Nicole Richie was white in 2003, black in 2006
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Funny stuff, from MollyGood:
Three years ago, Nicole Richie was arrested for heroin possession, so following this morning’s DUI arrest, The Smoking Gun was kind enough to compare the changes in her booking sheets from 2003 and 2006. Wheee. The picture accompanying the 2006 sheet is her mugshot, while the 2003 pic is just a photo of Nicole from around the same time.
Here is how she’s changed (I mean, other than her drug of choice). In three years, Nicole Richie has:
1. Shrunk one inch.
2. Lost 5 lbs. (That’s all? Seems fishy.)
3. Changed which race she identifies with (White in 2003, Black in 2006).Well, at this rate, when she’s arrested in 2009 she’ll be a 5′0”, 80 lb Latina.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Dumi wrote:
This is hilarious… then again it’s a little disturbing too! The cookie image is funny too!
Posted 11 Dec 2006 at 6:09 pm ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:
Just to clarify by the way, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with changing the way you identify racially – we’ve always been big proponents of self-identification here on Racialicious. It’s just kinda funny that her height changed too.
Posted 11 Dec 2006 at 6:14 pm ¶
Kyla wrote:
I don’t know. I don’t think this is really that funny. It seems to me that her own self-identification has changed from how people see her to how she sees herself, in my opinion, although my own experience is probably coloring that.
I guess if she were doing it for obviously dumb reasons (e.g., so she can call people the n-word, or something equally dumb, without getting called a racist), it would be one thing, but it seems to me from what I’ve seen that she’s actively stopped identifying as white. Which is, honestly, her right.
And I’ve shrunk an inch, too (not really, just stopped trying to stretch my 5′1.25″ self into 5′2″). If she was wearing bigger shoes the first time (and platforms were giving a dying gasp back in ‘03), it would be easy for a cop to measure her differently.
Posted 11 Dec 2006 at 6:36 pm ¶
Kyla wrote:
And another note: She was booked in different areas. If one had the measuring tape they use an inch lower than the other (or even half an inch, since they apparently round it), there’s the height change.
Posted 11 Dec 2006 at 6:39 pm ¶
Nadia wrote:
one of the comments from the page you linked to:
“supfoo says:
I don’t understand how her mother could be black, because she looks so white and she claims to be a natural blonde, actually I think Ive seen baby pictures of her with blonde hair, it was just nappy-er then.”
Posted 11 Dec 2006 at 7:33 pm ¶
FrancesM wrote:
I think this Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People sums up what I have to say on this topic:
I HAVE THE RIGHT…
Not to justify my existence in this world.
Not to keep the races separate within me.
Not to be responsible for people’s discomfort with my physical ambiguity.
Not to justify my ethnic legitimacy.
I HAVE THE RIGHT…
To identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify.
To identify myself differently from how my parents identify me.
To identify myself differently from my brothers and sisters.
To identify myself differently in different situations.
I HAVE THE RIGHT…
To create a vocabulary to communicate about being multiracial.
To change my identity over my lifetime — and more than once.
To have loyalties and identification with more than one group of people.
To freely choose whom I befriend and love.
Posted 11 Dec 2006 at 7:59 pm ¶
Sandra wrote:
Look closer. The thing about the weight and height are just decoys, because those can vary for everyone. If those were the only inconsistencies, it wouldn’t raise a chuckle from anyone. They’re just included in the “joke” as filler, a distraction. The true punchline of this joke is to hold her up to ridicule because she won’t choose a box and stick with it.
Posted 11 Dec 2006 at 8:25 pm ¶
Tariq Nelson wrote:
I don’t think the police ask you these questions or have the person to fill out a questionaire during booking.
A viable explanation is that two different policemen filled out the information and they each put in what race they thought she was.
