Rachel Dolezal in Vanity Fair interview : “I wouldn’t say I’m African American, but I would say I’m Black”

Following the June 2015 revelation that the then NAACP Spokane, Washington Chapter President, Rachel Dolezal who was born a Caucasian woman was presenting herself as a Black woman, she sat down with magazine Vanity Fair to discuss her experience it in.

Rachel Dolezal In Vanity Fair

The article entitled, Rachel Dolezal True Lies, Rachel stands by her views of herself and is most certainly not confused about who she is.

Rachel says she simultaneously has defended the identity she has carefully crafted and insists that she deceived no one in creating it.

“It’s not a costume,” she says. “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. Like I said, I’ve had my years of confusion and wondering who I really [was] and why and how do I live my life and make sense of it all, but I’m not confused about that any longer. I think the world might be—but I’m not.

Dolezal also said that she doesn’t feel she lied about who she is:

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 don’t know. 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.

Her parents

After her estranged parents went to media outlets to oust their daughter for lying about her identity, the 37-year-old was relieved of her of positions, paid and unpaid, in Spokane.

She resigned from her position with the NAACP, and was asked to step down from a police oversight commission. Eastern Washington University, where she had a beloved part-time teaching job in the school’s Africana-studies program, did not renew her contract.

“I’ve got to figure it out before August 1, because my last paycheck was like $1,800 in June,” she says. “[I lost] friends and the jobs and the work and—oh, my God—so much at the same time.”

And through all of this, Dolezal claims that her identity as Black is non-negotiable. This is who she feels like she is.

Read the full interview on Vanity Fair.