Re: Rachel Dolezal signs publishing deal to write book on ra
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 10:58 pm
Rachel Dolezal: the world may be confused about who I am, but I'm not. ‘I didn’t deceive anybody,’ the former NAACP leader said in an interview, adding: ‘If people feel misled … that’s more due to their definition and construct of race’
by Alan Yuhas
July 20, 2015
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
The civil rights activist who resigned from the NAACP after her biological parents claimed she had been misrepresenting herself as a black woman when her heritage is white has defiantly insisted: “I wouldn’t say I’m African American, but I would say I’m black.”
“There’s a difference in those terms,” Rachel Dolezal told Vanity Fair in an interview published on Sunday. “It’s not a costume.”
Dolezal did not retreat from her identification as a black woman despite the words and evidence of her estranged parents, who in June accused their daughter of misrepresenting herself for years.
“I’ve had my years of confusion and wondering who I really [am] and why and how do I live my life and make sense of it all,” Dolezal said. “But I’m not confused about that any longer. I think the world might be – but I’m not.”
A few days after her parents first spoke to a local newspaper in June, Dolezal resigned from her post as the president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington.
The organisation’s national president, Cornell William Brooks, dismissed the matter in June, saying: “The NAACP is not concerned with the racial identity of our leadership.”
In the Vanity Fair interview, Dolezal also rejected accusations that she had misled the NAACP, her fellow activists and the community at large, for instance by telling people that an African American man was her father.
“I didn’t deceive anybody,” she said. “If people feel misled or deceived, then sorry that they feel that way, but I believe that’s more due to their definition and construct of race in their own minds than it is to my integrity or honesty.”
She said she could hold an “academic conversation” about racial identity but struggled to articulate how her own story came to pass – from suing predominantly black Howard University, in part on anti-white discrimination claims, in 2002 to identifying as black in 2015.
“You can’t just say in one sentence what is blackness or what is black culture or what makes you who you are,” she said.
In June, Dolezal also lost a teaching position in Eastern Washington University’s African studies department, where she specialised in black studies and African American culture.
She said she has turned to hairdressing to pay the bills, with “appointments for braids and weaves about three times a week”.
Last week, the new president of the Spokane NAACP chapter, Naima Quarles-Burnley, expressed empathy for her predecessor while gently denouncing her.
“I saw in Rachel maybe my younger self,” she said.“Passionate, involved, all-in for social justice.”
“I feel that people of all races can be allies and advocates,” Quarles-Burnley told the Spokesman-Review. “But you can’t portray that you have lived the experience of a particular race that you aren’t part of.”
Dolezal said that she felt a book would best return her to the good graces of her fellow activists. “I don’t feel like I am probably going to be able to re-enter that work,” she said, “if I don’t have something like a published explanation.”
by Alan Yuhas
July 20, 2015
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
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The civil rights activist who resigned from the NAACP after her biological parents claimed she had been misrepresenting herself as a black woman when her heritage is white has defiantly insisted: “I wouldn’t say I’m African American, but I would say I’m black.”
“There’s a difference in those terms,” Rachel Dolezal told Vanity Fair in an interview published on Sunday. “It’s not a costume.”
Dolezal did not retreat from her identification as a black woman despite the words and evidence of her estranged parents, who in June accused their daughter of misrepresenting herself for years.
“I’ve had my years of confusion and wondering who I really [am] and why and how do I live my life and make sense of it all,” Dolezal said. “But I’m not confused about that any longer. I think the world might be – but I’m not.”
A few days after her parents first spoke to a local newspaper in June, Dolezal resigned from her post as the president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington.
The organisation’s national president, Cornell William Brooks, dismissed the matter in June, saying: “The NAACP is not concerned with the racial identity of our leadership.”
In the Vanity Fair interview, Dolezal also rejected accusations that she had misled the NAACP, her fellow activists and the community at large, for instance by telling people that an African American man was her father.
“I didn’t deceive anybody,” she said. “If people feel misled or deceived, then sorry that they feel that way, but I believe that’s more due to their definition and construct of race in their own minds than it is to my integrity or honesty.”
She said she could hold an “academic conversation” about racial identity but struggled to articulate how her own story came to pass – from suing predominantly black Howard University, in part on anti-white discrimination claims, in 2002 to identifying as black in 2015.
“You can’t just say in one sentence what is blackness or what is black culture or what makes you who you are,” she said.
In June, Dolezal also lost a teaching position in Eastern Washington University’s African studies department, where she specialised in black studies and African American culture.
She said she has turned to hairdressing to pay the bills, with “appointments for braids and weaves about three times a week”.
Last week, the new president of the Spokane NAACP chapter, Naima Quarles-Burnley, expressed empathy for her predecessor while gently denouncing her.
“I saw in Rachel maybe my younger self,” she said.“Passionate, involved, all-in for social justice.”
“I feel that people of all races can be allies and advocates,” Quarles-Burnley told the Spokesman-Review. “But you can’t portray that you have lived the experience of a particular race that you aren’t part of.”
Dolezal said that she felt a book would best return her to the good graces of her fellow activists. “I don’t feel like I am probably going to be able to re-enter that work,” she said, “if I don’t have something like a published explanation.”