The country’s most infamous non-black black person is writing a book about race and identity.
Rachel Dolezal, former president of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the US National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), revealed last year that while she identifies as black, she was born white.
In an interview yesterday (April 12) Dolezal told NBC’s Today show she was working on a book about racial identity. Entertainment Weekly reports that the Dallas-based independent publisher BenBella Books will release her book in March 2017.
Says Dolezel in her interview:
If you don’t fit into one box and if you don’t stay there your whole life being identified from birth as who you are, what does that look like? Because race is such a contentious issue—because of the painful history of racism—you know, race didn’t create racism, but racism created race—I think it’s important to really think through those topics and questions that people have.
Dolezel’s controversial admission last year sparked conversation around racial identity, as well as plenty of ridicule.