The Rachel Divide

I went between laughing at her and feeling sorry for her. She's clearly got some emotional issues that need to be addressed at a professional level.

At the end of the day, especially in this day and age when people don't even know what gender they are and what bathroom they should use, who cares that she wants to be close to the black culture? Her problem isn't her mental issues, it's that she lied about it for so long and so publicly, nobody will sympathize now.

If she had just been truthful from the beginning, this documentary would have never been made.

I do find it very odd though that EVERYTHING she does is black. Black adoptions, black friends, etc. Must be what the Kardashians girls have? Not sure.

This is an interesting story, and raises genuine issues but fails to delve into them deeply. The good part of the doco though is how it shows how Rachel's decisions and actions impacted on her kids and family. I do believe she needs help regarding a possible identity disorder and that her 13 year old son desperately requires some form of counselling. I have complete and utter empathy for her up bringing and the actual good work she did for the African American community, however, fluidity when it comes to ethnicity does not exist yet and probably won't anytime soon. I feel it would have been far better if she had just identified as neither race and explained that she feels a stronger connection to the black community (due to her kids) and that she doesn't want the same possible prejudices against her family. I think most people would have agreed with her feelings regarding this, could relate and be driven for change together.

It was interesting to see the back story of someone who would go this far to disassociate themselves from reality. But in a way you can see that she's not fallen as far from the tree as she imagines, the white savior like her parents, adopting black children, just in a different way, fueled by religious fervor of a moral crusade. Her artistic skill is surprisingly good, its a shame she wasted it to become part of the diversity and grievance industry. But that's the thing this film reveals, she can barely fix her own life let alone anyone elses, a single mother, divorced, saddled with many children, while divorced has another child against the fathers wishes while she has no job. Is she trying to live an ugly stereotype and bring it to life? The doc does fail to really delve deeper into what she got herself into, the vast infrastructure of the diversity industry. How this nobody became a NAACP branch president, where did they get their money, how was she teaching courses in colleges? The vast flows of money to create these human networks of diversity propagandists is something a netflix doc is never going to deal with, and that's too bad, because it destroys lives, not just Rachels, but those it indoctrinates with the poison of a history and identity of grievance. She might have been a decent artist, maybe even a history teacher, if she had not tried to be what she was not and had spent her time on herself rather than trying to be the white savior. When she joined the game of identity politics she learned the lesson that the content of her character meant nothing. That is the lesson of her life, and this film.

The media has a way of dehumanising "controversial" characters. It's a decent documentary that offers further insight to the person behind the controversy and hate. Although I wish they would've included a psychological perspective to the main theme of the documentary - racial identity!

As an armchair psychologist, it's clear to me that Rachel is using the less-known notion of "trans-racialism" to disassociate from what seems to have been a difficult childhood and upbringing. In a household where there definitely existed abuse of some type, her escape route was her attachment to her adopted black siblings and wanting to protect them from parents that were unfit to adopt children of a different race. She identified with them more than her own biological parents and brother, all of whom are responsible for inflicting the trauma that she still hasn't addressed or processed.

The form of escapism she chose in order to deal with her domestic issues turned a fantasy of who she wanted to be into a reality where she felt more "authentic" by changing her racial identity. I don't think that at any point, this was a spur-of-the-moment choice to exercise her "white privilege" but something that developed gradually within her at a core-deep level. Many traumatised children do this in one form or another--by creating a new identity for themselves that's the opposite of the identity they were born with or cultivated during a difficult upbringing.

But enough of my amateur psychoanalytical ramblings...

The documentary itself maintained my attention and interest throughout while I experienced quite a roller-coaster of emotions and thoughts, veering between feelings of sympathy for Rachel to getting frustrated with her. Especially heartbreaking was witnessing the pain and anguish her media appearances or social media posts caused her sons, particularly the younger one (who wasn't able to flee to Europe to get away form it all like his older brother). At only 13 years of age, he seemed like an incredibly mature and insightful boy who espoused more common sense and maturity than any of the adults featured.

The horrid nastiness of some of the people towards her was hard to watch. I couldn't compute how they viewed themselves as direct victims of her actions. In a world where hardened criminals like George Floyd are sanctified and made into poster children for justice and celebrated as heroes, what has Rachel done that's so unforgivable/irredeemable that she has to be so vilified and ostracised? People are advocating for transgender rights but why is it okay to be a man who identifies as a woman but not okay to be one race but identify as another? If you are one of the people who believes that race is merely a 'social construct' then you should be supporting Rachel and hail her as a hero for admitting that she's not white despite appearances!

We sure live in a messed-up world where everything has been turned on its head! It might've been helpful if the documentary makers had addressed Rachel's mental health and offered to get her into therapy to deal with many of her unresolved issues.

And finally, so bloody what that she's written a book to tell her side of the story? Considering that no one will employ her, she's excluded from society, harassed when in public etc., she needs to earn money to live and feed her family. Where's the humanity in humans these days? This woman has undeniably made mistakes for which she's paying but at some point we must stop punishing people like her and focus on the real villains of our world.

Poor thing is addicted to persecution and keeps seeking it out. I feel really bad for her black teenage sons who she keeps dragging through it.