The allegedly black president of the Spokane, Washington, NAACP chapter has been outed as white by her estranged parents.
Rachel Dolezal, who has represented herself as African-American in addition to other ethnicities such as white and Native American, was born to two parents who identify themselves as Caucasian, according to her birth certificate obtained by CNN.
Dolezal’s birth parents, Ruthanne and Lawrence, accuse their daughter of misleading people about her race.
“We are her birth parents,” explained Lawrence Dolezal. “We do not understand why she feels it’s necessary to misrepresent her ethnicity.”
Ruthanne Dolezal said simply that her daughter is “being dishonest and deceptive with her identity.”
Making the revelations more confusing is the fact that Rachel Dolezal is reportedly in a legal dispute with her estranged parents.
From CNN:
The adopted brother wanted to live with Rachel Dolezal “in a multiracial household where black culture is celebrated and I have a connection to the black community,” the court papers said. The papers did not specify Rachel Dolezal’s race.
The emancipation petition has been dropped, but Rachel Dolezal has since been named guardian of her adopted brother at the consent of her parents.
According to the Spokesman-Review, Dolezal, who is both a black community advocate and an expert on African American culture, sidestepped questions regarding her ethnicity Thursday.
She said, “I feel like I owe my executive committee a conversation” before discussing the “multi-layered” issue of her ethnicity.
“That question is not as easy as it seems,” she explained. “There’s a lot of complexities … and I don’t know that everyone would understand that.”
Despite the ambiguity now surrounding the 37-year-old’s ethnicity, the NAACP is still standing by the leader of its Spokane chapter.
“One’s racial identity is not a qualifying criteria or disqualifying standard for NAACP leadership,” the organization said in a statement. “The NAACP Alaska-Oregon-Washington State Conference stands behind Ms. Dolezal’s advocacy record. In every corner of this country, the NAACP remains committed to securing political, educational, and economic justice for all people, and we encourage Americans of all stripes to become members and serve as leaders in our organization.”
