Alexander O. Boulton's question in his letter of June 20 ("Rachel Dolezal is a strong black woman"), "What does it mean to be 'really' black?" is a classic example of Orwellian doublespeak. Mr. Boulton wants to have his cake and eat it too. He is in strong denial of the whole issue.
In a sorry attempt to prove that Rachel Dolezal is "really" black, he throws out the birth certificate, the color charts, the biological basis all out the window. The biological basis is "…either nonexistent or obscure." How wonderful! With one stroke of his masterful penmanship, he has consigned race, ethnicity, national origin and, by extrapolation, a myriad of the divisions of human beings into irrelevance, redundancy.
Mr. Boulton must come to grips with the fact that all these divisions are "real" and not a figment of anyone's imagination. The key is how we deal with them. One group of people cannot indefinitely hold other groups hostage over a legitimate grievance of wrongdoing in the past, however distant that past might be.
So instead of resolving this charade, this pity party, Mr. Boulton posits a "social construct" theory throwing science on the trash heap with one, swift kick from "society." Subscribing to this theory, can I claim to be Native American/American Indian? It is "really" cool to be one and claim benefits instead of suffering under the "unreal" label of Indian-American.
Legally adopted black brothers and black sons does not make an obviously lying white woman black. Rachel Dolezal is a lying, cheating, misleading white woman.
Salim Khatib, Catonsville