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Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sackur. What gives us our sense of | :00:00. | :00:19. | |
who we are? Well, our upbringing, our communities both have a huge | :00:20. | :00:24. | |
impact, but the most basic pillars of identity we tend to regard as | :00:25. | :00:29. | |
immutable - our gender, our race. At least, most of us do. But not my | :00:30. | :00:37. | |
guest today. As part of the BBC's special identity season, she's | :00:38. | :00:42. | |
Rachel Dolezal, the ostensibly black American human rights activist, | :00:43. | :00:45. | |
whose life unravelled last year when it turned out she was the daughter | :00:46. | :00:51. | |
of white parents. Is our racial identity something we can define for | :00:52. | :00:52. | |
ourselves? Rachel Dolezal, welcome to HARDtalk. | :00:53. | :01:26. | |
Thank you. Let's begin with the here and now. You have been through the | :01:27. | :01:32. | |
most tumultuous, difficult year. You have, in certain sections of the | :01:33. | :01:37. | |
American media, being vilified, you've lost friends - just explain | :01:38. | :01:39. | |
to me what life is like for you today? Well, certainly, it is | :01:40. | :01:47. | |
different than it was a year ago, the same time. It's different in | :01:48. | :01:53. | |
that I'm not able to do the same work that I was doing, which was | :01:54. | :01:59. | |
very active in racial and social justice work with NAACP, with the | :02:00. | :02:04. | |
police ombudsman commission. And to remind people who don't know, you | :02:05. | :02:09. | |
were president of the Spokane Washington State chapter of the | :02:10. | :02:10. | |
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, it | :02:11. | :02:12. | |
was an important position. Right. Absolutely at the centre of local | :02:13. | :02:17. | |
civil rights issues? Right. And in an unpaid position, along with the | :02:18. | :02:23. | |
other unpaid position I was in over at the time was the chair of the | :02:24. | :02:27. | |
police ombudsman commission for the city, for police accountability and | :02:28. | :02:31. | |
transparency. Which is, again, another national civil rights issue | :02:32. | :02:36. | |
going on in America. And my other two jobs, the ones that were paid, | :02:37. | :02:39. | |
were being a professor of black studies at the Eastern Washington | :02:40. | :02:49. | |
University Africana programme, and also I was writing for The Inlander. | :02:50. | :02:54. | |
And you lost all those positions, one way or another you lost them | :02:55. | :02:59. | |
this all? Right. And how do you make money today? To be quite honest, I'm | :03:00. | :03:04. | |
running right up to the end of my unemployment, and have just secured | :03:05. | :03:08. | |
a book deal so I will be writing through the summer for that but it | :03:09. | :03:15. | |
has been very tight circumstances financially for the last year. For | :03:16. | :03:19. | |
an outsider like me, it seems, in a sense, straightforward. You lost all | :03:20. | :03:24. | |
those positions and you ran into a storm of controversy because you had | :03:25. | :03:28. | |
passed yourself off as something you were not - that is, a black American | :03:29. | :03:35. | |
woman activist, when, obviously, you were a woman activist but it seems | :03:36. | :03:38. | |
you weren't black in the way people thought you were. Well, I guess some | :03:39. | :03:52. | |
people treated June --ed the media expose about my identity, a big | :03:53. | :03:56. | |
frenzy, as like an outing - like, I was outed as a white woman. | :03:57. | :03:59. | |
Personally, how I experienced it was more that it wasn't a coming out, it | :04:00. | :04:06. | |
was being put back in the closet, only a closet that has glass walls. | :04:07. | :04:12. | |
I mean, really, it was being told - the world being told that I was | :04:13. | :04:15. | |
something that I'm not, that I don't identify as. So, uhm, I felt like it | :04:16. | :04:24. | |
was really not the entire world's business who my biological parents | :04:25. | :04:29. | |
were or how I was born or what my whole childhood story was. But I | :04:30. | :04:35. | |
guess the point was, and you outline them in the posts you have, an | :04:36. | :04:39. | |
academic study of race issues, you had those posts and were appointed | :04:40. | :04:43. | |
to them on the basis that you were a black American. But then, you know, | :04:44. | :04:46. | |
pictures came out of... Well, not necessarily. I mean, you know, for | :04:47. | :04:55. | |
example, there's no qualification for the NAACP that you have to be | :04:56. | :05:01. | |
black in order to be president of a NAACP chapter and there's not an | :05:02. | :05:04. | |
application - it is an elected office. I guess, no, obviously it's | :05:05. | :05:08. | |
true, there's no requirement that you have to be, but your back story | :05:09. | :05:13. | |
and the way you presented yourself on social media and everything else | :05:14. | :05:16. | |
suggested that you were sort of biologically black, you know. You | :05:17. | :05:23. | |
presented pictures of a man who you described as your father, who was a | :05:24. | :05:29. | |
black individual. You presented pictures of your son, you said he | :05:30. | :05:32. | |
was your son, and he was clearly a black young man. But he wasn't your | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
biological son as it turned out. I mean, these, to many people, seemed | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
like deceptions. Right, I understand that that's how it seemed to people. | :05:42. | :05:46. | |
