{"id":54521,"date":"2017-07-16T00:40:12","date_gmt":"2017-07-16T00:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=54521"},"modified":"2017-07-16T00:40:12","modified_gmt":"2017-07-16T00:40:12","slug":"so-if-youre-from-africa-why-are-you-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=54521","title":{"rendered":"“So If You\u2019re From Africa, Why Are You White?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

“So If You\u2019re From Africa, Why Are You White?”<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

FLY: (Freedom. Love. You.)<\/a>
\nCambridge University
\n2017-03-16<\/p>\n

Nina\u00a0Grossfurthner<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

I woke up a week ago and started my day eating breakfast and scrolling through Facebook. I usually read my Bible in the morning, but on that particular day I had a lot to get through before mid-day lectures so I decided I would leave it to the evening. Thinking back now, perhaps skimming through a quick verse would have allowed me to approach what happened next with a bit more grace. I don\u2019t know how many of you have been keeping up with the story of Rachel Dolezal<\/a>, in all honesty I don\u2019t encourage you to do so. But, for those of you who haven\u2019t I will briefly outline who this woman is and why I needed to write about her, a decision that didn\u2019t come easy because I didn\u2019t want to assign her any more space than that which she has so carelessly claimed.<\/p>\n

Rachel Dolezal blew up on the internet a few years ago by claiming that she, a fully Caucasian woman, identified as \u2018black\u2019. When I first came across the story, I quickly scrolled past because I didn\u2019t think it worth my time to hear her try and justify why she should appropriately be called black. However, what made me stop scrolling that morning, was the recent name change which Dolezal has undertaken.<\/p>\n

Adding insult to injury, Rachel Dolezal recently made the decision to change her name to Nkechi Diallo \u2013 a confusing medley of both the Igbo language<\/a> of southern Nigeria<\/a> and that of the Fulani<\/a> tribe whose people can be found in many West African<\/a> nations (because African nations were effectively decided by white men using a ruler and a pen). Setting aside the obvious disturbance of taking on an \u2018African sounding\u2019 name, the seeming thoughtlessness behind picking whatever name she felt suited her reflects the same precarious attitude with which she chooses to engage with the \u2018black\u2019 identity…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a Nigerian\/Austrian woman who is frequently mistaken for being fully white, due to my blonde hair and light eyes. For years I have heard people come up with phrases like \u201cOh now I see it\u2019\u201d when I pull out a picture of my black mother, whom I look very much like, leaving me to wonder what it was they saw before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,12,395,8,6462],"tags":[27299,27298,27300,20241],"class_list":["post-54521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","tag-fly","tag-fly-freedom-love-you","tag-nina-grossfurthner","tag-rachel-dolezal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54522,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54521\/revisions\/54522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}