Thread: NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal

What Rachel Dolezal doesn’t understand: being black is about more than just how you look
She used a fake black identity to gain status and influence in a community that isn't hers
By Osamudia James June 12, 2015

As a black woman, what should I make of Rachel Dolezal?

Is Dolezal black because she successfully duped people into seeing her as black? And what do her ideas about blackness tell us about how whites understand my culture?

These are tricky questions. Dolezal was an advocate for the black community. And she wasn’t just a foot soldier in a social justice organization. She devoted considerable time to advocating on behalf of black people, becoming head of the Spokane, Wash., NAACP.

But she also appropriated a black identity to gain status and influence in a community that isn’t actually her own. Pictures of her feature large kinky afros or blond braids and locs, often pinned into intricate updos. Her nails are long and brightly colored; her jewelry large and chunky. In photos, she arranges her very glossy lips into a pout, as if to present them as full.

In interviews about her background and upbringing, she tells stories about hunting for her own food, enduring physical abuse (replete with beatings dictated by skin color) at the hands of her parents, receiving racial hate mail during college, and setting up a “braiding service” to help black girls around her feel better about their hair.

In these stories and images, I see blackface — she gathered limited and stereotypical notions about black female aesthetics using them to inform a “black woman costume” to wear out into the world. At the same time, Dolezal’s background story of extreme austerity, abuse and trauma also reflects the cultural deficit lens through which America reflexively views black people in general, and black women in particular. For Dolezal, authentic black life must be impoverished, tragic and almost unbearable.

In peddling this narrative, Dolezal misses the actual day-to-day psychic tolls that accompany blackness. Not every black person has grown up poor, witnessed a cross burning, or actively joined (much less headed) a civil rights organization. Rather, the experience of blackness more often includes subtle, but more indelible, phenomena: the learning, as a child, of racial narratives of inferiority; the frustration of navigating a society where education about white supremacy (and how it intersects with gender, class and other constructs) is withheld; the labor of black caregivers who cultivate resiliency and pride in their little ones despite the experience of racial struggle.




Blackness is also an intergenerational experience and a historical consciousness borne out of racial struggle, but one that has also produced valuable cultural and intellectual expression, human ingenuity and reinvention, and importantly, pride. Our resilience is borne out of childhood that yes, presents challenges and exposes us to stigma, but also results in a lived, day-to-day racial experience that enriches our lives and informs the world; an experience to which Dolezal may not fraudulently lay claim, whether or not people believed her farce. She engaged in a superficial deployment of blackness, but her choice does not legitimate her anemic hold on a social construct neither assigned to nor actually experienced by her before her lies began.

To label her assumed identity acceptable or authentic because she effectively played into extreme stereotypes about clothing and experiences is to buy into the flawed assumption that Blackness is only about how one looks and behaves. And if blackness, and the black experience, is only performance, then what follows is the dangerous and incorrect assumption that blacks would be better off if they performed differently; if, in fact, they performed more whiteness.

For Dolezal and, I fear, many other whites, blackness is mere stereotypical performance: jewelry, nails, and hair; extreme stories of abuse; civil rights work as racial bona fides. It is not exposure to a racially hostile world, or the mental work of cultivating dignity, fortitude and hope in the face of that hostility. Nevertheless, I hope the conversations we will surely have in the upcoming days about her “transracial status” will help us understand the difference between, as one tweeter put it, “transitioning into a character,” and “transitioning out of the character you were wrongly assigned.” As a social construct with no biological or physiological basis, Dolezal was neither incorrectly assigned her whiteness at birth, nor subject to the social experiences — good and bad — of blackness in her developing and formative years. Rather, Dolezal merely performed, appropriating a character. I am disheartened by what the discards of her costume say about what she understood blackness to be.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/postev...41434298233535

Rachel Dolezal Once Told A Student She Did Not Look Hispanic Enough For A Class Activity

Former students from Eastern Washington and Howard Universities told BuzzFeed News about their classroom encounters with Rachel Dolezal, who taught courses in Africana studies and studio art.
posted on Jun. 12, 2015, at 6:57 p.m.

Rachel Dolezal once did not let a student participate in a class activity about race and culture because she did not appear Hispanic enough, the student told BuzzFeed News on Friday.

Dolezal, president of the Spokane, Washington, chapter of the NAACP, gained notoriety Thursday when her parents disclosed that she has been passing herself off as black for years. The revelation has prompted questions about the other aspects of Dolezal’s life, including claims that she has been the victim of hate crimes and received threatening letters.

