WA - Civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal pretending to be black, parents say #2

[Hope4More]

I think it's pretty clear Howard believed that Dolezal was black when they gave her the scholarship. In addition to her portfolio, which had portraits of black people only, she also wrote an assay that made it sound as if she were black.
The attorneys for Howard even questioned if she was misleading Howard in her assay.
But when she showed up there, she wasn't black.
So it could be the idea to pretend to be black stemmed from that experience.
But I still don't see how it justifies all the things she said and done.
Even when she went to Baltimore fro Freddie Gray protests, she claimed she was getting death threats. She seems to be regularly making allegations of hate crimes. That's how her whole charade came down, reporter became suspicious because she was regularly making allegations of this nature.

Right. One of the fundamental flaws in that blogger's "reasoning" is that the experience at Howard convinced RD to pass as black. Hello? The experience caused her to sue the university for discriminating against her because she was white.

(Note that he accepts as true that racist administrators took her art down...)

 

[gitana1]

I think it's pretty clear Howard believed that Dolezal was black when they gave her the scholarship. In addition to her portfolio, which had portraits of black people only, she also wrote an assay that made it sound as if she were black.
The attorneys for Howard even questioned if she was misleading Howard in her assay.
But when she showed up there, she wasn't black.
So it could be the idea to pretend to be black stemmed from that experience.
But I still don't see how it justifies all the things she said and done.
Even when she went to Baltimore fro Freddie Gray protests, she claimed she was getting death threats. She seems to be regularly making allegations of hate crimes. If she meant the material she supposedly got from somebody named "War Pig" my understanding is that there were no actual death threats in there. So even if one assumes that somebody who calls himself War Pig actually send her this material, it didn't have death threats. So why was she claiming she was getting death threats? Her whole charade came down because of various allegations she made over the years made reporter suspicious.

Allegations that were not substantiated and could not be. Of crimes that mysteriously happened to her, repeatedly, no matter where she lived, but not to actual black people.

I truly think this whole RD is less about "race" and more about pathology - about a woman who is so disturbed, she seeks attention no matter how she can get it.

There are lots of people like this in the world, some more damaging than others.

 

[jjenny]

Right. One of the fundamental flaws in that blogger's "reasoning" is that the experience at Howard convinced RD to pass as black. Hello? The experience caused her to sue the university for discriminating against her because she was white.

(Note that he accepts as true that racist administrators took her art down...)

She knew she was white, at least at that time.
I suppose if she believed she was discriminated at Howard because she was white, she figured out that things would have been a lot easier for her if she pretended to be black.
But apparently she also believed she is the only one who is allowed to do that.
She reportedly didn't think that a white guy should be able to give a lecture on racism, or Hispanic woman should participate in "black lives matter." Or white actor should portray non-white person in the movie.

 

[jjenny]

Allegations that were not substantiated and could not be. Of crimes that mysteriously happened to her, repeatedly, no matter where she lived, but not to actual black people.

I truly think this whole RD is less about "race" and more about pathology - about a woman who is so disturbed, she seeks attention no matter how she can get it.

There are lots of people like this in the world, some more damaging than others.

Yes, I think she really enjoys being a victim. If it wasn't about race, I suppose she would have found something else.

 

[Donjeta]

She knew she was white, at least at that time.
I suppose if she believed she was discriminated at Howard because she was white, she figured out that things would have been a lot easier for her if she pretended to be black.
But apparently she also believed she is the only one who is allowed to do that.
She reportedly didn't think that a white guy should be able to give a lecture on racism, or Hispanic woman should participate in "black lives matter." Or white actor should portray non-white person in the movie.

Listening to the Lauren Campbell interviews I kind of got the impression that Rachel thought that she's better at being black and explaining this black experience than most black people... She has light skin so she's uniquely qualified to being a bridge and to explain blackness to white people in a way that black people can't because white people can't talk to black people without saying stupid stuff.

Yes, I think she really enjoys being a victim. If it wasn't about race, I suppose she would have found something else.

Yeah but I think she particularly loves being a victim of racism... One of the hate crimes supposedly was the theft of 13.000 dollars from her home. Why would anyone think that's a hate crime, as opposed to a burglar who was looking for money?

 

[wenwe4]

Listening to the Lauren Campbell interviews I kind of got the impression that Rachel thought that she's better at being black and explaining this black experience than most black people... She has light skin so she's uniquely qualified to being a bridge and to explain blackness to white people in a way that black people can't because white people can't talk to black people without saying stupid stuff.

Is this the EWU student interviewing her?

