Stolen Blackness
The pretense of blackness seems to be a form of “stolen valor” for white women, who get to feel heroic while claiming victim status. There have been several cases outed and/or confessing recently, the latest being here.
It’s really not parallel to the older phenomenon of black people “passing” for white. They did it for obvious reasons, back in the day when being black really was to be oppressed. The people who did it were ordinarily of mixed race but with so much white genetic contribution that they simply didn’t look black although their family and cultural heritage was.
In contrast, the white women (and it’s mostly women) who these days are donning a black identity – a sort of new-age blackface, without the makeup but maybe with a hair perm – are utterly white. The woman pictured at the link is so white I’m not sure how she could ever have claimed blackness, but I suppose it’s something you don’t challenge in polite society.
Not that our present-day society is polite.
There are several advantages to the charade, I suppose. One is that it might make it possible to be the recipient of affirmative action in various spheres. Another is the ability to hitch one’s wagon to a cause perceived as noble. Still another is to claim victimhood while getting such benefits.
The latest women to be exposed in this way has the following story:
Satchuel Cole (they/them), born Jennifer Lynn Benton, is a prominent & highly respected BLM activist in Indiana.
As best I can determine – and I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time figuring this one out – this is a biological woman now identifying as gender binary, as well as a white woman previously identifying as black who became prominent in the BLM movement. That’s interesting to me because (1) BLM itself is based on lies about the deaths of people such as Michael Brown (2) according to the left, male or female sex is unmoored from biology and not binary, but race is tied to biology and is binary. That last statement is a case of things being backwards, because in fact it is sex that is binary nearly 100% of the time, and it is biological race that is often unclear because many white people have some black DNA and the vast majority of American black people have a significant amount of white DNA. Race is determined mostly by cultural heritage (at least one black parent) and phenotype. Today’s society (fortunately) has not devised a percentage of black DNA that would give a person the right to claim blackness (or as Satchuel Cole née Jennifer Benton put it in her confession, the right “to take up space as a Black person”).
Have you ever noticed how much jargon leftists use? They rarely speak in plain English, and that is no accident. Jargon is used for obfuscation, for propaganda, to give a semblance of erudition to those who are not learned, and in order to show membership in the wokeness club.
Ooh, ‘stolen Blackness’! This one should be fun. 🙂
*rubbing hands in anticipation*
The Age of Progress: semantic games, euphemisms galore, political myths, conflation of logical domains, and simple prevarication.
Yes, it is almost always women.
Ward Churchill was an outlier.
False narrative, fake history, insane “critical thought” and “gender fluidity” taught in college and now all the way down to kindergarten.
Rational thought is denigrated.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings are definitely smiling, and the teeth are showing.
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_copybook1.htm
You know I believe you can make a stronger case of race being a “cultural construct” than gender, yet the left seems to believe it is the other way around.
For academics there’s the additional motive that there are hundreds of applicants for every tenure track position and very few of them are black. I doubt this is the primary motive in these cases but it is surely a contributing factor.
Leftists have created something of a quandary for themselves (as well as a contradiction) by denying that either race or sex contains any biological reality. It appears to be acceptable to leftists now to detach gender from biology, thus permitting any person to claim to be of either sex regardless of birth and chromosomes, while stigmatizing those born into a certain race who claim to belong to another race; yet if both sex and race, to progressives, are only “social constructs.”, why should transracialism, unlike transgenderism, remain “problematic”, with fluidity of sexual identity being admirable, fluidity of racial identity not?
Racial appropriation? Shaun King (aka Talcum X) has been running this grift for a while.
Neither stolen blackness nor passing have been the least bit common. The most well-known recent example of passing was that of the literary critic Anatole Broyard. By some accounts, Broyard’s object was to avoid being pigeonholed. Also, Broyard was a New Orleans creole who (by some accounts) never meshed well with the black kids in the Brooklyn neighborhood to where his parents had relocated. (Broyard’s family was listed as black by census enumerators in the spring of 1940. Broyard’s race isn’t listed on his draft card signed in the fall of 1940, just his complexion (‘light’) and eye color (‘hazel’). At the time he enlisted in the military on 5 September 1942, his race was recorded as ‘white’).
