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Transracial people: is it possible and legit to change your race?
As adults, people like Rachel Dolezal claim to be a race that's different from the one they were at birth.
The thing is that many of them often contradict themselves and change their "racial claims" over time.
That is the case of Jessica A. Krug, who first claimed to be a mix of German and Algerian, then Afro-Puerto Rican. She was born to white parents.
These people usually wear wigs and spray tans to fake their biological race.
What do you think, would you respect their choice and treat them as a person of the race they claim to be? Are these people delusional and/or self-loathers? Should everyone be allowed to change their race?
@Lord Of The Flies Pt.3: I don't know, perhaps things like skin color, nose shape and hair texture. In any case, most people can tell who's white and who's black (or mixed), at least in the U.S. and in Europe.
@Craig: where do we put what's fantasy and what's not? For example, there's clearly a boundary between a human and a gorilla.
*I meant "set the boundary".
@Lord Of The Flies Pt.3: maybe there's no scientific criteria, but it's a fact that looks, origin or cultural/religious affiliation have been used to (and still are) discriminate against certain groups. Perhaps modern science has proven that there are no biological races of humans, but you can still guess someone's ethnicity with more or less accuracy. I don't think scientific criteria are the only valid ones because most people aren't into science.
@Lord Of The Flies Pt.3: what I mean is that race or whatever we call it is not just about looks, it is also about the history of the group you claim to belong and your life experience as a member of that group. That's why it's hard to believe somebody can "change" their race by just applying spray tan and putting on a wig.
7 Answers
- IvanLv 62 months agoFavorite Answer
If they expect us to believe that we can change our gender, then how can they deny us changing our race?
- ?Lv 52 months ago
Rachel Dolezal is OK with my teacher so she's OK with me too, I listened to her story and I wish her nothing but the best in life, may Allah bless her and her family. She's a good woman.
- Anonymous2 months ago
No it’s not possible and it is deeply offensive to people of color to claim this. Rachel dolezal is mentally ill
- ?Lv 62 months ago
UPDATE: Where to "put the boundary"? In trying to decide whether "race", itself, belongs on the "real" side or the "fantasy" side...I would look for evidence that ANY individual of ANY appearance, if taken from his birth culture as an infant and raised in the culture of others who look completely different, grows up NONETHELESS just like the people he was taken FROM, and not at all like the people he was given TO. I would repeat that experiment hundreds of times. If the results consistently showed that people who look "thus" always grow up like the people they were taken from and never like the people they were raised by, then I would reverse the experiment and take the infant from the raising group and have it reared by the group our original adoptee came from, and I'd repeat THAT hundreds of times. If the result AGAIN consistently showed that people who look "so" always grow up like the people they were taken FROM and never like the people they were given TO, then I'm sure we could conclude that these two people are in fact different SORTS of human. Then the concept of "race" would fall on the "real" side of the boundary.
But IRL, the little experimentation we've done suggests that children - no matter what families they're from or what they look like - if raised as offspring and siblings - will by and large tend to turn out just like the parents that have raised them - no matter WHAT the parents look like. So, we hardly need to begin the rigorous test I propose, because we can already see (if we care to look) that we won't find statistically significant occurrences of ANY lingering differences that suggest these kids are ACTUALLY, INTERNALLY or FUNDAMENTALLY different SORTS of humans than their adoptive parents. THAT idea is clearly on the fantasy side of the boundary. Which means that the entire concept of "race" is clearly on the fantasy side of the boundary.
Original answer..................
Yes, it's possible. The "race" that some people assume you to be is a fiction in the first place...so if you're silly enough to buy into that fiction, then what's to stop you from buying into some other fiction?
There doesn't have to be any self-loathing or appropriation or anything else associated with this. If we're inescapably wedded to this fantasy that each and every person belongs to one particular clade or another that some people call "races", then we might as well accept that some folks don't mind altering the terms of the fantasy - like fan-fiction depicting Frodo as an elf or orc or dwarf. Claiming that Frodo is actually a dwarf doesn't shake the foundations of civilization, and neither does a person who looks European claiming that they're Asian.
Because while those terms might describe where your ancestors lived or (possibly) what culture you grew up with, they DON'T say anything about WHAT you are. So if people want to switch 'em up - it makes no difference and it doesn't matter.
- ?Lv 72 months ago
I could answer your question but first you have to answer mine. What determines someone's race?
So race is whatever you feel when you look at somebody's face. So your race changes depending on the observer.
Even if someone's trying to profile you what are the scientific criteria that they check off? Of course they don't exist. So your question is whether someone can change something that doesn't exist.
Not even a DNA test can tell you what race you are. They can only tell you what percentage of your DNA probably originated in a certain region. What are the actual levels the actual parameters and boundaries of percentages that create race? How important is language or religion or your own cultural beliefs? In fact the average observer, especially Americans and Europeans could only determine if someone is "all white" or "not all white" which is frankly the only observation they typically care about in matters of race.
I have said this here many many times over the years. The most important component in race is whatever the observer determines you to be. Then they treat you accordingly (based on their own stereotypes) thus shaping the experiences you have in life. This is not absolute or scientific in any way.
