WA - Civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal pretending to be black, parents say #2

[otto]

From the previous thread:



Because you are hung up on outmoded biological definitions of race, you miss the fact that racial problems of the U.S. are mirrored in countries all over the world. Muslims slaughter Christians in Sudan, French conservatives' hatred of French Muslims is on the rise, the English and Irish have a violent history in the British Isles, ditto the Japanese and Koreans, and even the Swedes denigrate their Finnish guest workers. Within Indonesia, to take your example, there is a history of friction between Chinese immigrants and native islanders (as well as the historical tension between the Dutch and the natives which you yourself note).

Unfortunately, xenophobia is an all too common human impulse and, to her credit, Canada is a poor model for what is the norm in other countries.

Anthropology is not a fad.

 

[otto]

Exactly. Your source is from 1992. The Human Genome Project wasn't complete until 2001. (I was raised on the old 3-race classification system, too, but the collection of DNA from people all over the world was a watershed event in the history of anthropology.)

In this very room you may find a thread on the "Kennewick Man", a 9,000-year-old North American skeleton that anthropologists were SURE was Polynesian because of the shape of its skull. The DNA results came back recently and--oops!--Kennewick Man is genetically indistinguishable from modern Native Americans. It turns out skull shape isn't as reliable an indicator as it was once thought to be.

That's why SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN says anthropologists have reached a "consensus" that race is not statistically significant as a biological factor, and the concept of biological "race" should be abolished. Biological race was always a product of socially constructed prejudices; so-called "biological" indicia of race were used primarily (though not by you or me or otto, I'm sure) to support previously existing racial prejudices.

I understand that a forensic scientist may say that a certain sort of skull (or nose or knee cap or hair) is more likely to be associated with a certain skin color, but it is no more than a moderately educated guess.

In this paper, published 2011, we see that anthropology continues to distinguish race based on biological constructs:

http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1137&context=totem

 

[otto]

Anthropology and perspective:

http://www.academia.edu/831938/The_concept_of_race_in_anthropology

 

[ZaZara]

I wrote that the problems (i.e., the strife between groups) were mirrored, not that the groups themselves were perfectly equivalent. French Muslims are largely Algerians, however, so the conflict might be seen as historically European v. historically African. It is a colonial legacy as are racial problems in the U.S. In fact, I'd say that in most places with a history of religious conflict, each denomination is upheld by an ethnic group that defines itself in terms of worship.

E.g., Serbs and Croats considered themselves different nationalities even when they were all Yugoslavs, but they share a common language and origin. Where they differ is in religion (respectively, Russian Orthodox v. Roman Catholic) and, to a lesser extent, economic class (professional v. working).

My point wasn't so much about constructs of race in general, but that every group tends to define itself as "better than" some other group. Homophobia works in a similar fashion even when it is entirely detached from racial characteristics.

I hope this helps. Sorry my examples weren't clearer.

Respectfully disagree.

Yugoslavia was a country that existed in several territorial and political constellations during a part of the twentieth century. A construction imposed on various groups. Serbs and Croats existed both before and after 'Yugoslavia'.

Mayority of French muslims are of Maghrebi origin. There is very little colonial legacy in the actual problems that France experiences with islamism. Other European countries (that do not have France's history) experience the same problems.


Back to topic:

African Americans might all become French conservatives and identify as such but this would not imply a change in race.
If RD were to become a French conservative of African American descent, she would still need spray tan and hair weavings no matter what American anthropologists claim.

 

[Donjeta]

I found this interesting.
http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/race-revival/

But after fifty years of teaching about race, the message still does not register. In part this is because of internal problems. The first problem is that the phrasing of social construction, makes it sound like anthropologists claim people are all biologically the same (for related issues, see Gender is a Social Construction). That is not true: Human biological variation is real and important, and anthropologists know it. It is simply not usefully grouped according to traditional races. The second problem is the separation of the social from the biological–we have not made it clear how the social world has biological implications. That U.S. black infant mortality is more than twice white infant mortality has certainly much more to do with social conditions than biology, but obviously mortality is a biological effect (see the section on Race Becomes Biology). The third problem has been the popularity of forensic anthropology, which seems able to identify race from bones. It is not always apparent how race identification is a probabilistic guess about social categories, not an absolute measure deduced from bones. (See the next section on Race Reconciled Re-Debunks Race for extensive discussion.)

http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/race-reconciled-debunks-race/

Race is a categorization at the sub-species level. Everyone has long agreed that human beings are a single inter-breeding species, and have been for thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of years. To sort a species into sub-species, it is necessary to have biological variation AND a way to group that variation. We have biological variation. The problem comes in establishing the ways variation clumps, groups, or sorts into subsets. We can try this in terms of skin color or skull characteristics, bone measurements, and genetic variation.
Race Reconciled: Skin Color and Skulls

Most people in the U.S. think they use skin color to classify races. U.S. categories relate to skin color, but not exactly. If it was actually about skin color, racial classifications would look more like Brazil, with lots of different terms and gradations. If it were about skin color, then people might change race classification over the years, or children from the same parents could be classified as different races.

