Rachel Dolezal is back, everyone. The white woman who thinks she’s black is back in the news because she’s planning on writing a book about racial identity. No, I’m not kidding (via Vanity Fair):
Once the head of a Spokane, Washington, N.A.A.C.P. chapter, Rachel Dolezal catapulted into the national spotlight last year when her parents “outed” her as white, though Dolezal had “identified” as a black woman for decades. Now, she says, she’s writing a new book about her racial identity. “I don't have any regrets about how I identify. I’m still me and nothing about that has changed," she told the Today show on Tuesday.Formerly an African studies professor at Eastern Washington University, Dolezal says she plans to incorporate her old teaching material into the book. She wants to teach again, she told the Today show, and is “just looking forward to getting back into racial and social justice work." She became a national spectacle last spring when her parents told a local paper that their daughter was a white woman. In the wake of the media firestorm, Dolezal’s contract at Eastern Washington was not renewed and she resigned from the N.A.A.C.P. Despite this, Dolezal has defended the identity she’s created for herself.
“It’s not a costume,” Dolezal told Vanity Fair last summer. “I don’t know spiritually and metaphysically how this goes, but I do know that from my earliest memories I have awareness and connection with the black experience, and that’s never left me.
Oh, and she was totally unrepentant on the Today Show, where Savannah Guthrie asked if she had any regrets from the initial fiasco, specifically being more up front about the fact that she’s 100 percent white. Dolezal remains pretty much unapologetic:
As anchor Savannah Guthrie delicately asked if the daughter of two white parents regretted “some of the things that you said about yourself that have now been revealed to not be true” — i.e., passing herself off as black for years — the activist refused to bite.“Um, I’m not sure what you’re referring to with that, but definitely I don't have any regrets about how I identify,” Dolezal fumbled. “I’m still me, and nothing about that has changed.”
[…]
“I guess I meant the fact that over the years, you had allowed people to believe that you were born black, which you now acknowledge you were born white but you clearly identify as a black person,” Guthrie pressed. “Do you feel like, 'I wish I had just been more upfront'?”
“Not necessarily,” Dolezal replied. “I do wish that I could have really owned, given myself permission to really name and own the me of me earlier in life. I mean, it took me almost 30 years to get there.”
I wonder how anyone else feels about a white woman claiming she’s black and has a strong connection with the black experience. Isn’t this cultural appropriation in the extreme? Like, taking the absurd liberal term meant to foment a new era of cultural apartheid and injecting it with steroids? A white woman is pretending to be black, and is making money off of it apparently. Isn’t this an egregious affront to the culture of political correctness? It may be–and Dolezal is still in fantasyland about racial identity. This whole story is just beyond comprehension. It started off as hilariously entertaining and now it’s just getting ridiculous.
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