Family Member Tells Don Lemon That Shaun King is 100% White; King Won't Answer Question About Whether His Parents Are Both White

Shaun King is a "black activist" who is active in the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

He also looks like this:

It seems obvious, now, that he's white, but he had previously mostly preferred black and white pictures of himself, where his skin color wasn't clear and so where his haircut and facial hair "read" as black.

Well, so, after Breitbart reported that both his parents were white, a family member confirms that both his parents are in fact white, and apparently Shaun King would not directly answer that question when asked about it by Don Lemon.

The good news for King is that he's probably led a distorted life having to maintain this fiction and, however bad it will be for him at the moment (and it will get quite bad), when he emerges from this, he'll be able to live a simpler life, clean of any need to maintain a falsehood.

So, this is all very tough on Shaun King, but ultimately, he'll be disburdened of the heavy weight he's been carrying.

As to why he claimed this: As with Rachel Dolezal, I can't imagine the lie was told to get some particular advantage (though, in both cases, I'm sure they enjoyed the advantages that came with being from a Privileged Class -- contrast this with Elizabeth Warren, who claimed to be Indian as far as career advancement went, but otherwise dressed and presented herself as what she was, a 100% white woman ).

I think they both really, really wanted to be black, and identified, psychologically, as black, and so, at the end of the day, just decided: Hey, I'm black.

Which raises the same questions of self-willed identity that came up with "Caitlyn" Jenner: Are you a woman just because you say you feel you're a woman and have taken steps to seem more like a woman?

And if so: Are you not black if you honestly feel like you're black and have taken steps to make yourself appear, superficially, black?

Why does a different rule obtain in the two cases, as the left would claim? Either we are entirely free to conjure up our own identities and biographies per our "feelings," or we are restricted by the happenstances of our birth and genetics as to our choice in such matters.

But it cannot be the case that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman, just because transpeople are currently popular with the left, but Shaun King is not black, just because black activists on the left don't feel like a white man (or white woman) can become black via a hairstyle.*

* There's also the Authenticity of Free-Willed Choice at play. Parents of adopted children will often say, "I love you as much as any natural children; keep in mind that, unlike natural children, which were chosen for us, we chose you."

Many people were born black, but only a few affirmatively decide to become black. Does that not make Shaun King authentically black?

The left dodges these questions by claiming, preposterously, that as white people, Dolezal and King didn't have the history of persecution that real black people did.

But that's nonsense. Given that they live as "black people" and make themselves look like black people, why would they not suffer any of that same persecution that all other black people are claimed to?

And once again, remember the Authenticity of Adoption argument: Whereas many black people might suffer discrimination, Dolezal and King choose to suffer discrimination (or, as much as actually exists, anyway).

I'm not really claiming they're black; they are what they are. They're white people who choose to be black, to the extent they can.

I'm just continuing to delight in the left's slap-happy Humpty Dumpty inconsistency on the idea of adopted identity.

posted by Ace at 12:29 PM

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