Usually, Netflix gets on my good side in covering compelling topics such as the O.J. Simpson case and autism, but they really did not help themselves in producing “The Rachel Divide.” Of course, as soon as I saw it had come out, I had to watch it. The thought of a White woman successfully being able to fool the public into thinking she was Black was something out of a book to me. She not only fooled the public but desperately clung to the idea of being “trans-racial” like if she really put her mind to it, it’d become true.

I would have liked to see the Black community admonishing Rachel Dolezal for impersonating our very identity and bringing her to justice insomuch that she drops act. But Netflix put a different spin on it and I’m disgusted.

Netflix created a space for this White woman to be empathized with.

They explained her story as a past filled with abuse and weird, cultish origins. Her (White) parents were the kind that would sign her birth certificate with Jesus Christ as their witness. They raised their children to be very sheltered and signs of mental and physical abuse were apparent. As she got older her family decided to adopt Black children and this opened the door for this White woman to explore what “spoke to her soul,” which was Black culture.

Many interracial families, including my own, share a healthy amount of culture within themselves that stands to nurture the children so they come into their own identity. Rachel selfishly took it upon herself to carry the identities of her adopted siblings that her parents did not allow them to have.

Instead of showing what this really was, a culture vulture fascinated by the curious “creatures” her family had adopted, Netflix chose to portray her as a kindred sister who empathized with her siblings’ abuse.

While Netflix did show the pushback from the Black community that Rachel faced when coming out as Black, they did not show it as justified. They framed it as bullying and harassment — as if taking on the immense 300-year struggle of an entire people without all the actual struggle was a personal choice, something that should be respected. To make matters worse, the only person that is shown to truly support her besides her family is a random White woman in a protest.

Seriously?

The worst part of the film was seeing Rachel’s two Black sons suffer from their mother’s despicable behavior. To be Black and have to constantly face someone that tries to enjoy the color of your skin without all its baggage has to be psychological trauma. Throughout the film, the sons are torn between their love for their mother and how she tosses away the importance of their identity as Black. They often want to protect her from the “bullying” she constantly faces, while at the same time they realize how easy it could go away if she simply told the truth.

Overall, Netflix manages to legitimize this White woman’s plight. They manage to give yet another pass to White privilege in its essence. To be so bored and so entitled to whatever you can take, whether it be someone’s culture or their very identity, exemplifies what it means to have White privilege. In a country that feeds off of brown people’s culture, it’s enough to see the spray tans, lip injections, and absolute devotion for hip-hop and RnB.

But to see someone so deeply set in their privilege that they take on Black identity simply because they “feel Black” is disgusting and unacceptable.

Furthermore, the consequences she faces amount to nothing compared to the constant struggle Black people face as Black people.

Netflix managed to get one thing right. With a complete plot twist, Rachel is seen cutting off her braids, revealing blonde hair. Viewers think she’s repented and will go back to her Caucasian ways, but she begins laying her nonexistent edges for a new, kinky black weave that contrasts terribly with her pale skin.

She goes into the DMV and changes her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo or “gift of God” in Igbo.

Not quite, Rachel.

Immediately, we see her for what she really is: a deranged White woman, desperate for the attention and acceptance she was robbed of as a child.

Do not show sympathy for this psychopath. She only seeks to divide the Black community and allowing her platforms like this give her the legitimacy to continue her violent social ways.

Being Black isn’t a feeling. It’s something that gets you killed for walking down the street with a cellphone. It’s something that automatically places you at a disadvantage in the country you were born in. It’s not a joke and it’s not a hobby.