Posted 11 Dec 2006 at 9:42 pm ¶
Anonymous wrote:
Her celebrity has continued to grow over the last three years. If she filled in both forms herself (as The Smoking Gun suggests), and it’s sad to say this, identifying as white might have been a considered decision to secure better treatment by the criminal justice system when facing the serious crime of heroin possession, and identifying as black later on, with a little more celebrity/notoriety under her belt, might have been similarly considered, to put kid gloves on the officers who pulled her over for a less serious crime.
Or perhaps we’re all reading too much into this.
Posted 11 Dec 2006 at 11:02 pm ¶
kim wrote:
FrancesM:
Can this person stand up straight, and look in a mirror?
Many of your points are salient, but then one must ask why all the chameleon moves? To identify as one chooses, and to place others at a level of discomfort because you identify differently than they would have you identify, seem like considered, rational choices.
Playing identification guess-who any time one feels like it, truly sounds like something psychology would call a high-monitor personality.
What’s the point?
Posted 11 Dec 2006 at 11:55 pm ¶
Kyla wrote:
Kim – who’s to say she’s playing “identification guess-who”? There are a lot of reasons she could have -chosen- to identify as white three years ago and black today. It’s not like a day went by. Three years did. A lot can change in three years.
Posted 12 Dec 2006 at 1:43 am ¶
kim wrote:
I am not talking about Richie, I’m speaking to FrancesM’s Bill of Rights’ proposal that one routinely (feels capricious and convenient to me) exercise the option to:
change [my] identity over my lifetime — and more than once.
To have loyalties and identification with more than one group of people.
As much as I say be who you are, I believe one should firmly know how one wants to present onesself.
The Bill of Rights speaks to that right, and I take issue with something which seems dangerously weak in the pulse.
Posted 12 Dec 2006 at 2:08 am ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:
Hi Kim, unfortunately, this is a pervasive stereotype about mixed race people: that they’re confused, or just can’t make up their minds.
What that passage in the Bill of Rights is getting at, is that mixed people shouldn’t have to just choose one side and stick to it, and they shouldn’t have to choose only one community to feel allegiance to. If they want to do that, great. But that should be their choice, not one forced upon them by society.
The reality is that identity is a fluid thing. Think about what you were like 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Aren’t there many aspects of your identity, your beliefs, your values, that have evolved over that time?
And just to clarify, the Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People was created by Dr. Maria P.P. Root, a respected academic and pioneer in the field of critical mixed race studies. You can find it here:
http://tinyurl.com/y46hp3
Also, I agree with Tariq that the difference in reported race could very well have nothing to do with how Richie self-identifies. I believe that in these situations, police officers often do an eyeball job and just write down what they the person’s race is.
Posted 12 Dec 2006 at 9:48 am ¶
FrancesM wrote:
Oops. I should have given credit to Dr. Maria Root. Thank you Carmen!
Posted 12 Dec 2006 at 1:00 pm ¶
kim wrote:
I do know the stereotype, Carmen. But my comment does not go to confusion, so much as a psychological option that lets one, say, escape a gas chamber, because the eyeball test does not apply, and no one but you can tell if you “are”, or “aren’t”.
I don’t find that to be an issue of “confusion,” and less as “fusion”, as much as “white noise (small W, thank you)”
A psychological “pass”, allowing for an itinerant, transient claim to not just a “color” or a “slot”, but to a BELIEF SYSTEM seems without any real integrity.
I will have an interesting and trying time watching two of my children navigate those waters, to be sure. But the inescapable fact is claiming a cultural and ethnic heritage can and should lead one to a claim of place and self and tradition and values, and those things, while they can and do incorporate a little bit of “flavor” of the surrounding cultures, lends do a palpable sense of identity.
Respected academic or not, the points with which I have taken issue with, as should be clear in Kyla’s inference of my intentions, goes to a capricious exercise of said choice. (Kyla: It’s not like a day went by. Three years did. A lot can change in three years.)
And the police identification of Richie is not at issue here, either. Richie is not at issue here. It is that Bill of Rights.
