Parents of Spokane NAACP President claim she's misrepresenting her ethnicity

[lostinblue 1,989]

Parents of Spokane NAACP President claim she's misrepresenting her ethnicity

Posted: Jun 11, 2015 3:37 PM EDT

<em class="wnDate">Thursday, June 11, 2015 3:37 PM EDT</em>Updated: Jun 12, 2015 3:27 AM EDT <em class="wnDate">Friday, June 12, 2015 3:27 AM EDT</em>

by Luke Thoburn, KHQ News Producer

http://www.khq.com/story/29299054/parents-of-spokane-naacp-president-claim-shes-misrepresenting-her-ethnicity

SPOKANE, Wash. -

There are questions about Spokane's NAACP Chapter President, Rachel Dolezal. The city confirmed with KHQ she claimed to be of African-American descent on a city application to be on the Ombudsman commission. But we spoke with her parents today who say Rachel is white and has been misrepresenting her ethnicity for years.

Dolezal teaches African American Culture at Eastern Washington University as an adjunct instructor. Her blog also says she is an art instructor at North Idaho College, is an advisor for the NIC Black Student Association.

Dolezal made headlines back in February when she claimed someone had mailed racist and threatening letters to the NAACP post office box. KHQ managed to obtain a 38-page Spokane Police report about the investigation into that mail. Officers concluded that the mail had not been properly processed through the post office, and was likely put directly into the post office box, without being mailed at all. They said only a few people have access to the box: the USPS employees who work there, and the boxholder. Police said they do not believe the USPS employees put the mail there. The investigation continues.

On Thursday, Spokane Mayor David Condon and City Council President Ben Stuckart issued the following statement on Dolezal's position on the Ombudsman Commission:

“We are committed to independent citizen oversight and take very seriously the concerns raised regarding the chair of the independent citizen police ombudsman commission. We are gathering facts to determine if any city policies related to volunteer boards and commissions have been violated. That information will be reviewed by the City Council, which has oversight of city boards and commissions.”

KHQ 's Gabe Cohen spoke with Dolezal on Thursday who refused to comment on the issue and said her parents are "using the media."

Rachel Dolezal will remain Spokane NAACP President at least until Monday. She'll lead their general member meeting as always.

A white person trying to get some black privilege ... To think she kept a black person from getting that teaching position she has held all these years. .If Bruce Jenner can change sex .. why not this woman change her race .

. Bruce feels that he is a woman .. Rachel feels like she is black . .. Same thing ?

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

What is even sader is that in this day and time you would have to be of a certain race to qualify for something.

Of course that's not racism is it because of some titled playing field bizarre rationalization. More PC madness fuelING racism

On the other hand being black is such a great gig now , even white folks are pretending to be black "obvious Marvin bait comment " lol

[lostinblue 1,989]

What is even sader is that in this day and time you would have to be of a certain race to qualify for something.

Of course that's not racism is it because of some titled playing field bizarre rationalization. More PC madness fuelING racism

On the other hand being black is such a great gig now , even white folks are pretending to be black "obvious Marvin bait comment " lol

Transrace .... PC at its finest hour.

[Teddy B 17,251]

Sounds like the woman has a few screws loose.

[Boiler 43,428]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/12/civil-rights-activist-rachel-dolezal-misrepresented-herself-as-black-claim-parents

Civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal misrepresented herself as black, claim parents
Rachel Dolezal’s biological parents say daughter is not African American, but German and Czech with traces of Native American

The biological parents of a prominent civil rights activist in Washington state have claimed that she has been misrepresenting herself as a black woman when her heritage is white.

Rachel Dolezal is an academic, chair of the Office of Police Ombudsman Commission in the Washington city of Spokane and president of the city’s chapter of African American civil rights organisation the NAACP.

Dolezal, professor of Africana Studies at Eastern Washington University, where she specialises in Black Studies and African American culture, has regularly spoken out on local media about racial justice.

But this week, in a recorded interview with the local Spokane news channel KREM 2 News, the Dolezals said their daughter’s biological heritage was not African American, but German and Czech, with traces of Native American ancestry.

Ruthanne and Larry Dolezal said their daughter had black adopted siblings, and attended school in Mississippi where her social circle had been primarily African American, later marrying and subsequently divorcing an African American man.

Her parents claim that, post-divorce in 2004, her daughter began to adapt her appearance. “Rachel has wanted to be somebody she’s not. She’s chosen not to just be herself but to represent herself as an African American woman or a biracial person. And that’s simply not true,” Mrs Dolezal said.

In the news video, the Dolezals displayed pictures of their daughter as a blonde child, and also at her wedding several years ago. The couple later provided a copy of their daughter’s birth certificate to the Spokesman-Review newspaper.

Dolezal has since told local media that she is not in touch with the Dolezals because of an ongoing lawsuit, and does not view them as her real parents.

