Letter From America (About Transracialism)

Everything You Need to Know About Transracial Hero Rachel Dolezal

Ben Shapiro
Breitbart News

On Friday, after a long news week, the story of Rachel Dolezal hit the press, proving once again that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

Just last week the President of the United States congratulated Bruce Jenner on his courageous decision to pretend to be a woman, and the entire left bursting into spasms of ecstasy over a collectively insane decision to ratify the notion that men can magically become women. Today, the entire left is struggling to explain how a white woman who identifies herself as black is not, in fact, black.

Here’s the basic story: Rachel Dolezal is president of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP. For years, she has passed herself off as black. Now her parents have told the press that she is their “birth daughter and we’re both of European descent… we’re puzzled and it’s very sad.” Her ethnic heritage: German, Swedish, Czech. She is less black than Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is Native American. Rachel stopped corresponding with her parents because she was afraid, according to them, that they would expose her ruse. Now, some additional facts on the greatest story in human history:


She Has Admitted Her Parents Are White. When asked by The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington whether she was white, she answered, “That question is not as easy as it seems. There’s a lot of complexities… and I don’t know that everyone would understand that.” She concluded, “We’re all from the African content.” Except, of course, for Barack Obama, who was born in Hawaii.

She Says She Lived in a Teepee, and Her Family Used Bows and Arrows to Hunt. In an interview with The Easterner, the newspaper for Eastern Washington University, conducted by Shawntelle Moncy (who described Dolezal as a woman with unexpected green eyes, a caramel skin complexion and a warm smile, as well as a woman of “many faces”), she said that she was born in a “Montana teepee.” She said that her family “hunted their food with bows and arrows.” She said she and her parents lived in Colorado and South Africa after moving from Montana. Her parents say all of that is false.

She Is An Adjunct Professor of African-American Studies at Eastern Washington University. President of the university Mary Cullinan described her in March as “an inspiring role model for EWU students.” She teaches African-American studies, as well as classes including “African and African American Art History, African History, African American Culture, The Black Women’s Struggle, and Intro to Africana Studies at EWU.” Yes, “The Black Women’s Struggle.” Her profile says her “scholarly research focuses on the intersection of race, gender and class in the contemporary Diaspora with a specific emphasis on Black women in visual culture.” 

She has other interests, too, including “African dance” and “ethnic hair styling.” Yes, seriously.

Her Work Has Been Featured By The United Nations. According to her EWU profile again:

In addition to her role as an educator, Doležal has fourteen years of experience as an exhibiting artist and has taught K-12 & college art lessons in public, private, and non-traditional school settings. Her works have been featured in The Artist’s Magazine, shown in 13 states and displayed at the United Nations’ Headquarters in New York. Doležal began teaching private & group art lessons in 1994 and synthesizes art history, cultural studies, & the creative process when teaching. She believes that the creative process is part of what makes us human and unifies our self-identity with the world around us. Doležal was an instructor in the Art Departments at North Idaho College from 2005-2013 and has taught at Eastern Washington University since 2007.

She Is A Licensed Diversity Trainer. She went to Howard University for her Master’s Degree, where she reportedly told her adoptive brother not to “blow her cover.” She then became “Director of Education at the Human Rights Education institute, a licensed diversity trainer, and a consultant for human rights education and inclusivity in regional schools,” according to her profile at EWU.

She Says She Was Repeatedly Abused By Her Parents and Ex-Husband. They then moved to South Africa, where her mother and stepfather beat her and her siblings, “punish[ing] us by skin complexion.” The reporter continues:

According to Doležal, the object her mother and stepfather used to punish them was called a baboon whip, used to ward baboons away in South Africa. These whips would leave scars behind, “they were pretty similar to what was used as whips during slavery.”

Her parents say she’s a liar; they never even lived in South Africa.

Then she was abused by her ex-husband:

According to Doležal, her ex-husband was abusive to her and even their son. At two years old, little Franklin would intervene between Doležal and her ex-husbands violence and “he would sometimes get thrown across the room,” she said.

She Says She Was Date-Raped. According to that interview in The Easterner, she was later date-raped by a mentor:

One of Doležal’s paintings was at a convention center in San Francisco, where her and a trusted mentor went out to dinner together to celebrate the sale. As soon as Doležal looked away, the mentor slipped gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, also called the “date-rape drug,” into her drink. According to Doležal, her mentor took advantage of her that night. She said suing was nearly impossible due to the amount of wealth the man had. “I can never trust anyone to bring me a drink again, you know, because it was a trusted person,” she said.

