Rachel Dolezal Changes Her Name To Nkechi Amare Diallo

[meadowlander]

44. Well, if we go back enough generations, we're all "black".

I have reddish hair and grey eyes but my grandmother was Sicilian. I probably only have to go back 10 or 15 generations to hit an ancestor who looked African or Middle Eastern.

Statistically, we only have to go back to the 13th century before we have more direct ancestors than there have ever been human beings.

I'm about 50% Irish/Norse, 25% German, 25% Sicilian that I know about. Why should I be limited in my ability to identify my ethnicity to the options that I happen to look like and from which my last name derives (i.e. Irish), particularly where I only really know my "racial" origins going back four or five generations?

Race, to some extent, is a social construct rather than a biological fact. Whether we "live life as a black person" or "live life as a white person" is something that society loads us with based on our appearance rather than the actual facts. The vast majority of us are both black and white to one degree or another.

There are examples of biracial twins where one child looks white and their twin looks black. If the "white" twin chooses to "act black" is that something that society should condemn them for?