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The racial identity of another well-known activist, this time from the “Black Lives Matter” movement has stirred controversy and drawn responses from all over. The central question remains: Does his race matter?
Shaun King, a blogger who identifies as black and gained notoriety in the aftermath of a police shooting last summer in Ferguson, Missouri, responded to claims made by conservative internet sites that both of his parents are white and that he had exaggerated an assault he endured two decades ago in high school. King responded last week via his blog in which he rejected those claims, and said it has always been common knowledge that the white man listed on his birth certificate was not his biological father.
Bloggers posted a Kentucky birth certificate identifying a white man as King’s father. King said that his biological father is actually a light-skinned black man with whom his mother had an affair.
“It is horrifying to me that my most personal information, for the most nefarious reasons, has been forced out into the open and that my private past and pain have been used as jokes and fodder to discredit me and the greater movement for justice in America. I resent that lies have been reported as truth and that the obviously racist intentions of these attacks have been consistently downplayed at my expense and that of my family.”
Attacking the motives and backgrounds of people involved in civil rights movements is something that has been happening for quite some time, whether it’s questioning political leanings or racial identity, something King is confronting now.
Vanderbilt University philosophy professor Lucius Outlaw Jr., an expert on social and racial issues had this to say on the issue: “Do I think his race matters? And the question is to whom, and why does it matter? What difference does it make from the point of view of contributions to the movement? You don’t have to be black to say black lives matter.”
According to Outlaw those who measure King’s legitimacy by his skin color are giving in to pre-determined definitions of race. The allegations stemmed from conservative blogs such as Breitbart.com and The Blaze.
Bloggers also posted a police report from a March 1995 assault case at Woodford County High School in Kentucky in which the responding detective filled in a box identifying King as white as proof of his racial identity.
Keith Broughton, who investigated the assault, met King and his mother in a local hospital and said this abuot the incident “His mother is white. I didn’t ask him if he was black or white. It was apparent to me that he was one or the other and he was there with his mother, so I just checked white.”
King had written that when the fight occurred, racial tensions at his high school were reaching a boiling point. While speaking with The Associated Press, Broughton said the fight happened because King was accused of threatening the suspect’s girlfriend over a broken cd.
Broughton said he was called to investigate the assault about 40 minutes after it was reported. He said the injuries he observed didn’t indicate that King was attacked by multiple people, a claim bloggers also questioned.
“I know that there were several people gathered around egging the fight on or whatever. He took a pretty good beating and, with all those people standing around, was probably terrified that they were all going to whip him.”
King said on his blog that he missed 20 months of school because of the attack however he said he would offer no further comment on the incident.
Bloggers also have accused King of misrepresenting his racial identity to earn a scholarship from Oprah Winfrey to attend Morehouse College in Atlanta.
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