If Blacks are supposedly having a far rougher time of it because of White people, why would a person choose to pretend to be Black?

In the tradition of Rachel Dolezal, White race hustler, we have a new entrant in the trans-ethnic insanity: Shaun King. This man obtained considerable financial gain through his lies, by receiving scholarship money on account of his “mixed-race” heritage and supposed Black father. Naturally, it was recently discovered that his father was White, and taking one look at the man you would figure that his mother, still not released as of this writing, is as well.

Anyway, if we consider that Blacks are supposedly having a far rougher time of it because of White people, why would a person choose to pretend to be Black? We can posit two possibilities, both of which may apply here:

1. White privilege doesn’t actually exist, and the programs designed to help Blacks actually give them more than equivalent Whites, incentivizing hustlers to play this particular con.

2. White race hustlers pretending to be Black suffer from some sort of mental illness.

Pretending to be Something You’re Not

It's gotten to the point where it's not rare any more.

A woman I’ve known for some time is fond of making great declarations of intent which she’ll never follow through on. Once, she explained that she was going to go to medical school and become a plastic surgeon. “Lawrence,” she told me, “I’ll look you up when I’m living up the good life.” I’m not sure if she expected to create some kind of jealousy in me, or if she really believed all of this and was trying to be gracious to her friends. But, a few months later, her goal to become a plastic surgeon had been completely forgotten.

You see, a new movie had come out, the recent adaptation of The Great Gatsby, and this woman had decided that bringing back flapper fashions was her new and great cause. Later, of course, this would be forgotten and set aside in favor of some other ambition. After a time, I simply ignored her statements and just nodded my head politely whenever she spouted off her latest life dream. She returned to her life as a live-in nanny in a modest home.

She is a Progressive, at least so far as her limited political outlook can be said to be anything. Bernie Sanders memes fill her Facebook wall, and she is quick to express her disapproval of Republicans. For whatever reason, I have been granted an exception for being “pretty smart” and “something of a dick, but kinda funny.” But her forbearance doesn’t extend much beyond me.

To be fair to her, she’s actually a very intelligent woman, and I suspect if she truly desired to be a plastic surgeon or a fashion designer, it would be within the realm of possibility. But I also know she’ll never be any of these things. Like most people in modern America, her attention span is abysmally short and nothing ever seems quite good enough to her to be worth real investment of time, effort, and resources.