If I could create a board game, it would be filled with impossible contradictions that no one could explain. I would call this game, “Why Is That?” because the question would be rhetorical. Let me give you an example:
Three names: Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, and Rachel Dolezal. All were raised in and with white privilege while none of these individuals are American Descendants of [Chattel] Slavery (ADOS), yet all act to visually claim the title.
Kamala Harris is the daughter of a cancer researcher and a prominent economist. She was raised in one of the wealthiest enclaves of Montreal if not all of Canada. Her father’s Jamaican birthright, becoming an AKA and graduating from Howard made her Black or as close to ADOS as her sponsors needed her to be.
Barack Obama was the son of a Caucasian American micro-loan facilitator and a Black Kenyan senior government economist. While Obama may be considered African or Kenyan American, his wife and daughters, due to Michelle’s lineage, are ADOS; he is not. Yet he personifies the illusion that he is ADOS.
Rachel Dolezal is a Caucasian woman with Caucasian parents who choose to pass as Black. She graduated summa cum laude from Howard University, married an ADOS man, had a son with him and was also the president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP. This however did not make her ADOS or even Black in the eyes of Blacks and Whites.
Why is that? Why do people tolerate the contradiction?
None of these three individuals are American Descendants of Slavery yet all three are visually posing as such. All are essentially relying on the public’s perception of color instead of fully understanding the ADOS claim to lineage which begins with acknowledging, then repairing and paying for the harms of slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, and police violence. All three individuals bypass lineage in order to be perceived as ADOS.
Harris and Obama are celebrated as “Black” though both refuse reparations for Blacks and prefer to fund immigrant causes over reparations to ADOS. Dolezal however was vilified for choosing to pass as ADOS when she grew up in white privilege. How is it that Harris and Obama’s version of ADOS is more acceptable? Is it because Obama married into it? So did Rachel. Is it because Harris graduated from Howard? So did Rachel. Why the different treatment?
This contradiction in race-grabbing needs to be examined because when white people get vilified for passing as ADOS, we begin to see the true madness that is white supremacy. Forget discrimination, let’s talk about lineage deniers because ultimately all three provide a bypass when only reparations to ADOS closes the racial wealth gap. Which leads me to ask:
Why is that?