thematic unity than I originally thought!

Well, clearly, blackface is a very specific problem that has been isolated, and everyone has been warned about it, so violations are harshly judged. The same is true of the "n-word," though the presence of lots of recorded music with the word creates confusion for young people who might not understand that this is the ONE thing you don't sing along with. 

But accents... accents are different. You can do fake accents... can't you? I've seen people pick up a New York accent or a Southern accent... to try to fit in or to be thought well of. Many actors do accents and get special acclaim. Meryl Streep, etc. etc.

So must Hilaria Baldwin be denounced because she's doing what she's doing while being a highly privileged person? Or are accents different from skin darkening? 

ADDED: As for the article where the NYT "celebrated children having their college admissions revoked for a video of them singing the N-word along to a song when they were 15 as a 'reckoning,'" here it is: "A Racial Slur, a Viral Video, and a Reckoning/A white high school student withdrew from her chosen college after a three-second video caused an uproar online. The classmate who shared it publicly has no regrets." Excerpt:

Since the racial reckoning of [last] summer, many white teenagers, when posting dance videos to social media, no longer sing along with the slur in rap songs. Instead, they raise a finger to pursed lips. “Small things like that really do make a difference,” Mr. Galligan said.

Galligan is the high school student who posted the video and, according to the NYT, has no regrets. 

“I wanted to get her where she would understand the severity of that word,” Mr. Galligan, 18, whose mother is Black and father is white, said of the classmate who uttered the slur, Mimi Groves. He tucked the video away, deciding to post it publicly when the time was right.

He decided the time was right a month [???] later, during the George Floyd protests, when Groves posted on Instagram to say "protest, donate, sign a petition, rally, do something"  in support of Black Lives Matter. By this time, Groves had chosen her college, the University of Tennessee, and — reacting to "hundreds of emails and phone calls from outraged alumni, students and the public" — the university pressured her into withdrawing. Groves's case isn't unique, we're told. There are "at least a dozen cases" like this.

Ms. Groves said the video began as a private Snapchat message to a friend. “At the time, I didn’t understand the severity of the word, or the history and context behind it because I was so young,” she said in a recent interview, adding that the slur was in “all the songs we listened to, and I’m not using that as an excuse.” 

ALSO: I wrote "a month later" but I'm now questioning my reading of the article, which isn't clear about the timing. Twice, it uses the phrase "last school year" to refer to when Galligan got hold of the video that he "tucked... away" for future use. But I see a highly rated comment over there that says: 

I guess I’m the only one bothered by the fact that Galligan purposely waited for years to release this video, with the express purpose of destroying her college chances. This goes far beyond wanting to “educate” her — this is vindictive and chilling behavior.

And I'd like to say that if I were raising a child today, I would intervene the first time I heard the child play a song that had the "n-word" in it, and I would tell the child clearly that I never want to hear that word and that he should never say that. If I were in a public place with my child where a song with that word played, I would immediately talk to my child about it and say it is wrong. If I were in a restaurant where the word was played, I would never go back there again (or if it was a place I really liked, I might talk to them about it and see if they apologize and promise never to do that again). Really, I do not see how we can go on with songs like that played around young people.