‘The Rachel Divide’

If you thought the shame of having risen to the highest ranks of a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) after posing as a black woman when you are, in fact, white as hell would have you slink away to quietly do box braids from the comfort of your Washington home, think again.

Rachel Dolezal has a Netflix documentary.

Though the bit about the braids is true, what the disgraced Dolezal isn’t doing is displaying any sign of penitence. Still identifying as black as documentary filmmaker Laura Brownson follows her around her home city of Spokane, Dolezal takes centre stage in a documentary that attempts to shed some light on her origins, her two black children and current challenges.

Juxtaposing Dolezal’s tale of growing up in the home of two very religious parents who felt called to adopt black children but treated them as if they were white with a ‘skin condition’ with the backlash from the public, the media as well as members of the NAACP who condemn Dolezal’s ‘transblack’ identity as the height of white privilege, the film paints a rather sympathetic picture of a woman who assumed a black identity after trying to instill pride and self-knowledge in her black siblings.

Presented as resolutely unfazed by the hurt she has caused the black community and particularly the women members of the NAACP who saw the fallen leader as a distraction, attention hungry and manipulative of her black sons, Dolezal remains a polarising character whose reports of hate speech and harassment are called into question by both law enforcement and the press.

While Dolezal plays as increasingly unstable, the real victims seem to be her sons.

One her adoptive brother who she takes under wing and the other her first-born Franklin who evolves from fiercely protective of Dolezal to utterly exasperated by her inability to be humble, let it go and move on.

Also noting how a culture vulture who performed blackness is ultimately rewarded with TV appearances, a book deal and a documentary, ‘The Rachel Divide’ highlights glaring double standards, light skin privilege and the way in which black protest needs to be packaged just right in order to be heard.

An eye-opening documentary that presents Dolezal as a talented artist, a sympathetic character and an outcast, ‘The Rachel Divide’ ends with the subject having learnt nothing and changing her name at the DMV having sold just over 500 copies ‘In Full Color Finding My Place in a Black and White World’.

A title as cringe-worthy as her whole schtick.