An NAACP Leader Is Pretending to Be Black, According to Her Parents

Rachel Dolezal is the president of the Spokane, Wash. NAACP chapter.

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Complex Original

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According to her very white parents, civil rights leader Rachel Dolezal has been pretending to be black as she's assimilated into the African-American community over the past 20 years. Dolezal is the president of the Spokane, Wash. NAACP chapter and an adjunct professor at Eastern Washington University. When she applied for the city's police oversight commission, of which she's now a member, she put her ethnicity as white, black, and American Indian, according to the Spokesman-Review. But her parents, who Rachel has distanced herself from because they're white, told BuzzFeed their daughter is Czech, Swedish, and German—with the possibility of American Indian descent. 

"She’s our birth daughter and we’re both of European descent," Larry Dolezal said. "We’re puzzled, and it’s very sad."

When asked straight up if she's African-American, Rachel stalled before saying she doesn't understand the question. 

Officials told the Spokesman-Review they're investigating to see if Dolezal violated any city policies. Her credibility is also being questioned in regard to her claiming her NAACP chapter received a threatening package in its post office mail box. But post office employees said the package wasn't timestamped or canceled, meaning only an employee or someone with access to the box could have put it there. 

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