My youngest son, when he has been hospitalized and I have ridden along in the ambulance with him, has been written up on the EMT sheets as White Female, which must then be followed up on the offical records. So, while this “false positive” (to borrow the phrase, and combine the idea of stereotype with medical treatment and desireability) abounds, it makes no less specious the individual’s choice to play a flim-flam game in how one presents onesself.
Posted 12 Dec 2006 at 1:01 pm ¶
Kyla wrote:
Kim – So are you saying that people of mixed race shouldn’t just ‘flip flop’ when it’s convenient when it comes to identity?
I guess I can get behind that. Although in some cases, I could see how people who identify as both or all of their racial identities could be seen as ‘flip flopping’ when they really aren’t.
Posted 12 Dec 2006 at 2:44 pm ¶
SolShine7 wrote:
Richie needs to eat that cookie. I heard she’s like 85lbs now. It’s so sad.
Posted 12 Dec 2006 at 3:55 pm ¶
kim wrote:
Yes, Kyla, I am.
If people like Thurgood Marshall and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. could tow the line when their necks were on it, then why not at least recognize there are options and reasons for not opting out? There is an access for onesself that is likened to power at times, and a careful exercise of that might not only further your individual cause, but that of others as well.
One is not asked to “represent” at all times of one’s life, but at what times are the decisions to opt out made? And why?
I think holding to a multi-ethnic/racial/cultural identity is also a choice, and one that says you don’t feel a need to opt-out, but rather to opt-in. Of course, people have problems with that, too, but I don’t.
Posted 12 Dec 2006 at 5:50 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Um, dumb question from me, since I generally hate the Hilton/Richie thing and have done my best to avoid it….
But, isn’t she adopted from Cuba or something like that (something along the lines of friends of Lionel’s are the birth parents?)? So really, while she could very well take a mixed identity from the birth parents (Cubans like other Latino ethnicities being any range of possible ethnic origins), people seem to be assuming she could be taking a mixed identity from her adoptive parents?
I know, it’s criticizing Titanic’s paint job, but does anyone know? (or rather, care?)
Posted 12 Dec 2006 at 7:46 pm ¶
Kyla wrote:
I personally feel the same way you do, I think, Kim. But on the other hand, I’m not going to argue anyone’s choice to change their identity over time, either.
Posted 13 Dec 2006 at 2:21 am ¶
kim wrote:
That’s just it,
I don’t argue against anyone’s choice to publicly identify as anything. I understand that as one widens one’s circle of activities, gains more education, broadens one’s understanding of how the world is structured and moves, any conscious person makes shifts in the views they hold, if they are open to learning, to listening, to reconsideration.
The tricky waters of changing identities AND having varied loyalties seem to morph into ‘change loyalties at any given time, as often as I wish.’
Isn’t the gift and the promise (Scene IV…Music up) of openly laying claim to all of the ethnic/cultural parts of onesself the gift of recognizing the full value of all the parts? Of insisting that others not ask you to abandon your participation and appreciation of one above the other?
It goes back to human value in a general sense, and a concern that one day the platform will once again be ‘it’s not expedient’ to claim the mixture, so I’ll choose [enter what you will].
Posted 13 Dec 2006 at 12:50 pm ¶
Keyniata wrote:
So should we understand that the “race swap/bill of right” thing would be like: whenever one feel like he is a White individual, therefore he is entitled to the privileges of that state. “I am White when I want priviliges. ” I am White to be part of a dominant culture… .
I am Black when I want to be rewarded for the struggles of my Black ancestors??? I am Black when I want to be excused for any of my wrongdoing,
This is how I understood that Bill of right and I think it is utterly opportunistic and deeply vain.
My point is this “Swaping “races” is really vain and insulting for the generations of White and Black and other communities who had fight over the centuries/milleniums for the survival of their culture.
I am grateful that W.E.B. Dubois did not issued a Bill of right. I am grateful that those people from obvious mixed backgrounds did not choose to flip one side to another within their lifespan or from time to time.
The Bill of right has actually no grounds since it’s based on “races and colors”.
