WHO ARE WE, REALLY?
H
aving recently read about Rachel
Dolezal’s apparent racial identity
scandal,
I was both stunned and confused;
Larry Wonderling
which finally prompted this article. I
spontaneously considered the whole uproar as a tad more
than a “proverbial slippery slope.” It was more like a
virtual land slide! That’s when it occurred to me that I had
already written a “Who am I?” article in 2014.
A quick re-read of that article, however, triggered a breathy
“ah ha” of relief that this second article may actually be a
worthwhile addition, not a duplication. It resembles kind of
a Part 2 with 2014’s Part 1 emphasizing the overwhelming
complexities of a straight forward answer to “Who am I?”
Consequently the current article is akin to a Part 2 update
with actual personal, concrete examples of present day
identity challenges and their remedies.
In fact, I may be a prime example of the rarely analyzed
or even discussed so called racial purity mandates in our
civilized cultures. My grandmother apparently had an
affair with a black man, possibly resulting in the birth of
my mother, who was a dark complexioned, beauty of the
“Whitney Houston” type. When Mom and Grandma finally
revealed the “shocking event” to me in my teens, my reply
was a genuine, smiling, “So what?” As the comedian
Whoopi Goldberg said years ago when the AfricanAmerican label emerged, “I’ve never even been to Africa.
I’m just black.” I also view Rachel Dolezal’s apparent
“true” race as another “so what,” despite her parents’ proud
announcement that she is biologically “white.”
From what I’ve read, Rachel’s behavior during most of her
life has been blacker than black, while she was typically
viewed as a pretty black woman. At age five she reportedly
drew herself with brown crayon. She’s been an advocate
of black her entire life, including head of the Spokane,
Washington NAACP, part time African studies instructor,
and has two adopted black boys. Even science debunks the
specificity of the term race as a distinct biological entity
rather than an arbitrary way of distinguishing between
groups. Rachel’s DNA is just one of our endless “biological
markers” that fail to adequately define one’s identity.
If you’re a fairly regular reader of my column, you may
have rightfully assumed I have never been aware of or
concerned about my genetic heritage and the purity of my
nationality. I sure look Caucasian; which I view as another
“so what.”
Again, the philosopher, Aristotle’s pragmatic wisdom
supports the historically sound observation that you
simply are what you do, not what others or traditions say
you are, based on your birth place, etc. Perhaps that’s one
reason, when asked about my heritage, I guess I still keep
muttering Popeye’s,
“I yam what I yam.”
—Larry Wonderling, Ph.D., Email: [email protected]
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