Nkechi Amare Diallo (born Rachel Anne Dolezal;[a] November 12, 1977[fn 1]) is an American former college instructor and activist known for presenting herself as a black woman despite being born to white parents. She is also a former National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter president.
Dolezal was president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington, from 2014 until June 2015, when she resigned in the midst of controversy over her racial identity. She was the subject of public scrutiny when her parents publicly stated that she was pretending to be black but was actually white. The statement by Dolezal's parents followed Dolezal's reports to police and local news media that she had been the victim of race-related hate crimes;[10][11][12] a police investigation did not support her allegations.[13] Dolezal had also claimed on an application form to be mixed-race and had falsely claimed that an African-American man was her father and that her brother was her son. In the aftermath of the controversy, Dolezal was dismissed from her position as an instructor in Africana studies at Eastern Washington University and was removed from her post as chair of the Police Ombudsman Commission in Spokane over "a pattern of misconduct".[14] In 2015, Dolezal acknowledged that she was "born white to white parents" but maintained that she self-identified as black.
The Dolezal controversy fuelled a national debate in the United States about racial identity. Dolezal's critics stated that she committed cultural appropriation and fraud; Dolezal asserted that her self-identification is genuine. In 2017, Dolezal released a memoir on her racial identity titled In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World.
Early life, family, and education
Dolezal was born in Lincoln County, Montana, on November 12, 1977,[11][15] to Ruthanne (née Schertel) and Lawrence "Larry" Dolezal, who are white and primarily of German, Czech, and Swedish origin; she was born as a blue-eyed blonde with straight hair.[16][11][17][18] Ruthanne and Larry Dolezal were married in 1974.[11] Rachel's surname is of Czech origin.[9] Dolezal has an older biological brother, Joshua Dolezal, a professor of English at Central College in Iowa who authored a book about their upbringing in Montana.[19][20][21] When Dolezal was a teenager, her parents adopted three African-American children and one Haitian child.[22]
Dolezal has said she was born and lived in a tipi and that the family had hunted for their food with bow and arrow. She also said that lima beans were used as chess pieces when enjoying family game night.[23] Her mother stated that she and Dolezal's father briefly lived in a tipi in 1974, three years before their daughter was born, and that Dolezal's claims were "totally false".[11][16] From 2002 to 2006, her parents and siblings lived in South Africa as Christian missionaries. Dolezal said she lived in South Africa as a child, but her family disputes the claim.[24][25]
Dolezal was raised in Troy in the Pentecostal faith. She has stated that her parents frequently abused her. In a 2017 interview, she said she was taught to believe that "everything that came naturally, instinctively was wrong"—a point that was "literally beaten into us".[26] In a 2015 interview, Dolezal said she was "punished by skin complexion" by her mother and "white stepfather", and compared this alleged punishment to the punishment suffered by black slaves.[11][27][28][29][30]
Dolezal was homeschooled via the Christian Liberty Academy CLASS program, achieving a 4.0 grade point average (GPA). She was one of several co-valedictorians upon graduation in 1996. She won a $2,000 scholarship for college awarded by Tandy Leather for her entry in their 1996 Leather Art contest.[11][31] In 1998, she entered artworks at Spokane's annual Juneteenth celebration; she expressed African-American themes through collages and mixed-media works.[32]
In 2000, Dolezal married Kevin Moore, a black man. Moore, a medical student at Howard University at the time of their marriage, divorced Dolezal in 2004.[10][35][36][37] Dolezal and Moore have a son.[38][39]
In 2010, with the consent of her parents, Dolezal obtained legal guardianship of her 16-year-old brother, Izaiah Dolezal.[22][40] Izaiah sought to be emancipated after alleging that Larry and Ruthanne not only beat him and his siblings, but also threatened to send them to group homes if they did not obey their rules.[30] Her brother, Ezra Dolezal, later denied Izaiah's accusations in an interview with CNN;[41] however, in an interview with BuzzFeed, he acknowledged that his parents were strict and sometimes used corporal punishment.[42]
Dolezal gave birth to another son in February 2016.[43]
Lawsuit against Howard University
In 2002, Dolezal unsuccessfully sued Howard University for discrimination based on "race, pregnancy, family responsibilities, and gender, as well as retaliation". Her lawsuit alleged that she was denied scholarship funds, a teaching assistant position, and other opportunities because she was a white woman.[44][45] She also alleged that the removal of her artwork from a student exhibition at Howard in 2001 "was motivated by a discriminatory purpose to favor African-American students" over her.[44][45]
Career
Art
Dolezal created a fountain sculpture titled "Triumph of the Human Spirit" that consisted of a tall column with troubled, sad figures at its base and dancing, celebrating figures further up the column. It was installed in downtown Spokane in June 2005 and was later auctioned off to benefit the Human Rights Education Institute.[46]
In 2007, while working as an art teacher at School Indigo in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Dolezal collaborated with children to make five works for a "Rights of the Child" exhibit by the Human Rights Education Institute.[47]
Plagiarism accusations
The Slave Ship (1840) by J. M. W. Turner. Dolezal painted a picture known as The Shape of Our Kind which was so similar to this one that it was considered plagiarism by Priscilla Frank at The Huffington Post and Sarah Cascone at Artnet.
