Who am I?
Three little words whose simplicity is deceptive. It begins with the name. Do we shorten it? How will I dress? Who will I fall in love with? Do I love my family?
All of these questions echo and bounce through our psyche. Two stories from the US have caught my attention. Caitlyn Jenner’s high profile transition from male to female and Rachel Dolezal’s views on how she identifies racially.
Jenner’s story needs less comment. Even with the razzmatazz associated with her previous career as an Olympian and the association with reality TV family Kardashians, anybody reading the extended interview with Vanity Fair, will see a woman who has gone through decades of real anguish, which fame or celebrity could not hide. Her new life promises her so much.
And she looks damn foxy.
We had never heard of Rachel Dolezal until Monday. If you haven’t heard who she is, she works for a civil rights group in Spokane, Washington State. By all accounts, she is extremely able in her job as everyone says she ‘reinvigorated’ her chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Is she coloured? Well, that is where things get strange.
In her own words, she ‘identifies’ as black. Her white parents deny her story that from the age of five, she used brown crayons to draw herself. The parents are adamant that she was born to them. She responded by saying this:
"Up to this point, I know who raised me," she said.
"I haven't had a DNA test. There's been no biological proof that Larry and Ruthanne are my biological parents."
She also points to a man who she intimated was her father.
On a pure human level, her parents must feel devastated by this, and I am going to use a strong word here, betrayal.
Is her work undermined by this?
It’s very hard to come up with an answer. Is she a Walter Mitty type? Does she think her work benefits from her identifying herself as black? Can we choose which race we identify with? Is everything down to our own choice?
My instinct tells me there is something not quite right about Ms Dolezal's situation. Her heart may have been in the right place but it does seem a shame she is distancing herself from the parents she knew all her life.
Just to be fair, I’m attaching a link to an interview she gave on Tuesday.
