Rachel Dolezal----I am not sure how I feel about her.

This Rachel Dolezal thing has me conflicted.  Part of me thinks she is a fraud, and a liar, and she got caught.   Then I started thinking about the Bruce Jenner thing.  

I love Bruce Jenner.   I started liking him when I was 14 and watched every minute of the 1976 Summer Olympics.   In our house, we didn't go to camp, or do fun things over the summer.  We stayed home and amused ourselves, which often meant watching TV.  In those days, there wasn't a lot of good day time TV, but the Olympics changed all that, and I watched every minute of those Summer 1976 Olympics.   And without a doubt, Bruce Jenner was the headliner of those Olympics.  Then, about 10 years ago, I caught up with him again when he was on this summer show called "I am a Celebrity, Get me out of Here!"      I liked him on that.  He seemed nice.

So, I was eager to watch his "Interview with Diane Sawyer", and I was amazed by how open and honest he was about feeling like a woman all these years (I am really simplifying this story, but I think it is well known).    I saw Caitlyn's photos, and my first thought was how much she looks like Cindy Crawford.   I think she looks lovely.   So, this is a person who has felt something about him/herself  other than what the world is seeing him/herself as (did I say that right?).    So, how is this different than Rachel Dolezal?  Bruce Jenner never lied.   He may have kept it to himself (although he claims he did share it with his wives), but he never pretended to be something other than what he was.   That is where this differs from Ms. Dolezal's situation.  Bruce Jenner has always been honest.   Painfully honest.

Ms. Dolezal was interviewed today on the Today show by Matt Lauer.  While I think she came across somewhat sympathetically,  and I do think, that for some reason she genuinely identifies herself as being part of the black community, there seemed to be an awful lot of those blank stares,  unexplained answers, and generally, she seemed to be avoiding the real issue.  She was on the show with boys she identified as her "sons," but I believe that one of them is her son, Franklin, with her first husband, and the other one is actually her real parents' adoptive black son, Izaiah, who is around 21 years old, and who she obtained legal guardianship of in approximately 2010....more confusion, obfuscation it seems to me.

I think the bottom line for me is that she has perpetrated this perception that she is black when it was convenient/to her benefit.   Despite what some people, including the NAACP spokesperson said, it just seems highly unlikely that a white person would be named the head of the Spokane NAACP.    Whoopi Goldberg...who is starting to annoy me every time she opens her mouth, gave some ridiculous argument that I heard on the View today that Dolezal being white was really not a problem, because the NAACP was founded by all types of "folks...Blacks, Jews, and women...."   The simple fact is that in today's world, only black people are likely to get named to the head of a large city's NAACP chapter.  Dolezal may have done a good job in that position (another argument I have heard in support of her), but I don't think she would have ever have had the position if she hadn't pretended to be black.

Moreover, I was particularly disturbed by her brushing over Matt Lauer's questioning of her racial discrimination lawsuit against Howard University (a historically black college) which was filed in 2002.   She apparently filed a lawsuit, which was dismissed in 2004 as baseless,  because of, in essence, racial discrimination--she sued Howard saying they discriminated against her because she is white.   I don't think you get to play both sides of the stick.   Matt asked her specifically about this, but she was kind of evasive in her answer.   She said she doesn't tolerate any discrimination--which I think means she doesn't like to be discriminated against as either a black or white person, or a woman, or any other minority.   Well, neither do I, but I don't think you get to pass yourself off as a black person in order to get scholarships to black schools, and you don't pass yourself as black in order to get great jobs in black organizations, and then file suit claiming you were discriminated against because you are white.  There is something very disingenuous about that.

I must say that I found her to be pleasant., but deceptive people are often pleasant because they know how to play on your emotions.  That is part of the deception.    I almost felt sorry for her,  but I do admire her courage to go on TV to talk about it.  I also think she is a smart woman (you must be if you can pull being black off for all these years), who knows how to "work the system."   So, yes, I think this is very different from Caitlyn Jenner, who may have kept her identity issues to herself for years, but never used those issues to her benefit to get jobs and try to win lawsuits.