Director Laura Brownson filmed an exciting documentary with Rachel Dolezal. After being the head of NAACP, Rachel gained many negative reactions from millions who see her as the ultimate example of white privilege, as the association advance justice for African Americans.
Brownson has done exactly what she needed to: show how Dolezal was formed, how society responded to her insistence that "race is a construct," and how she's coping in the face of such relentless hatred.
Nobody is helped by a seemingly throwaway moment that attempts to address Dolezal's supposed transracial identity with that of transgender individuals... perhaps the film's most offensive sequence.
Its title is a bit too clever, but The Rachel Divide takes a largely serious, respectful and dignified approach toward a subject many would say is undeserving.
There is something sick, twisted and insulting about America's fixation with Rachel Dolezal and the way her lies have given her a platform, albeit a negative one, that most Black people don't have.
It's devastating to see so many innocent people torn down by Dolezal's deceit, and The Rachel Divide benefits immensely by highlighting their voices, including those of some of the NAACP members she worked with.
Like everything about Rachel Dolezal, it's complicated, but this film-whether or not it should have ever been made-helps untangle both the motivation for-and the impact of-Rachel Dolezal's strange choices.
The Rachel Divide works hard to give an insider's view of a story that for some is the case of a woman suffering from a serious sense of cultural displacement and for others is an ongoing attempt to redefine notions of race and what that term... means.
