White is the New Black

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

It has been revelaed that the newly elected president of an NAACP chapter is actually a white. Outrage ensues, prompting an official investigation. http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/did-naacp-president-lie-about-her-race-city-investigates/33533026

SPOKANE, Wash. -
The City of Spokane announced Thursday it's investigating whether the president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP violated the city's code of ethics in her application to serve on the citizen police ombudsman commission.

Rachel Dolezal serves as chair of the independent commission, in addition to her work as an adjunct faculty member at Eastern Washington University and president of the NAACP local chapter. On her application to serve on the commission, she identified herself as African-American. But public records, including Dolezal's own birth certificate, list her biological parents as Ruthanne and Lawrence Dolezal of Montana. The Dolezals told KXLY Thursday that Rachel is their biological daughter and that they are both white.

"We are committed to independent citizen oversight and take very seriously the concerns raised regarding the chair of the independent citizen police ombudsman commission," Mayor David Condon and City Council President Ben Stuckart said it a joint statement Thursday. "We are gathering facts to determine if any city policies related to volunteer boards and commissions have been violated. That information will be reviewed by the City Council, which has oversight of city boards and commissions."

On the NAACP Spokane Facebook page, a picture was posted earlier this year showing Dolezal and an African-American man. In the post, he's identified as Dolezal's father. KXLY4's Jeff Humphrey asked Dolezal about that claim Wednesday afternoon.

"Ma'am, I was wondering if your dad really is an African-American man," Humphrey asked.

"I don't understand the question," Dolezal answered. "I did tell you [that man in the picture] is my dad."
"Are your parents white?" Humphrey asked. At that point, Dolezal removed the microphone, ended the interview and walked away.

KXLY4 was interviewing Dolezal Wednesday about several hate crimes she's reported over the last several years. Most recently, Dolezal said she received a packet of hateful letters and pictures at the NAACP post office box in North Spokane. That crime led to rallies of support outside Spokane City Hall.

Police are still investigating, but say in reports that 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.

Dolezal says she's been the victim of eight documented hate crimes in Idaho; a public records request filed by KXLY yielded just three reports. Each was closed by police because of insufficient evidence to prosecute.

Btw, I struggled coming up with a good thread title for this one. I'll entertain other suggestions.

[8manpick]

Btw, I struggled coming up with a good thread title for this one. I'll entertain other suggestions.

The anti-Clayton Bigsby?

[Institutional Control]

You should have discussed with renocat, he's great at titles.  And he already mentioned this in his hypocrite thread.

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

ZOMG this story gets so much better! http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/12/spokane-naacp-president-rachel-dolezal-may-be-white/?tid=hybrid_content_2_na

A controversy is raging over whether a prominent Washington state civil rights activist and Howard University graduate who claimed she was African American is actually white.
 
Rachel Dolezal, 37, is the president of the Spokane NAACP and has claimed to be the victim of a number of hate crimes. As questions were raised about the veracity of some of her reports this week, a white couple from Montana came forward to claim that Dolezal is their daughter.
 
Earlier this week, KXLY4 asked Dolezal about a photo posted to the NAACP chapter’s Facebook page of a black man identified as Dolezal’s father.
 
“I was wondering if your dad really is an African American man,” Jeff Humphrey of KXLY4 asked Dolezal.
 
“That’s a very … I mean, I don’t know what you’re implying,” Dolezal said.
 
“Are you African American?” Humphrey said.
 
“I don’t understand the question,” Dolezal said. She walked off-camera as Humphrey asked: “Are your parents, are they white?”
 
Dolezal did not return requests for comment.
 
In a telephone interview with The Washington Post and others, Lawrence and Ruthanne Dolezal of Troy, Mont., said Rachel Dolezal is their daughter, and that they are Caucasian.
 
“There seems to be some question of how Rachel is representing her identity and ethnicity,” Lawrence Dolezal said. “We are definitely her birth parents. We are both of Caucasian and European descent — Czech, German and a few other things.”
 
The Dolezals provided The Post with family photos of Rachel as well as what they said was her birth certificate.
 
Lawrence and Ruthanne Dolezal say this is Rachel Dolezal’s birth certificate. (Courtesy of the Dolezal family)

Lawrence and Ruthanne Dolezal, a Christian couple who adopted four young children — two of whom are black — while Rachel was a teenager, said her decision to misrepresent her racial background, if that’s what she’s doing, may be related to her family and social justice work.
 
“The adoption of the children definitely fueled her interest as a teenager in being involved with people of color,” Ruthanne Dolezal said. “We’ve always had friends of different ethnicities. It was a natural thing for her.”
 
Lawrence Dolezal said his daughter was involved in Voice of Calvary, a “racial reconciliation community development project where blacks and whites lived together,” while at Belhaven University in Jackson, Miss.
 
“You speak and sound and act and take on the mannerisms of the culture you live in,” he said. When Rachel applied to Howard University to study art with a portfolio of “exclusively African American portraiture,” the university “took her for a black woman” and gave her a full scholarship.
 
