National

Choosing Your Own: Definition of Race Becoming Fluid

Published

10 years ago

June 17, 2015

In this image released by NBC News, former NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal appears on the “Today” show set on Tuesday, June 16, 2015, in New York. Dolezal was born to two parents who say they are white, but she chooses instead to self-identify as black. (Anthony Quintano/NBC News via AP)

JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rachel Dolezal, born to white parents, self-identifies as black — a decision that illustrates how fluid identity can be in a diversifying America, as the rigid racial structures that have defined most of this country’s history seem, for some, to be softening.

Dolezal resigned as the leader of the NAACP’s Spokane, Washington, branch after questions surfaced about her racial identity. When asked directly on NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday whether she is “an African-American woman,” Dolezal replied, “I identify as black.”

Her parents identified her as white with a trace of Native American heritage, and her mother, Ruthanne Dolezal, has said Rachel began to “disguise herself” as black after her parents adopted four black children more than a decade ago.

Dolezal isn’t the first person to make this type of change. Millions of Americans changed racial or ethnic identities between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, even though their choices may have contradicted what their skin color appeared to be, or who their parents said they are.

“It forces us to really question whether or not this biological basis for identity is a smart path to continue down in the future,” said Camille Gear Rich, a University of Southern California law and sociology professor who writes about elective race choices.

Americans have become comfortable with people self-identifying their race, Rich said, “but often that invocation of identity based on a biological claim isn’t backed up by anything else after the claim is made.”

In the United States, there is an expectation that people would have a biological connection to a racial or an ethnic identity they are claiming, said Nikki Khanna, a University of Vermont sociology professor. She co-authored a 2010 study that found increasing numbers of biracial adults were choosing to self-identify as multiracial or black instead of white.

“There really is no biological basis to race, but what I’m saying is that in our society the everyday person tends to think race must have some link to ancestry,” Khanna said. “So we expect that when people self-identify with a particular group they must have some ancestral link to that group.”

In the past, race was determined mostly by what other people thought a person was. For example, the Census Bureau’s enumerators would determine on their own what a person’s race was, and classify them as such. By the 1960s and 1970s, census officials were allowing people to self-identify.

Currently, the Census Bureau allows people to choose a racial category, or even multiple categories, to which they think they belong. The census identifies races as white; black or African-American; American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian; Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; and “some other race” for those claiming more than one race. There is also a Hispanic ethnic category.

People have been using that freedom since the early 2000s to move back and forth. They switched between races, moved from multiple races to a single race or back, or decided to add or drop Hispanic ethnicity from their identifiers on census forms.

Last year, a study showed that 1 in 16 people — or approximately 9.8 million of 162 million — who responded to both the 2000 and 2010 censuses gave different answers when it came to race and ethnicity. In addition, in the 2010 census, more than 21.7 million — at least 1 in 14 — went beyond the standard labels and wrote in such terms as “Arab,” ”Haitian,” ”Mexican” and “multiracial.”

Dolezal, 37, said Tuesday that published accounts described her first as “transracial,” then “biracial,” then as “a black woman.” ”I never corrected that,” she conceded, adding that “it’s more complex than being true or false in that particular instance.”

She and her parents have disagreed about her backstory. Dolezal says she started identifying as black around age 5, when she drew self-portraits with a brown crayon. Her mother told Fox News on Tuesday that’s not true.

Dolezal has gotten support from some in the black community, who say she should be allowed to self-identify as she pleases. However, other African-Americans say she is “passing” — a term mainly used to describe blacks who looked white enough to deny their African ancestry — and should not claim a racial identity that she cannot prove.

She isn’t the only person who has faced that accusation. An opponent of Houston Community College trustee Dave Wilson complained that campaign mailings Wilson sent to voters in the predominantly black district implied Wilson, who is white, was black. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts faced questions about her Native American ancestry during her last election after being listed as such in several law school directories.

Some people have used their ability to self-identify as another race simply to get access to resources aimed at minorities, Rich said, but “race is something that is a social contract and it is not something that you just passively inhabit.”

That’s why Rich said she isn’t comfortable with people announcing themselves as a member of a community. “There might be some spaces in which Rachel gets to be a black person, but I want to be very careful about any context in which she is taking away resources from people who have come from a more subordinated experience,” she said.

___

Jesse J. Holland covers race, ethnicity and demographics for The Associated Press. Contact him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jessejholland.

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Oakland Post: Week of April 23 – 29, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 23 – 29, 2025

Published

1 day ago

April 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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Chavis and Bryant Lead Charge as Target Boycott Grows

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Surrounded by civil rights leaders, economists, educators, and activists, Bryant declared the Black community’s power to hold corporations accountable for broken promises.

