The Rachel Dolezal

Written By Pink Flowers

Rachel Dolezal ain’t got shit on my great grand ma, y’all — for realz!

1901, at the age of 19 (which could explain a lot of it!), my great granma, Fannie Russell, said fuck it to White privilege and married Walter Hendricks—a Black man—in South Carolina. It was illegal AF. South Carolina was the first state to pass an anti-miscegenation law. It was almost a Federal offense, talking about “Intermarriage between whites and blacks is repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. “ That ain’t fly, but most states went ahead and jumped on the band wagon, making mixed marriage illegal.

Grandma Fanny came from a slaveholding family. Her grandma, Lucinda, inherited a “negro girl” named Emily, so, I‘m shook to figure how two generations later, Fanny turned around and married a Black guy. What her family have to say about it? How great-grandpa Walter not get lynched?! What Justice of the Peace would have done the ceremony? Lucky for me, I was able to find the marriage paper, if you call that shit luck.

It looks to be the right couple. Same parents for each of them. The ages listed matched they dates of birth. Then I saw Fannie’s race was on there as “col” (Colored). I was like “Wait a second!” I checked and both Fanny’s folks show up on the census as White. Fannie had lied? She also put down both parents as “deceased.” In 1901 her parents were alive there death and burial records and all.

Is my Granma Fanny a Rachel Dolezal? Then you had people like former NAACP chair Walter White who was White as a sheet, but lived as a Black person. I’m like “Damn!” People been choosing Blackness, against their own comfort and privilege for as long as these bullshit ass categories have existed. Why’s it so important to cling on these categories now? Maybe the lesson that got everybody shook is that race only has the power we give it—we’re comfortable with racial boxes.

I’m starting to see through this fog as I realize more and more I ain’t who I thought I was. I’m sure a few people got they finger on the cancel button. I’m poised and ready. Come for my grandma, though and we gonna fight!

Pink Flowers

Pink Flowers is a Black trans artist, peacemaker, educator, and pleasure activist whose work lives at the intersection of embodiment, governance, and cultural transformation. Trained in Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, and Navajo-informed Peacemaking practices, Pink designs spaces where conflict can be addressed, power can be examined, and joy can be reclaimed.

Her artistic and pedagogical practice draws from African trickster cosmology, Brazilian Joker traditions, shamanic ritual, and cooperative economics. She is the founder of the award-winning Falconworks Theater Company (2005–2021), which used popular theater to build civic capacity and participatory leadership in historically marginalized communities.

Pink served for over five years as a trained Peacemaker in the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, facilitating restorative processes within the New York City court system. From 2015–2018, she worked in cooperative business development with the Center for Family Life, supporting worker-owned enterprises in immigrant communities.

She currently serves as Director of Education and Training for the Inter-Cooperative Council in Ann Arbor, where she leads leadership development and conflict engagement initiatives. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Stretch Festival in Berlin and the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference.

Across ritual, performance, mediation, and institutional design, Pink’s work asks a central question:

What becomes possible when we refuse shame and choose conscious power instead?

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