Have you ever noticed how much jargon leftists use? They rarely speak in plain English, and that is no accident. Jargon is used for obfuscation, for propaganda, to give a semblance of erudition to those who are not learned, and in order to show membership in the wokeness club.
It’s also because so many of them are academics themselves.
From Al Jolson to Rachel Dolezal.
“Progress is our most important product”.
Theories abound, however the most niggardly, oops *parsimonious* explanation for this tsunami of mental illness and degeneracy I’ve come across is Dutton & Woodley’s Spiteful Mutant Hypothesis.
One look at that Thing (not recommended, BTW) and and the first word that springs to mind is ‘Mutant’.
And here we come to the problem with ‘Polite Society’ in the Current Year. Tolerance is a luxury we can afford during the Good Times. These are not Good Times.
In contrast, the white women (and it’s mostly women) who these days are donning a black identity…
–neo
It started neck and neck with Rachel Dolezal and Shaun King as white/black bookends, but white women have pulled ahead and I wonder why.
I am also surprised that women going trans appear to outnumber men going trans because statistically men are more prone to unconventional sexualities. In the past cross-dressers and transsexuals were mostly men as I recall.
Do today’s American women feel some new and gnawing lack in their identities?
The thing about liberals and rhetoric is that the words are vaguely define. What after all does “social justice” mean? Or “woke?” There just words that make them feel good about themselves.
Could be a psychological link to why white women are the major consumers of rap & hip-hop.
Couldn’t the simpler explanation is that these women are just “nuts”? 50 years ago they would have been under psychiatric supervision.
My favorite Condi Rice quote from the last year, when asked about the #MeToo
bunch: “Let’s not turn women into Snowflakes.”
Amen, Amen, Condoleeza!!!
How ’bout you and our recent UN Ambassador and South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, run as our ticket in 2024. Now, that’s a Dream Team!!
GRA:
With Rap / Hip-hop it’s an aspect of ye True Nature of Women ™ which we all pretend does not exist in Polite Society.
See sales figures for Fifty Shades of Grey. Google Hybristophilia.
White Women have now so comprehensively feminised society and turned their menfolk into creeping shadows of men that they are desperately gagging for brute masculinity. They’ll get their Rough Stuff one way or another — whether it’s Rap, or Third World Mystery Meat ‘Refugees’. Ever noticed who shows up at ‘Refugee’ protests? White women. You’ll get some NuMales and Soyboys there too… but they’re just supporting acts.
Cue Arte Deco in 3, 2, 1…
The ‘Thing’ in question in Neo’s post is a related matter. Every healthy stable society has to have a strategy for dealing with its ugly unwanted females (unwanted males it’s easy: just draft them and send them off to die in foreign parts). In the good old days this was done by either packing them off to a nunnery/beguine, or burning the more recalcitrant ones as witches.
Me? I favour the Ducking Stool. It’s more Carbon Neutral.
NeoConScum:
Because what America needs is a childless Black Lesbian Bluestocking member of the Bush Mafia *and* a Relentless Sikh Grifter.
That’ll really change things up for the better.
The ‘Thing’ in question in Neo’s post is a related matter. Every healthy stable society has to have a strategy for dealing with its ugly unwanted females (unwanted males it’s easy: just draft them and send them off to die in foreign parts).
I suppose I’m idly curious about the sources you’re parroting in your lunatic musings on pop anthropology. For the record, there were about 14 million young men born after 1943 and prior to 1952. About 0.4% of them died in Indochina. Somehow, I suspect the population of unattractive men was somewhat larger than that. (You can explain to us what algorithm the Marines and the Army employed to assure that only unattractive men were deployed to Indochina; you might also explain why the rules saw to it that this unattractive man was sent there. (https://ktar.com/story/1871130/before-he-was-a-senator-john-mccain-was-a-war-hero/)
It has been reported that BLM has removed the page that talks about their beliefs, ideals and goals.