“You’ve got a white woman coming in that got a full-ride scholarship to the black Harvard,” Lawrence Dolezal said. “And ever since then she’s been involved in social justice advocacy for African Americans. She assimilated into that culture so strongly that that’s where she transferred her identity.”
 
He added: “But unfortunately, she is not ethnically by birth African American. She is our daughter by birth. And that’s the way it is.”
 
In telephone interviews with The Post, two of the Dolezals’ adopted sons confirmed she is white as well.
 
Ezra Dolezal, 22, compared his sister’s decision to conceal her race to blackface.
 
“Back in the early 1900s, what she did would be considered highly racist,” said Ezra Dolezal, who described himself as “25 percent black.” He added: “You really should not do that. It’s completely opposite – she’s basically creating more racism.”
 
Zach Dolezal, 21, said when he visited his sister in Spokane, he was told not to speak of Lawrence and Ruthanne as their parents.
 
“It’s a farce, really, is what it is,” he said, adding he thought Rachel had posted a photo of a black couple from Spokane on her Facebook page and referred to them as her parents.
 
The Dolezals, it should be noted, are a family divided. Parents Lawrence and Ruthanne and brothers Ezra and Zach do not speak with their sister because, they say, she alleged abuse in the family and obtained custody of her 21-year-old brother Izaiah. Izaiah, who is black, lives with Rachel Dolezal in Spokane — and Rachel says he is her son, the family alleged.
 
“Izaiah always was her favorite child,” Ezra Dolezal said. “… She turned Izaiah kind of racist. Told Izaiah all this stuff about white people, made him really racist toward white people.”
 
More than Rachel’s claims of African American heritage, the custody of Izaiah seems to have driven the Dolezals apart.
 
“I can understand hairstyles and all that,” Zach Dolezal said of his sister’s alleged attempts to appropriate black culture. “Saying her brother is her son, I don’t understand that.”

Rachel Dolezal did not return requests for comment. However, she dodged questions about her race this week after allegations that some hate crimes she had reported were fabricated.
 
“That question is not as easy as it seems,” Dolezal said after being contacted by the Spokane Spokesman-Review at Eastern Washington University, where she is a part-time professor in the Africana studies program. “There’s a lot of complexities … and I don’t know that everyone would understand that.”
 
She added: “We’re all from the African continent.” 

The Spokane NAACP has offered limited response to the allegations about Dolezal’s race.
 
James Wilburn, past president of the Spokane NAACP who was replaced by Dolezal, said Thursday that a few members of that group discussed her background before her election late last year.
 
“It was discussed among close members to me, and we kept it like that,” he told the Spokane Spokesman-Review.
 
Rachel Dolezal, center, with Joseph M. King of King’s Consulting, left, and Scott Finnie, the director and senior professor of Eastern Washington University’s Africana Education Program, in January. (Tyler Tjomsland/The Spokesman-Review via AP)

Postal workers, meanwhile, told police that hate mail Dolezal said she received at the NAACP’s post office box in Spokane was not processed by a post office, as it had no date stamp or bar code. Postal workers suggested the mail was put there by someone with a key to the box. The Spokesman-Review noted, however, that similar mail was sent to that newspaper and the Spokane Valley Police Department postmarked from Oakland, Calif.
 
The city of Spokane is also investigating whether Dolezal misidentified her race in an application to the Office of Police Ombudsman Commission, on which she serves. Dolezal said she had several ethnic origins on the application, including white, black and American Indian.
 
“We are gathering facts to determine if any city policies related to volunteer boards and commissions have been violated,” Mayor David Condon and Council President Ben Stuckart said in a joint statement, as the Spokane Spokesman-Review reported. “That information will be reviewed by the City Council, which has oversight of city boards and commissions.”
 
Social media has responded to the controversy with the hashtag “#RachelDolezal.”
 
“#RachelDolezal figured if oscar Jenner could do it … what the hell,” conservative radio host Wayne Dupree wrote. (Such controversial comments comparing Dolezal to Caitlyn Jenner found a home at the hashtag “#transracial.”)
 
In the past, Dolezal has spoken fondly of her time in the nation’s capital.
 
“The only place I’ve ever lived where I felt like I could relax and just be myself was Washington, D.C.,” she told the Easterner, a student-run publication at Eastern Washington University, last year. “I am in love with the East Coast area, because it is much more international and you can find cultural company and kind of blend into the mix of people better than areas where there is either an absence of a strong black community or an extreme divide that sets up rifts equivalent to segregation.”
 
She added: “Probably one of the reasons I love D.C. the most, though, is because I was at Howard University. As a school that exists to promote Black values … it is definitely an oasis.”

Transracial! I guess that's the new, new normal.

[star seed 7]

She shouldn't be lying about stuff, but who really gives a crap

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

"My prob w/ #Transracial: Black folk cant decide to be white when the cops raid their pool party. But a white woman can be NAACP president," wrote hip-hop artist Lizzo.