Just from a purely genetic point of view, it is IMO self evident that the race categories that have been used in the USA are never going to neatly correspond with DNA and biological markers so that everyone neatly fits into some slot. The one-drop rule would historically have meant that a person could have been grouped as black and identified with the culture even if most of their DNA was from white ancestors. And with all the blending and intermarriages between various other groups that migrated many people could identify with whatever culture they most closely grew up in, unaware that their DNA has many other sources too.

Anyway, if we go far enough back in time we will find somebody who we're all descended from. It's a mathematical necessity because we have an exponentially growing number of ancestors when we go back in time, but the human population was much smaller when we go back in time.

Someone estimated that the most recent common ancestor could have been 3000 years ago.

http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/CommonAncestors/NatureAncestorsPressRelease.html

Not to be confused with Mitochondrial Eve who is the matrilineal common ancestor of all living humans - she is estimated to have lived about 100 000-200 000 years ago, somewhere in Africa, or Y-chromosomal Adam who is the patrilineal common ancestor of all of us (there's a wider range of year estimates).

Then there's this mindbender that should go a long way towards eradicating racism :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point

In genetic genealogy, the identical ancestors point (IAP) is that last point in a given population's past where each individual then alive turned out to be either the ancestor of every individual alive now or to have no currently living descendants. This point lies further in the past than the population's most recent common ancestor (MRCA).

The identical ancestors point for *advertiser censored* sapiens has been mathematically estimated to have been between 15,000 and 5,000 years ago.

 

[gitana1]

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...tes-tried-kill-three-times.html#ixzz3dftRWm8S
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

JMO but the "of course" sounds like she is a bit of a racist. Of course white people are going to try to murder you if you're black and in high places.

Three racist murder attempts against a single Marine officer would be pretty big news I think

So her dad slapped a cop to his knees, didn't get shot but was able t go home, gather his family, and flee on a "midnight train". (So romantic sounding).

An how could anyone believe a military commander would have repeated attempts on his life in the military, just because of his skin, and no one knows about it? She acts like that's a regular thing in the military (which it is not).

Her tall tales are wild. THIS is what I'd like to see reporters quiz her about. Read her back her quote and then ask specifics. I would not let her get away with this crazy stuff.

 

[Donjeta]

In this paper, published 2011, we see that anthropology continues to distinguish race based on biological constructs:

http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1137&context=totem

I think it looks like it was reprinted in 2011, the citation says 2000.

 

[jjenny]

She'd said the most outrageous things and for years nobody called her on them.

 

[Donjeta]

So her dad slapped a cop to his knees, didn't get shot but was able t go home, gather his family, and flee on a "midnight train". (So romantic sounding).

An how could anyone believe a military commander would have repeated attempts on his life in the military, just because of his skin, and no one knows about it? She acts like that's a regular thing (which it is not).

Her tall tales are wild. THIS is what I'd like to see reporters quiz her about. Read her back her quote and then ask specifics. I would not let her get away with this crazy stuff.

The DM link has the audio in a video and it was supposedly her grandfather who got into a fight with a white cop, her father was supposedly five years old at the time, 71 yrs ago.

 

[Hope4More]

Did you find this claim in his book:

"Dolezal told a student journalist that “Jesus Christ” was listed as the witness on her birth certificate. Jesus is not. Her brother Joshua, however, makes the same claim about his birth certificate in his memoir."

http://m.inlander.com/Bloglander/ar...c-statements-from-rachel-dolezal-and-counting

Yes, Joshua did make that claim in his memoir. And it might be true for both siblings....original birth certificates do differ from official copies that can be obtained from government sources.

It's also possible that RD and Joshua are referring to a non-official certificate or paper the parents created themselves. For example, I gave birth to my son in a birthing center, not a hospital. The birthing center created a certificate, with my baby's footprint, but it was a souvenier of sorts, not a legal document.

We were legally obligated to report his birth to city government within 48 hours so they could record his birth and create a birth certificate. We didn't have a copy of our son's legal birth certificate for years, until we needed it for kindergarten immunizations or a passport...can't remember which.

