Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
In her first live TV interview since stepping down as head of the Spokane, Wash., chapter of the NAACP, Rachel Dolezal spoke with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today show Tuesday morning. And by the time the interview was over, it was clear that the controversy over Dolezal’s race fraud was not…and wouldn’t be over for quite a while.
The 37-year-old white woman said that she has identified as black since the age of five, even “drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon, and black curly hair.” She claimed that the issues surrounding her racial identity are “complex” — issues that have sparked a national discussion about the legitimacy of “transracialism.”
Also on Today, Dolezal’s estranged parents said that their daughter has long pretended to be black, even making up stories about being born in a teepee and hunting for food with a bow and arrow as well as being punished with a large whip.
Western journalism has been reporting on the bizarre case of Rachel Dolezal, whose numerous claims of being the victim of hate crimes in recent years have never been substantiated by police. It’s also been disclosed that Dolezal — then claiming to be a white woman — once sued a black university for discrimination. In addition, she has publicly identified a black man — someone other than her biological father — as her “dad.”
Social media reaction to the Today show interview with still defiant Rachel Dolezal has been swift and generally negative. Below you can see some of the comments from Twitter users who found the interview rambling, disjointed, disturbing, even surreal — raising more questions than offering answers.
BCN editor’s note: This article first appeared at Western Journalism.