The student — who, like many others interviewed for this article, asked to remain anonymous — told BuzzFeed News that she took two courses with Dolezal during her freshman year to fulfill academic requirements at Eastern Washington University.

The student said that the incident occurred within the first three weeks of an introductory course on race and culture. Dolezal introduced an activity she called “Fishbowl,” in which one student sat in front of the class as others were invited to ask them questions about their racial and cultural experiences.

In the first round of Fishbowl, the student said Dolezal sought out a volunteer of Hispanic background to be questioned. The student, who told BuzzFeed News that she identifies as Hispanic, grew up in a Spanish-speaking country, speaks the language fluently, and, while she has light skin, believes she has a “pretty solid experience of what it’s like to be Spanish.” She raised her hand to participate.

“I think we should ask another student,” the student recalled Dolezal saying in class.

The student asked why she could not participate. “Rachel said I didn’t look Hispanic,” she said, and that her instructor “doubted that I could share experiences of racial or ethnic discrimination because I didn’t have the appearance of looking Hispanic.”

Dolezal instead selected another Hispanic-identified student to sit before the class. “I didn’t think much of it at the time,” the student said, “but now I wish I had said something, especially now that her race is the one people are questioning.”



But not all students had negative experiences with Dolezal as an educator. Before moving to Washington, she taught at Howard University as she worked toward her MFA. Howard’s fine arts program is prestigious, competitive, and globally recognized; it was not uncommon to see students from Europe and Asia walking through the department halls.

Another of Dolezal’s former students at Howard spoke to BuzzFeed News on the condition on anonymity, and said that at the time, nobody questioned her race.

“She was white,” said the Howard alumnus.

She enrolled in Dolezal’s foundational studio course in 2001, adding that it was a normal practice for graduate students to teach introductory classes. She admired Dolezal’s painting technique, a topic she said was discussed often in the class.

While nobody doubted her racial identity, the former student told BuzzFeed News that some faculty members were critical of the motivations behind her work. She noted one professor specifically: Tritobia Benjamin, who was well known in the art world as an authority on black female artists.

“Dr. Benjamin was very critical of Rachel,” the former told BuzzFeed News, because although she was white, she “captured the black body in her paintings,” particularly black men. “But if she graduated, it’s because she successfully defended her thesis,” she said.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tamerragriff...nic#.jhJL6o063

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

Remember when Melissa Harris Perry had a panel on her show that mocked the Romney's adopted Black grandson and now her almost twin, Trans-racial, Rachel Dolezal, was allegedly opposed to Tim Wise a White American anti-racism activist and writer, speaking at Eastern Washington University. Why? Because he is White and therefore could not speak on Black issues and racism.

So again I ask, which party is the party of the racists?

This is a continuous problem coming from the left side of the political aisle, and while I know that there are those that probably are those that are racist in any of the political parties, it is long over due for the democrats to honestly admit, they have a blatant problem within their party and even so with those that are in leadership positions in historically Black founded organizations. The democrats still by choice systematically practice exclusion and racial segregation by telling people they can't be participants at functions based upon the color of their skin.

It is inexcusable to point fingers, sue and protest others charging them with racism and yet they are perpetuating years old practices themselves of 'Black codes' only now it's 'White codes' aka Jim Crow practices in reverse! There will never be a unity of races if these practices are eradicated!



H/T R.M. for Meme comparison of Rachel Dolezale & Harris-Perry
Commentary by Babette L Holder of The Last Civil Right

VIDEO: MSNBC’s Harris-Perry on #RachelDolezal: ‘It Is Possible That She Might Actually BE Black?’

MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry is sure to have earned the wrath of the oh-so-tolerant left after she questioned whether or not Rachel Dolezal could “be black.” Dolezal is the NAACP president who is white as snow but has, for years, fabricated an entire racial identity and backstory asserting that she is black. The revelation of her Caucasian ethnicity puts the left in a difficult spot as they have, for years, asserted that:

A) Race shouldn’t matter and,

B) That in this day and age of “transgender” and “cisgender,” a person can subscribe to any delusional identity they wish.

Recently, Harris-Perry wondered aloud if whether or not Dolezal is black via transracial ideas.

“Is it possible that she might actually be black?” Harris-Perry questioned.

“I wonder if it could be that one could be born ‘cis-black’ and ‘trans-black.’ That there is a different category of blackness that’s about the achievement of blackness, despite one’s parentage.”

