“Welcome to Peripheries. I am Rachel Dolezal, your host,” begins the first episode of the podcast. “So today I’m going to share with you a letter I received from someone I’m going to called Afina. She writes: Dear Mrs Dolezal, though we have never met, I felt the need to reach out and apologize for the way our society has treated the question of race and has attacked your character.”
The letter goes on to describe a complex upbringing from the perspective of a first-generation American raised by Arab parents. Why do her friends of Moroccan or Egyptian descent, she asks, not count as “African American” on federal forms? What is she supposed to say if she’s asked whether she’s Black or white, with no added information allowed? “Like I said, I just wanted to reach out and extend my empathy. Identity is a troubling question and it’s even further complicated when it’s highlighted in such a public forum,” Afina’s letter concludes. “You will certainly be in my thoughts. I genuinely hope that you will continue to fight for justice.”
