Cultural Appropriation & The Narcissist's Mask
A common and deceiving design that signals a fraud.
In 2015, the public learned that Rachel Dolezal, a white woman, had been presenting herself as a Black professor and activist.
When confronted, she didn’t apologize or step back.
Instead, she claimed to be “transracial.”
The framing was striking —because the claim followed a familiar psychological pattern: mirroring a marginalized group while simultaneously centering oneself as the misunderstood victim.
At the same time, Rachel Dolezal wasn’t ONLY seeking to walk in the world with a black identity: she sought to use it as a means to pursue POWER. She was president of the Spokane NAACP.
This pattern sits at the intersection of narcissism, racism, and cultural appropriation.
One of the least discussed patterns of the disorder is the strange behavior regarding race that often develops as a consequence.
On one hand, many narcissists will become fervent racists: they’ll be certain their own race is THE BEST IN THE WORLD (narcissistic fantasy), and this should grant them special privileges (narcissistic entitlement).
At the same time, they often develop sexualized racial fetishes based around the arbitrary taboos they’ve created around race. These fetishes, much like their closeted behaviors around homosexuality or bisexulaity, can often become their “dirty little secrets,” their secret double lives.