What You Need To Know About Black Imposter Rachel Dolezal [Photos]
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It hasn’t even been a handful of days since Rachel Dolezal was exposed as a white woman imitating a Black woman, but we’re still processing the fall out. From memes, to comedic yet potent slander thanks to #AskRachel on down to the creation of the term transracial, what is that we actually know about this well tanned, cultural impersonator?
Here are some important facts about the woman who may have you giving second looks to your light skinned friends.
Blackface
Dolezal’s adopted brother says what she did was basically Blackface. He told CNN:
“It’s kind of a slap in the face to African-Americans because she doesn’t know what it’s like to be black,” said Ezra Dolezal, whose biological mother was white and father half-black. “She’s only been African-American when it benefited her. She hasn’t been through all the struggles. She’s only been African-American the last few years.”
CONTINUED
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Photo: AP Photo
Meet The Parents
It was Dolezal’s parents who dropped dime on her whiteness. They said they simply told the truth when investigative reporters approached them. They still love her, though.
Living In Disguise
Dolezal began living the Black life around 2006 or 2007
Reports the Spokane Spokesman Review:
Dolezal’s mother, Ruthanne Dolezal, said Thursday by phone from her home in Northwest Montana that she has had no contact with her daughter in years. She said her daughter began to “disguise herself” in 2006 or 2007, after the family had adopted four African-American children and Rachel Dolezal had shown an interest in portrait art.
“It’s very sad that Rachel has not just been herself,” Ruthanne Dolezal said. “Her effectiveness in the causes of the African-American community would have been so much more viable, and she would have been more effective if she had just been honest with everybody.”
I Love Yo Hips, I Love You Thighs
Dolezal’s ex-fiance is Maurice Turner, reportedly a musician from Mississipi. We’re not sure why they broke up, but the music he posted on YouTube in honor of her shows that he was quite smitten.
The Real HU
Dolezal went to Howard University, where she earned her MFA in 2002. She wasn’t Black back then, though.
What Meeting?
Part of this story’s appeal was Dolezal’s gig as the head of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP. She has conveniently cancelled a meeting scheduled for Monday, June 15 where the controversy was to be addressed.
“Don’t Blow My Cover”
Dolezal’s aforementioned adoptive brother, Ezra, who is biracial, told Buzzfeed that she asked him to tell any who asked the were related by blood.
It was 2012, and Rachel Dolezal had a warning for her adopted brother as she prepared for a new life in Spokane, Washington.
“She just told me, ‘Over here, I’m going to be considered black, and I have a black father. Don’t blow my cover,’” Ezra Dolezal, 22, told BuzzFeed News in an interview.
Rachel also told him to tell people that he and her other adopted brother were her “blood brothers,” he said.
His sister did not offer “any logical explanation” for why she was changing her identity, and Ezra never confronted her about it. But it was the next stage after growing apart from her parents, Ruthanne and Larry Dolezal, and leaving their home in Montana.
Ancestry
Dolezal was born in Montana, and according to her parents, she is of Czech, Swedish and German descent with “faint traces” of Native American heritage, too. For those keeping track, none of those make you even partially Black.
A Tepee?!
In a story published in February 2015 in The Easterner, Dolezal claimed she was born in a tepee and that “Jesus Christ” is listed as the witness on her birth certificate. Yeah, her parents say none of that is true. Oh.
The Black Woman Experience
Color Lines summarized a set of video interviews with Dolezal from 2014 where she discusses her “blackness” at length. The delusion is real.
The Hair
Someone has got to track down this woman’s hair dresser. More like natural lies.
I’m Black, Y’all
At the end of the day, she identifies herself as Black. Okay?
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