One of the offenses <\/a>taken about Dolezal\u2019s deception is, \u201cDon\u2019t talk to me about how #RachelDolezal understood\/knew the Black struggle when she could pick & choose when to be \u2018Black\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\nThat\u2019s an accusation often hurled at my son. But his \u201chigh-yellow\u201d skin and blue eyes don\u2019t protect him from what he hears about black people when those around him don\u2019t know he\u2019s actually \u201cone of those,\u201d and they don\u2019t protect him from idiot classmates who, upon learning he\u2019s black, immediately ask, \u201cCan you score me some drugs?\u201d Or they express surprise at how my son\u2019s chemistry grade could possibly be higher than theirs.<\/p>\n
If you ask my son or me \u201cwhat\u201d he is (and yes, that happens constantly. I\u2019ve been told I\u2019m supposed to take offense, but I choose to see it as a teachable moment and educate instead of flying off the handle; again, just my opinion), odds are both he and I will answer \u201cblack and Jewish.\u201d I don\u2019t know why we say it in that order. It just flows better, I guess.<\/p>\n
As for another charge against Dolezal, that she \u201cappropriated experiences that weren\u2019t hers,\u201d well, the fact of the matter is, very few 21st-century Americans can claim having experienced either slavery or mass extermination. So are they also appropriating those far-removed experiences when they speak of them personally?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have an answer to that question. Just like I don\u2019t know what the proper response to Dolezal\u2019s subterfuge should be. Reportedly she was very productive as the local head of her NAACP chapter. Should the revelation be reason for her dismissal? (It reminds me of when Jack Greenberg, the lawyer who argued Brown v. Board of Education alongside Thurgood Marshall and later succeeded him as director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, was barred from teaching a college course on the civil rights movement because he wasn\u2019t black.)<\/p>\n
My primary takeaway from the incident and my family\u2019s own experience is that, apparently, identity is much more complicated than my husband and I ever imagined it would be before our kids were born. And that instead of having all the answers, we\u2019re going to be learning right alongside with them — and the rest of America.<\/p>\n
(Alina Adams<\/a>, a mother of three, is The New York Times best-selling author of soap opera tie-ins, romance novels and figure-skating mysteries. She is a frequent Kveller <\/a>contributor.)<\/i><\/p>\n
![\"AlinaAdamsFamily\"](\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/AlinaAdamsFamily.jpg\")