{"id":5487,"date":"2015-06-17T09:03:41","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T14:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=5487"},"modified":"2015-09-05T07:11:54","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T12:11:54","slug":"caitlyn-rachel-and-jeb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=5487","title":{"rendered":"Caitlyn, Rachel . . . and Jeb?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven’t said anything here yet about the current hubbub over Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal, because both cases are very tricky situations. Some conservative pundits try<\/a> to paint the liberal acceptance (and even celebration) of Jenner’s new female identity as hypocritical in light of their disdain for Dolezal’s claim to African-American identity. These writers make some good points. But IMHO, the situation is not that simple; the Jenner and Dolezal situations have significant differences (I mean, Jenner cannot even try to coverup her past as a him, whereas Dolezal seemed to need a few fibs or, excuse the term, “white lies”, to get where she was). <\/p>\n

I believe or at least hope that both situations are doing America some good by making us think about and discuss the deep but seldom-questioned issues regarding who we think we are and what makes us whatever that is. Philosophers<\/a> and sociologists will have a field day dissecting these cases with their classes. Hopefully some rational thoughts and enlightened attitudes will filter their way through all the static and hucksterism that our non-stop media circus has created over Caitlyn and Rachel. <\/p>\n

About the only thing that I can add is that in the end, society will decide what a man or a woman is, and what white or black identity involves. The lead-off agents in that social determination process should be those who currently belong to the groups being referred to. I.e., those who we currently recognize as being African American should be given priority in voicing their opinions regarding Rachel Dolezal, and those who we currently recognize as women should be listened to more carefully in the Caitlyn Jenner situation. I.e., those with “skin in the game” should get the first word in. Only when those voices are clearly heard can society as a whole wrestle toward a conclusion. The process will not take place overnight. Just my 2 cents.<\/p>\n

But there’s one other interesting little political note here. I can think of another “man of the hour” who seemed to have flip-flopped a bit regarding the nature of his identity; who, because of an affinity for a certain group, declared himself to be a part of that group even though most people would not agree with that categorization. The person in question later reversed himself on this, but it’s right there in black and white that he once declared himself to be a member of a specific ethno-cultural heritage when none of his ancestors had anything to do with that heritage. <\/p>\n

Yes, I’m talking about the former Florida Governor and now-GOP Presidential nomination candidate, Jeb Bush. In 2009, Bush filled out a voter registration form in Miami and clearly checked the “Hispanic” box<\/a> under the racial identity column. At least one psychologist thinks<\/a> that Bush was trying, perhaps sub-consciously, to identify with his Mexican wife and her culture (or perhaps the greater-Latin culture, given that Bush lived in Venezuela for 2 years). Well OK, so Bush has since made a strategic retreat from this mindset; but still, that overall mindset isn’t very far from whatever was and is happening in the minds of Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal. So, Caitlyn and Rachel . . . move over and make room for Jeb!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t said anything here yet about the current hubbub over Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal, because both cases are very tricky situations. Some conservative pundits try to paint the liberal acceptance (and even celebration) of Jenner’s new female identity as hypocritical in light of their disdain for Dolezal’s claim to African-American identity. These writers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5487"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5647,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5487\/revisions\/5647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}