I belong to those who deeply believe that there is one race (human) and multiple “shades” of cultures.
So for me, the bill of right should be focused on whether or not one opts in for Black culture or white culture.
Mixing people of different backgrounds or phenotypes should not led to identity confusion or so-call bill of rights.
“Swaping” or Bill of Right is a matter or cowardice and self-hatred, confusion, lack of integrity, weakness and so on.
As for Nicole Richie, she is as wasted as most of the people who can hardly cope with their cultural identity and try to use “race mixes pretext and excuses” to define or advocate deeply racists concepts i.e.: Muletto race, Mix-race Identity, Cablinasian….
It simple, either you are White and handle the culture and all what comes with it (even if you are being physically Black) or you are Black and handle all what come with it. Either you are Asian and got it all Asian or you are Black, White and so on.
eg.: Keanu Reeves fully embraced the White culture and seldomly use his Asian background to be excused for this or that.
I am not being racist or monocentric or whatever, I just believe that people are fussing too much about being multi-bi-tri racial and so on… Whatever you look like, brown, chocoloate, yellow, honey and so on, what does matter is where you as an individual want to stand and which culture appeal to you.
The world is unfortunately not swap-friendly place (if I can say so), a dire choice has to be made. Swaping culture or “race” just for the sake of gaining the privileges of each leads to the nothingness.
I am quite happy to know about my Black culture, to learn about the “White Culture” and then just to identify what in both culture are similar/different, complementary and so on.
A bill of right like the one mentioned is meant to destroy some cultural setting and weaken their uniqueness.
I believe that people of mixed background must make a “cultural” choice, not a color or race choice.
PS: this Bill of Right should also be issued for Immigrants in western countries…
I have the right to claim my alien identity when the society I am living in (by choice/parent choice) offer me no equal opportunities/chances
I have the right to claim my western identity to get all social benefits…
I have the right to claim my alien identity not to respect the local culture or at least to try to understand it
I have the right to claim my western identity to reject/despise the “backwardness” or the oddity” of my other identity (compare to the standards of the other world)…
+++++
Well, folks, sometimes, making choices worth the little peace of mind you’ll get from that.
Sometimes, it’s it very rewarding to Commit ourselves to something, to someone, to a culture (and not to a RACE).
Posted 20 Dec 2006 at 12:26 pm ¶
deja vu wrote:
this reminds me of my friend who is filipina and white, but tells people that she is filipina, black, and puerto rican. she rationalizes it due to the fact that her stepfather is black and her stepmother may have spanish (not hispanic/latino but european) ancestry. it really doesnt help the fact that she look like a skinny albino version of margaret cho!
Posted 28 Dec 2006 at 9:48 am ¶
mixed pony boy wrote:
Well just to add I am a man of mixed race…and originally from Thibodeux Louisianna….In the summer I am Black…in the Fall I am Arabic and Spring I am Latino and in the winter I am white….My family like most Cajun people come from the islands, Europe, Africa, and native roots….My family speaks 5 languages…..we are privvy to maintaining all of our languages….Arabic, Spanish, French, African Creole dialects, and Criollo a Spanish blend…I simply say that I am African American…many people have a problem with this because they say that there is noway….in my homeland region….we are way over the racial divide….many whites also say that they are blacks….confusing but settling….People are who they feel they are on the inside..It was never a problem until I left my region in the 80s did I such so much Mainstream American Racism and Bigotry…..For God’s Sake give it a rest……I know from experience that no American is pure blood so stop being racist….
Posted 15 Jan 2007 at 8:16 pm ¶
seeyu wrote:
nicole richie was not born blond and is not a true blond. her mom is black
Posted 05 Feb 2008 at 9:16 pm ¶
kiki wrote:
its funny but sad. usually the mixed kids have that sort of problem thats why its important that they have some1 there to help them out. Halle Berry is mixed she grew up with her mom who is white but she knows she white.
Posted 11 Jun 2009 at 9:21 pm ¶