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Identity, misappropriation and choice

Photo of two halves of faces brought together as one, one caucasian and the other mixed race
Image: Fair observer

I recently came across an article on Anthony Ekundayo Lennon, a middle aged Irish Caucasian accused of cultural misappropriation and profiting from passing himself off as a mixed race person. The Guardian article offered me a fresh perspective on his story. He had before now seemed to me to be just another ‘Rachel Dolezal’, who was also white but presented herself as a black person. And if you’re wondering how this is even possible, it actually isn’t that difficult to achieve.

I’ve always found this concept of what makes a person black or white to be quite interesting. So, on the one end you have white individuals with white parents and white ancestry as far back as they know, identifying and presenting as black people. Rachel was president of a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), one of the most regarded bodies for civil rights in the US for African Americans. You don’t get to such a position by not being black, so she was accepted as being black, which just goes to show the blurred lines in what it means to be black or white. Then at the other end of the spectrum, you have someone like Mariah Carey with mixed race parentage but presupposed by many to be a white person.

Anthony’s story was illuminating for me. He had suffered prejudice on account of the way he looked from when he was a baby. He was not even spared by his own family as his grandmother resented him for appearing mixed race, labelling him as a curse on the family. He had always identified as and gravitated towards the black community. He was accused of taking up a residency position meant for black, Asian and minority ethnic theatre practitioners, who have very little representation in Britain. As a white man is he morally justified in taking a limited position meant for minorities? It may be worthwhile to know his story before you let the gavel drop on that.

But Anthony is in fact Caucasian and so does identifying as a black person make him one? Is the idea of race a lie as Dolezal alluded to after she was found out?  Is it really a matter of choice?

Can I choose to be a white man if I could somehow alter my appearance to become one? Would I then be justified in passing myself off as white? If I identify as one, can I choose to become a woman even though I was born a man? Is what we identify as, the next chapter in the expression of civil rights and liberties? Indeed, is it the next chapter in our evolution as social beings? 

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