The Strange Case of Rachel Dolezal

It seems like all the  media is interested in these days is the fact that Rachel Dolezal said she is black and her parents disagreed. I first thought, who cares! If she wants to be black let her be black. After all, what is "being black"? Is there a genetic test that would settle the question and if so, so what!

It got me to thinking of  what really is meant by "race" in this country, especially after spending some time working and being a tourist in Brazil and marrying  into a Brazilian family. I grew up in Philadelphia where I was the only Jew and a friend named Vernon was the only black person in my elementary school. Vernon had had polio and had problems walking normally so I actually thought black people had trouble walking. Yes, I was a  real dickhead. I hate to say it but my grandparents were somewhat racist, as many old Russian  Jews were at that time. I suddenly realized that this was wrong and I spent more than a few hours arguing futilely with my grandparents and even with my Mother and Uncle. I finally decided to really spook my Mother by saying that I would never marry a Jew but would marry a black woman when I grew up. And then came the 60's with flower power and free love and the fight for civil rights. I did my share of marching for civil rights and against the Vietnam war, but most of my energy was spent in studying and deciding what I wanted to do research on for my life's work.

I spent a lot of time in Brazil at that time and  quickly learned that  Brazil had tremendous intermixture, due mainly to the fact that the Portuguese who colonized Brazil were the world's greatest fornicators. In fact more  than 50% of the population was considered "pardo" or "mixed  race" by the Census. And there are a multitude of Portuguese words for different "racial" mixtures - e.g. mulatto, mestizo, caboclo, etc. And the absence of Jim Crow segregation in Brazil also indicated the concept of race differed greatly  from that in the US. I thought that this was fantastic and showed that Brazil had no race problem as in the US. But I soon learned that most rich people in Brazil were white and most poor people were black. And that 4.8 million Africans were imported as slaves and that Brazil did not stop slavery until 1888. But race itself in Brazil in fact seems to be a Rachel-like decision. For example there were politicians who had very black skin color but who considered  themselves white. In the US of course this type of cultural decision is difficult due to our fossilized racism.

Being a scientist, I decided to do some literature research and learn what was really known about race. I quickly learned that the very concept of race is not understood and not defined. Pigliucci has proposed that human races are actually geographical "ecotypes" not genotypes. And most scientists believe that this meaning of race is very different from the usual meaning of folk races. In fact studies of genetic variation provided no evidence for the existence of  genetic subspecies in modern humans that could correspond to separate white, African American, East Asian and Hispanic populations.

 So there we are, as confused as when we started. I personally conclude that believing you are black means that you are for all  intents and purposes black.I think we should admire and even honor Rachel for her courage and convictions. So more power to Rachel and may she long be black.