Remember Rachel Dolezal?

The pioneering white woman who spent years playing a black person in her work for the NAACP has a successor:

NOW members told The Daily Beast they were shocked when BJ Star, a current board member, identified herself as Asian-American in campaign materials. Star, born Barbara Bencsik, had never identified herself as such in previous campaigns, and lists herself as white in voter registrations dating back to 1984. Multiple members said Star had not identified herself as a woman of color in past conversations about race or attended special meetings designed for women of color in NOW. 

Despite this, Star's bio on the candidates' website now states that she intends to build NOW's diversity membership "as Asian-American."

The photos of her don't ring anyone's bell for the word "Asian-American."

Asia's a big place of course, and she has a Slavic-looking last name, which might mean some of her ancestors came from Siberia — unlikely, but possible.  Any Russian land east of the Urals is in Asia.

Or maybe she took a genetics test and came up with some of the Genghis Khan genes — most of us with ancestors from Ukraine, Russia, or any place the Mongol hordes blew through do.  We've all got a little bit of Genghis.  Uhhhh, right.

Or perhaps she can claim some Jewish descent — Israel after all, is in Asia, which therefore makes everyone who's Jewish perfectly Asian-American, too.

But it's not what people think when we speak of Asian or Asian outreach.  What we have here is a wretched new case of ethnic appropriation for political advantage, something ambitious whites are doing in increasing numbers, claiming to be vaunted victims.

Dolezal pioneered it by claiming to be African-American, despite being completely white, working her hair and features to an approximation of "black" and maybe putting on some spray tan to get what she wanted to get.

Elizabeth Warren pioneered it, too, playing the ethic appropriation game to claim Indian ancestry, despite being a pink and gold blonde, claiming that "crab with tomato mayonnaise dressing" was a Native American heritage dish instead of bland white WASP food, once viewed as virtuous by the New England set. 

It obviously points to racial bean-counting as an incentive these days, and whites are now committing fraud to stake that claim.

But given that this is NOW, the pro-abortion-focused women's "rights" group (forget the rights of very little women), it's also at the intersection of the transgender controversies.

After all, if this woman "feels" Asian, who's to stop her?  Accepting her as "Asian" with maybe a drop of Jewish or Russian blood is a heckuva lot more accurate than accepting a male with a Y-chromosome, no period, and a testosterone surplus as a woman.  The organization's widespread acceptance of this fiction based on how some people "feel" rather than objective facts on the ground makes this and all other fictions possible, and NOW can't argue.

Now they've got this issue, with racial bean-counting the ultimate argument for electing someone.  They deserve this.  But it signals that for the rest of the world, it's time to just say no.  

Image credit: Elvert Barnes via Flickr, detail, CC BY-SA 2.0.