[renocat]

Bill the Thrill fallout. Black guy in a white guy body.  If I claim an inner black man, can I get some special things; kind a like Bruclyn Genderthing.

[Mr Bread]

she has a fresh cut in that last pic. 

[Spracne]

she has a fresh cut in that last pic.

Confirmed member of the gE hive mind.

[Mr Bread]

i did not know that:

white person + shitty over-the-top 'do = black person

like that actually worked for her.  amazing. 

[Mr Bread]

her: you think i'd wear my hair like this if i weren't black?  i'm rough ridin' black. 
seattle: okay.

[star seed 7]

Related, I thought smash's girlfriend was black until the whole interracial dating storyline

[sys]

comparing herself to jenner was really clever.

[slobber]

"We all come from Africa"
=
"We are all black"
=
"RACISM SOLVED!"


Gonna win 'em all!

[Mr Bread]

comparing herself to jenner was really clever.

Conservative radio host Wayne Dupree did that I think. 

[star seed 7]

Neocon radio is completely enraged about this lady omg

[sys]

comparing herself to jenner was really clever.

Conservative radio host Wayne Dupree did that I think.

you're right, i didn't read very carefully.  she should run with it, if she's smart.

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

"We all come from Africa"
=
"We are all black"
=
"RACISM SOLVED!"


Gonna win 'em all!

Yes, this was my favorite part.

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

Neocon radio is completely enraged about this lady omg

You're confusing "amused and entertained" with "outrage and anger"

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

Btw, I struggled coming up with a good thread title for this one. I'll entertain other suggestions.

The reverse-Clayton Bigsby?

My goodness.

Some people probably love the indication that goodwill was not enough for her to elevate herself within the NAACP like there was some sort of inherent bias against her. That doesn't seem to be the motivation for the deception from what the article states.

She seems to be a crazy person. It does put the "you are whatever _______ you think you are" crowd in a kinda funny spot though. I'd appreciate a ruling from the ge black caucus - is this any different than pretending to be a woman?

[sys]

It does put the "you are whatever _______ you think you are" crowd in a kinda funny spot though. I'd appreciate a ruling from the ge black caucus - is this any different than pretending to be a woman?

i dunno who you mean by the ge black caucus, but i'd be more interested in seeing the mental gymnastics (i admit, i'm anticipating some, it's possible none would materialize) from any of the posters that think that jenner's actions were brave or heroic.

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

It does put the "you are whatever _______ you think you are" crowd in a kinda funny spot though. I'd appreciate a ruling from the ge black caucus - is this any different than pretending to be a woman?

i dunno who you mean by the ge black caucus, but i'd be more interested in seeing the mental gymnastics (i admit, i'm anticipating some, it's possible none would materialize) from any of the posters that think that jenner's actions were brave or heroic.

Not sure who would think that. Maybe Edna?

[sys]

It does put the "you are whatever _______ you think you are" crowd in a kinda funny spot though. I'd appreciate a ruling from the ge black caucus - is this any different than pretending to be a woman?

i dunno who you mean by the ge black caucus, but i'd be more interested in seeing the mental gymnastics (i admit, i'm anticipating some, it's possible none would materialize) from any of the posters that think that jenner's actions were brave or heroic.

Not sure who would think that. Maybe Edna?

i think there were a lot in the jenner award thread.  don't remember individual posters, but it seemed to me like majority opinion.

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

You guys, this Rachel Dolezal story was already awesome, and it's getting so much awesomer!!!!

First, if you haven't seen it... you just gotta see it. Pretty much sums up the state of the story.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/xk8faw/the-nightly-show-crazypants-white-lady-pretends-to-be-black?utm=share_twitter

...at least, as of two days ago. But the story is EVEN BETTER. She's now making the TV rounds questioning the validity of her own birth certificate!! And, borrowing the language of oscar Jenner and all the other crazy "you are whatever the hell you want to want to be" no-judgment nut jobs, she "identifies as black" so that's all that matters!

http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/article24677989.html

NEW YORK
Rachel Dolezal's daylong media blitz in which she denied that she is a white woman posing as a black woman culminated Tuesday night with a claim that she's not sure her white parents are her real parents.

"I haven't had a DNA test. There's been no biological proof that Larry and Ruthanne are my biological parents," Dolezal said in an appearance on "NBC Nightly News."

"There's a birth certificate that has your name on it and their names on it," responded interviewer Savannah Guthrie.

"I'm not necessarily saying that I can prove they're not," Dolezal said. "But I don't know that I can actually prove they are. I mean, the birth certificate is issued a month and a half after I'm born. And certainly there were no medical witnesses to my birth."
...
"I identify as black," a composed, smiling Dolezal said during a 10-minute interview on "Today," less than 24 hours after she resigned as president of the NAACP's chapter in Spokane.

[sys]

i agree that it's an awesome story.  it's both great for the weirdness of the story details.  and it also raises really interesting points.  i'm a little disappointed it hasn't generated more discussion here.  i wonder if you'd have gotten a better response on the combofanning board?  but probably it's just that all these white midwesterners are scared to opine on the subject.