Why Rachel Dolezal Can Never Be Black

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Passing, United States on 2017-03-07 03:33Z by Steven

Why Rachel Dolezal Can Never Be Black

Code Switch: Race and Identity, Remixed
National Public Radio
2017-03-03

Denene Millner


Rachel Dolezal stepped down from her post as the leader of the Spokane, Wash., chapter of the NAACP in 2015 amid criticism that she was passing herself off as black.
Nicholas K. Geranios/AP

Rachel Dolezal just won’t let it go.

The white civil rights activist and former NAACP leader outed by her parents in 2015 for passing herself off as black is making the rounds with news that she is living on food stamps, a month away from homelessness, can’t find a job and, perhaps most shockingly, has legally changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo.

News of Dolezal’s precarious living conditions and new name — Nkechi is the Igbo word for “gift of God,” with roots in Nigeria, and Diallo means “bold” in Fulani, a word that can be traced to both Guinea and Senegal — comes, not surprisingly, just weeks before her new memoir, In Full Color, heads to bookstores…

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