The devil is a lie. Rachel Dolezal, a part-time college professor of Africana studies, got a tan and a perm to curl her naturally straight blond hair, married a black man, allegedly took her adopted black brother under her wing as her own child, and has seemingly been passing as black for years.
Her parents recently outed her as the white woman she is, thus igniting a firestorm on social media about how she managed to get one over on so many black folks. (I mean, she allegedly pulled the wool over so many people's eyes that she sashayed her lily-white self up the ranks of a local NAACP chapter in Spokane, Wash., and became its president.)
Twitter reactions have been pouring in by the thousands, with responses ranging from hilarious quips to insightful comments about how Dolezal's "passing" sheds light on underdiscussed issues like minority privilege, appropriation and the fetishization of black culture.
There were the funny ones where the jokes practically wrote themselves.
https://twitter.com/desusnice/status/609203614242869250https://twitter.com/99AndThe2000/status/609398276832522240https://twitter.com/MindofMarvelous/status/609304803328458752https://twitter.com/TheBrandonColon/status/609391048276754432https://twitter.com/FanBrosShow/status/609398219672584192https://twitter.com/YeshaCallahan/status/609261076690128896https://twitter.com/99AndThe2000/status/609399924166389760https://twitter.com/Aisleyne1/status/609362714683645952https://twitter.com/tjholmes/status/609391179122216960
Some complained about the privileges that were falsely afforded to Dolezal because of her status as a black woman.
https://twitter.com/Juice_McGraw/status/609394687741313024https://twitter.com/lizzzbrown/status/609398218800009216https://twitter.com/kimmaytube/status/609396383691444224https://twitter.com/RStewartJewelry/status/609402984573833216https://twitter.com/PiercinMind/status/609398830287745024
Others questioned whether someone could be trans-ethnic—sort of like a transgender person.
https://twitter.com/MiaFarrow/status/609400375599329280https://twitter.com/aaronrobinow/status/609402359849058304https://twitter.com/JennLi123/status/609400903687405568
Meanwhile, some conservatives are having a field day with how the left routinely advocates for racial and gender identity politics and yet is kicking up dust and is utterly perplexed about Dolezal.
https://twitter.com/OhioCoastie/status/609401563333939202https://twitter.com/ZeelandCap/status/609399079718809601
For more of black Twitter, check out The Chatterati on The Root.