In June 2015, Priscilla Frank at The Huffington Post and Sarah Cascone at Artnet made accusations of plagiarism against Dolezal. A Dolezal painting titled The Shape of Our Kind was alleged to be nearly identical to J. M. W. Turner's 1840 work, The Slave Ship.[48][49] Frank accused Dolezal of plagiarism for not crediting Turner.[48]
Civil rights activism
Human Rights Institute
A July 2010 newspaper article indicated that Dolezal had stepped down as education director of the Human Rights Institute in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, after having served in that capacity for two years. Dolezal indicated that she was, "for all intents and purposes", forced to resign from the organization after its board declined to hire her as its executive director.[50]
Dolezal was elected president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP in 2014, replacing James Wilburn. During her brief tenure, she was noted for revitalizing the chapter.[51] Her resignation from the civil rights organization was announced on June 15, 2015, after the controversy surrounding her racial identity became public.[52][53]
Police Ombudsman Commission
Dolezal applied for the position of chair of the Office of the Police Ombudsman Commission in Spokane in May 2014, and was subsequently appointed by Mayor David Condon. In her application, she identified herself as having several ethnicities, including black.[16][54][55] In June 2015, City Council President Ben Stuckart said the city had opened an investigation of the truthfulness of her application.[55] On June 17, 2015, the investigation concluded that she had acted improperly, violated government rules and abused her authority, and the report said the evidence and interviews confirmed workplace harassment allegations and "a pattern of misconduct" by Dolezal.[14] Dolezal was asked to resign by Condon and Stuckart due to "intimidating and harassing" behavior.[14][56] On June 18, 2015, the Spokane City Council voted unanimously to remove Dolezal from her position as chair of the Police Ombudsman Commission.[57][58]
Teaching and writing
In 2015, Eastern Washington University stated that "since 2010, Rachel Dolezal has been hired at Eastern Washington University on a quarter-by-quarter basis as an instructor in the Africana Education program. This is a part-time position to address program needs. Dolezal is not a professor."[59] She taught "The Black Woman's Struggle", "African and African American Art History", "African History", "African American Culture", and "Intro to Africana Studies".[60] A statement by university officials on June 15, 2015, indicated that Dolezal was "no longer an employee of Eastern Washington University". Despite not being a professor, she used the title "professor" on several websites.[61][62]
Dolezal (third from right, holding the sign) before the Spokane NAACP march on Martin Luther King Day in January 2015.
