Friday, March 29, 2024

Rachel Dolezal Breaks Silence: ‘This Isn’t Some Freak “Birth of a Nation” Blackface Performance’

Rachel Dolezal appears on "Today" in New York City (June 16, 2015)
Rachel Dolezal appears on “Today” in New York City (June 16, 2015)

*Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP chapter president accused of pretending to be black, told “Today’s” Matt Lauer this morning that she identifies as black — and has been doing it since the age of five.

“I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon, and black curly hair,” she told Lauer in the exclusive interview.

Asked if presenting herself with darker skin than in her youth was akin to wearing blackface, she insisted that was not the case.

“I have a huge issue with blackface,” she said. “This is not some freak ‘Birth of a Nation’ mockery blackface performance. This is on a very real, connected level. I’ve had to go there with the experience, not just a visible representation.”

When Lauer asked, “When did you start deceiving people?” Dolezal disagreed with the term “deceiving.”

“I do take exception to that, because it’s a little more complex than me identifying as black, or answering a question of, ‘Are you black or white?’” she said.

The firestorm around Dolezal, 37, started last week when her parents told reporters that she has no black ancestry, only white with a trace of Native American. On Monday, she stepped down as president of the N.A.A.C.P. chapter in Spokane, Wash.

The closest Dolezal came to admitting any fault in the “Today” interview was in saying, “There are probably a couple interviews that I would do a little differently if circumstances in retrospect, I knew what I know now.”

Watch her entire interview below:

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