Rachel Dolezal Keeps Digging

Rachel Dolezal recently sat down for an interview with Vanity Fair, where she once again tried to make sense, but failed miserably. The magazine quotes her as follows:

"Everything I do is connected to other people, so I don’t know how to assess the damage other than within my own mind. 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 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.

It’s not a costume. 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… I’m not confused about that any longer. I think the world might be, but I’m not. 

I’ve got to figure it out before August 1, because my last paycheck was like $1,800 in June. [I lost] friends and the jobs and the work and—oh, my God—so much at the same time. It’s been really interesting because a lot of people have been supportive within the N.A.A.C.P., but then there’s also some awkwardness because I went from being president to not-president. Again, I wish I could have had conversations with all kinds of people. If I would have known this was going to happen, I could have said, ‘Okay, so this is the case. This is who I am, and I’m black and this is why. I would like to write a book just so that I can send [it to] everybody there as opposed to having to continue explaining. After that comes out, then I’ll feel a little bit more free to reveal my life in the racial social-justice movement. I’m looking for the quickest way back to that, but I don’t feel like I am probably going to be able to re-enter that work with the type of leadership required to make change if I don’t have something like a published explanation.”