Dolezal is of Northern and Central European ancestry; her father has stated that their family is of primarily European descent and "a small amount of American Indian".[78]
According to her brother Ezra, Dolezal began changing her appearance as early as 2009, when she began using hair products that she had seen Ezra's biological sister use. She began darkening her skin and perming her hair sometime around 2011. When Ezra moved in with Rachel in 2012, she told him that Spokane-area residents knew her as black and said, "Don't blow my cover."[42]
Dolezal has claimed to be a victim of race-related harassment.[79] Dolezal stated on September 29, 2009, to KXLY that a noose had been left on her porch.[80][81] In July 2010, Dolezal resigned from Human Rights Education Institute in Kootenai County and stated to KREM 2 News that "she had been the target of discrimination".[82] Dolezal's biography on Eastern Washington University's website stated that while she was living in Idaho, "at least eight documented hate crimes targeted (Rachel) Dolezal and her children". Dolezal reportedly made several reports of harassment and other crimes to police in Idaho and Washington, including that she had received a hate mail package at her NAACP post office box and that a swastika was placed on the door of the Human Rights Education Institute, where she had previously worked.[83] Regarding the hate mail package, detectives said the envelope that contained the alleged threats had no postage stamps, barcodes or any other indication of having been handled by the postal service.[81] The postal inspector said, "The only way this letter could have ended up in this P.O. box would be if it was placed there by someone with a key to that box or a USPS employee."[81] According to the Spokesman Review, as of 2015, none of Dolezal's allegations had resulted in an arrest or in the filing of criminal charges.[84]
Dolezal's uncle, Dan Dolezal, has stated that his niece first claimed that a black friend named Albert Wilkerson was her real father in 2012 or 2013.[85] In another 2015 interview, Dolezal made reference to her "stepfather".[27] Dolezal's mother has said she has never met Albert Wilkerson and that Dolezal does not have a stepfather.[11] Dolezal later acknowledged that she had met Wilkerson while living in Idaho and that she considered him her "dad".[86]
In her 2014 application for the position of chair of the Office of the Police Ombudsman Commission in Spokane, Dolezal identified herself as having several ethnicities, including black.[16][54][55] In an article she wrote for The Inlander in March 2015, Dolezal included herself when discussing black women through use of the pronouns "we" and "our".[87]
Controversy
In a June 10, 2015, interview[88] about various alleged hate crimes that Dolezal had reported,[89][90]KXLY-TV reporter Jeff Humphrey asked Dolezal about a Facebook post in which Dolezal identified Albert Wilkerson as her dad.[7][91] The following is a partial transcript of the exchange:
KXLY: Is that your dad?
Dolezal: "Yeah, that's my dad."
KXLY: This man right here is your father? Right there?
Dolezal: "You have a question about that?"
KXLY: Yes, ma'am. I was wondering if your dad really is an African-American man?
Dolezal: "That's a very–I mean, I don't–I don't know what you're implying."
KXLY: Are you African-American?
Dolezal: "I don't, I don't understand the question of—I did tell you that, yes, that's my dad. And he was unable to come in January."
KXLY: Are your parents, are they white?
Dolezal: "I refuse." Dolezal walks away and turns off her mic.[89]
On June 11, Jeff Selle and Maureen Dolan of the Coeur d'Alene Press published an article entitled "Black Like Me?" The article reported that Dolezal had "made claims in the media and elsewhere about her ethnicity, race and background that are contradicted by her biological parents", and went on to outline Dolezal's past hate crimes allegations, allegations of being abused with a baboon whip by her parents, misrepresentations about her race, and misrepresentations about the identity of her father. The article further stated that Dolezal, in a recent interview, "maintained that she is African-American. 'They can DNA test me if they want to,' she said. 'I would caution you on all of this. This is ridiculous.'" Ruthanne Dolezal was quoted in the article, stating that her daughter's allegation of being abused with a baboon whip was "a very false and malicious lie" and adding that it was "disturbing that she has become so dishonest".[92]
People later reported on the circumstances leading up to the publication of "Black Like Me?" According to People, Selle had learned of Dolezal's allegation that a package containing racist threats against her was delivered to the post office box of the Spokane, Washington, NAACP. Selle recalled that Dolezal had made similar allegations when she was living in Coeur d'Alene, and that the allegations were not substantiated. Sensing a potential story, Selle discovered that Dolezal had identified Wilkerson as her father; when contacted, Wilkerson contradicted this assertion. Dolan then discovered a photo of Dolezal's actual parents on the internet, and Selle made contact with them. Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal gave Selle pictures of "their naturally blond, fair-skinned daughter" and a copy of her birth certificate.[93]
The controversy surrounding Dolezal's ancestry and identity became national news.[10][94][95][96]
Reactions to the controversy
After the controversy regarding Dolezal's deception became public, the NAACP released a statement in support of her leadership.[84] However, a petition calling for her to resign her position as President of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP was launched.[97] Dolezal stepped down from her position at the NAACP on June 15, 2015.[52][53]
