Rachel Dolezal 'Identifies as Black,' Has 'A Huge Issue With Blackface'

By Clover Hope | June 16, 2015 | 1:10pm

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Rachel Dolezal sat for her first public interview on Tuesday morning with Matt Lauer and it was just as confusing and delusional as her existence.

In the interview, Dolezal says she started identifying with the black experience at age 5 and talked about drawing self-portraits with a brown crayon. When asked whether she’s darkened her skin to appear black, Dolezal says, “I certainly don’t stay out of the sun.”

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The interview as a whole is deceitful, but the most aggravating part is when Dolezal defends herself against claims that she’s performing in blackface.

“I certainly don’t, as some of the critics have said, put on blackface as a performance,” she says.

Dolezal fails to see her minstrelsy as a problem. “I have a huge issue with blackface,” she tells Lauer. “This is not some freak Birth of a Nation mockery blackface performance. This is on a very real connected level. I’ve actually had to go there with the experience, not just a visible representation, but with the experience.”

This exchange earlier in the interview meanwhile deserves an award for delusional tactics:

Are you an African American woman?

I identify as black.

You “identify” as black. Let me put a picture up of you in your early 20s, though. And when you see this picture, is this an African American or is that a Caucasian woman?

That’s…not in my early 20s, but—

Thats a little younger I guess.

[Laughs] I’m 16 in that picture.

Is she a Caucasian woman or an African American woman?

I would say that visibly she would be identified as white by people who see her.

But at the time, were you identifying yourself as African American?

In that picture, during that time, no.

I wonder how much she’s getting paid for this garbage.

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