WASHINGTON – Rachel Dolezal, born to white parents, self-identifies as black – a decision that illustrates how fluid identity can be in a diversifying America, as the rigid racial structures that have defined most of this country’s history seem, for some, to be softening.
Dolezal resigned as the leader of the NAACP’s Spokane, Washington, branch after questions surfaced about her racial identity. When asked directly on NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday whether she is “an African-American woman,” Dolezal replied, “I identify as black.”
Her parents identified her as white with a trace of Native American heritage, and her mother, Ruthanne Dolezal, has said Rachel began to “disguise herself” as black after her parents adopted four black children more than a decade ago.
Dolezal isn’t the first person to make this type of change. Millions of Americans changed racial or ethnic identities between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, even though their choices may have contradicted what their skin color appeared to be or who their parents said they are.
“It forces us to really question whether or not this biological basis for identity is a smart path to continue down in the future,” said Camille Gear Rich, a University of Southern California law and sociology professor who writes about elective race choices.
Americans have become comfortable with people self-identifying their race, Rich said, “but often that invocation of identity based on a biological claim isn’t backed up by anything else after the claim is made.”
In the United States, there is an expectation that people would have a biological connection to a racial or an ethnic identity they are claiming, said Nikki Khanna, a University of Vermont sociology professor. She co-authored a 2010 study that found increasing numbers of biracial adults were choosing to self-identify as multiracial or black instead of white.
“There really is no biological basis to race, but what I’m saying is that in our society the everyday person tends to think race must have some link to ancestry,” Khanna said.