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2020/09/21/what-are-they-trying-to-hide-blm-quietly-deletes-what-we-believe-page-but-luckily-lots-of-people-kept-receipts-screenshots/
Wikipedia says, “Modern scholarship regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.”
Now, society is an abstraction, so how does an abstraction make rules? This is reification, a logical fallacy where abstractions are assumed to have an actual physical existence and agency.
Because what America needs is a childless Black Lesbian Bluestocking member of the Bush Mafia *and* a Relentless Sikh Grifter.
The terms ‘lesbian’ and ‘grifter’ do not mean what you fancy they mean.
huxley:
Women and especially girls going trans – I wrote about it here.
Art Deco:
I very much doubt it’s “common” in terms of the percentage of members of each race.
However, how would one know how common it is, if the vast majority of such passing as white or falsely claiming to be black goes undetected?
It is surprising how many of these cases are coming out of the woodwork. I suspect more to come. These people really have no shame. But on even a larger scale (and again, showing no shame) I think another issue that needs to be confronted are privileged African-Americans (er Blacks? What is the term we need to use now that we have BLM??) claiming their false victimhood. Their parents and grandparents did well financially and educationally, and lived upper middle class lives, yet they are still “under-privileged”. Well, I guess the democrats VP nominate is a perfect example–both parents very educated with good jobs and she is picked because she is “black” or “African-American”. When she is certainly not the second (or at least can not claim any traditional African-american experience-her dad is Jamaican, and mom is S Asian). And claiming the first is also somewhat dubious-with her lighter skin and her straight hair, and indeterminate features-certainly, agin, not a typical black US experience. And certainly not unde-privelged.
Valor lost to a black hole… whore. h/t NAACP
Jumping “on the bandwagon” has been around for all of recorded history.
Women and especially girls going trans
Physical and/or mental divergence from their sex-correlated gender. The sex is fixed. The gender, or rather gender attributes, are fluid over a spectrum (“Rainbow” exclusive of black, brown, and taking gay pride in the shredded remains of white).
Physicsguy is right. These people are mentally ill, or at least emotionally disturbed, and morally dis-integrated. And we pretend not to notice? Why?
Zappoo (5:28pm):
Thank you, from the bottom of my shoes, Genius. You’ve generously provided my newest entry in my daily memoir entitled, “You CANNOT Possibly Make This Shit Up”.
Yep, that incredible lady who introduced Brett Kavanagh to the Senate Judiciary Committee!!
A coherent social strategy or no, there seem to be plenty of studies that purport to show that they migrate toward the left side of the political spectrum. At least nowadays.
I always tell my black friends that I’m passing, but I don’t think I’m fooling them.
I can’t jump.
Blacks are on the up escalator, going from the low floor to the uppers. Whites are on the down escalators, in terms of social ranking.
That’s why whites are pretending to be black.
Black is now truly Beautiful, as never before. “Black” is now always capitalized in the media, like “Jewish” or “Christian”, though “green” is not.
Notice the % of black persons acting in TV commercials. It’s about 40-50%, versus 13% of the population, and despite the lower median income of blacks v. whites. Not just in Ford commercials, but in Mercedes also. The major corporations see the trend and are aboard.
Notice the numbers of (generally unattractive) white women going out with black men.
Just sociological observations!
tina:
What makes you thinks Kamala Harris’ straight hair is natural? I hadn’t thought about it before one way or the other, but just now when I did think about it I assumed she straightens her hair and that her original hair is curly.
Take it from me, a curly-haired person.
And sure enough, when I Googled “kamala harris high school photo” I got a whole bunch of curly-haired photos. And she was very attractive. Take a look.
DNW, Zaphod, et al:
Ugly women have admirers, too:
neo: Ben Franklin recommended older women and consequently less attractive women:
______________________________________________________
Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.
https://theredheadriter.com/2013/02/benjamin-franklins-advice-on-sex-marriage-older-women/
______________________________________________________
Frankin’s catalog of reasons for pursuing older women is a bit tough even for my sensitive ears (“8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!!”), but overall in line with Jimmy Soul.
