Monday Meditation

1. Should I weigh in on the Rachel Dolezal thing here? I guess I'm feeling bothered enough by it for it to have been the third or fourth topic that came to mind when I was wondering what to fill this post with.   
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3. (Disclaimer: Please ignore the 1, 2, 3 you just saw. I started this post out as a list of something else and now I can't for the life of me get rid of them and I'm too eh today to continue to bother. Also, if any of the following commentary sounds like mere speculation, it probably is. I don't have the time or patience to go back and source search, nor am I a journalist, so this just is what it is)
   
   See, my biggest problem with the whole scandal is: her parents are throwing her under the bus. They were asked if she was black and they said no, and they should have left it at that. But they didn't. They are giving interviews all over the place in which they're taking it even further and actually attacking their daughter's character, and consequently ruining her life. Yet, they have a biological son who was convicted of sexual abuse towards (it has been heavily implied) one of their adopted black children.
   
   What she did was wrong and misguided. It's being likened to black face, and being argued that her actions have set back racial equality. Well...I'm not taking it quite so personally. She set herself back, not an entire race. We minorities are still doing just as horrible or as well as we were doing before this story broke. The majority of spectators agree what Ms. Dolezal did was dumb. They aren't thinking what she did makes all white people dumb, or all black people dumb. This is just about her. We've all known people who take things too far - their diets, their anger, their drinking, their work, their need for attention... And remember all those weirdos who surprisingly started acting black when rap and hip hop went mainstream? Rachel Dolezal took her obsession too far. A step further, even, by bringing it into the workplace and letting it take over her personal life, instead of leaving it on the streets and in the night club. Although, the people she worked with and advocated for (and her parents, it seems) surely feel duped, maybe even dumb for specific reasons associated with their relationship with her. But the media and its consumers are giving her too much power. In my opinion, she isn't representative of anything but herself. And her family.
   
   As a Mexican woman, if I were in a predominantly Mexican organization and it turned out that my boss was lying about being Mexican, yes I'd feel confused and annoyed. I'd probably have some thoughts of "that's not right" and somehow "that's not fair." But that's as internalized as my feelings would get. My thoughts would then turn to, "wow, is she crazy?" and "What a shame. I wonder what happened in her life to make her want to be someone she's not?" I would not seethe over it, though, and demand justice. I think it's Ms. Dolezal who deserves justice for what her parents have done.
   
   But one of my brain flaws is that I'm too understanding. I read she is estranged from her parents because of the whole sexual abuse shit her brother did. I'm using my powers of deduction to deduce that the adopted brother of theirs who has been in her custody for years is the one the biological brother preyed on. Good for her for getting him out of there. Her parents would like us all to believe that Ms. Dolezal has made up these allegations against their son. I mean, she's obviously a pathological liar, so that should be easy for us. And if Twitter and Facebook comments are any indication, it has been easy. But claims of sexual abuse aren't something we should ever dismiss just because we don't like the person claiming them. Let's keep this debacle in focus.
   
   Her adopted siblings were black, her husband was black, her biological son is therefore black; she went to a black college. Maybe she found the black community to be more passionate and take-charge than the white community she was born into, a white community wherein her parents perhaps froze up in the face of sexual abuse allegations against their biological son. Maybe she felt oppressed growing up, for whatever personal and familial reasons, but could find no obviously-oppressed group of white people to identify with? Maybe she wanted to be part of something meaningful in a community where people and families seem to have eachother's backs?
   
   If she were to answer yes to any of these theories, I would nod my head and think "makes sense, then." I wouldn't say she shouldn't lose her job, though. People lose their jobs for lying about degrees and past work history and such. She lied entirely about who she was and reportedly made false claims about racism against her "black" self. Fire her, for sure. Pathological liars are no joke. I used to be best friends with one for years and years and it was exhausting and heartbreaking. But get her some help. And then get her parents to out their white son for being a sick, stupid fuck.