Now that Bruce Jenner has been named Glamour magazine’s 'Woman of the Year' and Rachel Dolezal has acknowledged that “I was biologically born white to white parents, but I identify as black,” I’ve decided it’s time to make an announcement: I was born human but identify as Martian – and if you won’t recognize me as a Martian, then I’ll brand you a bigoted Martia-phobe.
After all, if gender and skin color are matters of perception, then why not our planetary origins?
As Dolezal explained, “I think that sometimes how we feel is more powerful than how we’re born – and blackness can be defined as philosophical, cultural, biological.”
Why can’t I say the same for “alienness”?
To paraphrase her words, “I think that sometimes how we feel is more powerful than how we’re born – and Martianness can be defined as philosophical, cultural, biological.”
To underscore the insanity of the day in which we’re living, “an investigation by Daily Mail Online revealed that Dolezal had no black relatives dating back as far as 1671.”
So Dolezal is not just white but pristinely white.
Yet when she was asked by Tamar Braxton, one of the hosts of Fox’s “The Real,” which box she checks off on an application form, she replied, “I check white AND black. Because we all have human origins in the continent of Africa.”
But of course!
All of us are either white AND black or Asian AND black or Native American AND black or just black. Leave it to those application forms to make things so confusing.
And when it comes to my true Martian identity, I seem to recall some very persuasive arguments raised by Fox Mulder on “The X-Files” that all of us have alien origins. To paraphrase Dolezal again, “We all have human origins on the planet of Mars.”
Seriously now, is this very far from Dolezal’s comment to Vanity Fair in July? “I don’t know spiritually and metaphysically how this goes, but I do know that from my earliest memories I have awareness and connection with the black experience, and that’s never left me.
“It’s not something that I can put on and take off anymore.”
Thankfully, just as a number of prominent women have raised objections to a biological male (with his male private parts intact) being named Woman of the Year, so also a number of prominent blacks have raised objections to Dolezal calling herself black.
In an article titled “Rachel Dolezal’s True Lies,” Allison Samuels wrote, “There have been women over the years who’ve spent thousands upon thousands of dollars for butt injections, lip fillers, and self-tanners for a more ‘exotic’ look. But attempting to pass for black? This was a new type of white woman: bold and brazen enough to claim ownership over a painful and complicated history she wasn’t born into.”
But the plot thickens.
The Smoking Gun reported in June that “The NAACP official [meaning Dolezal] who today resigned in the face of evidence that she masqueraded as black once sued Howard University for denying her teaching posts and a scholarship because she was a white woman.”
It appears, then, that there’s a time for black privilege and a time for white privilege.
But there’s no need to be concerned.
The lawsuit with Howard University must have taken place during Dolezal’s season of confusion. As she explained in an interview with Samuels, “I’ve had my years of confusion and wondering who I really [was] and why and how do I live my life and make sense of it all, but I’m not confused about that any longer. I think the world might be – but I’m not.”
Which brings things full circle back to me and my newly announced Martian identity.
The world might be confused, but I’m not. If people can’t embrace me as a Martian, that’s their problem.
Postscript: As much as I wish that this was all one big parody, our society today is so deeply confused that the federal government has ruled that it is discriminatory for a school to decide that a male high school student who identifies as a girl must use a private area in the girls’ locker room rather than undress in their presence (and they in his presence).
To quote the government’s ruling: “All students deserve the opportunity to participate equally in school programs and activities – this is a basic civil right. Unfortunately, Township High School District 211 is not following the law because the district continues to deny a female student [referring to the boy who identifies as a girl] the right to use the girls’ locker room.”
As Ben Shapiro wrote in response:
If you’re a boy who shows a picture of your penis to a girl in your class, you have likely violated both federal child pornography laws as well as local sexual harassment laws. If this happens consistently in your school, the school has violated Title IX.
If you’re a boy who says he’s a girl, the girl must be placed in position to see your penis and testicles. If the school does not allow this, the school has violated Title IX.
Did I just say that I wish this was all one big parody?
And did I tell you that, although I was born human, I’m actually a Martian, and if you won’t recognize my Martian identity, you’re a bigoted Martia-phobe?