Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Hey, MORE Cultural Appropriation -- Dolezal-Style

When you click on the site www.UberThoughtsUSA.com, there is a little search field in the upper left-hand corner.  I do encourage you to plug in the search term "dolezal" and pull up the three or four columns that I did on good old Rachel Dolezal, the extremely Caucasian woman who perpetrated the odd fraud of calling herself "black", tanning the best she could and frizzing up her hair.

She did pretty well for herself for a while, becoming president of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP and teaching a class or two at Eastern Washington University.  Of course, as soon as her confused parents pointed out that she wasn't in the least bit black, and she responded with leftist doublespeak to the effect that she "identified" as black, well, she lost both jobs.  Darn.

Still, she had income over the next couple years, some from a book she wrote and some from "friends", enough income to where she wouldn't have qualified for welfare.  Still, one can assume that she "identified" as poor, because sure enough, she applied for welfare -- i.e., you and I paying for her existence.

Yeah, that didn't work out well.  The state was not thrilled about her failing to note all her income on her welfare application, and charged her with welfare fraud and perjury.  Whatever color she and her backside may claim to be, it appears that both are going to land in jail pretty soon, unless she can find a really good lawyer to keep her out.

So ... the left crows and complains about the notion of "cultural appropriation" -- a notion I wrote up here a couple years back and a time or three since, and which gets only worse as time goes on.  If white people dare to try to wear anything or cook anything or sing anything that is associated with another culture, it is very bad.  It is OK for Thais to wear suits, or Nigerians to grill burgers, but God forbid that a white high-school girl wear a pretty Chinese outfit to her prom.

Well, Rachel Dolezal is ancestrally, beyond a shadow of a Jenn Utley doubt, white.  And although she now goes by some kind of African-sounding new name and tans herself heavily and frizzes her hair, she is still 100% Caucasian.  So there is no earthly doubt that what she is doing is "cultural appropriation" in any sense of the word you choose to use.

Of course, when I use a wok and attempt to stir-fry dinner (never with good results, of course), I'm not claiming to be Chinese.  I identify as a white guy (except in Maryland, where I'm black), and as a white guy who can't really cook but is trying to cook a Chinese dish because I hope it will taste good.  I don't, you know, join the local Chinese-American club.

Rachel Dolezal has been performing cultural appropriation on a very grand scale.  I know people like me who, recognizing that it is farcical to use that phrase, can laugh at it, but who cares what we write about it.

I want to see what the pens of the left say.  I want to hear from all the post-millennial snowflakes who actually think cultural appropriation is a "thing", and a bad one at that.  I want to hear if they have the brass testicles to criticize one of their own who has taken things to an extreme.

We're waiting, O voices of the left.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

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