And sure enough, when I Googled “kamala harris high school photo” I got a whole bunch of curly-haired photos. And she was very attractive.
1. KH wasn’t that attractive. She’s actually improved with age.
2. My mother had a head full of ringlets in 1935. Her father actually entered her in a Shirley Temple look-a-like contest.
3. All gone at the end of her life. Largely gone decades earlier, but you couldn’t quite tell because of her weekly visits to a hairdresser who was of the view that hair was sculpture.
Re: curly hair…
I recall in the 80s when white women with long straight hair were going for curly hair perms. Didn’t care for it myself, but you can’t fight women’s fashion.
This discussion appropriately comes on the heels of the the video on the woman with the 50’s obsession. That was the same sort of impulse just more socially acceptable.
but you can’t fight women’s fashion.
Oh, you can give lots of unsolicited advice. Not that unsolicited advice is all that effective.
Art Deco says “you can give . . . unsolicited advice.” In a way the problem is that you can’t give unsolicited advice. That’s the way we used to judge if we were wearing the right clothes, if our weight was getting out of hand, if our behavior was inappropriate, if our obsessions were entering the realm of delusion. We don’t get any negative feed back anymore. That has its merits but it also has a lot of drawbacks.
We don’t get any negative feed back anymore. That has its merits but it also has a lot of drawbacks.
I’m happy to give negative feedback to all comers. It doesn’t influence them, of course.
@Neo that’s hilarious thanks!
@Huxley: The theory that an ugly woman will be grateful to the man who married her is a nice theory. In practice it often seems that the female concerned will develop a contemptuous attitude toward the man who ‘settled’ for her. A bit like Groucho Marx and joining clubs.
The socio-sexual marketplace is not a bed of roses given its evolutionary background and purpose.
Back to Hip Hop:
I live in a *very* what the Progs would call ‘privileged’ expat enclave. The children and teenagers around here mostly go to fiendishly expensive international schools — so expensive that schooling is an integral part of any expat contract. It’s pretty much the real Lake Wobegone where all the children are good-looking and above average. Why? Because it takes a certain level of genetic fitness to have one’s mental #@$% together enough to be worth paying to move half way around the world to do a job the already very sharp locals can’t do as well. It’s a running joke in expat HK that this neighbourhood is Land of the Stepford Wives; Losers don’t marry Porkers. So much so, that if you spot an uglier and/or more obese Caucasian male or female, it’s much better odds than a coin toss to peg them as Teachers in the local schools.
Why is above para relevant? Well firstly because breeding is real and you can easily see it in action if not blinded by ideology. But the reason I went through all this exposition is that the soundscape whenever these gilded youth gather is invariably Hip Hop. All these little curated works in progress doing their IBs and headed off to the best university educations and then very comfortable lives as Managerialist Bugpeople listen to is Hip Hop. The lyrics of which are unutterably vile and degenerate.
And if you listen in on the conversation down at the beach or in the coffee shops or on the ferries or other forms of unavoidable public transport: it’s the teenage girls who overwhelmingly drive this vulgarity.
It’s mind-blowing. Our Culture is a putrid corpse.
Art Deco,
Try constructive feedback.
Let me give you an example; when I was a young boy, my Dad asked me to hold a flashlight and aim it in a dark corner where he was working. After a bit, my attention wandered and the light strayed away from where he needed it. In a gentle voice he asked me if I could see the area he was working. The light having strayed, I replied that I could not.
He said, well neither can I. So when you are helping by aiming a light, remember if you can see the area, so can the person your helping. I moved the light back, he thanked me and that’s all he said.
That must have been about 60-65 years ago… it was his gentle voice, as much as how he said it, that made such a deep impression on me.
“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.” Abraham Lincoln
@Huxley re Curly Hair
Early 90s there was a Chinese TV Weather Girl on one of the English Language channels in HK who had the most incredible fuzzy afro-ish perm. This thing was gigantic… imagine Art Garfunkel hung upside down for a year with his scalp in a hydroponics vat.
