When the race of “Black Lives Matter” activist, Morehouse Man and Morehouse Oprah (Winfrey) Scholar Shaun King came into question earlier this week, many were quick to dub him “the second coming of Rachel Dolezal.”
But many, particularly his Morehouse brothers, decried the claims as “a distraction,” irrelevant and incomparable to the Rachel Dolezal saga.
For starters, said Darren Martin, a 2015 graduate of Morehouse College, King “doesn’t identify as ‘transracial,’ he identifies as ‘biracial.’”
King took to Twitter to respond to the allegations himself, saying: “If you have known me from when I was in elementary school at Huntertown Elementary until now, you’ve known me as black or bi-racial. I did not concoct a lie about my race to get into @Morehouse. I did not concoct a lie about my race to get an @Oprah scholarship. Every single person who knows me BEYOND Twitter, beyond trending topics and HIT PIECES, knows I have never lied about my race. Out of LOVE for my family, I’ve never gone public with my racial story because it’s hurtful, scandalous, and it’s MY STORY.”
But many of King’s Morehouse brothers ― and others ― say the claims are not only irrelevant, they don’t matter.
“Nobody cared about [Shaun King’s] race or anything else until he started calling out police brutality … miss me with that,” said former South Carolina state legislator and 2005 Morehouse graduate Bakari Sellers on Twitter.
“I’ll speak for myself. When I sat in NSO (New Student Orientation) at Morehouse in 2001, this guy stepped on stage at King Chapel and time stopped for a second. Although I was enrolled already, his ensuing speech sold me on Morehouse. Made me realize the company I was in and the institution that would become my home. That guy’s name is Shaun King. I’ll simply say that he’s my Morehouse brother… And that’s all there is to it,” said Sellers’ Morehouse classmate, Kyle Yeldell, via Facebook.
