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Just when the Rachel Dolezal hoopla was dying down, Vanity Fair releases an interview with the former N.A.A.C.P. chapter leader. Although she says she was born Caucasian, she now identifies herself as black. The outed internet sensation caused quite an uproar a few weeks ago when it was revealed that Dolezal was living her life as a black woman, when she was in fact a white woman.
“It’s taken my entire life to negotiate how to identify, and I’ve done a lot of research and a lot of studying. I could have a long conversation, an academic conversation about that. I just feel like I didn’t mislead anybody; I didn’t deceive anybody. 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, because I wouldn’t say I’m African American, but I would say I’m black, and there’s a difference in those terms.”
“It’s not a costume,” she tell Vanity Fair about her outer appearance. “I don’t know spiritually and metaphysically how this goes, but I do know that from my earliest memories I have awareness and connection with the black experience, and that’s never left me. It’s not something that I can put on and take off anymore. Like I said, I’ve had my years of confusion and wondering who I really [was] and why and how do I live my life and make sense of it all, but I’m not confused about that any longer. I think the world might be—but I’m not.”
Dolezal may think she was not being deceptive but she was…changing her hair is one think, but saying that you are another ethnicity when you are not are not and YES its deceptive no matter what way you look at it!
Photo from VF
