Rachel Dolezal--Who Am I?
I can’t stop reading about this issue—about reverse passing, or passing, or identity and self-identity or . . . it’s hard to put my finger on what makes this case so intriguing. It boils down to: Who am I? Am I the sum of my parents, a product of my community, or the evolutionary offspring of my DNA? Is it in the genes or in the brain—who we are? These questions often come up when looking at false memoirs—something this blog talks about a lot. I’ve always been fascinated by people who whip up whole stories, whole novels, whole worlds about their past. Some might disagree and say they are just stretching the truth, but in every stretching the act of lying not only affects the person telling the lie but the ones deceived or pulled into the untruth. Telling the truth about ourselves is important on so many different levels. Nevertheless, it is a complex question of one’s identity. One not so easy to parse. There have been times when I’ve identified more with a specifi...