Rethinking Rachel Doležal and Transracial Theory by Molly Littlewood McKibbin

Author:Molly Littlewood McKibbin
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9783030862787
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

This is certainly the prevailing view in Critical Mixed Race Studies, which is concerned with the malleable socially and often contextually dependent nature of racial identity, especially for those with ambiguous appearances and mixed ancestries. We really have no plausible alternative other than to consider the cases of African Americans who permanently “passed” and determine that they became White, that their children who were raised as White were White, and that their current descendants are White. The resulting millions of White Americans who have (unknown) Black-identified or Black-looking ancestors are White; they would only be “really” Black if one subscribed to a radical interpretation of the one-drop rule. The fact that the vast majority of these descendants have no idea that they might be “really” Black also complicates the idea of them as Black, of course (what would it mean to be Black in this scenario?). We might subsequently consider that these descendants could become Black—for instance, if they discovered Black ancestors (and ancestry were determined to be sufficient grounds for Black identity). The absurdity of tracing the purity of political categories of race, the arbitrariness of these categories to begin with, and the changes in the social practices of them need to inform the ongoing discussion of “passing” as a denial of a “true” race. In order for us to talk about racial identity meaningfully, we must reconsider the perpetuation of concepts of “passing” that are analogous to drag (or “impersonation” as drag was once called) or that present “passers” as liars. Either of these conceptualizations simply reinforces notions of race as definitive and innate and prevents productive theorization of our beliefs about and practices of race. As Damon Sajnani observes, our “predisposition” to believe that Anatole Broyard was “Black all along” and Rachel Doležal was “White all along” exists “precisely because the immutability of race has been programed into us. It permeates our language about race, for example the fact that we say ‘passing’ rather than ‘becoming.’ We routinely fail to recognize that race is a social imposition of perception rather than a property of individuals or groups” (“Rachel Dolezal” 4). If we actually believe that race is a “social construct,” Sajnani argues, then we must believe that “there is nothing more to being, or not being, a given race than the social acceptance and societal ascription of a race to a person” (1). We can still think about whether someone’s identity is an ethical one for them to inhabit and we can still talk about the degrees or authenticity of a given identity (along the lines of Tommie Shelby’s concepts of “thin” and “thick,” for instance). If we can be more careful about the way we talk about “passing,” then we can have a clearer and more productive discussion of whether Doležal became Black or whether her identity is a performance (and if a performance, whether it is actually akin to blackface, as some skeptics claim).

Similarly, such a discussion will help us unpack questions about the distinction

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