#Askrachel

By now you have probably all heard about Rachel Dolezal, the NAACP leader who was passing as an African American. Dolezal’s parents have come forth and revealed that she is in fact Caucasian. So many questions have arisen on social media. While many of the questions are quite comical, the fact still remains that  we live in a society where there is so much racism and hate towards people of African decent. So much so that there are people of African descent who appear to be Caucasian that are passing simply because they can. 

I can’t help but think of the book “Black Like Me” by John Howard Griffen. In this book, Griffen disguises himself as African American in one of the most racist states in the south, Mississippi. He traveled through a few other southern states documenting his experience as an African American man.  As far as I remember Griffin’s family was not aware of the experiment he was conducting. Had social media existed in those times, it would not have been much of a secret that he was living as an African American IF he had public profiles on different sites. 

In the case of Dolezal, I can only imagine she was conducting a social experiment but was outed by her family. If Dolezal was in fact documenting her experiences to write a book it would have been a good idea if she wasn’t  tweeting and posting so much on social media. You know, kinda keep it quiet. Just an idea. So in the end, I’d just like to #askrachel if she was documenting her experiences for an upcoming book?