An investigation into Dolezal's behavior as chair of the Office of the Police Ombudsman Commission in Spokane concluded that she had engaged in "a pattern of misconduct".[14] On June 18, 2015, the Spokane City Council voted unanimously to remove Dolezal from her position as chair.[57][58]
On June 15, 2015, The Inlander (a publication to which Dolezal had contributed) announced that it had cut ties with Dolezal, saying that they felt "manipulated and deceived".[61][62]
The revelations about Dolezal's ancestry and her other claims provoked a range of reactions. Dolezal's critics argued that she committed cultural appropriation[98] and fraud.[98][99] However, others said that Dolezal's asserted identity should be respected.[100][101][102][103] Angela Schwendiman, a colleague of Dolezal's at Eastern Washington University, expressed her belief that Dolezal perceived herself as black internally, and that "she was only trying to match how she felt on the inside with her outside".[104] Similarly Cedric Bradley, a colleague of hers at Spokane's NAACP, suggested it mattered little to him whether Dolezal was actually black or not. What did matter to him was her proven track record in social justice work. "It's not about black and white", Bradley stated, "it's about what we can do for the community".[105]
In June 2015, psychologist Halford Fairchild asserted, "Rachel Dolezal is black because she identifies as black. Her identity was authentic, as far as I could tell."[106] Sociologist Ann Morning also defended Dolezal, saying: "We're getting more and more used to the idea that people's racial affiliation and identity and sense of belonging can change, or can vary, with different circumstances."[107]Washington Post journalist Krissah Thompson described her behavior as "white guilt played to its end". Thompson discussed the issue with psychologist Derald Wing Sue, an expert on racial identity, who suggested that Dolezal had become so fascinated by racism and racial justice issues that she "over-identified" with black people.[108]
Gender studies scholar Samantha Allen said, "Rachel Dolezal seems determined to appropriate not just blackness but the rhetoric of transgender identity as well" and called the analogy "spurious".[109]Washington Post journalist Jonathan Capehart suggested, "blackface remains highly racist, no matter how down with the cause a white person is".[110] Her brother Ezra Dolezal also compared his sister's behavior to blackface and said "she's basically creating more racism".[7]
In December 2017, Shawn Vestal of The Spokesman-Review called Dolezal "Spokane's undisputed heavyweight champion of racial appropriation".[111]
On news outlets and social media, Dolezal has been compared to Sacheen Littlefeather, an American woman who passed as Native American and took the stage on the 1973 45th Academy Awards (the Oscars), for the fact that they both falsely self-identified with a culture or ethnicity that was not theirs, for personal gain and promotion.[113][114]
Responses from Dolezal
Dolezal has asserted that her self-identification is genuine, even though it is not based on ancestry.[115]
Dolezal issued a statement on June 15, 2015, asserting that "challenging the construct of race is at the core of evolving human consciousness".[116] The following day, Dolezal told Today Show host Matt Lauer she was first described as "transracial" and "biracial" in articles about her human rights work, and chose not to correct them.[117] In the same interview, she said the way she presented herself was "not some freak, Birth of a Nation, mockery blackface performance".[118] Dolezal later said that she has never claimed to be "transracial", a term associated mainly with transracial adoption.[119] In a March 27, 2017, interview Dolezal said she identified as "trans-black".[120]
Dolezal alleged that the Spokane police chief had tired of dealing with her and had asked a private investigator to find out more information on her;[26] while the private investigator in question (Ted Pulver) acknowledged having investigated Dolezal, both he and the attorney for the police chief denied that the police chief had hired Pulver.[121]
In subsequent interviews, Dolezal stated that she considered herself to be black.[122] In a November 2, 2015, interview on The Real, Dolezal publicly acknowledged for the first time since the controversy began that she was "biologically born white to white parents", but maintained that she identified as black.[123][124][125]
In a February 2017 interview with The Guardian, Dolezal reasoned that race is more fluid than gender because race is an entirely social construct. She stated, "I feel that I was born with the essential essence of who I am, whether it matches my anatomy and complexion or not... I've never questioned being a girl or woman, for example, but whiteness has always felt foreign to me, for as long as I can remember." She added, "I didn't choose to feel this way or be this way, I just am. What other choice is there than to be exactly who we are?" Critics took issue with Dolezal's logic.[26]The Guardian columnist Claire Hynes wrote, "Dolezal is correct to argue that race is largely a social construct rather than a science", but "what defines people of colour is a limited ability to control how we are viewed, and a lack of freedom to 'write our own stories'."[126]
In 2018, a documentary entitled The Rachel Divide aired.[130] The film was directed by Laura Brownson and distributed by Netflix. The documentary explored Dolezal's 2015 racial identity controversy, the circumstances surrounding it, and its aftermath. The documentary received mixed reviews. Vogue gave the filmmaker credit for "balanced treatment of her deeply problematic subject matter".[131]The New Yorker noted the film's portrait of family dynamics. "Eventually, Brownson locates the real story: a primitive power game between mother and child, one that forecasts calamity. And it is in this mode that The Rachel Divide becomes a disturbing and enthralling drama of the American family, the pain of its truths and its fictions."[132]