This is, perhaps, the most-backwards and racist ramblings I have ever seen.

Further, Harris-Perry’s ramblings indicate that not only has society lost any sensible grip on reality in terms of labels or identities, but that the leftist media has placed a higher value on “blackness” over “whiteness.”



http://politistick.com/video-msnbcs-...ally-be-black/

The presupposition that to be black is to be great is a form of black supremacy and from the media discussion surrounding Dolezal’s charade, it has become quite clear that there is a hierarchy of value when it comes to the races.

Whereas once black people who could pull it off, “passed” as white to escape institutional discrimination and to gain access to better opportunities, it’s clear that Dolezal “passed” as black for the exact same reasons.

Rachel Dolezal Claimed Racist Marines Tried to Assassinate Her Fictional Black Father Three Times
6.16.2015

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/rach...er-three-times

So THAT'S how she does it!
Rachel Dolezal 'gets regular spray tans for $60 a month'
and wears a weave to maintain her black identity

Rachel Dolezal told NBC BLK's Amber Payne that she does her own weave
But she refused to discuss why her skin tone is darker now

Sources told TMZ she is a regular at Palm Beach Tan in Spokane, Wash.
Her 'brand of choice is Mystic Spray' and her 'favorite shade is Medium'

She said she has learned to style dreads and braids on herself and others

In 2013, she posted a photo of herself with tight curls on Facebook with the comment,
'Going with my natural look as I start my 36th year'

The tight brown curls are a far cry from the blonde locks she had as a teen

She gave a lecture in February about the history of black hair and her own personal experiences

By Kelly Mclaughlin and Mia De Graaf For Dailymail.com

Published: 23:37 EST, 16 June 2015 | Updated: 16:47 EST, 17 June 2015

Dolezal has given a number of interviews over the past several days focusing on her race and identity.

In all of them she has stood by her black identity, going as far to say that she doesn't have 'biological proof' that she is the child of her white parents.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...g-natural.html

"Looks like Rachel Dolezal’s got a “bro.”

Breitbart reports today that “Black Lives Matter” organizer & civil rights celebrity Shaun King has also lied about his race.

A recipient of an Oprah Winfrey scholarship, King says in 1995 he was Kentucky’s first “hate crime” victim, claiming to have been beaten within an inch of his life by a dozen “redneck” students.

Police report shows:

1) King’s white

2) Only one other student involved &

3) King sustained “minor injuries”

Too much “pretending” in America today! Like King, Dolezal “pretends” she’s black. Bruce (Caitlyn) Jenner “pretends” he’s a woman. Hillary “pretends” to be truthful & O “pretends” to be transparent. DC Republicans “pretend” to be conservative (especially during elections). The mainstream media “pretends” to be unbiased. And finally, by ignoring black on black crime, failing schools, the Planned Parenthood atrocities etc., Shaun King’s Black Lives Matter movement “pretends” it cares about black lives. It’s really sick but let’s face it … without “pretending” liberalism wouldn’t survive."
~ P

You NEVER hear conservatives doing what this liberal woman just did

Written by Derrick Wilburn on October 13, 2015

Sigmund Freud must be wishing he were alive in this day and age in order to get a crack at the ever-expanding list of new mental disorders being created by liberals in America.

Not only is the new trend of creating phobias exclusive liberal territory, (when’s the last time you heard a conservative come up with a “phobia” – such as homophobia, trans-phobia, Islamophobia – and use it to advance a cause or agenda), so is the trend of faking one’s ethnic heritage.

Last week’s removal of yet another pretend minority by New Hampshire’s Dartmouth College shines light on a phenomena of behavior exhibited almost exclusively by the political left in America — instances of Caucasians pretending to be ethnic minorities. Its odd behavior to say the least, and behavior that is rarely if ever exhibited by anyone but liberals.

Last month Dartmouth, an Ivy League and therefore almost by definition an uber-liberal school, named Susan Taffe Reed as new Director of its “Native American Program.” In her new position Ms. Reed was to help students adjust to life at the school and serve as a liaison between the college and Native Americans. The school said her role as president of the Eastern Delaware Nations would be instrumental in helping guide Indian students. http://www.easterndelawarenations.org/

There’s just one problem. She’s a fake. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...ecking-indians

Last week Dartmouth removed Dr. Reed, who has a doctorate in musicology and American Indian Studies from Cornell University, from her post after tribal officials and alumni accused her of misrepresenting herself as an American Indian. Apparently to tribal elders and officials just studying American Indian culture in school isn’t enough to actually be an American Indian. http://www.npr.org/2015/10/07/446632...erican-program

Reed’s appointment in September was almost immediately mired in controversy, as some Native Americans said Dartmouth didn’t sufficiently vet Ms. Reed’s association with the Eastern Delaware Nation, which concedes it isn’t an actual tribe. Several Indian activists groups who dug into Ms. Reed’s past said they couldn’t find documentation of her claims that she had Native American heritage.

