– Relating to diversity –
In an interview with Fox News, Dolezal’s parents said their daughter had not shown signs of identifying as black from an early age.
“No, that is a fabrication, that’s false,” her mother Ruthanne said.
“Rachel is rejecting her biological family and she is also rejecting reality.”
The Dolezals, who adopted four black children and said they had multiple black friends, conceded that their daughter “was used to relating to people of diversity” and had always been attracted to the black community.
Dolezal had been “assimilated into the black culture and the African-American community now for 20 years,” her father Larry said.
“All we can surmise is that somehow that identity has transferred from being part of a multi-ethnic family with our adopted children to somehow thinking she’s herself multi-ethnic.”
When the controversy erupted around Dolezal, she initially dodged questions seeking clarification about her race and ethnicity, and she did not address her race in her NAACP resignation letter.
Leaders from the city of Spokane said in a statement they were “disappointed” over the episode and “the alleged misrepresentation.”
Experts consulted by AFP were not swayed by Dolezal’s explanations and said she may in fact have damaged the cause she was working to advance.
“She did not help the conversation regarding racial inequality – quite the opposite,” said Charles Gallagher, a sociology professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia.
“Her story is a distraction from the simple fact that America is and remains a country where white privilege and racism are the norm.”
For G. Reginald Daniel of the University of California at Santa Barbara, “her behaviour smacks of mimicry and appropriation, and ends up being disrespectful.”
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