Transracial adoptees and their allies are speaking out about Rachel Dolezal's and other's use of the term "transracial" in conversations wrestling with her identity, arguing that it does not mean choosing to change one's race, rather it means the adoption of a child, usually a child of color, by a family of another race, usually a Caucasian family.A number of trans-racial adoptess have written an open letter on the subject.
This past weekend the world took to social media to dissect the events surrounding Rachel Dolezal, the former president of Spokane’s NAACP chapter who came under heavy scrutiny for falsely representing herself as black. As part of this real-time discussion, the term transracial is being co-opted to describe Dolezal identifying as black despite being born white.
As members of the adoption community — particularly those of us who identify as transracial adoptees — we are deeply alarmed by the gross mischaracterization of this term. We find the misuse of “transracial,” describing the phenomenon of a white woman assuming perceived markers of “blackness” in order to pass as “black,” to be erroneous, ahistorical, and dangerous.About the rest of the letter I will say nothing. I am familiar with several of the signers and find their views about trans-racial adoption... a little extreme.
Nevertheless, this is another dimension to the sorry tale of Rachel Dolezal that is important to those of us in the adoption community.
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