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Celeb News: Rachel Dolezal shades Caitlyn & mentions Madge in interview
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 4,477
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Rachel Dolezal shades Caitlyn & mentions Madge in interview
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On a gloomy Saturday night in Spokane, WA, roughly a dozen people gather in the penthouse suite of the Davenport Grand Hotel for Rachel Dolezal's baby shower. Hip-hop and jazz play on a flat-screen TV, and paper yellow duckies hang on the silver walls. While Rachel's 21-year-old adopted son Izaiah pops a bottle of champagne, Rachel's friends—her ex-boyfriend Charles Miller and several women—eat croissant sandwiches on disposable plastic plates. The women vary in age and race (there's nearly an equal number of black and white guests), but when I ask them how they know Rachel, most give the same answer: "She does my hair."
Rachel does her own hair, too. Today, she wears a black weave. "In the winter I like to have [a weave] because you don't have to wear a hat," she explains. "In the summer I like to wear braids and dreads—that's just me." The women's conversations, though, aren't about hair and instead revolve around the baby. An hour into the party, Rachel's friend passes out pieces of paper for a "baby pool." She asks the partygoers to predict the baby's "weight, birthday, and gender." There's not an option for race. It's undoubtedly a sensitive topic in this room, but no less a loaded one. After all, much of Rachel's story is hinged on the concept that, like gender, race is a social construct.
"We know the gender," Rachel says.
"What if the doctor's wrong, and it's a girl?" I ask.
"The doctor said he's gonna be a proud little boy. You can see the family jewels [in the sonogram] yourself," Rachel jokes. "We wanted a girl. I told [my son] Franklin [the baby] could always be a Caitlyn."
Rachel has been thinking about Caitlyn Jenner a lot. In June, the same month Caitlyn announced her name on the cover of Vanity Fair, local Spokane TV station KXLY outed Rachel—the then-president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, whom the community believed to be a woman of color—as the biological daughter of a Caucasian Christian couple. She immediately became national news, and 2015 became the year of identity according to New York Times critic Wesley Morris. Whereas Glamour and ESPN awarded Caitlyn for her transition, Rachel was vilified and mocked in the press and on social media after telling Matt Lauer, in an interview on Today, that she's transracial, saying, "I identify as black."
She was deemed a cultural appropriator by some; an impersonator—donning blackface when it was to her advantage—by others; and a race traitor by white supremacists.
"I'm the only person equally hated by the KKK and black feminists," Rachel says.
In the summer I like to wear braids and dreads—that's just me.
Although some publications, like Salon, took Elinor Burkett to task for questioning Caitlyn's identity in an op-ed she penned for the New York Times, other news outlets and social media users have pounced on prominent black celebrities who have defended Rachel's lifestyle. When Rihanna called Rachel "a bit of a hero" in a lengthy Vanity Fair profile, the pop star inspired a day's worth of outraged tweets.
In the aftermath of her newfound infamy, Rachel resigned from her unpaid role at the NAACP; the Spokane City Council voted to remove her from a volunteer Police Ombudsman Commission, and Eastern Washington University declined to renew her quarterly adjunct professor contract. Broke and seemingly unemployable (with the exception of a six-figure Vivid Entertainment **** offer she turned down), Rachel wrote a memoir proposal. She hoped she would receive an advance big enough to support herself and her two sons for as long as it takes to weather the storm, but she says publishers refused to sign her. Today, she says she remains out of work besides doing black women's hair part-time and estimates a third of her friends have stopped speaking to her.
"I've struggled with depression to the point where I wonder if it's even in my kids' best interest for me to stay around," Rachel says. "I feel like I'm a liability to my own children."
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Rachel rejects the version of her upbringing that Larry and Ruthanne have shared with reporters. One of the only things Rachel and her biological parents agree on is that she was born in 1977. In his memoir, Down from the Mountaintop: From Belief to Belonging, Joshua Dolezal said Ruthanne gave birth to Rachel in a teepee and someone had written on her birth certificate that she was delivered by "Jesus Christ." In previous interviews, Ruthanne has denied these allegations, but Rachel supports Joshua's claims. She shows me a photo of the teepee where she and her brother say she was born, and she pulls out what she says is her original birth certificate, which indeed says that Jesus Christ delivered her. Her baby book, which she lets me flip through, also says Jesus oversaw the birth.
Rachel grew up in Troy, MT. She describes her hometown as "population 3,000, economically depressed, the armpit of the world," echoing her biological son Franklin's description of Spokane. She was raised in a religious household—her parents are fundamentalist Christians and Young Earth creationists. YEC takes a strict, literal interpretation of Genesis, believing that God created the earth in six days roughly 6,000 years ago, everyone is descended from Adam and Eve, and Noah housed dinosaurs on his ark. According to Joshua's memoir, parishioners would speak in tongues.
