Rachel Dolezal: analyse af raceidentitet

In this article, we read about Rachel, who is convinced she’s black. She is so sure that, her dad is an Afro-American man. She got fired from a leader position at NAACP. (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) She believes that she can’t find any job besides reality shows or porn star. She changes her name to Nkechi Diallo, which symbolizes “gift of God, and bold” in different African languages. Even though she’s born by 2 white parents, she still thinks she’s black in every possible way. As the writer says just because she takes 2 African words and claiming them as a reflection doesn’t mean you got African roots.

The article about Rachel Dolezal who describes herself as partly Afro-American even though her parents says she is white. In the start Denene writes about Dolezal lying about her parents’ roots, she says her father is an African American. With Denene right choices if words and explanation and use of pathos she makes sure that we don’t trust or have sympathy for Dolezal. But that’s not something we get explained very much, and because of that, is it portrayed neutral and factual. Denene Millner (the writer) uses ethos to convince the reader that Dolezal, made a wrong decision to call herself black. Denene uses a lot of argumentation in the last part, “The names are messages, values, prayers. Hope. A history” (page 3. Line. 55) in this quote she argument for the choice of names Dolezal chose, and how the name got values and history. Denene thinks it was a wise decision by Dolezal to change her name because those who are familiar with her story became automatically angry no matter race, she just chose a name with more importance and bigger history in it. (page 2. line. 27-29). The argumentation Denene uses is that she compares black people to the value of diamonds and the progress of a diamond’s creation. She thinks that Dolezal just wants all the pros of being black, like the special culture and style. And she doesn’t want to carry around with all the bad things the black people have been going through the last 500 years. Like slavery and the civil rights movement where the black people were suppressed. Even though slavery has been stopped the racism still goes on, I can see that in this quote , “it is sitting on the curb outside your apartment building with your hands behind your head, waiting for the police officer to decide if he's going to let you go or put you in the back of his squad car.” (page.3, line. 72-74). Denene tries to tell us about even if we think black people are equal to white, they aren’t. After several years of repression, it’s still possible to find racism, for an example in the southern states where many people got confederate flags in their houses. The only difference from the black people to white is the skin color. I think the intention of the article is whether it is ethically correct, to change one's ethnic race to another, just because you think it has some better qualities. The black people’s culture is well known for their music, dance, sport, and style. That’s why Denene compares them with diamonds.