Rachel Dolezal Back In News After Name Change And New Book

Rachel Dolezal, the former president of the NAACP’s Spokane, Wash., branch who was exposed as being white during an interview in 2015, is back in the spotlight, appearing on talk shows to promote her new book, In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World.

Dolezal has been at the center of controversy over the past several days for the same reason she was in 2015 – Dolezal, born to white parents, identifies as black and has made changes to her skin color and hair to make her appear as such.

Conducting interviews with The Today Show, The New York Times, and Vice News, among others, she has again explained the details of her identity.

“I don’t identify as African American, I identify as black. I am part of the Pan-African diaspora,” she said on The Today Show.

When Dolezal was first exposed as being born to white parents in 2015, she lost her job and quickly became the subject of public out cry.

In her new book, Dolezal discusses the fallout from that time while also covering the traumas of her childhood and explaining the circumstances that led her believe that she is black. In Full Color describes Dolezal’s childhood as oppressive and abusive – in some cases, she describes the work she had to do for her parents as a form of indentured servitude.

“It wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch to call me an indentured servant,” she writes in the book.

Comedians, reprising their punchlines from 2015, have been quick to joke about Dolezal and the controversy surrounding her. Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, of Vice’s Desus and Mero, dedicated a segment to her in a video that appears below.

Despite her pleas to be understood, few people seem to have given her any sympathy. Many have cried for her to disappear from the spotlight, never to return.

Dolezal has also recently legally changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo, which is rooted in the Igbo Tribe in Nigeria and translates to “gift of god.”