Published

4 days ago

April 23, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent

Calling for continued economic action and community solidarity, Dr. Jamal H. Bryant launched the second phase of the national boycott against retail giant Target this week at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta. Surrounded by civil rights leaders, economists, educators, and activists, Bryant declared the Black community’s power to hold corporations accountable for broken promises. “They said they were going to invest in Black communities. They said it — not us,” Bryant told the packed sanctuary. “Now they want to break those promises quietly. That ends tonight.” The town hall marked the conclusion of Bryant’s 40-day “Target fast,” initiated on March 3 after Target pulled back its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) commitments. Among those was a public pledge to spend $2 billion with Black-owned businesses by 2025—a pledge Bryant said was made voluntarily in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.“No company would dare do to the Jewish or Asian communities what they’ve done to us,” Bryant said. “They think they can get away with it. But not this time.”

The evening featured voices from national movements, including civil rights icon and National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) President & CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., who reinforced the need for sustained consciousness and collective media engagement. The NNPA is the trade association of the 250 African American newspapers and media companies known as The Black Press of America. “On the front page of all of our papers this week will be the announcement that the boycott continues all over the United States,” said Chavis. “I would hope that everyone would subscribe to a Black newspaper, a Black-owned newspaper, subscribe to an economic development program — because the consciousness that we need has to be constantly fed.” Chavis warned against the bombardment of negativity and urged the community to stay engaged beyond single events. “You can come to an event and get that consciousness and then lose it tomorrow,” he said. “We’re bombarded with all of the disgust and hopelessness. But I believe that starting tonight, going forward, we should be more conscious about how we help one another.”

He added, “We can attain and gain a lot more ground even during this period if we turn to each other rather than turning on each other.” Other speakers included Tamika Mallory, Dr. David Johns, Dr. Rashad Richey, educator Dr. Karri Bryant, and U.S. Black Chambers President Ron Busby. Each speaker echoed Bryant’s demand that economic protests be paired with reinvestment in Black businesses and communities. “We are the moral consciousness of this country,” Bryant said. “When we move, the whole nation moves.” Sixteen-year-old William Moore Jr., the youngest attendee, captured the crowd with a challenge to reach younger generations through social media and direct engagement. “If we want to grow this movement, we have to push this narrative in a way that connects,” he said.

Dr. Johns stressed reclaiming cultural identity and resisting systems designed to keep communities uninformed and divided. “We don’t need validation from corporations. We need to teach our children who they are and support each other with love,” he said. Busby directed attendees to platforms like ByBlack.us, a digital directory of over 150,000 Black-owned businesses, encouraging them to shift their dollars from corporations like Target to Black enterprises. Bryant closed by urging the audience to register at targetfast.org, which will soon be renamed to reflect the expanding boycott movement. “They played on our sympathies in 2020. But now we know better,” Bryant said. “And now, we move.”

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The Department of Education is Collecting Delinquent Student Loan Debt

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — the Department of Education will withhold money from tax refunds and Social Security benefits, garnish federal employee wages, and withhold federal pensions from people who have defaulted on their student loan debt.

Published

4 days ago

April 23, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

Trump Targets Wages for Forgiven Student Debt

The Department of Education, which the Trump administration is working to abolish, will now serve as the collection agency for delinquent student loan debt for 5.3 million people who the administration says are delinquent and owe at least a year’s worth of student loan payments. “It is a liability to taxpayers,” says White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at Tuesday’s White House Press briefing. She also emphasized the student loan federal government portfolio is “worth nearly $1.6 trillion.” The Trump administration says borrowers must repay their loans, and those in “default will face involuntary collections.” Next month, the Department of Education will withhold money from tax refunds and Social Security benefits, garnish federal employee wages, and withhold federal pensions from people who have defaulted on their student loan debt. Leavitt says “we can not “kick the can down the road” any longer.”

Much of this delinquent debt is said to have resulted from the grace period the Biden administration gave for student loan repayment. The grace period initially was set for 12 months but extended into three years, ending September 30, 2024. The Trump administration will begin collecting the delinquent payments starting May 5. Dr. Walter M. Kimbrough, president of Talladega College, told Black Press USA, “We can have that conversation about people paying their loans as long as we talk about the broader income inequality. Put everything on the table, put it on the table, and we can have a conversation.” Kimbrough asserts, “The big picture is that Black people have a fraction of wealth of white so you’re… already starting with a gap and then when you look at higher education, for example, no one talks about Black G.I.’s that didn’t get the G.I. Bill. A lot of people go to school and build wealth for their family…Black people have a fraction of wealth, so you already start with a wide gap.”

According to the Education Data Initiative, https://educationdata.org/average-time-to-repay-student-loans It takes the average borrower 20 years to pay their student loan debt. It also highlights how some professional graduates take over 45 years to repay student loans. A high-profile example of the timeline of student loan repayment is the former president and former First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama, who paid off their student loans by 2005 while in their 40s. On a related note, then-president Joe Biden spent much time haggling with progressives and Democratic leaders like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer on Capitol Hill about whether and how student loan forgiveness would even happen.