 

[gitana1]

Exactly. Your source is from 1992. The Human Genome Project wasn't complete until 2001. (I was raised on the old 3-race classification system, too, but the collection of DNA from people all over the world was a watershed event in the history of anthropology.)

In this very room you may find a thread on the "Kennewick Man", a 9,000-year-old North American skeleton that anthropologists were SURE was Polynesian because of the shape of its skull. The DNA results came back recently and--oops!--Kennewick Man is genetically indistinguishable from modern Native Americans. It turns out skull shape isn't as reliable an indicator as it was once thought to be.

That's why SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN says anthropologists have reached a "consensus" that race is not statistically significant as a biological factor, and the concept of biological "race" should be abolished. Biological race was always a product of socially constructed prejudices; so-called "biological" indicia of race were used primarily (though not by you or me or otto, I'm sure) to support previously existing racial prejudices.

I understand that a forensic scientist may say that a certain sort of skull (or nose or knee cap or hair) is more likely to be associated with a certain skin color, but it is no more than a moderately educated guess.

Well, I disagree. It's much more than an educated guess. Forensic anthropology continues to use racial categories, although with much more sensitivity and long-winded explanations and justifications: http://www.academia.edu/831938/The_concept_of_race_in_anthropology

The bottom line is that today, in 2015, anthropologists are able to determine by a reasonable certainty whether a skeleton comes from a person with biological roots in Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean, the North America, South America, Polynesia, Europe, etc. : "Further, our results show that humans can be accurately classified into geographic origin using craniometrics even though there is overlap among groups." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19226647

Right here on websleuths, in the unidentified section, we see that daily.

But it is a sensitive subject and anthropologists seem almost ashamed that this is a reality and also include preambles about social race, and sharing 99% of our DNA with each other, and how it's all a construct, before, eventually, admitting their are biological differences evident in skeletal structures: http://www.forensic-medecine.info/forensic-anthropology.html
http://observationdeck.kinja.com/ancestry-race-and-forensic-anthropology-1555724037

Look, there exist "racial" differences. Otherwise everyone would be able to contract Tay Sachs Syndrome or Sickle Cell Anemia. And Asians and Native Americans wouldn't have different ear wax than Europeans and Africans: https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/gory-details/what-your-earwax-says-about-your-ancestry

But our similarities as humans are vastly greater than what amount to miniscule differences, in the grand scheme of things. So while science knows these differences exist, academia is conflicted (racial constructs versus biologic ancestry, etc.) and frightened of contradicting the advances we've made in understanding social constructs, or of giving fuel to racists who think minute, biologic differences impact intelligence, behavior, ability or potential, which they unequivocally do not.

 

[Donjeta]

I think this is relevant to the Kennewick man:
http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/race-reconciled-debunks-race/

The second article, Estimation and evidence in forensic anthropology: Sex and race does not have a provocative title, but is perhaps an even more incredible piece. The authors begin with sex identification, showing how sex is reliably estimated from a few craniometric variables, and how a prior identification of a roughly 1:1 sex ratio is unimportant for making the call.

Things change when it comes to racial identification. Here, they take a set of bones from “Mr. Johnson” and compare them to a world database: “The results from these analyses fairly unambiguously estimate Mr. Johnson’s origin as an Easter Islander” (Konigsberg et al. 2009:81). However, since Mr. Johnson’s bones were found in Iowa, plugging in the Iowa probabilities allows Mr. Johnson to be reliably predicted as white. Forensic anthropologists base their estimates on the known prior composition of the population. If the same bones from Mr. Johnson had been found in Hawaii, they would have estimated “Easter Islander” or if found in Gary, Indiana, they would have estimated “American Black”:

Using the Iowa priors, the highest posterior probability is for “American White” at 0.6976. The identification of “Easter Islander,” which had the highest posterior when we used an uninformative prior, now has a relatively low posterior probability (0.0449). In contrast, using the Hawaii priors the posterior probability that “Mr. Johnson” was an “Easter Islander” is 0.9068, whereas the posterior probability that he was an “American White” was 0.0188. Using the Gary, Indiana prior the highest posterior probability (0.5342) was for “American Black” with “American White” having the second highest posterior probability (0.2728). (Konigsberg et al. 2009:82)

JMO and I'm no anthropologist but based on the census of the population at the time, the pre-test probability that the Kennewick man was a Native American was probably pretty damn high and the likelihood that he was Polynesian was quite negligible so it would have raised the odds that the skull measurements were explained by internal variability within the Native American population. Any chance someone just said it looked Polynesian and deliberately ignored the NA possibilities because they wanted to go on examining it and not give it back to the tribes for burial?

