Last month, Raquel Saraswati resigned her position as chief equity, inclusion, and culture officer for a Philadelphia-based advocacy organization after it was revealed she was not who she had claimed to be. Saraswati, who worked for the the American Friends Service Committee, presented herself as not only Muslim, but also Latina, South Asian, and of Arab descent. But a Feb. 10 letter written by friends of AFSC claims she was misrepresenting herself and her family lineage.
The Intercept tracked down her mother, Carol Perone, who claimed she was born Rachel Elizabeth Seidel. “I don’t know why she’s doing what she’s doing. I’m as white as the driven snow and so is she,” declared Perone. The Daily Mail published a gallery of photographs depicting Saraswati’s transformation from childhood to adulthood.
Cue the leftist outrage. “There could be the feeling of estrangement or disassociation with all the baggage that comes with white colonialism,” African American studies professor Deborah Whaley told USA Today. Racial grievance Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah bemoaned that “white women deploy racial cosplay – and get away with it.”
Attiah approvingly cited sociology professor Robyn Autry, who in 2020 claimed this was a “twisted attempt to be seen and heard.” Attiah in turn claimed that “non-white cultures, physical features and clothing styles are frequently seen as ripe for appropriation, things to be tried on and discarded as if they were costumes on sale at Party City.” She even accused Saraswati of doing it to perpetuate “White power structures.”