by Danny Haiphong
Rachel Dolezal’s long foray into a fake “Blackness” is viewed by some as an affirmation that race is a social construct that creates false categories of humans. However, the fact remains that “the power structure that rules these categories ensures conditions of exploitation and oppression for an entire class of people, from the womb to what is often an early tomb.” Dolezal’s deceit amounts to a “usurpation and imitation of Black womanhood.”
Dolezal Fakes Black Womanhood, Reveals Depth of White Supremacy in the US
by Danny Haiphong
“Dolezal used her performance of Blackness to take part in what all white supremacists wish to do at some level: eradicate the existence of Black people and at the same time gain from it.”
An NAACP president has dominated headlines recently, but not for her efforts with the organization. Reports have circulated widely that Spokane chapter president Rachel Dolezal masqueraded as a Black woman for most of her adult life until her parents unveiled her white origins behind the racial mask. Dolezal's entire life story is now in question, including her graduate degree from the historically Black Howard University. What makes this story most significant, however, is not the dishonesty of Dolezal or the peculiar nature of her actions. This story is important because it exposes the 21st century contours of white supremacy and raises important questions for the struggle against it.
As someone who has lived much of his life labeled a "mixed race" or "multiracial" person, Dolezal's mischief sheds light on the fallibility of the social construct discourse on white supremacy. This narrative is best known for its conclusion that racism is socially “constructed” and lacks a biological basis. Bourgeois universities consider social construction a breakthrough because it calls into question the "reality" of racial categories. However, as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz explains in her work, the Indigenous Peoples History of the United States, such a narrative erases the consequences of a nation rooted in the genocidal tendencies of settler colonialism and white minority, capitalist rule. Whiteness and Blackness may not have a physiological basis when detached from history, but the power structure that rules these categories ensures conditions of exploitation and oppression for an entire class of people, from the womb to what is often an early tomb.
“My experience with white supremacy’s machine of dehumanization didn’t allow me to ignore the severe and ruinous oppression it caused, especially for Black Americans.”
In my experience growing up, there was significant pressure exerted from white supremacy to either identify with whiteness or with my Vietnamese background. One held the key to the looted race-based privileges of imperialism and the other brought with it constant racist abuse from white America that hearkened back to the days when the US military dehumanized the people of Vietnam to justify war and plunder. However, to identify openly as Vietnamese in the US also meant experiencing this abuse while being bred to expect a life of comfort above that of Black America. These contradictions would often clash and produce a desire to just be white. But something held me back. My experience with white supremacy’s machine of dehumanization didn’t allow me to ignore the severe and ruinous oppression it caused, especially for Black Americans.
So when I came into contact with social construct theory in college, its inherent limitations were clear. For a person this theory deems "multiracial," I was told the primary recourse for struggling against racism was to "interrogate" an individual's particular racial privilege and oppression in order to gain a nuanced understanding of racism. However, what this theory did not explain to us mixed folk was that in the final analysis, white supremacy forces us to choose a side. We will either be pressured to conform and uphold the white supremacist, imperialist system, or we will find common cause with the "Wretched of the Earth" and fight for a new world. Dolezal's choice was a little easier, given that she was already white. Dolezal made a conscious choice to gain from her whiteness through the usurpation and imitation of Black womanhood. As Lowkey says in Dear England "the biggest looters are the British Museums." Dolezal used her performance of Blackness to take part in what all white supremacists wish to do at some level: eradicate the existence of Black people and at the same time gain from it.
“We will either be pressured to conform and uphold the white supremacist, imperialist system, or we will find common cause with the "Wretched of the Earth" and fight for a new world.”
Dolezal’s performance symbolizes the systematic erasure of Black women imposed by the ruling system. For millions of Black women in the US, existence means a struggle that no white woman can dress up for. It means being part of the fastest growing prison population in the largest prison state in the world. It means being super exploited and pushed out of a capitalist labor force that relied, and still relies, on Black women's bodies to brutally build the infrastructure of this Empire. It means facing the highest rates of evictions and school closures of any other oppressed group. It also means being murdered by the police and having no one show up in protest. But maybe most importantly, Black women in the US have consistently led the struggle for liberation against the forces of Empire from the very outset of their oppression on this continent and beyond.
