It’s been a while since we checked in on Rachel Dolezal, which makes sense because she seems to have been keeping more of a low profile since being outed as a not particularly black representative of the NAACP a while ago. But she’s back in the news this week, having landed a new gig at a Martin Luther King Day event in January. So I take it that all has been forgiven? (Associated Press)
Former Washington state NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal, who was criticized last year for passing herself off as black, has been tapped to speak at a North Carolina Martin Luther King Day celebration in January.
The Raleigh News & Observer reports the theme of the MLK Dreamfest Celebration in Cary, North Carolina, “Healing Race Relations through Conversation and Participation.”
Event organizer Al Cohen tells the newspaper that Dolezal was “depicted as a major villain through media because of her preference of racial identity.” He says Dolezal committed no crime, adding that “She only had an affinity for a group of people, and she served her community well.”
This is all still in the planning stages, but digging deeper into the local coverage we find that Dolezal seems to be a lock for a speaking position… at least for now. The organizers plan to have her take part in “a structured conversation with representatives of the NAACP and African-American Studies professors from area universities.” As part of that function, Rachel will attempt to allow a fuller understanding of how she has come to view racial identity.
This announcement has already stirred up some of the locals who apparently don’t understand how a discussion of healing racial rifts can be forwarded by someone who lied about their racial identity. They certainly aren’t the first to raise such questions. Back when the original flap was unfolding, one writer at Salon went so far as to call her a fraud and demanded that communities of color stop making excuses for her.
[W]hile her story is extraordinary, it’s not her behavior that’s going to be worth noting right now. It’s the amount of ridiculous, excusing commentary we’re going to be subjected to about it. So let me just say now, as a white woman who, like Dolezal rather conveniently says, can acknowledge “We’re all from the African continent” — that is some next-level white privilege BS there. Chet Haze, you have been wildly outdone.
As the Seattle Times reports, Dolezal now says “I feel like I owe my executive committee a conversation” about what she says is a “multi-layered” issue. “That question is not as easy as it seems,” she says. “There’s a lot of complexities … and I don’t know that everyone would understand that.”
The outrage is understandable on one hand, but given how the Left has chosen to make a running campaign issue out of “identity” questions, isn’t Dolezal actually the perfect person to weigh in on this at the dawn of a new presidential administration? After all, if gender identity is “fluid” according to our SJW betters, I’ve yet to hear an argument which can refute a parallel claim of racial “identity” being in the mind of subject rather than in their DNA. And if we’re to be honest, race is a lot more fluid than gender. I can assure you that there are a lot of people out there walking around thinking they’re one race when a deep dive into 23 And Me would tell them that they come from something of a mixed bag, racially speaking.
In the end, if a man can claim to be a woman there is no basis for saying that Rachel Dolezal can’t claim to be black. And if the January forum is truly interested in healing racial discord, what better place to start?
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