"For two years, I, like many other black women who talk or write about racial justice, have tried to avoid Rachel Dolezal—but she follows us wherever we go. So if I couldn't get away from her, I was going to at least try to figure out why. I surprised myself by agreeing to the interview...
We visit Dolezal's studio. She is, in all honesty, a very talented painter. The majority of her paintings feature black people. Other than the paintings of her children, most of the black people depicted appear to be dressed as slaves or tribespeople. Breaking this pattern was a series of portraits hanging on the wall of Dolezal herself. They were done Warhol style, each painting duplicated in a different color. Dolezal explains them to me: "You know, people are always saying to me, 'Rachel, I don't care if you are red, green, blue, or purple,' so I decided to paint myself as red, green, blue, or purple."...
Stories of people of color "passing" for white have been well known since the time of slavery. Almost any person of color in the United States has a relative in the past or present who has "passed" for white. But "passing" was a ticket out of the worst injustices of racial oppression that has been open to only a select few. The history of "passing" in the United States is a story filled with pain and separation. It has never been a story of liberation in the way in which Dolezal is trying to describe it.
I point out that there is a difference between Dolezal's claim of racial liberation and the forced denial of race in order to escape oppression...
The dismissive and condescending attitude toward any black people who see blackness differently than she does is woven throughout her comments in our conversation. It is not just our pettiness, it is also our lack of education that is preventing us from getting on Dolezal's level of racial understanding. She informs me multiple times that black people have rejected her because they simply haven't learned yet that race is a social construct created by white supremacists, they simply don't know any better and don't want to...
Dolezal is simply a white woman who cannot help but center herself in all that she does—including her fight for racial justice. And if racial justice doesn't center her, she will redefine race itself in order to make that happen. It is a bit extreme, but it is in no way new for white people to take what they want from other cultures in the name of love and respect, while distorting or discarding the remainder of that culture for their comfort."
FB: "There was a moment before meeting Dolezal and reading her book that I thought that she genuinely loves black people but took it a little too far. But now I can see this is not the case. This is not a love gone mad. Something else, something even sinister is at work in her relationship and understanding of blackness... it is white supremacy that told an unhappy and outcast white woman that black identity was hers for the taking. It is white supremacy that told her that any black people who questioned her were obviously uneducated and unmotivated to rise to her level of wokeness. It is white supremacy that then elevated this display of privilege into the dominating conversation on black female identity in America. It is white supremacy that decided that it was worth a book deal, national news coverage, and yes—even this interview."
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