One unanswered question lingers, like last night’s undigested lumpy corn pie—would poser Rachel Dolezal have been able to fool us in Trinidad?
The woman pulled off a huge lifetime hoax by pretending to be black, and, though she was in the public eye as president of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, nobody suspected she was born blonde and Caucasian. It took her own parents to out her—before her little dollhouse of lies came crumbling down.
Trinidad is a small place where minding other people’s business is an art form. Former classmates, neighbours, old enemies, her godmother, and the maco in the corner house would have remembered her little blonde self and exposed her a long time ago.
Rachel could have become whatever shade or culture she wanted in Trinidad, but she would have had to do so openly as her real self, instead of as some bizarre playacting Barbie.
But let’s say Rachel was a newcomer to Trinidad and there were no well-informed grannies from Cedros to Chaguanas in possession of her files. Would she still have been able to fool us?
Rachel wore a weave which she attached and groomed herself, because, as every woman knows, you have no secrets from your hairdresser. She tanned herself to bronze and told everyone she was biracial, showing pictures of a black man and saying that was her father.
As far as the weave goes, Trini women would have unglued her in a minute. (Men, on the other hand, are so much more gullible.) We ladies know one when we see one. No matter how expensive those Brazilian manes or how tiny the tracks attached to our resilient scalps, we can know the difference between hair we grow and hair we buy in a plastic packet.
One other reason Rachel would have had trouble escaping the Trini dragnet: we have a special radar and infrared ethnic eyes capable of detecting DNA as far back as the ancestors who made the first upright crawl out of the cave.
You know what VS Naipaul, so fluent in sarcasm and accurate in psycho-social-cultural observation, said—Trinidadians have a great eye for different shades of blackness. We know all about whites and off whites, about half-this and quarter-that. We know the shabine, the browning, the red, the Spanish, the Indianish, and, when all other descriptions fail, the “callaloo”.
We are the giants of the hyphenated ancestry. Remember the last population census? Woe betide the poor fools who thought they could get away with describing themselves as “mixed.” “What kind of mixed?” came the question and a printed list was thrust in one’s face, bearing a number of permutations that defied genealogists. But were we daunted? Oh no, Trinis are experts in the game of ethnic musical chairs.
Poor Rachel would not have stood a chance. We would have welcomed her, taken her on a few curry duck limes, dosed her with some good pelau and chicken foot souse, and laughed at her jokes. But take her seriously? Ha!
Instead of playing herself in Trinidad, Rachel opted to pull one off on the American public. The only woman more internationally vilified in recent times is Cersei Lannister, the shorn and stripped Queen of Westeros (Game of Thrones). Rachel Dolzeal was self-stripped of her NAACP title but instead of a walk of shame, she had a week of fame.
She became a hot topic for comics and talk-show hosts. Maya Rudolph (from Bridesmaids) impersonated Rachel on Late Night with Seth Meyers, nailing Rachel’s glazed-eye “I don’t understand the question” reaction to reporters’ questions on her parentage.
Whoopi Goldberg remarked that people can identify as whatever they feel, which was followed by Andrea Tantaros of Fox News retorting, “I identify as a cat. Do I still have to pay taxes?’’
On The View, guest co-host Michelle Collins told fellow panelists, “If I would have known I could go black, think about how thin I would look black. An immediate 15 pounds off.”
A theologian tweeted, “Only a white person could get this much attention for being black.’’
Here’s the thing, skin colour and parentage should not prevent anyone from filling a leadership role in any organisation.
Rachel can adopt whatever culture she likes. But she lied so much that she cannot be trusted to lead anything or anybody. And her appearance on television was scary. Among the nuggets of nonsense, she has no biological proof her parents are her parents but she is not necessarily saying she can prove they are not.
This woman either sewed her weave on too tight or she has serious mental health problems. My friend Elle calls her Rachel the Runner because she has got to be running from something really bent and out of whack in her past. Maybe Americans should feel some concern for her. Or is she just yesterday’s shady joke?