Rachel Dolezal  

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Nkechi Amare Diallo (born November 12, 1977), born and still commonly known as Rachel Anne Dolezal, is an American author, multimedia artist, former college instructor, and former NAACP chapter president. Dolezal is known for identifying and passing as a black woman while being of European ancestry and having no verifiable African ancestry.

Dolezal was president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter in Spokane, Washington, from 2014 until June 2015, when she resigned in the midst of controversy over her racial identity. Dolezal received public scrutiny when her white parents publicly stated that she was passing as black. The statement by Dolezal's parents followed Dolezal's reports to police and local news media that she had been the victim of race-related hate crimes; however, a subsequent police investigation had failed to substantiate her allegations.

Dolezal had also identified herself as mixed-race on an application and had claimed that an African-American man was her father. In the aftermath of the controversy, Dolezal was dismissed from her position as an instructor in Africana Studies at Eastern Washington University and was removed from her post as chair of the Police Ombudsman Commission in Spokane over "a pattern of misconduct". Later in 2015, Dolezal acknowledged that she had been "born white to white parents", but maintained that she self-identified as black.

The Dolezal controversy fueled a national debate in the United States about racial identity. Dolezal's critics stated that she committed cultural appropriation and fraud; Dolezal and her defenders asserted that her self-identification is genuine, even though it is not based on ancestry. In 2017, Dolezal released a memoir on her racial identity entitled In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World.

Dolezal was charged by the State of Washington with felony theft by welfare fraud and second degree perjury in May 2018. The matter was settled in a diversion agreement; Dolezal agreed to repay the welfare funds and to perform community service.

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Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Rachel Dolezal" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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