Top News Today –
Rachel Dolezal: Black Or White?
UPDATE: Rachel Dolezal has resigned as president of the Spokane, WA NAACP chapter.
Eastern Washington civil rights leader Rachel Dolezal has been fighting the good fight as a black woman for several years. The only problem is, the president of the Spokane NAACP is not a black woman at all — she’s really white!
Top News Today
For more than 10 years, Rachel Dolezal has been inexplicably passing herself off as a black woman. She even claimed a black man as her natural father, voluntarily showing photos of the man she called “dad.” However, Dolezal’s real father apparently had enough of the charade and went public with news that he and her mother are both caucasian.
“She’s our birth daughter and we’re both of European descent,” Larry Dolezal, said last week. “Our daughter’s heritage is Czech, Swedish, and German.”
Ruthanne and Larry Dolezal, who live in Troy, MT, added that Rachel has been deceiving people for years and they want the public to know the truth. “We’re puzzled and it’s very sad.”
Rachel Dolezal has been president of the Spokane, Washington, chapter of the NAACP since January. She also serves as chair of the city’s police oversight commission and is an adjunct professor of Africana studies at Eastern Washington University.
According to her staff biography, Dolezal received a master’s degree from the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C. “Her passion for civil rights is influenced by her years in Mississippi, where she advocated for equal rights and participated in community development,” the bio states. It also claims that Dolezal has been the victim of at least 8 “documented hate crimes.” To date, her claims of being a victim have never been proven and no suspect has ever been identified.
So, why exactly would Rachel Dolezal pretend to be African-American when she is not? According to her real and very white father, Larry Dolezal says he can not fully explain why his daughter would pose as a black woman.
“She has over the past 20 years assimilated herself into the African-American community through her various advocacy and social justice work, and so that may be part of the answer,” Dolezal said. He added that Rachel cut off all communication with him and her mother, and “doesn’t want us visible in the Spokane area in her circle because we’re Caucasian.”
When directly confronted by the media to come clean about her caucasian past, Rachel Dolezal pretended not to understand the claims, then ran away. Having received a full scholarship to Howard University as an African-American woman (which is fraud ), could be at least partly why she’s running for cover.
Dolezal was set to address her ethnicity questions at a NAACP chapter meeting on Monday. However she canceled the meeting late Sunday night, citing the need “to continue discussion with regional and national NAACP leaders.” Shortly thereafter, Lawrence Burnley, head of the Spokane chapter’s executive committee, challenged Dolezal’s right to arbitrarily cancel the meeting.
“I don’t see any language in the by-laws that empowers you, or any one member, to arbitrarily cancel/postpone tomorrow’s meeting,” Burnley wrote in an email to Dolezal and other NAACP members on Sunday.
In light of these developments, several NAACP members are planning a demonstration Monday night calling for Dolezal to step down.
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OK WASSUP! tracks the top news today. Today’s article:
Spokane NAACP President Rachel Dolezal Fakes Being Black
"So, why exactly would Rachel Dolezal pretend to be African-American when she is not? "
Why indeed, DJ?…especially given the stigma associated with being Black in America, whether you're male or female.
My immediate answer is this…….
Perhaps she did it for the same reason that a 65 y/o rich White male celebrity feels that – despite 3 marriages and 6 biological kids- HE is actually a SHE. Now mind you, Jenner now has breast implants while still hanging onto his *dinkey doiley" no less…but he's sure he's a "SHE."
Perhaps in Dolezal's case, she really believes THAT's her truth(?)…She's Black?!
Honestly, both this story and Jenner's story makes my head spin. And the media's part in in both cases (especially CNN) really and truly disgust me.
Jenner is held up as some profile in Courage. He/she was even chosen to recieve this year's ESPY award. While all H*ll has broken out against Dolezal for passing as (gasp) BLACK!!!!
The truth is, I don't think in either case we're dealing with frauds…at least not in the psychosocial sense of their indivudal CHOSEN identity. Bruce readily admitted that he has struggled with his gender since childhood. Rachel's parents reported that Rachel has been *passing* for at least 20 yrs. She's only 37 which means she was about 17 when she chose to become Black.
