Rachel Dolezal, president of Spokane, Washington’s NAACP chapter is being outed by her family who claims that she is not Black.
According to the Spokesman-Review, around 2006-2007 Rachel’s mother, Ruthanne Dolezal adopted four Black children and her daughter began to disguise herself.
“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.”
Rachel’s mother said she has been aware that Rachel has been misrepresenting herself as Native American, Black and white. She offered the Spokesman-Review a copy of Rachel’s birth certificate as proof that she was born to two white parents.
Rachel has also been scrutinized for her recent claims that she received threatening hate mail. The 37-year-old Black rights leader claimed she received 20 pages of notes including pictures of lynchings in an envelope in the Spokane NAACP”s P.O. Box in February. After examining the envelope, postal officials have determined that the envelope was not delivered by postal mail and may have been planted.
“The only way this letter could have ended up in this P.O. box would be if it was placed there by someone with a key to that box or a USPS employee,” the postal officials said.
Often pictured wearing braids and what appears to be an afro, Rachel has quite an extensive resume of achievements and leadership. She is a part-time professor in the Africana Studies Program at Eastern Washington University. She also serves in a voluntary position as the chairwoman of the city’s Office of Police Ombudsman Commission. She was also a previous education director for the Human Rights Education Institute in Coeur d’Alene.
Why then would a woman so bright and talented feel the need to appropriate Black culture? What did she gain? What did she learn? Can a white woman benefit from being Black?
Until she chooses to share her truth, we can only speculate.
