The embattled leader of the NAACP in Spokane is stepping down from her post, she said Monday, days after her parents’ claims that she has falsely portrayed herself as black for years sparked calls for her resignation and a nationwide dialogue about racial identity.
“It is with complete allegiance to the cause of racial and social justice and the NAACP that I step aside from the Presidency and pass the baton to my Vice President, Naima Quarles-Burnley,” Rachel Dolezal said in a statement on the chapter’s Facebook page Monday.
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Dolezal didn’t address the questions about her own race in her statement announcing her resignation, instead reiterating her commitment to the NAACP’s cause.
“Please know I will never stop fighting for human rights and will do everything in my power to help and assist, whether it means stepping up or stepping down, because this is not about me. It’s about justice,” she said. “This is not me quitting; this is a continuum.”
Dolezal’s parents had told the “Today” show Monday that they think she pretended to be black as a way to hurt them, and that they have been estranged from her for years.
“I think Rachel has tried to damage her biological family and those kind of claims, as false as they were, seem to serve her purposes in her mind,” her mother Ruthanne Dolezal told the “Today” show.
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Rachel Dolezal had earlier canceled a chapter meeting Monday where she was expected to speak about the furor sparked over her racial identity. But other members of the organization said they still planned to gather Monday evening.
A demonstration had been planned by some members Monday night calling for Dolezal to step down.
Dolezal was elected president of the local NAACP chapter about six months ago.
The NAACP issued a statement Friday supporting Dolezal, who has been a longtime figure in Spokane’s human-rights community and teaches African studies to college students.
Ruthanne Dolezal, Rachel Dolezal’s mother, said the family’s ancestry is Czech, Swedish and German, with a trace of Native American heritage. She produced a copy of her daughter’s Montana birth certificate listing herself and Larry Dolezal as Rachel’s parents.
The city of Spokane is investigating whether Dolezal lied about her ethnicity when she applied to be on the police board. Police on Friday said they were suspending investigations into racial-harassment complaints filed by Dolezal, including one from earlier this year in which she said she received hate mail at her office.
Published 28 minutes ago
Black people are a damn bunch of idiots that allow the media to wind their stupid asses up over nothing of importance.
First of all, the NAACP was created by white people with an agenda.
Second, being black is a requisite criterion for leadership.
Third, her passing as black wasn’t to monetarily capitalize on her perceived blackness and at no time did she take anything away from a black person.
Fourth, if we can welcome with open arms Eminem,Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke, Iggy, Macklemore and other cultural appropriators who are black only when it’s financially beneficial but white at all other times, then why are we beating this white woman up for being black all the damn time.
It isn’t as if she was black for the job and lived a white life. She married black and adopted black and clearly has an affinity for the culture.
When black people start learning how to exercise critical thinking, I will start taking them seriously.
Mi nuh tink she shoulda resign…..
She shoulda just make a statement ah say that she love the Black community, she sorry she lie & fi just to please forgive her for being deceitful.
She do more for the Black community than some ah dem weh ah cuss her! If his was a job weh specifically was set aside for somebody Black or if she did take/get certain funding specifically set aside for Black people then me woulda tink different. But to me in this situation, no harm/no foul. Them seh from she ah president the finances go up for the NAACP & that she did good work there. She shoulda stay…
:thumbup
She should resign, what she did is wrong, she should have applied for the position as what she is, a white woman. Blackness is not something you can take off and put on like clothes, being black is not a costume party.
:shakehand2 :shakehand2
up up
I don’t care for the situation but what I do think is wrong and what people really are up in arms about is the extent of deceit she went through to prove her “blackness”. Saying you had to scrape for food, you wore rags… got whippings with switches… Is that your projection of the black community?! Claiming that your adoptive black brother is your son… Lying about receiving hate mail and nooses (knowing that you were responsible of sending them to yourself after the authorizes looked into it) why do all that?!?! And to have the audacity to call yourself transracial?!?!?! WTF is that?!?! That’s the perfect example of white privileged… If only our ancestors had the option of changing their damn race and telling massa that “I identify as white now massa.. please free me from slavery now”… Like seriously!??! She just did the most. She would have the same exact position as she does now even as a white woman. It happens all the time… She’s clearly mental.. That isn’t normal whatsoever!