Conservatives snorted derisively at Dolezal and used her as a tool to attack trans rights, as well as an example of the ultimate “Social Justice Warrior,” more obsessed with broadcasting righteousness than social change. Trans activists were offended by Dolezal’s attempts to link her struggle to theirs. The backlash against Dolezal was culture-wide and wildly disproportionate to the level of power and status she held. Dolezal insisted that she was “transracial” and that people who denied her identity as, in the un-ironic words of her memoir, a “woke” “soul sista” were being bigots who’d end up on the wrong side of history, even if they were Black. To Dolezal, it didn’t matter that her parents were both white, or that she was fair-skinned, freckled and blonde as a child. ![]() She insisted that she was not a white woman pretending to be Black, but rather a Black woman who had the misfortune to be born into a race that was not her own (although, to simplify or confuse matters, she’s also big on the idea that race is purely a social construct with no biological elements) the same way a trans woman might be born a man. Instead of backing down, however, Dolezal doubled down. ![]() She could then probably leverage her weird fame for all sorts of strange, exploitive and potentially lucrative opportunities, including the requisite memoir and reality television show deal. The media and public were fascinated and mortified by the surreal and unlikely turn of events. Yet it seems safe to assume that if Dolezal had publicly apologized, explaining that her self-identification as black was a extreme response to trauma and abuse, and then set out to live a more authentic existence, chances are good that a public that, to be fair, knew Dolezal only as that crazy white lady who pretended to be black, would have forgiven her. ![]() When an otherwise obscure President of the Spokane branch of the NAACP named Rachel Dolezal became national news after her estranged biological parents outed her as having been born white rather than the biracial woman she was pretending to be, the road to public redemption seemed clear to everyone but Dolezal.
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