Last Monday we talked about trans-racialism with GRF Sam. The topic was come up because Rachel Dolezal, a while female who claimed to transracial to be an African American by changing her appearance, such as making herself very tan etc.

As an international student, I did know about transgender before, and I kind of feel the connection between transgender and trans-race. They both share the feature that some people would prefer to regard themselves as someone with different social identity “assigned” to them. However, just as Sam talked about, for trans-gender, we could say this is because male and female are biologically different, some people may prefer to have one other than the other, which is more objective. However, for trans-race, talking about the biological differences because of race is the original definition of racism. And it is hard to image that by only changing someone’s appearance can offer the intrinsic culture/social experiences related to a specific group. Personally, I can partly understand what Rachel Dolezal is trying to do, but I cannot agree that she can become an actual part of African American by her actions.