The name Rachel Dolezal came into the national spotlight after it was revealed that the 37-year-old president of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP, who identifies as black, was actually born to white parents.
The bizarre case sparked a national conversation about race, identity, and passing. Dolezal eventually copped to the truth, but maintains that it is nonetheless valid for her to call herself black. Dolezal was subsequently fired from her position at the NAACP.
Five months after that incident, Dolezal re-emerged this week to appear on the talk show, The Real, where she told the hosts and audiences that, “I acknowledge I was biologically born white, to white parents, and I identify as black.”
When pressed over the incongruence of her statement, Dolezal went on to say that she has walked the walk of a black woman, alluding to the fact that she’s lived as a black woman since graduating from Howard University.
Has Dolezal, as she claimed, “walked the walk”? Does passing as a black woman for nearly two decades legitimate her identification as being black?