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In the early 1990s, while Madonna was wearing cone bras and The Real World debuted on MTV, Rachel says Larry and Ruthanne forbid her from wearing pants. She was in the seventh grade. "If you had yard work, you had to wear pants under your dress," Rachel says. "You can't cut your hair, you couldn't wear make-up, you couldn't wear pants—which separate the legs of the woman and, you know, you're asking for [men] to rape you at that point."
Like most children, Rachel believed what her parents told her. She says she increasingly felt guilt and dissociated from her own body—feelings that only intensified at school. She was one of the few conservative Christians in class, and panicked when her secular friends started engaging in the devil's work, like playing with Ouija boards. Oh my god! Rachel remembers thinking. I can't go to their house. As a teen, she even stopped playing her beloved baseball out of fear of God. "I felt like I was sinning to play baseball, because [it required] wearing pants."
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Taking that into consideration, Rachel's identity issues are queer enough to mirror that of gays and lesbians who put themselves at risk—of homophobia, of being mocked or discriminated against, or even beaten to death—by living openly and being who they really are. While it's true that, unlike black people, Rachel had the privilege to choose her racial identity, the question still remains: Why would anyone want to make his or her life harder?
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She has hope. In September, Malcolm X's daughter, Ambassador Shabazz, invited her to appear at a United Nations panel for the International Day of the Girl, and Rachel believes The Real will turn her reputation around. She says they promised to be fair and even to discuss her art.
But it didn't go very well at all. The women on the show attacked Rachel, with no warning. Host Loni Love asked Rachel, "Are you ashamed of being white?" and Rachel's name began to trend on Twitter again for all the wrong reasons. She was surprised and disappointed by her treatment on the show, but maintained a sense of humor about it. "My lace-front wig was better than Loni's," Rachel jokes.
However, the episode upset both DaShawn, and Charles.
"[Her identity is] a real thing for her—in the same way someone that's transgender is wrestling with not fitting in with the skin they were born into," Charles says. "I was really angered, frustrated, and saddened to see the way that people and the mass media projected all these assumptions about her. They were really not in line with what her motives really are."
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The article is MASSIVE, but it's a really interesting read. I almost feel for the sis, but at the same time, a MESS.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 5,723
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This woman is a racist who used blackface for attention. I don't feel sorry for her.
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 4,199
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queen
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Member Since: 1/2/2014
Posts: 9,438
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Transracial vs Transexual
A SJW's wet dream
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Banned
Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 4,477
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Quote:
Originally posted by Trent W
Transracial vs Transexual
A SJW's wet dream
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dont do transsexual hunties like that
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Member Since: 4/12/2011
Posts: 14,781
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Quote:
Originally posted by Trent W
Transracial vs Transexual
A SJW's wet dream
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Member Since: 3/5/2011
Posts: 15,589
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I still do not understand why its okay for Caitlyn to change her gender (and be celebrated/win awards for it/overshadow actual, biological women) while this woman does something similar, but based on her race, and everyone's shouting her down.
People just pick and choose what causes to fight for.
*shrugs*
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 4,333
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She didn't "shade" any of those people, Rachel didn't even say Madonna's name, the author of the piece did. The whole article made me feel very badly for her. With abusive parents, a sexually abusive brother & a controlling spouse, it's no wonder she has so many identity issues. She shouldn't be heading any NAACP chapters, but she deserves pity more than scorn.
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Banned
Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 4,477
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Quote:
Originally posted by Damien M
I still do not understand why its okay for Caitlyn to change her gender (and be celebrated/win awards for it/overshadow actual, biological women) while this woman does something similar, but based on her race, and everyone's shouting her down.
People just pick and choose what causes to fight for.
*shrugs*
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eek at implying trans women are worth any less than biological women ... a mess
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 17,938
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She's bisexual and transracial? The original Halsey.
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Member Since: 6/25/2011
Posts: 1,634
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I'm torn, She's done a lot of good things for the black community. Devoted a lot of her time. Helped people. This all also makes more sense when you know she was raised with multiple black siblings.
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Member Since: 3/5/2011
Posts: 15,589
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Quote:
Originally posted by Groteskou
I'm torn, She's done a lot of good things for the black community. Devoted a lot of her time. Helped people. This all also makes more sense when you know she was raised with multiple black siblings.
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Yeah, the interview is pretty heartbreaking.
The quotes from her kids were just... so sad, ppl should give her a break.
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 15,736
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This article is an eye opener. I hope people leave Rachel alone, she really doesn't deserve so much criticism.
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