How dare you say otherwise?
She may be a blue-eyed white devil to you, or a deranged liar to her brother and parents, but to Dolezal, inside, behind the skin bronzer and Soft Sheen, to that deepest truth that speaks to her inner Rachel, she's not white.
No way. She's black.
She identifies as black. So she's black.
That's how identity politics works, as crafted by the political left years ago, pounding an idea into Americans for decade upon decade:
If you say that you are something, then you are that something. Period.
And those who don't like it shall be denounced as intolerant, as living on the wrong side of history, or subject to stringent attitude readjustment.
Just as
"I definitely am not white," Dolezal, who resigned as president of an
She's not the first white person who has identified as black. She's also not the first black person denounced as white.
Ethnic politics, a part of identity politics, is filled with vulgar examples of candidates marginalized and ridiculed for daring to think independently.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking example of such political racism happened to a fellow I knew years ago.
He was publicly belittled as not black enough by black South Side Democrats in
The fellow was a "white man in blackface," state Sen. Donne Trotter was quoted as saying.
"He went to
Rush, the old Black Panther and
The poor guy lost that election and, humiliated, was forced to reach out to the political bosses and influence peddlers to make a comeback.
So just who was the candidate belittled by identity politics?
Naturally, I'm enjoying the heck out of the Dolezal drama because it's driving liberals (meaning just about everybody in American newsrooms) absolutely crazy.
There's a tinge of absurd Kardashianity to all this. And I don't think this reality show ends well.
It's bizarre, like
That should end badly, too.
In the meantime, Dolezal compels us to confront identity politics, the use of race, gender and ethnicity to herd individuals into voting tribes.
They vote collectively and are fed collectively by government and anything that threatens this arrangement is considered dangerous to the political infrastructure.
So Dolezal, the white woman who identifies as black, has become, for this summer at least, the Frankenstein monster of the political left.
It created her and now she's out of control, terrifying the poor villagers who don't yet know whether to run for the hills, hide in the primeval forests or storm the castle with torches and pitchforks.
Predictably, some liberals are clenching their fists and blaming the usual suspects, like
But the cable network of establishment
What complicates it is Dolezal's coming right after
Former decathlete
Jenner's plumbing and chromosomes remain male, but Jenner is now
For identifying as a woman even though remaining a male, Jenner was put on the cover of Vanity Fair and became a media darling.
Dolezal isn't treated with reverence, though she is arguably more black than Jenner is female.
She was praised for the same thing for which Dolezal is being vilified.
She identified.
Me? I feel pity for Jenner. I lament her pain. Her sexuality is her own, and no one else's business, certainly not mine or yours.
If Jenner was tortured by the expectations and prejudice of others, all I can feel about it is a sadness.
And I couldn't help but feel that some of the applause for Jenner's identification was theatrical, overdone, if not desperate.
Most folks, I imagine were sincere, I'm sure, but the breathless eagerness of some suggested they were determined not to be burned for heresy at the stake of mandatory tolerance.
"I cried," Dolezal told
Dolezal might be a decent person, or manipulative and cunning; a troubled and scarred black woman, or a lying narcissistic blue-eyed white devil. Or all the above.
But there's one thing we can agree that she's become:
Instructive.
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John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who also hosts a radio show on WLS-AM.