The civil rights activist in the middle of a tempest over her ethnicity has insisted she is black and denounced her parents for telling the media she is white.



Rachel Dolezal, an outspoken activist for African American culture and racial injustice in Washington state, struck a defiant tone on Friday and said the controversy reflected ignorance over race and ethnicity.

Asked in an interview with Sky News if she identified as African American, Dolezal said she did not like the term.

“I prefer black,” she said. “If I was asked I would say, yes, I would definitely consider myself to be black.”

Dolezal, the head of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), added she did not “give two shits” what her parents said.

She said she was not in touch with the couple because of an ongoing lawsuit and does not view them as her real parents.

The combative statements were likely to inflame an already combustible mix of race, lies and identity that quickly dominated the airwaves and social media.

The city of Spokane is investigating whether Dolezal, 37, misidentified her race on her application for the ombudsman commission, where she serves as chair.

The Eastern Washington University professor has been a prominent activist in the Pacific north-west for years, speaking at demonstrations and giving interviews, including about hate mail and nooses allegedly sent to her, claims which are now also under scrutiny.

Her black persona unravelled this week when Ruthanne and Larry Dolezal, a couple named on her Montana birth certificate as her biological parents, told Spokane’s KREM 2 News that her ancestry was German and Czech, with traces of Native American.

“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 bi-racial person and that’s simply not true,” said Ruthanne Dolezal. The couple showed a photo of her as a white child with freckles and blond hair.

When a reporter with the TV channel KXLY asked the activist, who now has frizzy hair and apparently browner skin, if she was African American she fled, abandoning her keys and purse. The clip has gone viral, provoking a range of astonishment, scorn, anger and sympathy.

In the interview with Sky, which appeared to be filmed at her office, Dolezal appeared poised and defiant.

Asked about her estranged parents’ statements, she replied: “What I’d say to them is I don’t give two shits what you guys think. You’re so far done and out of my life.”

She said she could “understand” why people may think she was guilty of misrepresentation but did not confirm or deny the accusation, saying she wanted to first discuss the matter with the NAACP: “It’s more important for me to clarify that with the black community and with my executive board than it really is to explain it to a community that, quite frankly, don’t really understand the definitions of race and ethnicity.”

The academic listed her ethnicity as a mix of white, black and Native American in her application to the office of the police ombudsman commission and has implied black heritage in lectures and Facebook posts.

Social media has seized on the story, turning the Eastern Washington University’s professor of African studies into a figure vilified and mocked for cultural appropriation in the midst of fraught debates over transgender identity and police shootings of black people.

The hashtags #transracial and #wrongskin trended on Twitter, with many expressing indignation and bafflement. Others found the whole affair hilarious. A fake Twitter account, @_RachelDolezal, added to the tumult.

A few voices defended her. A commenter on the Spokesman Review said there was nothing wrong with identifying as a different race. “Obviously she’s probably felt for years that she was black on the inside and denied it all through her childhood ... since she’s transitioned and identifies herself as black, than we should just let her be and live her life in peace.”

Mary Elizabeth Williams, a Salon writer, echoed those who said Dolezal’s alleged fraud was unforgivable. “This isn’t about being an ally, or making the family of your choosing, or even how one feels on the inside,” she wrote. “It’s about, apparently, flat out deception.”

The television personality Montel Williams joked about Dolezal’s frizzy-haired attempt to pass as black. “Would love to see ‪#RachelDolezal tanning and perm bills – must be astronomical,” he tweeted.

The NAACP Alaska-Oregon-Washington State Conference issued a statement sayings it stood behind the Spokane chapter president’s advocacy record. “One’s racial identity is not a qualifying criteria or disqualifying standard for NAACP leadership,” it added. The statement made no mention of her future.

The mayor of Spokane, David Condon, and city council president Ben Stuckart, said in a joint statement they were gathering facts to determine if city policies related to volunteer boards and commissions had been violated. “We are committed to independent citizen oversight and take very seriously the concerns raised regarding the chair of the independent citizen police ombudsman commission.”

Mike Wendling, a BBC journalist who interviewed Dolezal in 2011, said he had not suspected anything was amiss. “She told us that she was of mixed racial heritage but that she primarily identified with her black ancestors,” he wrote.

In recent years Dolezal has reported several hate crimes, including receiving a packet of hateful letters and pictures at the NAACP post office box in North Spokane – a claim that prompted rallies of support outside city hall.

Police are still investigating but said whoever placed the mail must have had access to the box as it was not processed through the regular mail. Dolezal denied any implication that she was responsible.