But she was very cute. And some newspaper wag described it as being like an explosion in a pubic hair factory.
Immortality Level Unlocked.
I saw an online photo exhibition somewhere by a guy who traveled across America in the 80s taking photos exclusively inside shopping malls. The perms again.
Life is Cruel. The Genetic Lottery Doubly so.
We Humans are going to have to figure out ways to give meaning and purpose to the lives of those whose parents rolled Snake Eyes in the reproduction game.
If we don’t work something out, said Mutants will find their own twisted telos. They’re doing it right now with BLM/AntiFa, etc.
This post cries out for Artfldgr, but I haven’t seen him around for at least a week.
Did I not get the memo? Or is he just AWOL?
Edward on September 21, 2020 at 4:26 pm said:
Yes, it is almost always women.
Ward Churchill was an outlier.
* * *
Asa Earl “Forrest” Carter beat Churchill (and Fauxcahontas) to the meme of stolen heritage, with his book “The Education of Little Tree.”
He had a better punchline than either of the others though.
Wikipedia:
It was something of a pop-lit “Sokal Hoax” – hitting all the buttons of the new-age-wokesters, using the rhetoric of what then passed for social enlightenment aka consciousness raising.
Carter was probably laughing the whole time he wrote it.
PS It occurs to me that the Gods of Kipling’s Copy-book bear a more than passing resemblance to the Smithsonian’s retracted poster, which can be loosely summarized as “If you habitually do any of these useful, productive things, you Might Be White.”
om on September 21, 2020 at 4:30 pm said:
Racial appropriation?
* * *
That would seem to be the case – makes those unlucky gals with the cancelled Taco Truck look like real pikers.
Well, as someone said sometime, it’s easier to put across a Big Lie that is “so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”.” (Wikipedia)
As opposed to just wanting to sell food they liked.
LeClerc on September 21, 2020 at 4:36 pm said:
From Al Jolson to Rachel Dolezal.
“Progress is our most important product”.
* * *
Al Jolson would be cancelled in a heartbeat these days.
Just saw this last night — the story Mark tells is along toward the end.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/09/mark-steyn-speaks-2.php
“Mark’s reminiscence about his most recent appearance for the Center in Minneapolis is correct, in that the Guthrie Theater banned our organization from future events because someone there was dismayed by Mark’s speech. But I don’t think the “Mammy” moment was the main problem.”
huxley on September 21, 2020 at 4:51 pm said:
In contrast, the white women (and it’s mostly women) who these days are donning a black identity…
… In the past cross-dressers and transsexuals were mostly men as I recall.
Do today’s American women feel some new and gnawing lack in their identities?
* * *
Feminism, contrary to its promises and ideology, actually makes it hard to be a woman, so they are doing whatever they can to be something else.
In contrast to the lovely lady from the Fifties reveling in her Femininity (which is another thing altogether).
eeyore mood on September 21, 2020 at 5:38 pm said:
It has been reported that BLM has removed the page that talks about their beliefs, ideals and goals.
* * *
That’s because the wrong people were reading it!
Only your friends are supposed to look at your blogs and social media posts!
It’s not faaaaaiiiirrrrr!
tina on September 21, 2020 at 6:24 pm said:
It is surprising how many of these cases are coming out of the woodwork. I suspect more to come. These people really have no shame. But on even a larger scale (and again, showing no shame) I think another issue that needs to be confronted are privileged African-Americans (er Blacks? What is the term we need to use now that we have BLM??) claiming their false victimhood.
* * *
What surprised me is not that they exist, but that they are admitting their fraud.
Since they haven’t been questioned about their actual heritage for years, or decades, why ‘fess up now?
I would think, in the context of the BLM furor, that they would double-down and be Blacker than ever.
Was there a precipitating event that I missed somewhere during the riots that made them think they had better get out of the line of some coming fire?
