Her name is Rachel Dolezal. She is an American woman. She was relieved of her duties as a lecturer in Africana Studies at Eastern Washington University, after her claim of being a black person was found to be untrue.
She was also forced to step down from the post of President of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP).
Dolezal had been claiming to be a black person as far back as 2007, but her estranged parents, Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal, confirmed her Caucasian ancestry.
But she had this to say about the race controversy: “I acknowledge that I was biologically born white to white parents, but I identify as black.
“I think that sometimes how we feel is more powerful than how we’re born – and blackness can be defined as philosophical, cultural, biological.
“It’s a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
She told Vanity Fair in June after the controversy broke out: “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.”
Disputing that she deceived or misled people with her claims, Dolezal said: “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 say I’m black, and there’s a difference in those terms.”
Source: Daily Mail
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