I know this controversy was a few years ago, but the documentary The Rachel Divide came to Netflix and I have thoughts.
The documentary classily covers both sides. Rachel Dolezal is obviously a controversial figure, a white woman who identifies as a Black woman. But this story is more complicated than that. I didn't follow the controversy closely when it happened but the Rachel Divide exposed me to her reality in a way I could identify with. Having had a not-so-great childhood myself (given, probably not as bad as hers), I could see why someone in her position would want to distance herself, her entire self, from everything her parents represent. Whiteness, apparently, chief among them.
I wondered why I didn't do something drastic like this. I felt unloved by my parents, I distanced myself from things I felt represented them, and I tried to find a movement for empowerment. Instead of focusing on race, I focused on Catholicism, conservative political beliefs, and feminism, respectively. I support the movement for Black lives and Black empowerment, but I've always recognized that I'm not Black and that struggle is not (necessarily) my struggle (though, no one is free when one is oppressed).
I do find the comparisons between "transblack" and transgender incredibly problematic. First, it's important that I clarify: I don't believe in the concept of "transblack." But the way people were trying to discredit Rachel Dolezal by saying that she could never be Black because she was raised white is definitely not the way to go about it. While there is a problem with the comparisons between these concepts, the comparison exists. Saying, "You can't be Black because you didn't struggle as a Black person growing up," is scarily similar to: "You can't be a woman because you didn't struggle as a woman growing up." This argument against "transblack" is the argument against transgender women among white feminists who are awful. I understand the urge to say she can't be Black because she can't understand the struggle in a real way. But her identifying as Black does not take anything away from Black peoples' identity. This controversy did harm the Black community in Spokane and maybe even generally, but she could never take away the Black person's identity and she can never change what it means to be Black.
There is an argument against the "transblack" identity that holds water, and might be the only argument. It's the only argument I can reason out, anyway.
Being able to be "transracial" is in itself white privilege and is therefore racist.
Rachel Dolezal is the epitome of white privilege. There are "passing" people of color, but it's the one drop rule, isn't it? In this culture, you could look white, feel white, live as a white person, but as soon as anyone finds that your great grandfather was Black, you become Black, too.
Yes, race is a social construct. Obviously. But this does not excuse her behavior. If we lived in a society where race really didn't matter, where institutional racism didn't exist, then maybe she could do what she's done. But we don't live in that society. Race is a primary factor for the oppression of non-white communities in the United States and elsewhere.
In short, Rachel Dolezal is pretty racist, but the documentary I think showed that she isn't meaning to be. It humanizes her. Which is in itself pretty complicated. No person is either all good or all bad, and it could be the combination of those two sides that make us who we are (thank you Star Trek), and humanizing a person isn't the problem. The problem could be when the humanization crosses over into explaining her behavior away. If not for the last scene, I would say this documentary was in danger of doing that. Thank goodness for the last scene, then.
