Rachel Dolezal: Columbusing Blackness

For a few weeks now, I’ve been trying to write something about the colonizer mentality (aka ytppul ytppuling) but the words have been slow to come. The idea remained unclear until Rachel Dolezal’s latest interview with Ijeoma Oluo appeared in The Stranger. (here) Suddenly, it all came together because Rachel being Rachel, her offerings opened new mental vistas for me. Rachel, I thank you.

When I write in strong terms about the 'performance of Whiteness' in (mostly, but not exclusively) American society, I do so knowing that I have White friends who may take offense at my generalization. I understand the offense you take but I cannot apologize for it. I’m drawing a conclusion from the evidence left by hundreds of years of behavior by millions of people. I don’t even know if it’s a generalization per se or just the drawing the obvious conclusions.

The inclination towards supremacy, towards reaping where one has not planted, is what I refer to as ytppul ytppuling (YY) or the colonizer mindset. YY is Whiteness moving in the world in the way it best knows how: taking the path of least resistance, typically right through someone else's most sacred of spaces, directly to its destination. Like marauding ants through your vegetable patch, yytppuling steals your blooms, your leaves, and ultimately, your entire garden. Call it the colonizer mindset at work if that language makes you more comfortable, same difference really.

YtppuI ytppuling is, to my mind, the perfect explanation for the phenomenon that is Rachel Dolezal. I hadn’t intended ever to speak on her, but she’s come back again, this time with a new book, justisplainin’ her Columbusing of Blackness. She wandered barefoot and unwelcome, with her braids, her tan and her new African name, right into the middle of my crisis of trying to explain ytppul ytppuling, essentially offering herself as a living visual aid. Thanks. I think.

Dolezal is a helluva character. My belief is that she has read just enough history to understand and appreciate the triumphs of Blackness, and out of an abundance of admiration, and perhaps a surfeit of jealousy, she has decided that she wants to be Black. Hey, I get it. I wanna be Black too…..oh wait.

I wish I could say that I sympathize with Dolezal but in truth, I don't.

Rachel is the worst kind of fraudulent operator to me. She is not Black. This is not up for debate to my mind. She. Is. Not. Black. What she is, is a thief. She has co-opted Blackness for its apparent (cultural) benefits and sexy cool points, while wholly sidestepping its social, economic, and legal burdens. Worse still, she traffics in within-race colorism on the sly. She knows enough to understand that if folk think she’s Black, she’ll receive the deferential treatment that Black folk often mete out to light skinned women of color. She’s been known to talk about colorism, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that she meant to tap into Black people's own strain of anti-Blackness. She may wanna be Black but she ain’t wanna be no midnight Black. Nuh uh, she wanna be Becky with the good hair!

And when she experiences disapprobation and rejection – not on account of being Black but rather on account of the obscenity of her actions – she turns around and claims discrimination. Jumping Jehoshapat, where to start?

Worse still than the absolute asshattery of her explanations of her Blackness, her position creates a universe wherein Blackness isn't real; it's just some accessory that one can don or doff at will. Or at least, she can. Black folk can’t take theirs off but that is of no consequence.

This whole episode is just more Darth Becky on steroids shit - White privilege, White cultural appropriation, ytppul ytppuling (aka colonizer mindset) bull shiggety: #ColonizerMindsetHardAtWork. 

TheRoot.com: Three Darth Beckys all in a row

Rachel, from her clearly superior colonizer perspective, can decide to be Black and affect the pose; she can claim the benefits while escaping the challenges. As a White woman, she demanded inclusion (suing Howard University for exclusion on the grounds of race) and then when that failed, she masqueraded her way into inclusion. And she could do it all with a straight face, because whyever not?

In every way, Rachel’s story is the colonizer story: “Mine eye doth perceive it, mine heart doth want it, I therefore must have it.” Rachel wants Blackness and voilà, it is hers. The colonizer does whatever he/she must to have whatever her greedy little heart desires because it is all hers for the taking. She needs no permission and Lawd knows she will not tolerate your challenges to her logic, her excuses or her justisplanations!!

Darth Becky can center her White self even in the universe of Blackness because Whiteness is the center of the known universe. The world is Becky’s oyster and the Beckster is taking all the damn pearls. Deal with it.

The colonizer mindset, ytppul ytppuling, it’s a thing, a real thing. Rachel Dolezal is proof of that because there she is, reaping where she certainly has not sowed. This ladies & gents, is Rachel Columbusing Blackness, taking up where the original colonizer left off.

Perils of Allyship

While I absolutely appreciate that there is no conquering of White supremacy without the full participation of White people, sometimes I just want to say, "You know what? Let's not bother." because sometimes, what it takes to get to the point of true allyship makes me wonder whether it's worth the energy.

Being an ally is hard. And truthfully, I'm not sure everybody waving the 'ally' flag really appreciates how hard it is, because I suspect they have not accounted for what allyship entails. Being an ally requires some difficult things.

First, humility must be the standard; the guiding principle. Allies cannot be first. Allies cannot lead. Allies do not know better than the group they seek to assist. Can you do that?

I told ya this was gon' be hard.

Using one's superpowers for good requires one to center the dialog on someone else. Can you do that?