Yeah but I think she particularly loves being a victim of racism... One of the hate crimes supposedly was the theft of 13.000 dollars from her home. Why would anyone think that's a hate crime, as opposed to a burglar who was looking for money?

I don't remember the report of money being stolen. Do you have a link for me? I guess I missed it or my brain just didn't retain new info (again). Thanks!

 

[Donjeta]

I don't remember the report of money being stolen. Do you have a link for me? I guess I missed it or my brain just didn't retain new info (again). Thanks!

She talks about it in one of these videos.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQMGqMMHnjE2EQ8NA23aB3g/videos
I'm sorry i don't know which one.


ETA: oh i guess she thinks it's a hate crime because they supposedly left a noose at the same time.

Then, in 2009, she said thieves broke into her home in Spokane.

“13,000 dollars was stolen in that burglary and a noose was left on the porch,” she said.

http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/local-naacp-president-targeted-with-hate-mail/31597284

 

[Donjeta]

http://media.spokesman.com/documents/2015/06/War_Pig_letters__DfXUoF5.pdf

The hate mail

Looks like "war pig" also sent a letter to the Spokesman Review saying Rachel Dolezal is an Aryan and the NAACP is a Jewish front, and some African American woman was denied her chance to be the President because Rachel got the scholarship.

If it's real it sounds like someone who is not mentally all there.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/jun/19/spokesman-review-gets-letter-from-writer-who/

Spokane police Officer Teresa Fuller said the investigation into Dolezal’s hate-crime complaints remains suspended and that the new mailing from “War Pig/Sgt. X” is unlikely to restart the inquiry.

“I don’t think another letter is enough,” Fuller said.

 

[jjenny]

http://media.spokesman.com/documents/2015/06/War_Pig_letters__DfXUoF5.pdf

The hate mail

It's the most bizarre thing. My understanding is the original envelope wasn't mailed, so it had to have been placed in mailbox by someone who had keys (and Rachel had one of the two keys). Then two additional letters were mailed from CA. It doesn't make much sense, does it?

 

[RickshawFan]

I agree with that. But I see this divisive, "star-bellied Sneetches" dialogue being perpetuated even HERE.

The consequences are a result of people insisting that this person "is" some classification, and that person is another. While yet another person is trying to "pass" as spme classification, but they are not pure enough, so they are frauds.

It is ridiculous, and dangerous in that the wages of such thinking are often death. For those who aren't "pure".

Sickening.

Thanks, EllieBee, I agree that the conversation has become divisive. The several hair-splittng constructs are directed at categorization and not unity. I have been very disappointed that the discussion has devolved into this.

I have been a minority and a majority in many settings in the US and abroad: abstract classifications bear little relationship to everyday realities (which can be informed by religious sect, language, history, geographical origin, ethnicity, skin color, cultural decoration, warfare methods, hunters/gatherers, food preparation, urban dwellers and farmers), in my experience. We are all complex beings and have relationships with many different kinds of people.

As you alluded to, EllieBee, compartmentalization around any one of those aspects of humanity (including race) can promote genocide.

Furthermore, RD's behavior is problematic because she lied about her black identity (and many other details); it is not about race per se. What happened in Charleston, by contrast, was about being African-American and about identifying with an iconic community of African-Americans.

 

[Hope4More]

Yes, I think she really enjoys being a victim. If it wasn't about race, I suppose she would have found something else.

She seems to enjoy being a bully as much as she enjoys being a victim. Whatever the psychology involved, she seems most of all to be a very angry, extremely unlikable person. Who will land on her feet no matter what's happened, no doubt at the expense of anyone who stands her in way. Blech.

 

[Nova]

Rachel is Caucasian, and there is some uncertainty whether there is aboriginal (Mongoloid) somewhere a few generations earlier.

Does it make sense that because people of different races have children together, race classification is no longer valid? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but that is what I'm hearing.

That is one factor, otto, especially as we look to the future. But, no, what is being said is that race as a biological category was always a flawed notion, driven by ideology more than objective scientific method. (Race as a social construction is quite powerful and has caused wars and all sorts of social ills.)

 

[Nova]

Thanks, EllieBee, I agree that the conversation has become divisive. The several hair-splittng constructs are directed at categorization and not unity. I have been very disappointed that the discussion has devolved into this.

I have been a minority and a majority in many settings in the US and abroad: abstract classifications bear little relationship to everyday realities (which can be informed by religious sect, language, history, geographical origin, ethnicity, skin color, cultural decoration, warfare methods, hunters/gatherers, food preparation, urban dwellers and farmers), in my experience. We are all complex beings and have relationships with many different kinds of people.

