Black Twitter Does Not Mess Around: The Rise and Fall of #RachelDolezal

Black Twitter Does Not Mess Around: The Rise and Fall of #RachelDolezal



So, something so absolutely nuts happened on Thursday, June 11th, that many of us are still reeling in partial disbelief. News reports began circulating that Rachel Dolezal, the president of the local NAACP chapter in Spokane, WA and a professor of Africana Studies at Eastern Washington University, had been passing herself off as a Black woman for ten years.



Rachel Dolezal is a white woman, with white parents, and European ancestry. However, she says she identifies as Black, despite her actual race.

Um, ma'am, that's not how this works. Once the story picked up, Black Twitter did what it does exceptionally well: The dragging of a century had commenced.

First, there were those who simply wanted to know more about this (not Black) woman who had tried to dupe the world for a decade:



Then, the jokes began… (Well, more jokes.)







But of course, never wanting to be left out, some white folks joined in and tried to defend Dolezal's actions by starting the trending conversation on what it means to be #transracial: the idea that one person may be born as one race, but identify internally—and thus seek to identify externally—as another. The only problem is: that's not a real thing. So of course, Black Twitter had to clap back at these folks as well…

This led to some folks calling Black people "mean" for making #RachelDolezal the top trending conversation on Twitter. But we weren't having that…



And finally, to let off the very real frustration and anger many actual Black people feel about Dolezal's actions, the humorous #AskRachel tag began trending:

Today and everyday, we salute Black Twitter.

Michelle Denise Jackson is Senior Editor at For Harriet.