A character based on Rachel was also portrayed in a fictional Broadway show in the series finale of Younger.[133] The main character of Mithu Sanyal's 2021 novel Identitti is modeled after Dolezal.[134]
According to a February 2015 article in The Easterner, Dolezal said she had suffered from cervical cancer in 2006, but had recovered by 2008.[63] Dolezal's brother, Ezra Dolezal, has stated that he does not believe this to be true.[42]
In October 2016, Dolezal legally changed her name to a Nigerian phrase that means "gift of God".[138][139] She later clarified that she still intends to use the name Rachel Dolezal "as her public persona", but that she changed her name to have a better chance of landing work.[140]
Welfare fraud
In February 2017, Dolezal was receiving food stamps. She said she was on the brink of homelessness and unable to find employment.[26]
In May 2018, Dolezal was charged with second-degree perjury and felony theft by welfare fraud by the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services.[141][142] The charges were filed after it was revealed that she had received $8,847 in food and childcare assistance between August 2015 and December 2017. During that period, she had received tens of thousands of dollars in unreported income, but had told the state that her income was less than $500 per month. State investigators discovered that, after her book was published, approximately $83,924 had been deposited into her bank account in monthly installments between August 2015 and September 2017. According to the Spokane County prosecutor's office, Dolezal could have received a sentence of up to 15 years in prison if she was found guilty.[143][144] She entered into a diversion agreement on March 25, 2019, agreeing to repay her assistance benefits and complete 120 hours of community service to avoid a trial.[145]
↑ Her surname is also spelled as Doležal.[8] She was born as Rachel Anne Dolezal and went by the name Rachel Moore during her marriage to Kevin Moore from 2000 to 2005. In 2016, Dolezal legally changed her name in Washington state superior court to Nkechi Amare Diallo but continues to use her birth name in professional life.[9]
Related Research Articles
Belhaven University is a private evangelical Christian university in Jackson, Mississippi. Founded in 1883, the university offers traditional majors, programs of general studies, and pre-professional programs in Christian Ministry, Medicine, Dentistry, Law, and Nursing.
White guilt is a belief that white people bear a collective responsibility for the harm which has resulted from historical or current racist treatment of people belonging to other ethnic groups, as for example in the context of the Atlantic slave trade, European colonialism, and the genocide of indigenous peoples.
Transracial may refer to:
KXLY-TV is a television station in Spokane, Washington, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Morgan Murphy Media. Its studios are located on West Boone Avenue in Spokane, and its transmitter is located on Mount Spokane. The station's MeTV-affiliated second digital subchannel is also seen in the Yakima–Tri-Cities market on sister stations and fellow ABC affiliates KAPP and KVEW.
Interracial adoption refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group.
Linda Martín Alcoff is a Panamanian American philosopher and professor of philosophy at Hunter College, City University of New York. Alcoff specializes in social epistemology, feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, decolonial theory and continental philosophy, especially the work of Michel Foucault. She has authored or edited more than a dozen books, including Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self (2006), The Future of Whiteness (2015), and Rape and Resistance (2018). Her public philosophy writing has been published in The Guardian and The New York Times.
Racial passing occurred when a person who was categorized as black - their Race in the United States of America, sought to be accepted or perceived ("passes") as a member of another racial group, usually white. Historically, the term has been used primarily in the United States to describe a black person, especially a Mulatto person who assimilated into the white majority to escape the legal and social conventions of racial segregation and discrimination. In the Antebellum South, passing as white was a temporary disguise used as a means of escaping slavery.
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw is an American civil rights advocate and a scholar of critical race theory. She is a professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, where she specializes in race and gender issues.
Ethnic plastic surgery, or ethnic modification, refers to the types of plastic surgery performed frequently due to certain racial or ethnic traits, or with the intention of making one's appearance more similar or less similar to people of a particular race or ethnicity. Popular procedures which may have an ethnically motivated component are rhinoplasties and blepharoplasties.
Joshua Andrew Dolezal is an American academic and writer. He was a full professor of English studies at Central College, focusing on American literature, creative nonfiction, medical humanities, sustainability and social justice issues. He is the brother of Rachel Dolezal and wrote a book about their upbringing in "a strict, cult-like Pentecostal family."