In both cases, I see two people who are VERY confused and, for whatever reason, simply cannot handle/accept REALITY so each has chosen to create his/her own reality.
A reality each feels more comfortable with.
I hear you Truth. The thing I don't like is this woman stole a scholarship. She went tuition free to Howard as a black woman and stole a scholarship a real black woman could have had. That's fraud Also I have a problem with her and some white folks stealing my culture like it's theirs. If you want to be in the NAACP or march and protest for things or whatever, I don't care. But don't lie. Bruce Jenner never lied about his sex. At least he told the whole truth. This lady is plain lying and trying to act like we're all fools and don't know any better. I'm not with it.
I know BD. And please don't think that I codone what she's done. I don't.
I just can't expect rational decision-making from someone who may be delusional. Mental illness affects people, men and women, of all races and ethniciities. And America's track-record in promoting good mental health and providing appropriate and timely mental health care is shameful, to say the least.
I don't know if Dolezal is mentally ill(?) But something is NOT right with her. By her own parents admission, she rejected them, and her White identity, a long time ago. And she has completely emersed herself in Our Black culture.
I could be wrong….and if I am hopefully time will reveal the truth.
But I don't think she considers what she's done as "stealing," whether it be her adopting Our culture or her benefiting from a free education via a minority scholarship.
I just think it possible she wants to be Black so bad she's decided she's Black….and for her, that's all there is to it.
UPDATE: She Has Resigned
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — NAACP: Leader of Spokane, Washington, chapter resigns amid furor over racial identity.
"In the eye of this current storm, I can see that a separation of family and organizational outcomes is in the best interest of the NAACP," Dolezal said in a statement posted to the organization's Facebook page. "It is with complete allegiance to the cause of racial and social justice and the NAACP that I step aside from the presidency and pass the baton to my Vice President, Naima Quarles-Burnley."
H/T: BlackAmericaWeb & NPR
Usually somebody's pretending to be white. This is a first I think. It's good she resigned.
Um….Okay. Now IF what I've just learned about this woman is in fact True(?) …then I stand corrected on ALL points.
Meaning, she is indeed a FRAUD and an even bigger NUTCASE than I thought.
"NAACP Imposter Sued {Howard University} Over Race Claims" in 2002
JUNE 15–The NAACP official who today resigned in the face of evidence that she masqueraded as black once sued Howard University for denying her teaching posts and a scholarship because she was a white woman, The Smoking Gun has learned.
Rachel Dolezal, 37, who headed the NAACP’s Spokane, Washington chapter, sued Howard for discrimination in 2002, the year she graduated from the historically black college with a Master of Fine Arts degree.
Dolezal, then known as Rachel Moore, named the university and Professor Alfred Smith as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C.’s Superior Court. During the pendency of the civil case, Smith was chairman of Howard’s Department of Art.
According to a Court of Appeals opinion, Dolezal's lawsuit “claimed discrimination based on race, pregnancy, family responsibilities and gender.” She alleged that Smith and other school officials improperly blocked her appointment to a teaching assistant post, rejected her application for a post-graduate instructorship, and denied her scholarship aid while she was a student.
The court opinion also noted that Dolezal claimed that the university’s decision to remove some of her artworks from a February 2001 student exhibition was “motivated by a discriminatory purpose to favor African-American students over” her.
As detailed in the court opinion, Dolezal’s lawsuit contended that Howard was “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult.”
Judge Zoe Bush dismissed Dolezal’s complaint in February 2004, 18 months after the lawsuit was filed and Dolezal was deposed on several occasions. Bush found no evidence that Dolezal was discriminated on the basis of race or other factors. The D.C. Court of Appeals subsequently affirmed Bush’s decision.
