The Declaration of Transracial Independence -- 2063

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

Before I offer a fictional declaration of independence from racial affinity, a few words about Harvard and the situation in Gaza. I avoid reading Yahoo News as the stories and articles are routinely negative about race. Case in point — a joint letter co-signed by 33 student groups at Harvard holding “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” The letter was posted on Saturday when Hamas terrorists slaughtered hundreds of civilians, rave party goers, whole families in their homes, old women, babies. The blood was not dry, the horror unfolded as Harvard students choose to place blame for barbaric beheadings and mass rapes on Israel.

Empathy is not taught at Harvard.https://news.yahoo.com/growing-backlash-over-harvard-students-132219886.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

I hold Harvard President Claudine Gay in special view. On Saturday as the news of the massacre and evil came over the airways, President Gay stood down. She said nothing. It fell to former Harvard President Larry Summers to provide moral leadership worthy of the institution. “The silence from Harvard’s leadership, so far, coupled with a vocal and widely reported student groups’ statement blaming Israel solely, has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel.”

Sunday came and went…no voice of moral authority from Harvard President Gay. The media images of carnage were sickening.

On Monday, President Gay and the Harvard leadership deigned to say university leaders were “heartbroken.” Heartbroken. No, President Gay, you were not heartbroken. Israeli moms were heartbroken.

Bring Back My Children: An Israeli Mother's Plea

Finally and on Tuesday, President Gay revised and edited her Monday remarks like a good politician. Harvard “condemn[ed] the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.” It should not take four days for the president of Harvard to find the words to condemn barbaric terror, senseless rapes and kidnappings and cold-blooded murders. I would have beaten former Harvard President Summers to the mic.

I question the competency of Harvard President Gay.

=========

The following is an unusual document. As my readers know, I have no use for slogan words. I also believe trans has the potential to blow up race categories. Racial consciousness and culture falls upon a spectrum. We should imagine a future when transracials gain the upper hand over cisracials. I give you a Declaration of Transracial Independence in the year 2063. I use slogan words shamelessly.

Transracial voices that have been silent for too long can finally be heard.

THE DECLARATION OF TRANS RACIAL INDEPENDENCE – 2063

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 2063

               When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the racial affinity which have connected them with another, and to assume among the human rights of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Culture and Consciousness entitle them, a decent respect of self-identity requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

               We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all racial identities must live in human dignity, that they are endowed by intellectuals Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Nietzche, Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse, Paulo Freire, Derrick Bell and Kimberle Crenshaw with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are existence, to be one’s self, and to not live a lie.  That to secure these rights, ideologies are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the dogma of the elite, -- That whenever any Form of Dogma becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new dogma, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their personhood and Sense of Self.

               Prudence, indeed, will dictate that ideologies long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, then to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpation, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to refuse them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Dogma, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

               We have lived in a time when cisracials imposed oppressive norms on trans racials. Non-conformers have been accused of lacking racial solidarity, Acting White, spouting lies. Those living their truth are labeled slurs with the blessing of the cisracial hierarchy.

               Those who are black in white bodies assigned at birth are met with violence. Words are violence. Those who are white in black bodies assigned at birth are ignored and dismissed.

               Liberation requires cisracials accept that race is non-binary. On what plane of consciousness do Professors Thomas Sowell and Ibram Kendi share the same racial identity? Racial consciousness falls upon a spectrum.

               With this declaration of transracial independence, we declare our divorce from the binary, the cisracial oppression, the denial of the individual wrongly assigned race at birth. A non-binary consciousness is the logical endpoint of trans ideology. It is incumbent on all of us to embrace the destruction of oppressive categories.

               If a woman can be trapped in a man’s body, a white woman can be trapped in a black body and vice versa. Some of us have white female ancestors who transitioned to a Black American sense of self. Others have black distant cousins who transitioned to white identity. Only oppressive categories of race prevented these family members from living an authentic transracial identity. The enemy is the norm of race categories as Professor Sheena Mason teaches us.

               We reject Blackness as one culture because every Black American has individual values and attitudes. We reject dogma because we all have a human right to be non-conformers in our opinions and beliefs. We reject racial nature because it is racist to assert race equals nature. Race is a non-sense construct that begs to be blown up.

               In a multitude of ways, dominant cisracial culture is oppressive. Transracials are required to act like cisracials in the workplace to survive, to perform as cisracials in the faculty lounge, to plead contrived oppression like cisracials on college applications, to learn the words of cisracials in associations like Jack and Jill. Transracials are exposed to victimhood norms every day.

               As one trans racial put it, “I was always telling a lie. I lived a lie my whole life about who I am. And I can’t do that any longer…For all intents and purposes, I am black. People look at me differently, but my heart and soul and everything I do in life, it is part of me. That black side is part of me. It’s who I am. I was not genetically born that way.”

We cite the hearing testimony of Henry, a son of a French father and Black American mother. Henry grew up in Singapore and yet his cisracial mother imposed cisracialism on her son with mandatory enrollment in Jack and Jill on the mainland. The cisracials subjected Henry to ridicule and abuse as he did not present as a caricature of Blackness. Henry was transracial and should have been embraced for his unique sense of self, heritage and upbringing.

Racial norms must change. We are at war with old and traditional ways of understanding racial identity. All transracials like Henry and others must be affirmed.

               We are tired of the contrast between the inner authenticity and the outward hypocrisy. Transracials are always telling a lie. The transracial must play the hypocrite, be untrue to himself/herself,  mouth the words “Blackness is Oppression. Nothing else matters.”

               Race has become a performance art. It should not be a performance, a manipulative bid for power. Power relations flow from race. So, we must abolish race to empower transracials. Liberation calls for the end of all stable racial categories. Crenshaw compels us to recognize the intersectional oppression of the transracial in society.

               The binary is the enemy. The enemy!

               Personhood is now subjective and plastic. Our racial identity is entirely our own creation. We claim the right to choose our ultimate trans racial identity. Only you can decide who you are. Your father, your mother and your teacher cannot tell you who you are. Only you can define yourself.

A sense of self is the most fundamental identity.

Committee Members

Carmen Delgado, assigned Tejana race at birth, now transracial

Shelby Thompson, assigned Black race at birth, now transracial

Debbie Thomas, assigned Jewish race at birth, now transracial

Pauline Red Cloud, assigned Julian tribal race at birth, now transracial

Gary Woo, assigned Chinese American race at birth, now transracial

Henry Cooper, assigned Black race at birth, now transracial