{"id":54918,"date":"2017-09-06T04:41:31","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T04:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=54918"},"modified":"2017-09-06T04:42:14","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T04:42:14","slug":"black-twitter-asks-rachel-racial-identity-theft-in-post-racial-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=54918","title":{"rendered":"Black Twitter Asks Rachel: Racial Identity Theft in \u201cPost-Racial\u201d America"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1080\/10646175.2017.1354789\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>Black Twitter Asks Rachel: Racial Identity Theft in \u201cPost-Racial\u201d America<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/toc\/uhjc20\/current\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Howard Journal of Communications<\/a><br \/>\nPublished online: 2017-08-18<br \/>\npages 1-17<br \/>\nDOI: <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1080\/10646175.2017.1354789\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">10.1080\/10646175.2017.1354789<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Leslie Stevens<\/strong><br \/>\nDepartment of Rhetoric &amp; Communication Studies<br \/>\n<em>University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rhetoric.richmond.edu\/faculty\/nmaurant\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Nicole Maurantonio<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Professor<br \/>\nDepartment of Rhetoric &amp; Communication Studies<br \/>\n<em>University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On Monday, June 15, 2015, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rachel_Dolezal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rachel Dolezal<\/a> resigned from her post as president of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spokane,_Washington\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Spokane<\/a> chapter of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/National_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Colored_People\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Association for the Advancement of Colored People<\/a> amid allegations that she had been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5864\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">lying about her race<\/a>. Dolezal, her White parents claimed, had been \u201cpresenting herself as a black person when she is not.\u201d This article explores <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Black_Twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Black Twitter&#8217;s<\/a> response to Dolezal&#8217;s \u201couting\u201d as a White woman with particular emphasis on the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AskRachel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#AskRachel <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hashtag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hashtag<\/a>, to which users posted a series of questions intended to discern Dolezal&#8217;s \u201ctrue\u201d racial identity. Although the hashtag has been alternately praised for its wit and critiqued for its cruelty, this article suggests that both critiques underestimate the hashtag&#8217;s significance. This article argues that the hashtag provided a site for the articulation, contestation, and negotiation of Blackness, capturing larger cultural anxieties surrounding racial identity in a \u201cpost-racial\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/United_States\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1080\/10646175.2017.1354789?needAccess=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article explores Black Twitter&#8217;s response to Dolezal&#8217;s \u201couting\u201d as a White woman with particular emphasis on the #AskRachel hashtag, to which users posted a series of questions intended to discern Dolezal&#8217;s \u201ctrue\u201d racial identity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8413,8,6462,20],"tags":[27501,8113,27500,27499,20241,20101],"class_list":["post-54918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-communications","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-black-twitter","tag-howard-journal-of-communications","tag-leslie-stevens","tag-nicole-maurantonio","tag-rachel-dolezal","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54918","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=54918"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54920,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54918\/revisions\/54920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}