Dolezal attempted to join the ranks of Black women by transforming her skin color and physical self to fit that of Black womanhood. But take another look and consider the popular social construct theory peddled in American universities. Dolezal's transformation will indicate to some that race is indeed a social construct, and that the mere performance of it can fundamentally change someone's life course. How else can one explain how Dolezal could attend Howard University and work for the NAACP despite having been born white? While it is true that Dolezal’s life would have been significantly different had she kept true to her whiteness, it is also true that her whiteness is the reason why she stood to gain from her elaborate form of Black face. Her very performance of Black womanhood indicates that the historical roots of white supremacy inside the citadel of imperialism are more than skin deep.
“Dolezal's transformation will indicate to some that race is indeed a social construct, and that the mere performance of it can fundamentally change someone's life course.”
To fully understand how Dolezal benefited from her transformation, one needs to be aware of the historical development of white supremacy over the life cycle of US capitalism. During the late 17th century, North Americas' English colonies faced both economic and political crisis born from early capitalism's reliance on the trade of tobacco. The first major crisis of overproduction in the continental colonies, as well as the global boom of the chattel slave trade following the Glorious Revolution, set the machinery of white supremacy into motion. London unleashed these forces by deregulating the Royal African Company, which brought large number of imported Africans to the shores of North America. Capitalist planters needed a system of rule that would maintain the lush profits of slave-driven capitalist development. White rule was the logical antidote.
White supremacist rule was fragile at first but gradually cemented itself in the years prior to its explosion in July, 1776. The newly born republic sought to preserve white supremacy through institutionalization. The founders built a system that was capable of enforcing the rule that if you were Black, you were not free (and in fact, 3/5’s of a person). The same went for indigenous peoples. White workers were endowed the privilege of representation and recognition of humanity from the capitalist class, even if one was poor. European workers became white Americans, a new buffer that protected the enslavement of Africans through their willing participation in slave patrols, night watches, and the general defense of the rights and privileges of whiteness. This allowed the trade of Africans to last almost another century and for white supremacy to continue into the present day.
“Dolezal's entire career posing as a Black woman opened a gateway for her into the Black Misleadership Class.”
Over two centuries of struggle has produced a new set of conditions, which provide the backdrop for Dolezal's existence. The Black liberation movement of the 1960's and 70's forced the Empire to create a stable Black class of collaborators comprised of politicians, corporate board members, and non-profit leaders. Black Agenda Report has named these collaborators the Black misleadership class. Dolezal's entire career posing as a Black woman opened a gateway for her into this class. She happened to be the (former) president of the NAACP, an organization that blindly supports the Democratic Party and receives scores of corporate funding from telecom companies such as Verizon. Dolezal's version of Black face landed her leadership in an organization that has offered zero challenge to Mass Black Incarceration, racist police murder, and the continued robbery of Black wealth at the hands of Wall Street.
Just as the Jim Crow period's version of Black face dehumanized Black people and inspired white Americans to protect the profits derived from Black labor in a post-slavery period, so too does Dolezal's elaborate form of Black face serve a similar purpose. Dolezal sought to identify as a Black woman not out of some moral quest to live the life of the majority of Black women in the US, but rather to gain a seat at the table of Empire. Reports that Dolezal sued Howard University on charges of discrimination reveal her true motivations. Dolezal is a rank opportunist who has been exposed for masses of people to see. However, the thrust of an insurgency against the likes of Dolezal must be directed at the institutions and systems that produced her. That means exposing and struggling for collective liberation from the forces of white supremacy, capitalism, and war wherever they manifest.
Danny Haiphong is an organizer for Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST) in Boston. He is also a regular contributor to Black Agenda Report. Danny can be reached at [email protected] and FIST can be reached at [email protected].
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