Rachel Dolezal Tells Vanity Fair : 'I Didn't Deceive Anyone'
Rachel Dolezal is still playing the "misunderstood" card. The former Spokane NAACP President told writer Allison Samuels in a recent interview with Vanity Fair that she did not "deceive anyone" after being outed in June by her parents as a white woman pretending to be Black.
And not much has changed since Dolezal went on a series of interviews last month to explain why she identifies as Black. Her critics have called her act blackface, but Dolezal insists, "It's not a costume."
The Vanity Fair shoot features Dolezal rocking blond braids, one of the Black hair styles she learned as a college student in Mississippi, the article reports. Dolezal says she is sewing weaves and braiding hair to make money, as she received her last paycheck in June. Naima Quarles-Burnley has since replaced Dolezal as leader of the Spokane branch of the NAACP.
Dolezal seems unaware of the possible damage she caused the NAACP by not being upfront about her identity. She hopes to write a book in hopes to further explain her story, she said.
Allison Samuels writes:
When I ask Dolezal if she feels her dishonesty about her race hurt the organization or other race-related initiatives in the area, she accepts some of the responsibility but also quickly deflects blame.
“Yeah, I mean taking away my ability to lead in the community by questioning my integrity or my character or whatever really hit all of those things really hard,” she says. “Everything I do is connected to other people, so I don’t know how to assess the damage other than within my own mind. I know what I was working on and different people and systems that I was engaged with, but I mean, I hope that people are jumping in and picking up the slack.”
Read the full interview here.
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