I am deeply angry about the mistreatment of Rachael Dolezal. There are three reasons.
First is that I feel protective of an innocent. This woman was living her life, doing her job, washing her dishes and going to the movies. One day, her parents decided to go on television and talk about her personal secrets. Then, the infinite viciousness and judgment of internet busy bodies set about trying to ruin her life. She is now infamous and unemployed. The Seattle NAACP has lost a good employee. It makes me want to do murder, I think it's so unfair.
We used my experience with Judaism as an example. One person got it badly wrong in reply. He said that I had done my adoption of Judaism was better done than her adoption of blackism and listed details. Even though intended positively, it was a terribly intrusive thing to say. I think, "who is he to judge how well I handle my religious life."
No one, least of all the random internet busy bodies can know her personal journey and I don't think she should be subject to their judgment. I don't think she should have to be embarrassed because a third party who doesn't even know her approves or disapproves what she did. It's none of anyone's business. That so many people are so rude and tasteless puts me right up the wall.
And finally, I have been talking about this for days in my role as defender of the right to do you own thing without every single person talking about it. During that time I've had a lot of intense conversations as people escalate their language and intensity in the face of my intransigence.
Consequently, I now have a lot of fully developed ideas supporting my viewpoint. I also have become impatient with the derivative thinking that I run into. Partly this is unfair. Most people haven't had the dozen conversations I've had, and, so, haven't heard it all a dozen times in fifteen variations.
But, the bottom line is that I would, if I could, slap the shit out of everyone in the country and tell them to mind their own business. This woman is out of a job for fucks sake, even though she was doing a good job and her employer was perfectly happy.
She has been subjected to the kind of shaming that we used to consider to be the specific province of petty, small town, small minded vindictiveness. It has deeply harmed her life and, even if, I say "if" because I don't know of any reason to think it is, even if she had lied and was cynical about it, it's nobody's business except her's and her employer's.
That's why I am outraged. I consider the treatment of her to be a bigger, nastier crime than the shootings in Charleston. There one guy went nuts and harmed some people. Bad, but only one bad guy that we can put in jail. With Rachael, we have millions of people. some of whom I call friends, ganging up on a single person to destroy her life. It's a sickness in our culture that we cannot stop. It makes me furious.