Rachel Dolezal: ‘I don’t identify as African American, I identify as black’
Rachel Dolezal is promoting her memoir, “In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World.” As part of her tour, she stopped off at NBC’s The Today Show, where she made a distinction about the way she views herself: she is “black,” not “African-American.”
“I don’t identify as African American, I identify as black,” Dolezal said when Savannah Guthrie asked her about the racial politics of her decision to hide the fact that she was born white. “I am part of the Pan-African diaspora and I definitely feel like in America, even though race is a social construct and we’ve acknowledged this in academia and in science there still is a line drawn in the sides.”
She also spoke about her reported difficulty in finding a job as well as her recent decision to change her name.
“I really felt like I needed to change my legal name in order to be seen for my qualifications and experience rather than just seen for the tabloid publicity that I got in 2015,” she said. “When applying for a job, people were just seeing ‘Rachel Dolezal’ and not paying attention to the wide ranging experience and qualifications that I do have.”
— Rachel Dolezal changes name to West African moniker meaning ‘gift of god’ —
“I don’t identify as African American, I identify as black,” said Rachel Dolezal to @SavannahGuthrie. https://t.co/dOAtGn96My
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) March 27, 2017
