One's racial identity is not a qualifying criteria or disqualifying standard for NAACP leadership. The NAACP Alaska-Oregon-Washington State Conference stands behind Ms. Dolezal's advocacy record.

Confusion reigns though; her planned address on the subject has been postponed.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson

I hope they don't out me ... I think the Chinese stereotype of an American professor is a white American, and if I get outed as having an African heart, I don't know what that will do with my longevity as a laowei professor.

It may not be surprising, given the population diversity in Africa, but I remember most of the African students in both the US and in Australia as being more relaxed about African "ethnicity". I remember the Algerian student who would yell to my Congolese wife (then girl-friend) "Hello, African!" across the married and graduate student housing complex, in French, and she would yell back, in French, "Hello, African!".


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

According to reports, and accompanying photos, as part of her alleged fraud, Dolezal tanned her skin and braided her hair. So in other words she's like a zillion white female celebrities. Jennifer Aniston recently noted in an interview that she needed a tanning "intervention" to let go of her obsession with darkening herself. She is far from alone in Hollywood where spray tans have become as ubiquitous on red carpets as spanx.

As for the braid craze, celebs like Christina Aguilera, Paris Hilton, Gwen Stefani, and Fergie have all rocked them. Doing so got them noticed for being cool or edgy. Yet they still can't hold a candle to the most famous cornrow wearer of all-time: Bo Derek. The image of Derek sporting blonde cornrows is one of the most iconic and recognizable in Hollywood history. Meanwhile, black women have been sporting cornrows forever.

And therein lies the rub, as they say. Consistently when white women, particularly famous ones, adopt a beauty attribute predominantly seen in minority culture, all of sudden what was once seen as odd is suddenly seen as beautiful. Perhaps the most obvious modern day example is the rise of Kardashian Inc. or rather the rise of the Kardashian derriere.

• None selected
  
• White (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  
• Hispanic or Latino
  
• Black or African-American (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  
• American Indian or Alaska Native (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  
• Asian (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  
• Two or More Races (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  
• Native Hawaian or Other Pacific Islanders (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  
• Choose not to disclose

The concept of intersectionalism has been turned upon its head. If you take the current identity politics to their logical conclusion they become reactionary. I think that this mess that we have created is only going to get worse. We should back away from it to the old position of tolerance for individuals/ criticism of structures. Instead of dividing ourselves in smaller and smaller parts we should at least try to make mass movements again.

Obama, who is semantically clearly African American, doesn't belong to the ethnic group.

I have close friends who are "African Americans", immigrants from West Africa with US citizenship, and they don't either (which can lead to some strange situations, more with blacks than with whites).

Their children, one born in France, one in the US, are an interesting case. I'm guessing they're not, but could easily fake it if they wanted to (They had the luck to grow up in middle-class suburban North Carolina. Is there a "better" place in the US with respect to "race"?)

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

That being said, I note that her case is being treated quite differently than many whites who identify as black. for instance, there's Shuggie Otis (wrote the song hand-jive). He says he's black, but he doesn't at all hide the fact that his parents are white.

Maybe that's the difference?

here's an elephant in the room. There's always one in the room with Marianne Jean-Baptiste. That same old elephant; where have you been all these years? Actually, the answer is simple. The actress, Oscar-nominated for her quietly heart-breaking Hortense in Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies, has been living in Los Angeles, working away (notably as an FBI agent in the long-running television series Without a Trace, and bit parts in movies), bringing up her family, living the good life. It's the question that is more delicate - why did she leave in the first place?

(...) The thing is, she says, she doesn't want to be portrayed as a victim because she isn't one. "It's not this sob story. I had a choice. I could have stayed and fought it out, but I thought you know what, this is madness, it's like fishing in a river and seeing people grabbing fishes upstream and you're still down there going, `This is where I need to be, this is my spot.' You fucking walk up stream and you catch your fish. I'm a member of the African diaspora, my parents left the Caribbean and came to London for a better life. We moved. And you print that, with the expletives."

Caribbean British Oscar-nominated Cannes winner left Britain for LA. Interesting interview.

Sam White: Dear white people, the minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised to two. Sorry, but your weed man, Tyrone, does not count.

Dear White People (2014) - Quotes - IMDb

Gabe: So, Sam, how would you feel if someone started a "Dear Black People"?

Sam White: No need. Mass media from Fox News to reality TV on VH1 makes it clear what white people think of us.

Lightweight but charming film.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

And for once a book of poetry and prose poems makes a significant impact on the American psyche.

A Harvard study led some Chinese people to declare they were "black and proud."

The study made headlines all over the world. Researchers at Harvard, led by Dr Alexandra Kimball, found that a lucky few people have a genetic makeup which protects their skin and can make them look years younger than their actual age. Although the research went beyond skin colour, one interesting side note of the study, not yet published but just presented at the World Congress of Dermatology in Canada, is that black people are twice as likely as white people to have the genetic combination for youthful skin.

The study prompted discussion across social media. But, perhaps surprisingly to outsiders, it seemed to strike the strongest chord in China - because of the fact that pale skin has been traditionally associated with beauty.

Police are searching for a gunman who opened fire Wednesday night at a historic African American church in downtown Charleston, S.C. Charleston officials said nine people were killed and others were injured.

"I do believe this is a hate crime," Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said at a late night news conference, without explaining the basis for his conclusion.

Police said the victims had gathered Wednesday night in the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston for a prayer service when the shooting occurred. Police are now searching for the gunman, described as a clean-shaven white male in his early 20s, who has sandy blond hair and a small build. Police said he was wearing a gray sweatshirt, blue jeans and Timberland boots. He is believe to be the only shooter.

Edwards was one of 60,000 enlisted men enrolled in a once-secret government program -- formally declassified in 1993 -- to test mustard gas and other chemical agents on American troops. But there was a specific reason he was chosen: Edwards is African-American.

"They said we were being tested to see what effect these gases would have on black skins," Edwards says [...]

According to declassified records and reports published soon after, three types of experiments were done: Patch tests, where liquid mustard gas was applied directly onto test subjects' skin; field tests, where subjects were exposed to gas outdoors in simulated combat settings; and chamber tests, where men were locked inside gas chambers while mustard gas was piped inside.