One of the most memorable interviews I’ve ever had was for a college scholarship sponsored by a well-known charitable foundation. A few months after applying for it with essays, grade transcripts, and the like, I was invited to the organization’s offices in Colorado Springs to meet with some of its leaders.
There I was, a beaming, 17-year-old African-American high school senior decked out in my Sunday-best, sitting across from two similarly attired Caucasian men who appeared to be around my grandfather’s age.
“Congratulations, and best of luck to you!” the gentleman said.
An assistant led me back to the reception area where several other students were waiting to be called. My father, who had been my ride to the office, looked up as he saw me return.
“What happened?” he asked, noticeably worried that I had blown the interview.
“I got it,” I said, matter-of-fact, still trying to make sense of what had just happened.
My father wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure?” He asked the assistant for confirmation. What a joy to find out it was true.
It didn’t dawn on me until years later what the reason was for that interview. The scholarship was specifically purposed to assist African-Americans in pursuing higher education degrees. Its sponsor was making a diligent effort to address the aftermath of centuries of racism and discrimination.
My guess is that that because some non-African-Americans had attempted to win the very generous award, the charitable foundation had had to include the face-to-face interview as part of the selection process — to make sure that applicants were, in fact, black.
Turns out, Rachel Dolezal isn’t the first person who has tried to pass as African-American.
I had good chuckle when I heard of her story this week, similar to when I think back to that interview 20-plus years ago. Girlfriend gets a tight perm and becomes a tanning-bed frequent-flier and now she’s a sista? I wish I could have been a fly in the room one of the times she sat across from puzzled interviewers in three-piece suits. All I can say is her Ebonics must be spot-on.
Part of me wants to say “You go, girl!” and the other part wants to scream. I remember my parents’ stories of surviving unspeakable bigotry in the Jim Crow South and poor urban North of the 1930s and ’40s. It’s hard enough for me to fully identify with what they went through. For Dolezal to claim to be one-in-spirit with them is ludicrous. In her heart, she may feel like she’s down with the struggle, but deep within me I know that electing to look the part isn’t all there is to it.
I was once told to never say you empathize with someone unless you have gone through the same thing yourself. This is certainly not to say that we should not try to sympathize. However, someone should never pretend to truly know other people’s grief; doing so devalues their experiences.
I believe Dolezal meant no harm, actually. In fact, there’s something about her story that feels very encouraging. But with the seismic shift in the conventional cultural wisdom about what you are and are not, let’s not get silly. I even heard an African-American law professor from the University of Southern California say she considered Dolezal to be black just because she “identified” that way.
Sorry, but no.
Thank you, Rachel, for sympathizing, for understanding, for caring. It means the world. But you shouldn’t claim to know what it is to be African-American any more than I should claim to know what it is to be a woman. Let’s celebrate our differences and bond in spirit based within who we are, not on some impossible, illogical, hypothetical construct.
Joel Hughes is a website developer in Denver. He was a member of the 2005 Colorado Voices panel.
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