Rachel Dolezal is everything that’s wrong with political correctness

Absolutely everything that’s wrong with the concept of political correctness is personified in Rachel Dolezal, the white woman pretending to be black for personal gain, except when being white leads to personal gain.

Society has become so politically correct, progressive activists have become so politically correct that rather than call Dolezal out for either being an opportunist or having a screw loose, they’re going out of their way to either excuse away her behavior or completely change the conversation.

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Take for example a mind-blowingly laughable conversation on MSNBC with host Melissa Harris-Perry, who once mocked Mitt Romney for having an adopted black grandchild. Rather than call Dolezal out for pretending to be black, Harris-Perry asks:

But is it possible that she might actually be black? The best way that I know how to describe this, and I want to be very careful here because I don’t want to say it’s equivalent to the transgender experience. But there is a useful language in “trans” and “cis” which is just to say some of us are born cis-gendered, some of us are born transgendered, but I wonder can it be that one would be cis-black and trans-black. That there is actually a different category of blackness that is about achievement of blackness despite one’s parentage. Is that possible?

None of the words coming out of Perry’s mouth mean anything. It’s just a bunch of words strung together to form what activists think is brilliant analysis of a complex issue, when the issue isn’t complex at all: you can’t be black when you’re white, nor can you be white when you are black. You want to identify as such? Fine – but you’ll be judged as either mentally unwell or as an opportunist.

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Political correctness means you never, ever make someone feel bad, even if it’s unintentional, and you definitely shouldn’t judge them (unless that person is a Republican, then you get to mock them all you want). And it’s gotten so crazy that even people who you know want to rip Dolezal for her deception, stop themselves from talking about the contrived “transracial” concept.

Dolezal should be called out for what she’s doing: it’s legitimately offensive.

Black people have a unique experience in this country; one that can never be shared by white people no matter how desperate they are to want to understand. To pretend that getting a tan and adopting an Erykah Badu hairstyle means you can present yourself as black, completely ignores that what it means to be black is much more than just skin color, but experiences (either personal or that of your relatives) that helps inform your world view. She demeans that by pretending to have gone through it. It’s like telling Elie Wiesel you’re actually a Jew, but only because you like Hanukkah and latkes.

But she doesn’t stop there. She goes on to essentially mock the LGBT experience by pretending to self-identify with the “black experience” at the age of 5.

Dolezal said on the “Today” show, “I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon … with black curly hair… ya know.”

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First of all, drawing yourself with a brown crayon doesn’t mean you identify with nor understand the “black experience” – if that was the extent of the black experience, my sense is the #BlackLivesMatter movement wouldn’t exist. But second, this is eerily familiar to LGBT youth who, at an early age (though not 5), say we’re not attracted to the opposite sex the way our friends are. We start realizing something doesn’t feel the way we’re told we’re supposed to feel.

I do admit being somewhat torn on how I feel about this behavior in that I can’t tell if it’s simple opportunism or indicative of someone living with a mental illness of some kind. She sues for discrimination as a white woman, she has seen personal gain pretending to be a black woman, and is now milking the limelight &#8212 likely trying to monetize her fraud. That is the behavior of an opportunist. But she also comes off as perplexed, not quite understanding why people are criticizing her. If she’s an opportunist, this is really committing to the part.

Though that’s irrelevant because I think one thing is clear: this is a lie that shouldn’t be embraced because political correctness tells us to.