“I am—yet what I am, none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish in oblivion's host,
Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes:
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tost.”From the John Clare poem “I Am”
So now everyone wants a piece of Rachel Dolezal’s hide - Some want to tan (pardon the pun) the white part and others want to tar and feather the other. Personally, I could care less. It is even being reported that Dolezal admits that her hair is a weave, duh! Really, what self-respecting black woman doesn’t have a weave of some type in her hair? I am at a lost as to why this is a story anyway. Don’t get me wrong I do understand the shock and the outrage to a degree but what I don’t understand is the surprise everyone seems to be experiencing.
Consider this if you will. White folks have been imitating blacks for years - our music, our style of dress, our dance, our art, our walk, and our talk. Hell, the first time a white person laid out in the sun in an attempt to secure a tan we should have known something was up. Now-a-days, the only things that blacks can say we took from whites culturally speaking is disrespect for parents, promiscuity, lack of morals and tattoos (stolen from the Aryan Brotherhood in prison) and we screwed all of these things up by going overboard. And here is where things get people’s panties and boxers all in a bunch.
You see folks, America is accustomed to whites imitating blacks for entertainment purposes, (can anyone say blackface, Eminem, or Vanilla Ice) because there is no inherent danger of overkill. Blacks on the other hand consistently go overboard when imitating whites. Unfortunately, we blacks have yet to figure out the dangers such as societal regression reaped upon us (blacks) by blazing that obstacle laden trail. Enter Rachel, Dolezal, and suddenly that tabooed glass ceiling has been shattered. Rachel dared to go where no white man or woman that we know of had gone before. Instead of imitating or instead of pretending to be blackish Rachel decided to be black and some of us are insulted.
Remember the weave I mentioned earlier, why do you think weaves exist? Because white folks have brainwashed black women (some) into thinking that unless they have long flowing hair like white women they (black women) are unacceptable and unattractive. Why the hell would anyone be mad about a white woman wearing a weave and subjecting herself to the aforementioned mental psychosis? Hell, if anything, take it as a compliment.
And besides if society accepts whatever Bruce Jenner’s name is claim that although he was born a man he is really a woman trapped in a man’s body, why not accept Rachel as being a black woman trapped in a white woman’s body however ridiculous the argument is or the speculation might be. Oh, but then again we are discussing race and race is not afforded the same “oh you poor thing you deserve to be happy” BS as whatever it takes or whatever someone does to achieve orgasm, can we talk.
In the movie “Watermelon Man,” Jeff Gerger, a middle-class white bigot awakens one day to find he is no longer white but black. Needless to say Gerger’s world is turned upside down. For one thing, Gerger, played by Godfrey Cambridge, is accused of robbery for running after a bus that as a white man he chased for years for exercise. Yet, chasing the bus as a black man, the police assume he is fleeing a crime scene, classic situation relevant even to this day.
In the film “Imitation of Life,” a young fair-skinned black girl named Sarah Jane played by Susan Kohner decides to pass as white to escape the oppressive policies of the era only to discover that passing is not a pass. When her white boyfriend discovers her deception, he beats Sarah Jane mercilessly. My point is that relatively speaking there is no fairytale happy ending for being black, pretending to be white and now we see also for pretending to be black, so what’s the big deal?
Take a read of that excerpt from the poem at the beginning of the article and marinate on its meaning. What does it say about how you feel about who you are, where you are, versus what you want to be and where you want to be.
There is one thing if nothing else - this entire affair begs me to contemplate how much this girl’s parents hate her to have outed her, and why.
Written by Jay Arrington, The Maryland Daily Examiner
For additional articles written by Jay Arrington, visit the Maryland Daily Examiner website. For information regarding the Maryland Daily Examiner, contact Reggie Kearney (Editor-in-Chief).
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish in oblivion's host,
Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes:
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tost.”From the John Clare poem “I Am”
So now everyone wants a piece of Rachel Dolezal’s hide - Some want to tan (pardon the pun) the white part and others want to tar and feather the other. Personally, I could care less. It is even being reported that Dolezal admits that her hair is a weave, duh! Really, what self-respecting black woman doesn’t have a weave of some type in her hair? I am at a lost as to why this is a story anyway. Don’t get me wrong I do understand the shock and the outrage to a degree but what I don’t understand is the surprise everyone seems to be experiencing.
Consider this if you will. White folks have been imitating blacks for years - our music, our style of dress, our dance, our art, our walk, and our talk. Hell, the first time a white person laid out in the sun in an attempt to secure a tan we should have known something was up. Now-a-days, the only things that blacks can say we took from whites culturally speaking is disrespect for parents, promiscuity, lack of morals and tattoos (stolen from the Aryan Brotherhood in prison) and we screwed all of these things up by going overboard. And here is where things get people’s panties and boxers all in a bunch.
You see folks, America is accustomed to whites imitating blacks for entertainment purposes, (can anyone say blackface, Eminem, or Vanilla Ice) because there is no inherent danger of overkill. Blacks on the other hand consistently go overboard when imitating whites. Unfortunately, we blacks have yet to figure out the dangers such as societal regression reaped upon us (blacks) by blazing that obstacle laden trail. Enter Rachel, Dolezal, and suddenly that tabooed glass ceiling has been shattered. Rachel dared to go where no white man or woman that we know of had gone before. Instead of imitating or instead of pretending to be blackish Rachel decided to be black and some of us are insulted.
Remember the weave I mentioned earlier, why do you think weaves exist? Because white folks have brainwashed black women (some) into thinking that unless they have long flowing hair like white women they (black women) are unacceptable and unattractive. Why the hell would anyone be mad about a white woman wearing a weave and subjecting herself to the aforementioned mental psychosis? Hell, if anything, take it as a compliment.
And besides if society accepts whatever Bruce Jenner’s name is claim that although he was born a man he is really a woman trapped in a man’s body, why not accept Rachel as being a black woman trapped in a white woman’s body however ridiculous the argument is or the speculation might be. Oh, but then again we are discussing race and race is not afforded the same “oh you poor thing you deserve to be happy” BS as whatever it takes or whatever someone does to achieve orgasm, can we talk.
In the movie “Watermelon Man,” Jeff Gerger, a middle-class white bigot awakens one day to find he is no longer white but black. Needless to say Gerger’s world is turned upside down. For one thing, Gerger, played by Godfrey Cambridge, is accused of robbery for running after a bus that as a white man he chased for years for exercise. Yet, chasing the bus as a black man, the police assume he is fleeing a crime scene, classic situation relevant even to this day.
In the film “Imitation of Life,” a young fair-skinned black girl named Sarah Jane played by Susan Kohner decides to pass as white to escape the oppressive policies of the era only to discover that passing is not a pass. When her white boyfriend discovers her deception, he beats Sarah Jane mercilessly. My point is that relatively speaking there is no fairytale happy ending for being black, pretending to be white and now we see also for pretending to be black, so what’s the big deal?
Take a read of that excerpt from the poem at the beginning of the article and marinate on its meaning. What does it say about how you feel about who you are, where you are, versus what you want to be and where you want to be.
There is one thing if nothing else - this entire affair begs me to contemplate how much this girl’s parents hate her to have outed her, and why.
Written by Jay Arrington, The Maryland Daily Examiner
For additional articles written by Jay Arrington, visit the Maryland Daily Examiner website. For information regarding the Maryland Daily Examiner, contact Reggie Kearney (Editor-in-Chief).
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