The 37-year-old told the Spokesman Review on Thursday she would prioritise speaking to her executive committee before commenting on speculation in the media. “I feel like I owe my executive committee a conversation,” she said, adding the subject was a “multi-layered issue”.

“The question is not as easy as it seems. There’s a lot of complexities … and I don’t know that everyone would understand that. We’re all from the African continent.”

A statement from Spokane City Hall said Dolezal had listed her ethnicity as a mix of white, black and American Indian, as well as a number of others, in an application to the Office of Police Ombudsman Commission.

“We are gathering facts to determine if any city policies related to volunteer boards and commissions have been violated,” the mayor, David Condon, and the council president, Ben Stuckart, said in a joint statement. “That information will be reviewed by the city council, which has oversight of city boards and commissions.”

James Wilburn, former president of the Spokane NAACP chapter, told the CDA press that Dolezal’s race was not what had qualified her for the position in the organisation.

“It is traditional to have a person of colour in that position, but that hasn’t always been the case in Spokane,” Wilburn said. A woman of European descent was president in the 1990s, he added, and half of the chapter members were not black. “That is probably a result of the fact that only 1.9% of the population in Spokane is African American,” he said.

In Dolezal’s numerous writings on civil rights issues, she does not discuss her own ethnicity in detail, but in several pieces she uses idioms such as “our cultural memory” when speaking about African American history.

Rachel Dolezal’s reaction when she was asked by a reporter if she is African-American
Dolezal had also posted a Facebook photo with an older African American man, whom she describes in the caption as her father, but described by the CDA press as Albert Wilkerson, a volunteer at the organisation where Dolezal was previously employed, the Human Rights Education Institute in north Idaho.

In an interview about her portrait art with magazine the Easterner, Dolezal described a traumatic upbringing, where her parents would “punish us by skin complexion”. She also described being raised in a teepee and hunting food with a bow and arrow. Her parents now say they had indeed lived in a teepee, but before their daughter was born.

The NAACP president has been a regular face at local demonstrations and on TV channels, and has made the news on numerous occasions for the graphic hate mail she received, including nooses left at her home.

In one of the most recent incidents, Dolezal found an envelope containing pictures of lynchings in the organisation’s postbox at the local post office. Postal workers later told police the envelope had never been posted, and had been placed in the box by someone who had an access key.

Video is on the link.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Boiler

[Janelle2002 3,865]

People can identify with whatever they want to.

There are a lot of mixed race people who don't know they are mixed race and so on. There are plenty of stories of white women who thought they were white, lived a white life, until the bomb was dropped that they had mixed race parents.

I don't really care. I like her curly hair and people tan all the time.

[Boiler 43,428]

[Teddy B 17,251]

People can identify with whatever they want to.

There are a lot of mixed race people who don't know they are mixed race and so on. There are plenty of stories of white women who thought they were white, lived a white life, until the bomb was dropped that they had mixed race parents.

I don't really care. I like her curly hair and people tan all the time.

I have no problem with people identifying with whatever they want on their own time, but when they misrepresent themselves to gain advantages in the workplace then it becomes fraud.

I think for someone to take it as far as this woman did, there has to be some type of mental disorder.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Sounds like the woman has a few screws loose.

Typical. When it's white people that do wrong they are always crazy. ?

I have no problem with people identifying with whatever they want on their own time, but when they misrepresent themselves to gain advantages in the workplace then it becomes fraud.

I think for someone to take it as far as this woman did, there has to be some type of mental disorder.

It's sad that in this day and time some one could benifits from claiming to be a certain race

[Boiler 43,428]

Spokane does not strike me as being particularly sunny, so is this a tanning bed or bottle job?

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

I once hearda commandING general at FT Stewart gI've a change of command speech . He talked of driving cross country and not having to show papers or stop at check points like many places back then. He talked about how great that freedom was

No more

[GandD 5,966]

People can identify with whatever they want to.

There are a lot of mixed race people who don't know they are mixed race and so on. There are plenty of stories of white women who thought they were white, lived a white life, until the bomb was dropped that they had mixed race parents.

I don't really care. I like her curly hair and people tan all the time.

What if they do it strategically? That's not messed up to you? A white person lies about their race so they can take advantage of a system biased towards hiring blacks? How large of a travesty would it be if a black person had to lie about their race to get hired somewhere?

I once hearda commandING general at FT Stewart gI've a change of command speech . He talked of driving cross country and not having to show papers or stop at check points like many places back then. He talked about how great that freedom was

No more

We have checkpoints in the United States? I've never seen them and I drive all over the place.

[Boiler 43,428]

Her parents, you can see her confusion.

[Janelle2002 3,865]

I don't agree with what she did, but if she identifies more with black people so be it.

[Boiler 43,428]

Her wedding, now divorced.