Following the dismissal of Dolezal’s lawsuit (and the Court of Appeals decision), she was ordered to reimburse Howard for a “Bill of Costs” totaling $2728.50. During the case, she was also ordered to pay the university nearly $1000 in connection with an “obstructive and vexatious” court filing that sought to improperly delay her examination by an independent doctor.
Dolezal’s lawsuit, included “claims for medical and emotional distress damages,” according to a court docket. (5 pages) [….]
H/T: TheSmokingGun
I don't have to read the other story to recognize this woman is a nut case. It's one thing to appreciate black culture, but an entirely different thing to fool yourself into believing you're part of it. I know many people applaud her and say so what, but I think she is a fraud. Very glad to see her step down today and salvage the good name of the NAACP.
Tim Wise said:
“You see, allyship involves, at its best, working with people of color, rather than trying to speak for them. And I suspect Rachel discovered at Howard that it isn’t enough to love black culture and profess one’s solidarity with the movement for black equality; that indeed, black folks don’t automatically trust us just because we say we’re down; that proving oneself takes time, and that the process is messy as hell, and filled with wrong turns and mistakes and betrayals and apologies and a healthy dose of pain.
And I suspect she didn’t have the patience for the messiness, but armed with righteous indignation at the society around her, and perhaps the one in which she had been raised out west, she opted to cut out the middle man. To hell with white allyship (or as my friends and colleagues Lisa Albrecht and Jesse Villalobos are calling it, “followership”), to hell with working with others; rather, she opted to simply become black, to speak for and as those others.
It was her way of obtaining the authenticity to which she perhaps felt entitled just because of her sensibilities, and which she felt had been denied her by those whose approval she sought. It is a more extreme version, to be sure, but of a piece with those white folks who think dabbling in eastern religion makes us more spiritual, that donning beads and dream catchers in our rear-view mirrors makes us indigenous, or that blaring the loudest, brashest hip-hop beats in our stale suburbs renders us hard and street and real, in some way that isn’t possible within the confines of white normativity.”
Btw Tim Wise is a white man
RACHEL DOLEZAL BREAKS SILENCE ON NBC'S "THE TODAY SHOW"
In her first interview since being accused of misrepresenting her racial background and stepping down as an N.A.A.C.P. official, Rachel A. Dolezal did not back down on Tuesday, stating “I identify as black,” although she comes from a white family.
When Matt Lauer of NBC’s “Today” show asked, “When did you start deceiving people,” Ms. Dolezal did not concede that she had done so.
“I do take exception to that, because it’s a little more complex than me identifying as black, or answering a question of, ‘Are you black or white?’” she said.
She said her identification with black people went back as far as when she was 5 years old. “I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon, and the black curly hair,” she said.
My recent post TGIF: The Truth About Racism
"Anyone hoping that Rachel Dolezal would simply fade into the background with the former NAACP chapter head being labeled a villain is going to be disappointed." ~ Jazz Shaw
Okay so…I didn't see her interview this morning because I was at work. But I appreciate being able to see the video and read the text.
Btw- Thanks for posting the text DJ.
Frankly, the thing I find most striking about her is this -.at least for now, on the issue of how she identifies herself, she's very clear: "I identify as Black." She's not backing down.
No matter how uncomfortable it may make anyone feel, she's not backing down.
She identifies as Black,
I agree with the following sentiment- had she simply "slunk off into obscurity it would have paved the way for critics to simply claim that she was a white person trying to gain an advantage from the system by intentionally lying about being black, putting her in the *blackface,* Birth of a Nation category" which would make it easier to dismiss her.
Of course, regardless of how many interviews she does, some people will dismiss her anyway. And I certainly understand. She is after-all a fraud.
However, I also feel she is affected most by some serious mental health issues that are rooted in her childhood. I'm not sure how old she was when her parents adopted 4 Black children(?)
At any rate, to me, her story seems to be a very complex one.
RACHEL DOLEZAL APPEARS ON NBC'S "THE TODAY SHOW"
[youtube yBPZ_iEPhOk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBPZ_iEPhOk youtube]
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My recent post Racist Teacher Fired Over Pool Party Rant