The college said in a statement last week that Reed will no longer head its Native American Program and that it was “exploring opportunities” to retain Ms. Reed in some capacity. “Unfortunately, the distraction around her appointment prevents her from effectively serving in this role,” said Dartmouth spokeswoman Diana Lawrence.

For her part, Dr. Reed could not be reached for comment. She did however release an email stating that she said she was of mixed Native and European heritage, though she didn’t specify which tribe or tribes she hailed from. She added that she had been raised participating in traditional Native ceremonies in a rural region of Pennsylvania. In other words – she “identifies” as a Native-American Indian therefore she is one. Apparently participation points count when it comes to one’s ethnic makeup.

Reed joins an esteemed list of ethnically challenged liberals including Ward Churchill, Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Dolezal and Shaun King.

This pattern of behavior seems to be the exclusive territory of those on the ideological left. Why is that? And to make matters even more perplexing, when one of these fake minorities is uncovered and exposed it’s the left, the very people to whom they have lied and defrauded, who are the ones to come rushing to their defense!

If anything one would think things the other way around. It’s the ideological right in America which is constantly under attack (by the left) for “not having minorities,” “being against blacks,” etc. Thus it would make the most sense for righties to be feigning black, Indian or Hispanic in order to bring some color to their side of the aisle and help blunt the effect of such accusations. Yet we never see that. Regardless of race, ethnicity or skin color we never see conservatives “identifying” as anything but conservative. Could it be because truth transcends color? Or because of adherence to a moral code about lying and deceiving others?

My father used to tell me, “If you always tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said.” Morph that into, “You never have to remember who you are.” It’s amazing how many (liberals) are trying to forget who they are.

http://www.allenbwest.com/2015/10/ag...oman-just-did/

[Note: This article first appeared on American Thinker and was written by Derrick Wilburn http://www.americanthinker.com/artic..._the_left.html ]

'I acknowledge I was born white to white parents': Race faker Rachel Dolezal FINALLY admits she is white... but still insists that she identifies as black

Rachel Dolezal's estranged parents revealed that she was Caucasian
She was forced to resign from her position as NAACP leader in Spokane
Dolezal continued to claim she is black and she 'didn't deceive anybody'
On talk show 'The Real', she conceded she was 'biologically born white'
She also admitted she checks both black and white racial identity boxes on forms and applications
By Khaleda Rahman and Regina F. Graham For Dailymail.com

Published: 21:46 EST, 2 November 2015


Race faker Rachel Dolezal has finally admitted she was born white… but still maintains that she identifies as black.

The former NAACP leader made headlines in June and sparked a national debate about racial identity when she was accused of lying about her own.

Nearly five months later, Dolezal has conceded that she ‘was biologically born white to white parents’.

However, she also said that she checks both black and white racial identity boxes on forms and applications.

The 37-year-old made her admission on daytime talk show The Real on Monday.

The show's hosts, Tamar Braxton, Tamera Mowry-Housley, Loni Love, Jeannie Mai and Adrienne Bailon, led a discussion on racial identity with Dolezal.

Rachel Dolezal has finally admitted she was born white… but still maintains that she identifies as black. Later, she added: ‘I think that sometimes how we feel is more powerful than how we’re born – and blackness can be defined as philosophical, cultural, biological.'

And when first asked which race Dolezal would check on an application form, she hesitates. 'The form in particular usually defines things,' she said. 'And you know I've been a professor of African history, black studies ...'

After Braxton asked again, Dolezal, who appears to be showing a growing baby bump since announcing her pregnancy on Instagram in August, answers: 'I check white AND black.

'Because we all have human origins in the continent of Africa.'

She later added: 'Sometimes how we feel is more powerful then how we are born. Blackness can be defined as philosophical, cultural, biological, a lot of different things for a lot of different people. I do think you have to walk the walk if that’s how you are.'