As you alluded to, EllieBee, compartmentalization around any one of those aspects of humanity (including race) can promote genocide.

Furthermore, RD's behavior is problematic because she lied about her black identity (and many other details); it is not about race per se. What happened in Charleston, by contrast, was about being African-American and about identifying with an iconic community of African-Americans.

(Emphasis added.)

I agree with the rest of your post, but enough with the "disappointment" already! Nobody here is 7-years-old and you are not our second-grade teacher. (And, frankly, if you find disagreement so distressing, perhaps an internet chat forum is not for you.)

To dismiss a revolution in anthropology as mere "hair-splitting" is odd, since you claim to think classification by race is reductive and dangerous. One would think you would welcome anything that de-legitimizes a system of categories that has led to so much misery.

(ETA as for Charleston, I would not and did not initiate of discussion of how we define race in the thread on the Charleston tragedy. Is the issue relevant to that event? Absolutely! But despite your apparent implication, I'm not THAT insensitive.)

 

[gitana1]

Black Verda Byrd of Texas discovered she was white after 70 years. The lady is fierce about any comparisons to Rachel Dolezal though, as Verda never lied - her true race was withheld from her by her adopted family. She seems to have coped well with the surprise and knows her white family now but considers herself African-American. Amazing story.



http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/loc...discovers-shes-white-after-70-years/29133703/

No way is that woman totally "white". Her African ancestry is very obvious to me. Even
more so when you see a photo of her with her sisters after they reunited. They look nothing alike. Clearly they have different fathers.

Which is likely why she was placed with a light-skinned family. In that era, her race would've been crucial to the decision as to who would adopt her. The agency and authorities knew who her parents were purported to be and there is zero chance, no way they would've placed her with a black family had they believed her parents were who they stated they were.

It it is an interesting case to me- of a woman raised black who later believed she was actually white but who is, in the end, of "mixed" ancestry.

The social and historical implications of this lady's life are remarkable.

 

[otto]

That is one factor, otto, especially as we look to the future. But, no, what is being said is that race as a biological category was always a flawed notion, driven by ideology more than objective scientific method. (Race as a social construction is quite powerful and has caused wars and all sorts of social ills.)

To suggest that anthropological race classifications are no longer valid due to the existence of mixed race peoples is like saying that if we have the number 3, then the numbers 2 and 1 are invalid. It doesn't work like that.

 

[wenwe4]

I have reviewed the video Donjeta graciously linked upthread for me about the $13,000. In the video RD stated her home was broken into "shortly after" they moved to Spokane, WA and that is also when she found the noose on her porch.

http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/local-naacp-president-targeted-with-hate-mail/31597284

But in this article, RD reported the crimes of the $13k and the noose to the Coeur d'Alene, ID Police.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicolasmedi...el-dolezal-said-about-passing-two-months-ago#.

IIRC the noose incident happened in CDA because the landlord came forward to the CDA Press.

http://www.people.com/article/rachel-dolezal-black-woman-cover-blown-hate-crimes

This article states the only report of theft from RD in CDA was a washer.

Again she cant keep her lies straight or where her alleged hate crimes actually occurred.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...of_hate_crimes_the_former_naacp_official.html

 

[Donjeta]

JMO as far as the conversation is felt to be not diverse enough, everybody is free to jump in and contribute more diversity. Personally I have no idea because I don't know what background most posters are from. As far as news columnists go, I have found myself both agreeing and disagreeing with writers who are black and white and Latino etc., so you can't always tell people's ethnicity from their opinions.

If people are expressing wrong opinions, everybody is free to jump in and express better opinions.

To suggest that anthropological race classifications are no longer valid due to the existence of mixed race peoples is like saying that if we have the number 3, then the numbers 2 and 1 are invalid. It doesn't work like that.

Yeah but I think no one is suggesting that exactly.

The scientists seem to be pretty widely of the opinion that the idea of human races was never valid biologically because there is no such thing as human races, just human diversity that can't be compartmentalized like that. Humans from different populations have always mixed and had children to such a degree that distinct races were never formed.

More than 50 years after Boas' experiments, the American Association of Physical Anthropology published a statement on the biological aspects of race (1996:569-570). In this statement, the AAPA declared that all living humans belong to a single species ( sapiens), and all share a common descent. The AAPA stated that there is a great deal of genetic diversity and variation within all human populations, and "... pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past" (AAPA 1996: 569).

http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1137&context=totem



We're a lot less diverse than some of our fellow species, and our populations move across the world more than some other species, and if you look beneath the skin color the differences we have aren't necessarily correlated with the skin. There is more genetic diversity within the populations than between populations, and the genetic evidence indicates that we're descended from population bottlenecks, a relatively small number of individuals who lived relatively recently, considering our long generation span.

