Pop Singer Keri Hilson Takes Heat for Tweets Supporting Rachel Dolezal

Reuters
Reuters
Daniel Nussbaum

Pop singer Keri Hilson made waves on social media this weekend when she suggested that people “thank” Rachel Dolezal, the embattled president of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP who was outed as white by her parents after representing herself as an African-American woman for years.

“Let’s just all thank #RachelDolezal,” Hilson began a series of supportive tweets. “Identity, pathological, & parental issues aside, she’s doing more than most of us do for ourselves.”

Hilson’s comments were quickly picked up and skewered all over Twitter:

https://twitter.com/YeshaCallahan/status/609450094039928832

The NAACP has stood by Dolezal, who also teaches Africana studies at Eastern Washington University.

“We represent all civil rights issues, regardless of a person’s ethnicity. And the quality of work that she has done to elevate the issues of civil rights in that region is what we applaud,” NAACP regional president Gerald Hankerson said in a statement. “It’s unfortunate that this has become a trending conversation when there’s a lot more important things that are going on in America that we should be better addressing.”

Hilson realized she was getting beaten over the comments and tried to clarify in a follow-up tweet on Saturday:

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