The feminist philosophy journal Hypatia became involved in a dispute in April 2017 that led to the online shaming of one of its authors, Rebecca Tuvel, an assistant professor of philosophy at Rhodes College in Memphis. The journal had published a peer-reviewed article by Tuvel in which she compared the situation of Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman, to that of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who identifies as black. When the article was criticized on social media, scholars associated with Hypatia joined in the criticism and urged the journal to retract it. The controversy exposed a rift within the journal's editorial team and more broadly within feminism and academic philosophy.
Ijeoma Oluo is an American writer. She is the author of So You Want to Talk About Race and has written for The Guardian,Jezebel, The Stranger, Medium, and The Establishment, where she was also an editor-at-large.
Transracial is a label used by people who identify as a different race than the one they were born into. They may adjust their appearance to make themselves look more like that race, and may participate in activities associated with that race. Use of the word transracial to describe this is new and has been criticized, because the word was historically used to describe a person raised by adoptive parents of a different ethnic or racial background, such as a Black child adopted and raised by a White couple.
The Rachel Divide is a 2018 documentary about the controversial life of Rachel Dolezal, also known as Nkechi Diallo, an American woman of white parentage who identifies as black, and was forced to resign as president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington when her race and ancestry were exposed. The film was directed by Laura Brownson and distributed by Netflix, originally airing on April 27, 2018.
In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World is a memoir by American activist Rachel Dolezal, known for presenting herself as a black woman while having no known black ancestry. It was published in 2017 by BenBella Books, almost two years after the controversy about her racial identity in June 2015. The Guardian reported that 30 publishing houses turned down the manuscript before BenBella Books printed it in March 2017.
Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities by American sociologist Rogers Brubaker is an analysis of racial and gender identity, published by Princeton University Press in 2016 in the wake of the publicity around Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal.
Rachel Talbot Ross is an American politician and activist. A Democrat from Portland, Talbot has been the Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives since December 2022. When she was first elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 2016, Talbot Ross became the first Black woman to serve in the Maine Legislature. Talbot Ross represents District 40, consisting of the Parkside, Bayside, East Bayside, and Oakdale neighborhoods of Portland as well as the University of Southern Maine campus. She became Maine's first African-American House Speaker, and the highest-ranking African-American politician in Maine history, when she was elected speaker on December 7, 2022.
Racial or ethnic misrepresentation occurs when someone deliberately misrepresents their racial or ethnic background. It may occur for a variety of reasons, such as someone attempting to benefit from affirmative action programs for which they are not eligible.
Oli London is an English Internet personality. London is known for his multiple ethnic plastic surgery procedures intended to make him look like Jimin, a member of the South Korean boy band BTS.
Pretendian is a pejorative colloquialism describing a person who has falsely claimed Indigenous identity by professing to be a citizen of a Native American or Indigenous Canadian tribal nation, or to be descended from Native American or Indigenous Canadian ancestors. As a practice, being a pretendian is considered an extreme form of cultural appropriation, especially if that individual then asserts that they can represent, and speak for, communities from which they do not originate.
↑ Herguth, Robert C. (June 5, 1996), "Hersey High School Seniors Head out with a Little Fork Fun", Daily Herald (Arlington Heights), Arlington Heights, Illinois: Douglas K. Ray
↑ Timmerman, Luke (June 21, 1998), "Discovering Juneteenth Spokane Festival Helps Educate Kids About Important Milestone In American History", The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington: William Stacey Cowles
↑ "Human Rights Advocate Finds Noose On Porch". KXLY. June 10, 2015. Archived from the original on June 14, 2015. Retrieved June 12, 2015. A local human rights advocate says she's become a target of racism after she recently woke up to find a noose on her front porch.
↑ Dolezal, Rachel (March 11, 2015). "A Woman's Worth". The Inlander. Archived from the original on June 12, 2015. Retrieved June 13, 2015. Black women stand at the intersection of both oppressions, and when our lives are measured, the weight of our legacy will attest that we are of equal value to black men, white men, white women and every other person on the planet.
↑ June 11; Selle, Jeff (June 11, 2015). "Black like me?". www.cdapress.com. Archived from the original on January 19, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
↑ Capehart, Jonathan (June 12, 2015). "The damage Rachel Dolezal has done". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 13, 2015. Retrieved June 13, 2015. Blackface remains highly racist, no matter how down with the cause a white person is.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