However, despite this, the concept of race still exists in full force in the society and its practices and there's a demand for forensic anthropologists to categorize corpses to correspond with the race descriptions in the missing person lists.

While most contemporary anthropologists have abandoned the traditional Western concept of race as bounded, identifiable biological populations (Sauer 1992: 107), the race concept continues to persist in government census data and mass media sources. Because of this, the forensic anthropologist must be equipped to provide results of analysis in those terms, and thus, perpetuates the myth that races exists within our species (Kennedy 1995: 798). This practice is not a vindication of the traditional race concept but a prediction, based upon skeletal morphology, that a certain label would have been assigned to a person when that person was alive (Sauer 1992:110).

This process, matching skeletal remains to scientifically invalid census categories, is more difficult when it's a person of mixed ancestry, But even when it works, and the person can be correctly matched to his or her race label, it's still a scientifically invalid race label.

 

[Donjeta]

I have reviewed the video Donjeta graciously linked upthread for me about the $13,000. In the video RD stated her home was broken into "shortly after" they moved to Spokane, WA and that is also when she found the noose on her porch.

http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/local-naacp-president-targeted-with-hate-mail/31597284

But in this article, RD reported the crimes of the $13k and the noose to the Coeur d'Alene, ID Police.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicolasmedi...el-dolezal-said-about-passing-two-months-ago#.

IIRC the noose incident happened in CDA because the landlord came forward to the CDA Press.

http://www.people.com/article/rachel-dolezal-black-woman-cover-blown-hate-crimes

This article states the only report of theft from RD in CDA was a washer.

Again she cant keep her lies straight or where her alleged hate crimes actually occurred.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...of_hate_crimes_the_former_naacp_official.html

I think there was at least two noose incidents (allegedly), and maybe a third too, one on a Tuesday, one on a Sunday and one on Saturday.

Dolezal, director of education at the Human Rights Education Institute, went public with news that a noose was found hanging Tuesday from a shed in the backyard of her Fort Grounds home.

It's not the first time a suspicious rope has been found at a home of Dolezal's. She found a noose last fall on the front porch of a Spokane home where she lived.

Dolezal moved back to Coeur d'Alene about six months ago.

http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_80067e32-d52e-5cd9-9f77-42e8fd54a032.html


This report here straight after the burglary says there was a noose a few days after the burglary, September 2009, in Spokane, so maybe not left at the same time after all.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/sep/24/rights-educator-finds-noose-on-porch-of-spokane/

A black woman who directs educational programs for Coeur d’Alene’s Human Rights Education Institute awoke Sunday morning to find a noose on the doorstep of her north Spokane home.

Last Wednesday, the home was burglarized, with thousands of dollars in possessions stolen. That included two guns – a Glock 9 and a .357 Magnum, one of which Dolezal bought to protect herself following the encounter with the skinheads. The thieves took every penny from her son’s piggy bank, Dolezal’s laptop, a high-definition TV, an electric guitar, DVDs and video games.

Then here's Rachel blogging to say there was a noose on an undefined Saturday, apparently in Idaho:
http://www.inlander.com/Bloglander/...k-on-growing-up-black-in-the-inland-northwest

One Saturday morning, my kids burst into my bedroom. “Mom, there's a rope hanging in the backyard; it looks like a noose!” I raced outside as my mind instantly tracked back to the parting words of a colleague at Howard University when we left Washington, D.C., en route to Idaho. “Don’t go there; you’ll get lynched!”

And now they were faced with a symbol of death when picking garden strawberries for breakfast.

Our house was burglarized not once, but several times. There were nooses, swastikas and death threats.

She says nooses in plural.


This AP article says the incident in Sept 2009 happened both in Idaho and Washington simultaneously (is the AP reporter confused about geography?)
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/60829052.html

Human rights activist finds noose on porch in Idaho
By Associated Press Published: Sep 23, 2009 at 4:17 PM PDT

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) - The education director of a Human Rights Education Institute in Idaho said someone left a noose on the porch of her home in an apparent threat against the black family.

Rachel Dolezal said she found the noose Sunday morning just outside her front door in Spokane, Wash.

This was in June 2010 so strawberries would make more sense than September, but this says it was Tuesday and not Saturday:

Posted: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 12:00 am

By MAUREEN DOLAN/Staff writer | 0 comments

COEUR d'ALENE - Police are investigating a possible hate crime that occurred last week at the Coeur d'Alene home of local human rights activist Rachel Dolezal.

