Some thoughts on race and affirmative action:
If gender is merely a matter of self-identification, should not race be also? I have always thought that, given the affirmative action-laden higher education admissions process, applicants should self-identify as “black” or “Native American” whenever they so desire. I mean, why not? If they feel black or Native American, should not they be able to claim such an identity, as Rachel Dolezal has done? Doing so would quickly cause affirmative action to collapse of its own ridiculous weight.
Indeed, all of this race balkanization–with such extreme emphasis as belonging to this or that race–only further divides us, as race baiters like Al Sharpton well know. So why not accept the progressives’ terms of the debate–that our gender and race is all simply a matter of self-identity–and identify as a member of races that are favored/more protected by law? After all, no one can ever really know what lies in another’s heart. Does Bruce Jenner sincerely believe he is a female, or does he simply like to dress up in women’s clothes? Does Rachel Dolezal sincerely believe she is black? No one can possibly know the answer, perhaps not even Mr./Ms. Jenner and Ms. Dolezal.
What would a university do if an applicant self-identified as “black” on an application but showed up looking “white”? And if the university made such a judgment, what on earth would that mean? How would the university defend its belief that a student didn’t “look” black? What sort of bizarre racial stereotypes would it rely upon in making such an appearance-based judgment? And if the university actually decided to take action against the student for racial misrepresentation, what on earth would that mean? How would the university judge whether the student was really “black”? What percentage of blood would suffice for such a progressive institution? Fifty percent? Ten percent? One percent?
For decades I’ve been saying that “white” people should put down “black” on racial quiz forms, and defy anyone to prove them wrong. Race is, after all, a social construct.
I see nothing odd about that woman deciding to be black. After all, it’s not unusual; Bill Clinton, who was America’s first black president (he said so, so it must be true) and he was, in his early years, as Caucasian as she is.
It’s also, per prior examples, likewise true that one’s financial status is merely a state of mind. That’s why the Clintons could be “dead broke” with seven digit incomes and mansions.
It’s also, rather clearly, a state of mind as to what a government e-mail server is. Hillary’s was an approved government server. (She probably approved of her use of it, and it served her while she was in government). Who are we to say that it’s wrong for an e-mail server to embrace its inner identity, and be who and what it wants to be?
Now that Hillary Clinton is officially in the race, no doubt soon to dispel the age issue by revealing that she’s the youngest person ever to run for President (Who are we to disrespect the trans-chronological?) we’ll surely be seeing many more examples..
Bill Clinton, who was America’s first black president (he said so, so it must be true)
Actually, I think that was Maya Angelou, or someone of her ilk. But he didn’t deny it.
Rand, you’re right. My memory was faulty (I could have sworn I’d heard him say it). What he actually said, now I’ve looked, is that he loved being called that. (There’s a transcript of the Kimmel show interview, where he said that.)
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/04/03/bill_clinton_i_loved_being_called_the_first_black_president.html
This identity issue, BTW, is also very applicable when it comes to rocketry. For example, you, and others, have called the recent Russian Proton launch a failure. That’s horribly judgmental, because you really have no idea whether that rocket considered itself an orbital launch vehicle, or a suborbital one. If the latter, that launch was a total success, and we should celebrate that rocket’s embracing of its true self! 🙂
And, while we’re at it, let’s cheer an earlier successful Proton launch,
which includes a RTLS. (this rocket courageously transitioned from launch vehicle to it’s true, subterranean, inner self)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl12dXYcUTo
🙂
Your memory is not faulty, reality simply isn’t acknowledging your true memory! That’s what Bill was teaching us about what is, is.
“Now that Hillary Clinton is officially in the race, no doubt soon to dispel the age issue by revealing that she’s the youngest person ever to run for President”
She actually did that in her speech. You just need to swap person for gender.
Hillary Clinton claimed to be the youngest woman to run for President?
Well, I guess she is. Carly Fiorina, for example, is running, but she was born in 1954, while Hillary Clinton was born in 1947, so it’s just an ugly (and sexist, and raaaacist) rumor that Hillary Clinton is older than Carly Fiorina.
I don’t think that’s the claim. At least in her speech, she said she’d be the youngest woman president.
If Elizabeth Warren can decide she’s Cherokee and Bruce Jenner decide that he’s a woman, why can’t this Dolezal woman claim to be black?
In the spirit of being whatever you feel like, I am coming out as an extra-terrestrial, stuck on this insane asylum of a rock by circumstances beyond my control.
What bothers me is that all this is causing a disparagement of the trans-abled (people who, though through no fault of their own are physically unimpared, identify as disabled).
A former neighbor of mine was trans-abled. He wrestled with this issue for many years (not easy, even though he’s a wrestler) and finally revealed himself to the world as situationaly trans-abled. He did so in government filings, as well as publicly, as he courageously began to live as the real him, a guy with a situational bad back (though, through no fault of his own, his back was physically fine).
Thus, his true inner identity as a guy with a situational bad back regrettably forced him to end his career as a office manager. (The situational part of his inner disability was that it only manifested at work). He was able to continue amateur wrestling, dirt biking, etc, but his situationally disabled true self meant he could not work.
It was a very couragous and difficult thing for him to come out as situationally trans-abled, but he did so, in spite of the hefty paperwork (his disability claim).
He was so committed to his true inner self that he, totally selflessly and without any possible ulterior motive, cashed his disability checks every month as a living testament to his situational trans-abled self.
How could anyone ever doubt such a man?
I fully expect the backlash to come, where those that truly are disabled get thrown off the dole with everyone else (or just enough that a backlash from the backlash doesn’t happen.) Expect the worst and you’ll never be disappointed.
Certainly more so than sex (I wish people would stop treating “gender” as interchangeable with sex; “gender” is a linguistic term and therefore is a social construct).
I remember when Harlem congressman Adam Clayton Powell told either Merv Griffin or David Frost on a talk show that he (Powell) was not of African descent, but a mixture of Caucasian and Amerindian. He said, “Black is a state of mind.” From what I can glean from “liberals,” Powell was ahead of his time–a Black consciousness being (according to them) collectivist rather than individualistic, and emotion-based rather than rational. (I think Norman Mailer made essentially the same point in his notorious essay, “The White Negro.”) Thus, a Thomas Sowell, for example, is not a “real” Black, because he won’t play Uncle Tom to Massa State.