But an investigation by Daily Mail Online revealed that Dolezal had no black relatives dating back as far as 1671.

Her deceptions came to light after her estranged father and mother, Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal, told a local paper that their daughter was Caucasian. They said that she began 'disguising' herself as black around 2007.

Dolezal did marry an African-American man in 2000, Kevin Moore, but she filed for divorce soon after in 2004.

She was also engaged to Maurice Turner in December 2012 but the two split shortly after.

Dolezal is currently pregnant, but not revealing the identity of the father of the child.

She has one known biological child, Franklin, and took in her adopted brother Izaiah, 21, and started raising him as her son.

After being outed as white, Dolezal was forced to resign from her position as chapter president of the NAACP in Spokane, Washington.

The former instructor of Africana studies at Eastern Washington University also did not have her contract with the school renewed following the controversy.

But the divorced civil rights activist repeatedly defended herself, insisting: 'It's not a costume.'

She said that it was the public's definition of race that was to blame for the confusion.

In July, she told Vanity Fair: '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.'

In July, it was also reported that she had resorted to doing weaves and braiding hair three times a week to make ends meet after losing her job.

But she said: 'It's taken my entire life to negotiate how to identify.'

'You can't just say in one sentence what is blackness or what is black culture or what makes you who you are.

'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 say I'm black, and there's a difference in those terms.'


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ies-black.html

She said that it was the public's definition of race that was to blame for the confusion.

She tells stories of being raised in AFRICA and being beaten for the color of her skin tone. She hires a older black male to attend events claiming to be her father. She tells tales of "hate crimes" committed against her and her family. But it is "The Publics" fault that she created a history and a resume' of lies.

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

"Looks like Rachel Dolezal’s got a “bro.”

Breitbart reports today that “Black Lives Matter” organizer & civil rights celebrity Shaun King has also lied about his race.

A recipient of an Oprah Winfrey scholarship, King says in 1995 he was Kentucky’s first “hate crime” victim, claiming to have been beaten within an inch of his life by a dozen “redneck” students.

Police report shows:

1) King’s white

2) Only one other student involved &

3) King sustained “minor injuries”

Too much “pretending” in America today! Like King, Dolezal “pretends” she’s black. Bruce (Caitlyn) Jenner “pretends” he’s a woman. Hillary “pretends” to be truthful & O “pretends” to be transparent. DC Republicans “pretend” to be conservative (especially during elections). The mainstream media “pretends” to be unbiased. And finally, by ignoring black on black crime, failing schools, the Planned Parenthood atrocities etc., Shaun King’s Black Lives Matter movement “pretends” it cares about black lives. It’s really sick but let’s face it … without “pretending” liberalism wouldn’t survive."
~ P

Faux #BlackLivesMatter activist BUSTED big time
Written by The Analytical Economist on December 21, 2015


It hasn’t been a good year for Shaun King, the male Rachel Dolezal.






So far it’s been revealed that a charity for which the prominent #blacklivesmatter activist and social justice writer for the New York Daily News has been raising money since 2013 was never actually created.

Another lie revealed from King’s past was his claim that he was the victim of an anti-black hate crime in Kentucky in 1995. The police report and detective investigation into the alleged incident found no evidence for the claim. Probably in part because King is white.

Fraud and lies aside, there’s been a bit of hypocrisy too. King, who has openly attacked gun owners was fired from his job at Morehouse College in 2006 for, you guessed it, brandishing a firearm. People also dug up a tweet from 2010 where King posted about having fun with his friends at a gun range. He has since deleted 70,000 of his past tweets.

And to conclude the year – we now have Shaun King, plagiarist.

As Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller reports:

New York Daily News writer Shaun King has been called out for plagiarism after he copied a blog post verbatim and posted it on his massively popular Facebook page without giving attribution to its true author.

In a post on King’s Facebook page on Sunday, Carlos Miller, who operates the blog “Photography Is Not A Crime,” wrote: “Shaun King, please link to my article if you are going to cut and paste my article into your FB post. I’m sure as a writer, you understand.”

King has a huge Facebook following of more than 184,000 users. That fan base generates tons of traffic for his posts at The Daily News, where King reportedly earns a six-figure salary.

In his article, Miller detailed a video recently released by the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department showing deputies shooting 23-year-old Noel Aguilar in the back while he was on the ground.

King copied Miller’s blog post word by word and passed it on to his followers as his own.


http://www.allenbwest.com/2015/12/fa...sted-big-time/