By: T. Shelton
In the words of Stephen King: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.” That quote seems so fitting with the story below.
An investigative blogger has accused Shaun King, a key figure in the Black Lives Matter movement, of misleading media icon Oprah Winfrey by pretending to be biracial in order to qualify for an “Oprah scholarship” to historically black Morehouse College. The blogger says King is white and has been lying about his ethnicity for years.
…Yet, in recent weeks, rumours have been circulating about his ethnicity. A 1995 police incident report lists Shaun King’s ethnicity as white. And blogger Vicki Pate, who has been assembling forensic accounts of Shaun King’s background and family tree on her blog, “Re-NewsIt!,” has published her findings.
I’m not going to lie here but I find this hilarious. This has to be third time within the past two years black folks got played by somebody white pretending to be black. For those wondering about the third case, does anybody remember that Texas school board candidate that got elected by pretending to be related to a famous black guy? Remember how outraged the black folks were when they found out the guy was really white? Hey, at least he didn’t change his physical appearance like Rachel Dolezal and Shaun King.
Both Rachel and Shaun get an A+ from me on creativity. To make physical changes in order look like a certain ethnicity and then reap the benefits of being that ethnicity, you have to admit that’s pretty creative. I have come to the conclusion that folks like this are either one of two things:
- Mentally Insane
- “Up On Game”
While I believe Rachel has a few loose bolts, both were definitely up on game. For those who don’t know what the term “Up on Game” means, I define it is as a person that knows a lot about specific culture’s behavior or person’s behavior and use it to their benefit. For example, the Texas school board member is definitely without a doubt up on game. Working for the school, he spent a lot of time studying the voting habits of black folks. He knew it takes little to nothing to win the majority black vote besides name recognition and endorsement. Since he shared the same last name of a local popular state representative, all he had to do was say that he was related to and endorsed by the popular state representative on his campaign fliers. He knew that most black folks wasn’t going to do research on him despite never seeing him once during the entire campaign, something that would strike most people as odd. The only difference between the three, besides the stories, is that the latter two did it for black benefits.
Seeing that both Rachel and Shaun spent a lot of time around black folks they know that you can literally look like Inspector Clouseau from the Pink Panther and still be considered fully black. I remember when I was younger and I made a comment about Mariah Carey being a talented white woman. My mom told me that she was black. I had an “Are you serious?” look on my face because she can pass for being white. Seeing the look on my face, she told me that Mariah Carey was mixed. If you’re wondering how you could like Inspector Clouseau or Mariah Carey and still be considered fully black, well it’s because many black folks believe in this stupid rule from slavery times that states, “If you have one drop of black blood in you, you’re automatically black.” I heard this stupid rule multiple times throughout out my life and questioned it every time because it allows someone who looks like another ethnicity to claim total blackness. I’m pretty sure both of them know this and saw how mixed blacks are put on pedestals within the black community. When I was in middle school, my black classmates would often talk trash about how dark my skin was, but none of the lighter skinned or mixed blacks in my class had to deal with that. I didn’t take it to heart because I found it hilarious that people two to three shades darker than me would talk about how dark my skin was. I’ve briefly touched on the internal racism within the black community in a previous article. Rachel and Shaun decided to be mixed blacks because they would be on a pedestal, still get the black benefits, and make an easy to transition back to white when they got tired of exploiting black folks being black.
Many people wonder would why Rachel and Shaun did what they did. They’re just what biracial people and other ethnicities have been doing for over a century in this country. Claim to be another ethnicity to get benefits or a job. I don’t believe Rachel did it intentionally for the benefits because she seems like she has a couple of loose screws. On the other hand, I believe Shaun did it intentionally because he strikes me as sketchy from the pictures I’ve seen of him online. My gut instinct was right on that one. Anyways, I understand why they did what they did and I’m not really upset with them for doing it. If you want to blame something for their actions, blame the culture in this country (really the West in general) that incentivize being a loser. You know, The folks that don’t want to try at all, take the easy way out, and claim victim status for his or her failures at life to get free stuff. For example, I have a cousin that received a scholarship from her college that paid half of her way, a job at a bookstore, a car from my uncle, and got to live rent free with my aunt and uncle in an affluent Detroit suburb. I will admit that she had a rough life growing up living with her mom, but she would constantly act out of line at school and at home. The only reason she graduated in high school because my aunt (not her mom, but the wife of the uncle that bought her a car) was constantly on her about her classes. Fast forward a year, this exact same cousin lost her job and scholarship do to attendance issues. When this happened (ironically around the exact same time), my aunt and uncle did some investigating and found out that my cousin was back in her old neighborhood in Detroit involved with a gang. So they took their car back and kicked her behind out of their house.
When I first heard this story from another relative a few years ago, I was so pissed off that steam was coming from my ears. I worked my behind off in high school to graduate with honors despite having one bad semester and only got a scholarship that would cover only one full-time semester at a community college and a fraction of that at a university. No car or job fresh out of high school. Here is this fool that barely passed high school getting the ultimate hook-up; a deal that anybody would kill to get fresh out of high school with no money or job. I couldn’t believe she traded the ultimate hook-up for the streets. Now she’s worse off at 30 than what she would’ve been taking advantage of that deal and getting her education. My aunt and uncle would’ve been better off giving that deal to me because at least that would’ve got a return on their investment. To this day, they still believe that they did the right thing because she had a rough life. I still put my hand over my face in disbelief to this day when they say that. Hey, at least they caught on to what was going on before it got worse. I have so many stories like this from my life that I could write a book on it.
Until we start rewarding folks based on their work ethic instead of who is the most downtrodden, expect to see more people pulling a Rachel Dolezal or Shaun King to get black benefits. I forgot to mention that both of them got black scholarships to black universities. I honestly believe they should pay all of that scholarship money back. To all the black folks mad at Rachel and Shaun, stop claiming everybody as black then and folks wouldn’t be able pull stunts like this. They got their scholarships based off of their pictures. What’s going on at the scholarship boards that they think in 2015 that folks won’t try to scheme? Why is not required for black scholarships to send in a birth certificate or a DNA Test to prove that you have some black in you? To get 1-percent of Native American Tribe benefits, they’re going to grill you worse than a Marine Drill Sergeant on top of you sending in your DNA Test. Anybody can just Waltz on in and get black benefits without question and go back their ethnicity when they’re finished conning black people.
At this point, I say get what you can get off this system, it no longer favors hard-working people anyway. Seriously, when was the last time our society mostly worked in the interests of hard-working people? The 1950’s? Losers get more opportunities and favors than the hard-working people and the folks trying to do right combined. They know this and will openly brag to you about it like what happened to me back in Summer 2012. This is why you have multiple generations of single parents living in the same housing project. There use be a time when they inspired to do better, but this current generation know if they have a baby or two that they’re set for life without doing any type of real work. I personally know a few girls that intentionally had a baby by a crappy dude so they can get benefits like free college. They don’t care how the child turns out in the end as long as that check comes. In reality, there are hundreds of thousands of Rachel’s and Shaun’s trying to cheat the system, but Rachel and Shaun just beat everybody to the punch of being born one ethnicity and making physical changes to become another ethnicity to get their benefits.
I leave you all something my dad used to tell me all the time growing up, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Right now the game is screwed up.
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