Former Spokane, Washington NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal is back in the public eye just five months after took over media headlines for misinterpreting her race. On Monday (Nov. 2), she appeared on Fox's The Real to further discuss her stance on race and where she stands. Dolezal admitted she was born white, but says that she identifies as a black woman.
During an exclusive interview, Dolezal sat down with The Real co-hosts, Adrienne Bailon, Tamar Braxton, Tamera Mowry-Housley, Jeannie Mai and Loni Love, to open up about her birth parents, which box she checks to identify her race on forms, expecting her third child, and losing her job. When it came to their questions, the daytime talk show panel, consisting completely of women of color, held nothing back.
In past interviews, whenever Dolezal was asked questions about her race, she found ways to circle around the question by avoiding it completely or answering with a question of her own. Bailon and Mai both wondered why she couldn't resolve the controversy by delivering a direct answer about her race, instead of causing confusion.
"I acknowledge that I was biologically born white to white parents, but I identify as black," Dolezal said in the segment, revealing she's seen herself as black since she was a child. The audience erupted in applause as soon as Dolezal confirmed both of her birth parents are white.
She also added people have been mistaking her as biracial since 1998 and police officers have often identified her race as black on traffic tickets. Since 2006, Dolezal admitted she's "self-identified as black."
A controversial question regarding which box she checks on confidentiality forms to identify herself, Dolezal admitted she checks both white and black, believing everyone's lineage traces back to Africa.
"Sometimes how we feel is more powerful than how we're born, and blackness can be defined as philosophical, cultural, biological, you know, it's a lot of different things to a lot of different people."
