He did not succumb to group think on Rachel Dolezal
I got up this morning reading through my emails. Melissa Harris-Perry was torn to pieces on Black Twitter for having the unmitigated gall to entertain the possibility that Rachel Dolezal was black albeit not necessarily with the genes that provide any substantial melanin. I wrote a short blog post that included that snippet along with my contrarian view that had a reach of over 166,000 so I knew I would get a few slams.
I got a few but amazingly most were positive. Those that did not agree with me could not get over that Rachel Dolezal’s white privilege means if the kettle got too hot she could be white again. They also took offense to portrayals where she implied that she had experiences that reflects the pain of black folks. Others said that she could be just as effective as a white woman. Others supported and acknowledged her good works but simply could not get past the lies and deception. The white privilege angle though was the one that irked folks the most. At some point I want to address the dangers of white privilege not to non-white but to white people in the new America.
Well, syndicated columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson had the wherewithal to do more than group think. He did some research on Rachel Dolezal’s deeds. He appeared on News Nation with Tamron Hall to talk about it.
“First of all, what did she actually say,” said Earl Ofari Hutchinson. “I am hearing what everybody and her parents, everyone else is commenting, saying that she allegedly said. I want to know what she had to actually say. The only thing that I could come up with that she actually said from her own lips, ‘I consider myself black’. … I wanted to take time to find out exactly what did she do as the president of the Spokane NAACP. … I actually took time. And I urge other people to do this too. Set aside for a second the big debate about what she did or didn’t do, what she said or didn’t say how she represented her self or didn’t represent herself. The critical question is what did she do as president of that chapter. I took a look at it. I took a look at the record. I took a look at the minutes of some of the meetings that they had. I gotta tell you Tamron, I was absolutely bowled over. On all the key issues, education, healthcare, criminal justice reform, police misconduct, and civil rights, I gotta tell you, she was spot on. And the chapter was spot on.”
I think Earl Ofari Hutchinson is spot on. What do you think.