Rachel Dolezal claps back at her haters, says she ‘doesn’t believe in race’
Rachel Dolezal recently sat down with The Guardian to clap back at those who don't buy her blackness claims...
Don’t you just wish some things could go away … forever?
Rachel Dolezal sat down with The Guardian to clap back at those who don’t buy her blackness claims.
Earlier this year, Dolezal was asked, “Are you African-American?”
Her stuttered reply – saying she didn’t understand the question – sparked national outrage as social media dragged the once upon an activist over her racial false advertising. She was quickly pegged as transracial by supporters, which she dismissed as being problematic.
“I will admit that maybe it’s a useful word for some people in kind of stepping forward along the staircase of understanding identity,” Dolezal told The Guardian in a new interview. “But I don’t like it because I don’t believe in race. To say ‘transracial’ further entrenches that idea,” she said. “I really feel we need to come up with better vocabulary.”
For someone who was forced out as president of the NAACP in Spokane and lost her African studies post at Eastern Washington University, race does seem to have been a very serious part of Dolezal’s identity.
“Other people are operating on an autopilot that race is coded in your DNA, that there are different races of human beings and those races are called black, white, etc.,” Dolezal continues. “As opposed to race is a fiction that was invented. What I believe about race is that race is not real. It’s not a biological reality. It’s a hierarchical system that was created to leverage power and privilege between different groups of people.”
When asked about her skin darkening routine and weave/braid extension, Dolezal attempted to set the record straight and come at those who questioned her process.
“Do we ask women why they airbrush freckles on themselves or why they change their noses?” Dolezal countered. “We don’t ask if somebody’s boobs are real or not. I do my hair and my makeup and everything according to how I feel I’m beautiful. Sometimes I use a spray bronzer, sometimes I don’t. Before this happened, nobody was asking me why are you lighter or darker on certain days of the week, depending on how much time I had to get myself together that day; if I had time to give myself a glow. And if I didn’t, I was out the door.”
You can read Dolezal’s full interview with The Guardian here.