Dolezal, director of education at the Human Rights Education Institute, went public with news that a noose was found hanging Tuesday from a shed in the backyard of her Fort Grounds home.

This was the incident explained by the landlord.

KXLY4 made a public records request, which yielded three reports.

...
June 2010: Dolezal reported finding what she believed was a rope fashioned into a noose hanging outside her Coeur d'Alene home. She told investigators she felt threatened by the noose because someone had threatened her at work about her ethnicity. Investigators talked to a neighbor who owned the property. He told them "he hung a deer up there [about a year ago] and he believes the rope is from that time." He told investigators that he mentioned that information to Dolezal. Investigators say they called Dolezal, but she never returned their call and the case was closed.

http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/questions-raised-about-naacp-hate-mail-report/33512308

I'm a bit confused about where she lived when, I thought she moved from Idaho to Spokane but the reports seem to suggest a bit of a back and forth.

 

[gitana1]

JMO as far as the conversation is felt to be not diverse enough, everybody is free to jump in and contribute more diversity. Personally I have no idea because I don't know what background most posters are from. As far as news columnists go, I have found myself both agreeing and disagreeing with writers who are black and white and Latino etc., so you can't always tell people's ethnicity from their opinions.

If people are expressing wrong opinions, everybody is free to jump in and express better opinions.



Yeah but I think no one is suggesting that exactly.

The scientists seem to be pretty widely of the opinion that the idea of human races was never valid biologically because there is no such thing as human races, just human diversity that can't be compartmentalized like that. Humans from different populations have always mixed and had children to such a degree that distinct races were never formed.


http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1137&context=totem



We're a lot less diverse than some of our fellow species, and our populations move across the world more than some other species, and if you look beneath the skin color the differences we have aren't necessarily correlated with the skin. There is more genetic diversity within the populations than between populations, and the genetic evidence indicates that we're descended from population bottlenecks, a relatively small number of individuals who lived relatively recently, considering our long generation span.

However, despite this, the concept of race still exists in full force in the society and its practices and there's a demand for forensic anthropologists to categorize corpses to correspond with the race descriptions in the missing person lists.



This process, matching skeletal remains to scientifically invalid census categories, is more difficult when it's a person of mixed ancestry, But even when it works, and the person can be correctly matched to his or her race label, it's still a scientifically invalid race label.

Right. I had to reach back into my memory bank to get up to speed with the conversation here on the subject. I wasn't understanding totally and now I think I am.

Thus, regarding race, I learned in an anthropology class that if you take two random people from different laces in Africa and compare their DNA with that of one, Anglo person from Europe, they would in all probability each have more genetics in common with the the European than with each other, as Africa is that diverse genetically.

So it is ludicrous to suggest that all people with African ancestry are part of one "race" or human subspecies. Yes, there is human variation and it can be grouped in many different ways - such as geographically, or with language groups - but classification into three "races" is virtually meaningless as we now know that the concept of race as a scientific categorization model is not based on actual science, but on reductivist understandings of human groupings that we initially determined based on not much more than appearance alone and rough geographical boundaries.

Simply, since all human beings have been migrating and "mixing" for around 50 thousand years, the concept of race is false. There are no real subspecies at all, even though there are various subgroups humans can fit into, which shift all the time.

That is also true because not only did the firt humans emerge from Africa and then slowly migrate out into the ret of the world, successive groups of different humans likewise migrated out of Africa, into Eurasia and the Americas and the world.

So in that, crazy RD is right that we all come from Africa,

 

[Donjeta]

As Rachel Dolezal played her game, many of us played along

These questions were bubbling up among more than one journalist in the region; they were being driven, at least in part, by information unearthed by a private investigator. I spoke to him on the condition that I not reveal his identity, and I know that he has done so with other reporters in the region. He would not say who he’s working for, though Dolezal has suggested that it’s connected to a criminal case against her brother in Colorado in which she may figure as a witness, and that’s why her parents have come forward at this point.

In any case, it was his probing into Dolezal’s background, and what he says he found, that motivated me to reconsider the question of her racial identity. That has presumably been a factor in the interest of other reporters, as well.

I'm not sure this makes sense to me. Why would her biological family need to hire a private investigator to probe into Rachel's background and uncover her Caucasian background? They already know what her background is. Maybe they'd benefit in hiring someone to probe into her current life of lies... but they wouldn't need anyone to find out that she's been born white.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/jun/17/as-dolezal-played-her-game-many-of-us-played-along/

Dolezal worked as an educator for the Human Rights Education Institute – which is separate from but linked to the task force – and Neumaier said she publically misrepresented her role with the group, among other concerns.