As for the Racial Label du jour, here is a man with the right attitude, channeling his inner Teddy Roosevelt. (h/t Gerard’s blog)
http://americandigest.org/i-am-not-an-african-american-mark-robinson-at-blexit-greenville/
“In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.” – Theodore Roosevelt (most common paraphrasing)
https://www.pnwriders.com/threads/hyphenated-americanism-speech-theodore-roosevelt-october-12-1915.88078/
He was referring to European immigrants maintaining their original allegiances, but the points are extendable to those from elsewhere, or even — especially — those who are native-born; substitute “citizen of the global community” below.
Note that the BLM and Antifa, and the Left in general are only on-board with the first of TR’s qualifications.
Other texts with the same theme – from a surprising source, but that was back in 2006 before their anti-conservative bias took hold.
The question was whether or not a quoted letter actually existed, and it did, along with others having similar sentiments.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sole-loyalty/
And more wisdom from the Rough Rider colonel.
https://www.azquotes.com/author/12606-Theodore_Roosevelt
My favorite: “When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not guilty.'”
But this one, the last one, on page 32 (!!), is perhaps among the best:
“Freedom is not a gift which can be enjoyed save by those [who have] shown themselves worthy of it.”
Good stuff, all 32 pages, but I admit that I have always been fond of Teddy as portrayed in “Arsenic and Old Lace.”
“To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility.” – Ben Franklin via huxley
Some readers here might recall reading Piers Anthony’s first Xanth book, “A Spell for Chameleon.”
He would be pilified and villoried for that book now, if it could be published at all.
“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.” Abraham Lincoln via Geoffrey
The Rioters formerly known as Peaceful Protesters have certainly pulled that one inside out.
All criticism, no helping.
Probably no heart.
AesopFan:
I read somewhere that they confessed because they were about to be outed.
I am getting tired of all these “conversations about race” and would like to change the subject. 🙂
Oh, well.
At least there is one leftist who actually has a legitimate claim to their pronouns.
“Satchuel Cole (they/them), born Jennifer Lynn Benton,”
Neo – that makes sense. And proves that they knew they were lying, it wasn’t simply a mistaken reliance on some obscure family history.
Still surprised they didn’t just double-down – it worked for Warren well enough to get her into the primaries.
“Stolen valor?”
More like the way middle class rappers pretend to be criminals.
But why were they to be outed now when they weren’t before?
80% rage ginned up by recent BLM activity–like Marxists everywhere, they’re looking for kulaks and wreckers–but I think 20% because of the unwritten racial spoils system on the left provides a motive to take down anyone who is achieving any prominence as a “black” activist.
Look at South Africa. Another one of America’s much delayed karma boomerangs.
If you’re a feminist of the non-snowflake variety, you emulate Marie Curie or Nikki Haley and succeed on your own terms. You may be frustrated by needless obstacles, but you don’t let them dominate the work that’s really important to you.
A feminist of the snowflake variety needs an excuse for failure. If being female isn’t enough, she’ll be tempted to take on the trappings of some other downtrodden persona. The work that’s really important to her is excusing mediocrity or failure.
Neo- Kamala is an attractive woman–one only needs to recall the picture Obama somewhat leering at her years ago while Michelle glared on. She certainly does have beautiful hair and looks like it is straightened and blow dried-probably with a round brush 😉 She does it, it seems, Michelle Obama does it-but certainly is cultural appropriation and a bow to western ideals of beauty. Wonder for how long they will continue this? At some point this will be frowned upon. Kind of like Obama in his memoirs insisting he would look for a darker skinned African-American woman if I recall correctly.
Whether or not Kamala is attractive is irrelevant. She is a culturally appropriating fraud.
She’s an indoaryan Brahmin on one side and a mostly white slaveowning Jamaican plantation mistress on the other. In fact her family’s plantation was twice the size of Tara making her Kamala O’Hara.
But to be fair, her small black contribution while not African American at least is west African Bantu unlike Barrie.
And no they don’t all look the same. In fact Nilotes are closer to Eurasians than Bantus