[HOTAIR] I was actually wondering what Rachel Dolezal was doing these days.
There’s a lot more to this story than just the uncovering of another Rachel Dolezal. I’m not sure if the subtext was clear to the Intercept, who published this story today, but it’s pretty glaring to me.
Members of the American Friends Service Committee, a prominent Quaker organization known for its progressive values and social justice advocacy in the U.S. and abroad, have raised an alarm about a woman holding a leadership position within the organization who they say has misrepresented her ethnic background for years and who they fear may be working on behalf of groups seeking to undermine their organization.
Raquel Evita Saraswati, a Muslim activist who for years has encouraged people to believe that she is a woman of color, including Latina as well as of South Asian and Arab descent, is the AFSC’s chief equity, inclusion, and culture officer, a senior position that gives her access to the files of dozens of the organization’s staff and volunteers. But Saraswati, who was born Rachel Elizabeth Seidel, is not a person of color, according to her mother, Carol Perone.
“I call her Rachel,” Perone told The Intercept, when reached by telephone. “I don’t know why she’s doing what she’s doing.”…
“I’m German and British, and her father was Calabrese Italian,” her mother added. “She’s chosen to live a lie, and I find that very, very sad.”
Raquel/Rachel did convert to Islam in high school so that much of her identity is real. But the AFSC is now concerned that she may be some kind of double agent. It turns out that she got her start by appearing as a moderate Muslim on Fox News and Newsmax. That was more than a decade ago but some wonder if she didn’t take the equity officer job as part of an effort infiltrate a progressive organization.
I guess anything is possible but all of that sounds a bit paranoid to me. The obvious question raised by this incident is how Rachel was able to get away with it. The Intercept notes that the DEI has become a big business very quickly and, as a result, the qualifications and backgrounds of people claiming jobs are sometimes not looked at as carefully as they should be.
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