 

[Hope4More]

Exodus, great migration, deep south, midnight train... I've never known anyone who talked like this. It still blows me away she fooled so many people.

Actually, historians talk like that. . "Great migration" is the precise term used to describe what happened between 1910 or so until the late 1960's, when up to 6 million blacks left for the North from the deep and not so deep South.

They left by all manner of regular transportation, though, not " midnight trains," and the vast majority left for economic opportunity (beginning with jobs for blacks as well as whites opening up related to WW I) as well as the escape from harsh Jim Crow laws/racism those opportunities afforded them.

What's interesting to me is the glimpse into RD's lies- on- the-fly her language suggests.

Sounds like she may have reached into her wee satchel of black history and pulled out terms to cloak her lie in a story that sounded grand, rather than telling the more drab and possibly off-putting story of one black man assaulting a cop and fleeing.

(I have graduate degrees in American history, am very familiar with that time period, and speak that language, a perfectly appropriate language, at least when used for constructive purposes.

 

[K_Z]

(Stick with me, because I'm actually going to connect this longish and semi-OT post to Rachel Dolezal, lol!)

Very interesting, the discussion about race and anthropology. My point in posting the article in post #15 is that there are (at least) two common and valid approaches to the “use” of anthropometric measurements in determinants of race. The first is a historical examination of the entire human race over thousands of years—physical anthropology, that examines bones that may be thousands of years old.

A second use of anthropometric measurements is in modern forensic anthropology—the identification of a biological profile from an unknown deceased individual for the purpose of attempting to identify a missing person. It is essential to establish age, gender, and race as a basis for attempting to match the skeletal remains to a person who is missing. They can also determine height, and other issues such as uneven wearing of joints that might indicate the person had a limp or mobility difficulty, for example. Or that the person suffered from a genetic condition that affected the shape of the bones, such as Marfan’s Syndrome or Neurofibromatosis.

Forensic anthropology is not concerned with racism or oppression, or social justice, or socioeconomic class, or the finer points of the DNA genome in population migrations—forensic anthropology uses skeletal variations that are well-described in databases of thousands upon thousands of individuals, for the purpose of identifying a missing person. One of the parts of the identification process is race. A forensic anthropologist will know where a skeleton was found, and under what circumstances—which add to the early profile of who the unknown person may be.

It’s a denial of science to insist that there are no morphological differences among us that allow race and ethnicity to be determined. The bigger issue is what is the scientific or social purpose of measuring and using these morphological differences (as Donjeta and gitana1 noted). Forensic anthropology isn't using race to "exclude" someone from some social gain, right, or entitlement. And using anthropometric measurements as an objective measure of the race of a missing person who has become skeletonized, for the purpose of identification of the unknown person, is a worthy pursuit, indeed.

Also, establishing the race/ ethnicity of individuals, for example, found in mass graves, can lead to understanding of the social and political situation that may have lead to mass killings.
So simply establishing the race/ ethnicity of human beings is not in and of itself, an “evil thing” that is calculated to further divide us as a human species.

To tie all this back to the topic of the thread, Rachel Dolezal (lol-- see? I promised!), she is unquestionably a Caucasian person, and her anthropometric measurements would almost certainly cause a forensic anthropologist/ pathologist to identify her skeleton as such. That’s the really interesting and sad thing here—if Rachel Dolezal were to have gone missing, she might have been variously listed as a missing black woman, or a missing mixed race woman, because of her deception/ fraud. That could affect the biological profile that would be assumed for her in a missing person investigation. She has living biological relatives who could be used to establish a DNA link if she were to go missing, but something like a report of a missing black woman could certainly skew an investigation in the wrong direction, and cause confusion in the early stages of identification.

Imagine the confusion in an Amber Alert situation, also—is the public looking for a Caucasian 5 year old girl, or a black 8 year old boy, or a 2 year old Asian toddler, or a bi-racial 4 year old girl with light skin and very curly hair? Objective descriptions of people’s unique and personal characteristics are essential in a lot of circumstances, and I find it hard to understand why that is mildly offensive or irritating to some folks when those personal characteristics are categorized as “race”.

Perhaps in another couple of thousand years, as people of all different races/ ethnicities reproduce across ethnic “categories”, our skeletal characteristics will become more blurred and indefinable as to race and ethnicity. It is likely that all humans will eventually be persons of color in a few thousand more years. Interesting to contemplate! But will the concept of race and ethnicity ever disappear from the human story? None of us know, but my bet is that there will always be social and academic/ scientific efforts to “sort and identify” humans into groups based on their natural appearance—skin color, eye color, hair color and texture, etc. JMO.

