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Rachel Dolezal Tells Vanity Fair: “I Didn’t Mislead, Deceive Anybody”

Rachel Dolezal
Rachel Dolezal doesn't think she "mislead" anyone.

Overnight Rachel Dolezal went from NAACP leader to Internet joke, claiming that though she was born Caucasian, she identified as black. In a new interview with Vanity Fair, the Washington State resident opened up about the scandal surrounding her and how her thoughts on the backlash she has received since. 

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“Everything I do is connected to other people, so I don’t know how to assess the damage other than within my own mind,” Dolezal, 37, told Vanity Fair. “It’s taken my entire life to negotiate how to identify, and I’ve done a lot of research and a lot of studying. I could have a long conversation, an academic conversation about that. 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 would say I’m black, and there’s a difference in those terms.”

As for her overly tanned appearance and traditionally African-American hairstyles, Dolezal had a message for the people who think she’s putting on a show. 

rachel dolezal

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“It’s not a costume,” she said. “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… I’m not confused about that any longer. I think the world might be, but I’m not.”

Since her parents broke the news that Dolezal is not, in fact, of African-American descent, she stepped down at the NAACP and was asked to step down as a professor of Africana studies at Eastern Washington University.

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“I’ve got to figure it out before August 1, because my last paycheck was like $1,800 in June,” she said. “[I lost] friends and the jobs and the work and—oh, my God—so much at the same time. It’s been really interesting because a lot of people have been supportive within the NAACP, but then there’s also some awkwardness because I went from being president to not-president.”

Dolezal only apologizes for not explaining her way of thinking sooner. She says she didn’t realize that how she identifies would be so offensive to so many. 

“Again, I wish I could have had conversations with all kinds of people,” she said. “If I would have known this was going to happen, I could have said, ‘Okay, so this is the case. This is who I am, and I’m black and this is why.’”

Rachel Dolezal
In this July 24, 2009, file photo, Rachel Dolezal, a leader of the Human Rights Education Institute, stands in front of a mural she painted at the institute’s offices in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

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As for the future, Dolezal said she’s tired of having to explain her side of the story, and hopes to write a book to get down her thoughts on race and identity. 

“I would like to write a book just so that I can send [it to] everybody there as opposed to having to continue explaining,” she said. “After that comes out, then I’ll feel a little bit more free to reveal my life in the racial social-justice movement. I’m looking for the quickest way back to that, but I don’t feel like I am probably going to be able to re-enter that work with the type of leadership required to make change if I don’t have something like a published explanation.”

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