When Batman or Supergirl swoop in to save the day, they do what they can to set things right. They get the job done and then ride off into the proverbial sunset. They don't stand around waiting for camera crews and enjoying photo ops. That's what humility looks like, and it's what allyship requires.

Humility means you can't be the line leader, the first at the microphone, the star of the show. You're gonna have to be a backup singer. You gon' have to be a Pip, you don't get to be Gladys. And when G is singing about the midnight train, you get to dance, look slick and sing "Woo! Woo!" (hand gesture entirely optional.)

That's your lane.

Can you stay in it? 

Do not seek out ways to make yourself either victim or savior in this journey. If you're working with an organization run by POC, the most you can get is a Best Actor in a Supporting Role nomination. Keep that in mind. Support. Make it a great picture, but do not try to upstage the lead actor(s).

Second, risk is a requirement.  There is no reward without risk, and in allyship, if you're not risking losing something - social capital, financial/economic standing, or political power - you're not doing it right.

On Sunday 12 February during the Grammy's, Adele (rightly) claimed that she really ought not to have won Album of the year. While she thanked the academy and made it clear that she couldn't accept the award, she went on ahead and accepted it anyway.

She spoke movingly about Beyonce's Lemonade visual album, but rather than go all in - risking everything - she played safe. She told the audience that Beyonce's work was brilliant, and important, and powerful and though she thought she shouldn't have won, she accepted the Grammy. She did try to use her powers for good, by saying kind things about Bey's work, but she might also have gone all in, descended the stair, handed the award to Bey and invited her to speak. I've heard she broke the award and gave Bey half. (I'd be intrigued to know which half though: the gramophone or the wooden base? And there's probably something I could say about these 'also ran' prizes when first is what you deserve, but I'll hold my tongue.)

Had she done this, had she gone all in, there would certainly have been backlash.  She would likely have been quietly blacklisted (how fitting) by the Grammy's, never again being nominated or winning, regardless how good her future work might be. She might have venues and sponsors withdraw their support, under pressure from White supremacists who felt offended.  She might have suffered financial loss as a result of White fans refusing to buy her music thereafter. 

These are all foreseeable risks, as is evidenced by some of the reactions to Beyonce's openly pro-Black performance at the Super Bowl last year.  And in taking these risks, Adele would have done something much more profound than returning a statue; she would have declared that her ally's validation and fair treatment was worth more than the risks.  That is what the people who face the real risks do each time they speak out or protest - they declare themselves valuable.

An ally is one who has the courage to do likewise.

Third, being an ally requires owning one's ignorance.  The truth is, there's plenty that allies don't know, because the challenges faced are not theirs. They do not live in the skins of those who face the challenges, and know only by proxy what they learn from those who do.  So those who seek to be allies know enough to want to be allies, but there is much that they do not know.  And those holes in their knowledge can be dangerous for the very people to whom they would be allies. 

A NWL - nice White lady - who considers herself an ally, once said to me that Africans who sold other Africans into slavery were "almost worse" than White slavers. Seriously, she said almost worse. After I'd surgically adjusted her posterior, her friend private messaged me that I needed to be gentle with her because she was "on our side". I did not have any more surgical supplies, cuz if I had, I'd have rearranged his ass too. 

I shouldn't have had to point out that, as James Baldwin said in Notes of a Native Son, "Even the chiefs who sold Africans into slavery could have had no idea that this slavery was meant to endure forever, for at least a thousand years." but I did. And to a so-called ally. Almost worse? No. Just no. And oh, by the by, if your allyship includes trying to draw some kind of false equivalence between colonizer odiosity and Black collusion/negotiation with that odiosity (for its own survival), you have  a very long way to go.

My advice to allies is to recognize that what you do know about the history and current experience of oppression could probably fill a thimble. What you don't know about these things could likely fill an Olympic pool. Govern yourself accordingly. And if you're going to try to find someone else to blame for slavery besides the White men who created, formalized, perfected and profited from it or the White women who participated wholeheartedly in it; the White preachers and church who blithely justified it; and the White politicians who, unflinching from the obvious dissonance, wrote an entire Constitution of liberty and justice while treating human beings like cattle, just stop. You are clearly nobody's ally. 

Read a book. Read Frederick Douglass. I hear he's still publishing.

via GIPHY

Finally, understand that there are no laurel wreaths for this work. There's anger, vitriol, there's accusations of divisiveness and there's real risk of physical harm. There are victories but many more losses. And whatever ugliness comes at you, is going to be coming at your POC compatriot with 10x the ferocity because White supremacy, because life, because America. That's the "beauty and the burden of our journey" so govern yourself accordingly. 

Thus, if you think your prospective allies haven't been sufficiently respectful of the risks you're taking; if you think they are not grateful enough,  you probably haven't acknowledged that your risks, grave though they may be, pale in comparison to theirs.  And unlike you, they cannot choose to have those risks.  They cannot walk away from their gender, or skin color, or ability, or sexuality, or national origin.

So the next time you're tempted to say, "Why are you attacking me? I'm your ally!" while on the verge of tearful demands for greater understanding, please remember this: what is being 'attacked' is the presumption of superiority; what is being attacked is the presumption of the right to lead; what is being attacked is the belief in saviorhood; but most of all, what is being attacked is supremacy. In whatever form it presents itself.

Sometimes, that form is you.