 

[otto]

(Stick with me, because I'm actually going to connect this longish and semi-OT post to Rachel Dolezal, lol!)

Very interesting, the discussion about race and anthropology. My point in posting the article in post #15 is that there are (at least) two common and valid approaches to the “use” of anthropometric measurements in determinants of race. The first is a historical examination of the entire human race over thousands of years—physical anthropology, that examines bones that may be thousands of years old.

<respectfully snipped for space>

Nicely put!

Anyone who is curious about the results of inter-racial reproduction (all three races) over several generations should visit Cuba. It is a living example.

Speaking of anthropometry, this is the source for NA standards: http://www.amazon.com/Humanscale-1-2-Niels-Diffrient/dp/0262040425
The data was collected through the US military.

 

[RickshawFan]

Anthropology is not a fad.

Thanks, Otto, for saying this. I am disappointed by some of the vehemence and splitting of hairs in this discussion. The characterization of race relations in other countries and cultures is misleading IMO, as well. Race relations in the US are not at all mirrored in race relations anywhere else.

IMO, the slaughter of black church-goers in Charleston is a much more valuable example for discussion of race relations than a fraud by a white woman who perpetrates fraud in many aspects of her life and not just when it comes to race. In RD's case, we're talking about someone who is multi-mendacious and not transracial.

 

[Nova]

Anthropology is not a fad.

Nobody said it was. But scientific understanding changes as new knowledge arises. DNA testing has forced a re-evaluation of racial classification.

And this is not the first time. Though our generation learned the 3-race system (black, white, yellow), many of our grandparents were taught a 5-race system (black, white, yellow, red and brown). (Red referred to Native Americans and brown referred to Indians, Polynesians and Middle-Easterners.)

 

[DEPUTYDAWG]

Gee, I don't know whether this will cause more drama, LOL...but here she is in 2012, reasoning that the old white guys on our currency are just a reminder of who is really in charge.

I'm a 50+ female...I have never lost sleep, or even pondered the subtle sexism symbols on our currency, and felt it was a slight to me that old white guys were on my currency. I'd be glad to take a lot more of them if given the chance And, it's MOO that we have far more critical and urgent needs in our country than spending goodness knows how much $$$ revising our current currency.


http://www.*********.com/big-govern...-2012-video-get-older-white-men-off-currency/

LOL, WS doesn't like b r e i tbart

 

[Nova]

In this paper, published 2011, we see that anthropology continues to distinguish race based on biological constructs:

http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1137&context=totem

It heips to read your own link. Blumenfeld begins by confirming what I've said all along: the American Association of Physical Anthropology published a statement in 1996 saying that race as a biological category does not exist. That is the consensus. She even points out that the concept of humankind being divided into races didn't arise in the West until the Renaissance, and she explains why. Previously it was merely thought that humans presented a spectrum of physical appearances.

She goes on to concede that race is socially constructed and that individual biological characteristics of a corpse do not necessarily conform to a racial identity that would have been perceived when the individual was alive. She's agreeing that "race" is basically an artificial stereotype and that when an anthropologist uses the old terminology, he or she is only describing the bone in question and not opining as to the individual's real-life identity.

In other words, a skeleton with a broad nose and a reduced chin may be said to possess "Negroid" characteristics, but that is not proof the person was perceived as black or identified as black when alive. (And how many white people do we know with so-called "weak" chins?) The characteristics may be factors in identifying the individual, but they tell us little to nothing about that individual's "race".

The nine victims in Charleston were chosen because they possessed two factors ((1) skin color and (2) membership in a traditionally African-American church) that fit Roof's stereotype of black people. They were killed because Roof also associated factors such as social privilege(!), criminal tendency and hypersexuality with blackness.

And that ought to be reason enough for us to work toward giving up the illusion of race. I say "work toward" because however inaccurately from a biological standpoint, we have assigned race as a social category to everyone and those assignments have consequences, some of which need to be addressed.

 

[otto]

Gee, I don't know whether this will cause more drama, LOL...but here she is in 2012, reasoning that the old white guys on our currency are just a reminder of who is really in charge.

I'm a 50+ female...I have never lost sleep, or even pondered the subtle sexism symbols on our currency, and felt it was a slight to me that old white guys were on my currency. I'd be glad to take a lot more of them if given the chance And, it's MOO that we have far more critical and urgent needs in our country than spending goodness knows how much $$$ revising our current currency.

Is she suggesting that Obama should be on the money?

Try this link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...s-white-political-propaganda-in-online-video/

Someone should tell Rachel that it could be worse, she could have a foreign queen on her money!