Rachel Dolezal (Photo : YouTube/Channel4News)
When Rachel Dolezal, 37, was asked about her race and ethnicity, she neither confirmed nor denied that she is African American. Instead, the controversial local leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) implied that every human is of African descent.
In an interview with the Spokane newspaper Spokesman-Review on June 11, Thursday, Dolezal refused to directly answer questions about her race and ethnicity saying she feels like she owes her executive committee a conversation.
After engaging in an extensive conversation with the community about what she called a "multi-layered" issue, Dolezal said, "That question is not as easy as it seems. There's a lot of complexities and I don't know that everyone would understand that."
Working as a part-time professor in the Africana Studies Program at Eastern Washington University, Dolezal apparently referenced to studies tracing the scientific origins of human life to Africa saying, "We're all from the African continent."
The issue about the race and ethnicity of one of the most prominent civil rights activists of Inland Northwest started she was accused of falsely portraying herself as black for years upon as two people, Lawrence Dolezal and Ruthanne Dolezal, claiming to be her birth parents revealed that she is actually white.
In an interview with CNN on June 12, Friday, Lawrence said, "We are her birth parents. We do not understand why she feels it's necessary to misrepresent her ethnicity."
Lawrence and Ruthanne shared old photos with the publication along with a Montana birth certificate saying the head of the local chapter of the NAACP was born to two Caucasian parents. The two accused Rachel of "being dishonest and deceptive with her identity."
