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Passing While Black: Rachel Dolezal And The Fight For Racial Justice

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Rachel Dolezal I’ve always felt that one of the key reasons for the persistence of racism in American society is that most white people simply don’t get it, and probably never will. No appeals to reason or presentation of data on racial inequality will help. Put simply, most white people don’t get it is because they are unable to walk in black people’s shoes. To use the words of Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird , "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” It is easy for white people to see the world from their vantage point, but it takes a lot of empathic effort to step outside your own interests and needs and into the shoes of black people and see and experience this country as an African American. Rachel Dolezal – a blond and paled-skinned white woman without a hint of African heritage from Montana – stepped into black shoes, changed