Of course, she never reported anything to the police and no one was ever arrested.

She Says She Is Blonde Because Of Cancer. She told The Easterner:

In 2006, Doležal developed cervical cancer. During chemotherapy, she decided to keep her incredibly long, blonde dreadlocks she had had and still puts them on today. She was considered cured in 2008.

She Says She Her Black Brother Is Her Black Son. As BuzzFeed reports, according to her dad, Larry, her “oldest son Izaiah,” who she cites in the press, is actually her adoptive brother. “He used to be my brother,” she told the Couer D’Alene Press. “But I have full custody of him now.” She told that same outlet that they could “DNA test me if they want to.” Her parents say that they adopted four black children. Ruthanne Dolezal said, “It’s very sad that Rachel has not just been herself. Her effectiveness in the causes of the African-American community would have been so much more viable, and she would have been more effective if she had just been honest with everybody.”

She Has Repeatedly Claimed To Be The Victim of Anti-Black Hate Crimes. She says Idaho white supremacist groups burglarized all of her homes when she lived in the state, and explained that they felt “threatened by female power.” She says they threatened to kidnap her son, Franklin, and “hung nooses in her home.” No arrests were ever made.

This week, Spokane police released information about Dolezal’s most recent complaint: that she received hate mail. But according to the Spokesman-Review, it’s highly possible she sent it herself:

Police records say the initial package Dolezal reported receiving did not bear a date stamp or bar code, which Dolezal told police when she reported it. Investigators interviewed postal workers, who said it was either very unlikely or impossible that the package could have been processed through the post office, implying that the only alternative was that it had been put there by someone with a key… Asked about the possibility that she had put the package there herself, she said, “That’s such bullshit. What mother would terrorize her own children?”

Kurt Neumaier of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, where Dolezal worked for three years, now says he doubts all of her claims as to hate crimes. He also says she wasn’t properly vetted:

Neumaier said he was suspicious of several incidents Dolezal reported in Coeur d’Alene, including her discovery of a swastika on the door of the Human Rights Education Institute when the organization’s security camera was “mysteriously turned off.” “None of them passed the smell test,” he said.

She Acts as a Civilian Police Watchdog, and Stumps For #BlackLivesMatter. Appointed by the mayor of Spokane, she goes on ride-alongs with police in order to oversee them for any hint of police brutality. She serves as chairwoman of the Office of Police Ombudsman Commission; her application to that position included the self-identifiers black, white, and American Indian. Spokane City spokesman Brian Coddington admitted, “The community wanted diversity and limited background checks.” He also admitted that race “was certainly taken into account,” according to CDAPress.com. He said, “Race wasn’t a criteria in the selection process, but certainly diversity was an important part of the process.”

She is a charter member of the #BlackLivesMatter campaign, writing:

In the famous last words of Eric Garner, “I … can’t … breathe,” there is a metaphor for the asphyxiation we are experiencing as black people in America and in Spokane. The air is thinner for us now; we are not all getting the same amount of oxygen here. So don’t stop us when we reach for the oxygen mask that is hope for justice. Let us say what we need to say, march when we need to march, and hold our kids when we need to feel their hearts beat. Let us be, be with us, and let us breathe.

The mayor, David Condon, released a joint statement with Council President Ben Stuckart stating, “We are gathering facts to determine if any city policies related to volunteer boards and commissions have been violated. That information will be reviewed by the City Council, which has oversight of city boards and commissions.”

In the aftermath of the cartoonish left’s Bruce Jenner orgasm, the Rachel Dolezal story must hit like an Acme anvil dropped from the seventh story of a building. Barack Obama had a racially diverse composite girlfriend; Rachel Dolezal was the left’s composite girlfriend. She took every element of leftist stereotype – victimized woman, victimized black, international human rights crusader, diversity fighter, put-upon artist – and rolled them all into a resume. And the left rewarded her again and again: NAACP president, police oversight commission, professoriate, worshipful media attention.

And then it all came tumbling down, just because of how Rachel Dolezal decided to self-identify. We must pity her, and we must stand with her in her quest to reach self-worth via redefinition of ethnicity. After all, as President Obama said of Bruce Jenner, “It takes courage to share your story.” Even if that story is complete and utter bullshit.

Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.