Is Transracial Identity Acceptance That Far-Fetched?

As ridiculous as it sounds right now, I believe it's very likely that transracial identification will eventually be normalized & accepted in the western world.

And I believe I know how it could happen and what it would look like.

First, let's quickly discuss the concept of race. Race is a social construct loosely based on ancestry and we often use visual indicators to identify what race someone may be in. The problem is these indicators aren't absolute, leaving a vulnerability for how we identify people.

For example, both my parents would be considered black but if I were albino, would I not be "black" even though my skin tone was fair? Most would still consider me black despite our normal perception of black being someone with a brown (or darker) skin tone.

Someone from the Dominican Republic who is dark-skinned, are they Hispanic or black? It may be up to the person as to how they reference themselves or the context of the situation.

Mixed-race people go through a similar situation, oftentimes being forced to choose one ethnicity over another. Barrack Obama is considered the first black president, not the first bi-racial president because of his darker skin tone. But would it be wrong to call him white?

Racial identification as it currently exists allows for fluidity and for some people to go between identifications if they choose to. After all, it's a social construct which means socially, we can alter the meaning of race and its application.

This brings us to transracial identification. Right now, it would sound absurd for someone who is white to identify as black, much like Rachel Dolezal's situation. The reason she is mockable is that she's not seen as an empathetic figure since she hid her history for years.

Her hiding her ancestry comes off as her doing it for malicious reasons, even if that wasn't her intention. However, what would happen if someone of notoriety provided an empathetic story about their struggles with racial identity? We'd likely succumb to their identification.

You'd hear people say "what does it hurt to call them black?" to rationalize the abnormal. Narratives about people being born in the wrong body don't sound strange anymore, so would it be a stretch to believe that Karen has always felt like Keisha?

They were born this way, so should we punish them for something they had no control over? Questioning them would be insensitive at this point because we were told that affirmation is the way forward. It wouldn't matter if I, a biological black person, find it offensive.

The trans-blacks would wear blackface makeup and fake butts until they could afford pigmentation injections & Brazilian butt lifts to appear as their fantasized stereotype. To feel more "authentic", the trans-blacks would speak in ebonics & add "nigga" to their vocabulary.

Hollywood would fully embrace this new wave of racial acceptance. The children of celebrities would come out of the closet with their harrowing stories of always feeling black because they loved Hip-Hop more than other white people and had an affinity to black culture.

Over time, the biological blacks would feel like the trans-blacks are getting preferential treatment. The BET awards Best Actor would go to someone who's transracial, sparking outrage & claims of bigotry for having outrage.

After all, you don't want to be a trans-racist do you?

Academics would finally find a way to deconstruct the social construct of race to include the transracials. Your old way of classifying people was exclusionary to the transracials, so it's time for you to progress forward and re-evaluate what you used to know.

Transracial classification would become the ultimate social conundrum because of its fluidity and not being based on any particular scientific method. It's simply based on how we perceive each other and at times how we perceive ourselves.

With a few highly empathetic stories, a massive media push, and academic rationalization, I could easily see transracialism being fully accepted in the western world.

Our obsession with self-identification plus requiring others to affirm these identities or else be lambasted as a bigot has created this environment.

Instead of being upset that someone is lampooning me, I must accept it and discard my emotions because theirs matters more.

If I'm not allowed to speak up when it feels like someone is mocking me because I would be labeled a bigot, then who is actually the oppressed one in this scenario? The transracials or me?