But I - I don't believe that those actually were presented in a way - | :05:47. | :05:55. | |
you know, I regret that my story was handled in a way that created a | :05:56. | :05:59. | |
larger misunderstanding about who I really am as a person. And, yes, I | :06:00. | :06:10. | |
still do have a father figure who is not biologically my father, but I | :06:11. | :06:13. | |
call him "Dad", and my son, you know, still is my son, and I have | :06:14. | :06:20. | |
documentation of having full custody of him and legally how that came | :06:21. | :06:29. | |
about... Legally, I know you have full custody of him, but... Right. | :06:30. | :06:33. | |
.. He in fact was the adopted brother of yours, he was adopted by | :06:34. | :06:37. | |
your white parents. As an infant. That's right. He's my son. That | :06:38. | :06:45. | |
makes sense to you? He's my son. Yeah I mean, biological or not, he's | :06:46. | :06:49. | |
my son. People, including me, of course, researching this, people | :06:50. | :06:53. | |
have seen the pictures of you as a girl, you know, a blonde, Montana | :06:54. | :07:02. | |
girl. Your parents say, you know, "We're completely of European stock, | :07:03. | :07:06. | |
Czech and German stock". Explain to me, how as a girl and a young woman, | :07:07. | :07:13. | |
you became so sure that your self-perception, your identity, was | :07:14. | :07:19. | |
that of a black person? Well, it's... It's really something that's | :07:20. | :07:24. | |
always been with me. From as early as I can remember, I saw myself as | :07:25. | :07:32. | |
black. And I think that some people still are perpetuating black as | :07:33. | :07:36. | |
under kind of a colonnial definition of something that is only racialised | :07:37. | :07:42. | |
physical features, but with regard to the larger, broader definition of | :07:43. | :07:54. | |
"Black" being a state of mind or "White" being a state of mind, or | :07:55. | :07:57. | |
philosophy, culture, all of these things kind of interacting, this is | :07:58. | :08:01. | |
how I saw myself as a young girl, this is kind of always something | :08:02. | :08:04. | |
that has resonated with me and nurtured me and so ... But if - if | :08:05. | :08:15. | |
black is a state of mind in your view, I'm wondering why it was so | :08:16. | :08:19. | |
important for you, as you grew up into womanhood, that you appeared to | :08:20. | :08:23. | |
work very hard in terms of physical appearance to promote certain, you | :08:24. | :08:29. | |
know, aspects of your appearance that made it seem you were more | :08:30. | :08:35. | |
African American. I mean, I'm thinking of the braided hair, I'm | :08:36. | :08:40. | |
thinking of the colouring, I think, perhaps, it was spray tan, I don't | :08:41. | :08:44. | |
know what it was, but you physically changed from when you were much | :08:45. | :08:48. | |
younger and I'm wondering, if it's all about a state of mind, why you | :08:49. | :08:53. | |
needed to do that? Well, what anybody else needs to do is up to | :08:54. | :08:57. | |
them, but why I do my hair how I do my hair is because I've done black | :08:58. | :09:02. | |
hair for 20 years. I love textured hair. I love to braid. And so, you | :09:03. | :09:08. | |
know, over the last couple of decades, that's, uhm, how I feel | :09:09. | :09:15. | |
most beautiful. Did it worry you that you knew some people were being | :09:16. | :09:24. | |
misled by things you were saying and doing? You know, they clearly | :09:25. | :09:29. | |
believed you were African American in extraction and you were not, and | :09:30. | :09:34. | |
you didn't correct them. I mean, did you ever feel you ought to? Did you | :09:35. | :09:38. | |
ever feel awkward about what was going on, as your life developed and | :09:39. | :09:41. | |
more and more people assumed you were something you were not? Well, | :09:42. | :09:48. | |
again, assuming that I'm something that I'm not - I mean, I do identify | :09:49. | :09:52. | |
as black, so it didn't bother me that people saw me as black. I | :09:53. | :09:58. | |
really do think that, when it comes down to it at the end of the day, we | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
all should be free to be exactly who we are, and when it comes to | :10:03. | :10:06. | |
identity, that's a very personal experience. I'm just wondering, it's | :10:07. | :10:12. | |
such an interesting phrase, "I identified as black, I felt black". | :10:13. | :10:16. | |
I mean, if I'm just thinking of myself, obviously, I live in the UK, | :10:17. | :10:20. | |
not in the United States, it's somewhat different, but if I were to | :10:21. | :10:25. | |
say to myself, "I identify as white", I wouldn't really know what | :10:26. | :10:28. | |
I meant by that. It's such a broad and general thing to say, I don't | :10:29. | :10:31. | |
know what it would mean. What does it mean to you to say, "I identified | :10:32. | :10:37. | |
as black"? Right. Well, for me, blackness is not, again, reduced to | :10:38. | :10:43. | |
racialised physical features. It has to do with knowing your belonging - | :10:44. | :10:54. | |
my belonging within the pan-African diaspora and representing | :10:55. | :10:55. | |
psychological decolonnialisation of the mind as well as acknowledging | :10:56. | :10:59. | |
and embodying common African history and an SESry. So, in that sense you | :11:00. | :11:04. | |
are saying all of us - because humanity is believed to have | :11:05. | :11:09. | |
originated, what, in east Africa, you're saying, "I feel that | :11:10. | :11:12. | |
resonance, that connection to Africa", even though... Well, | :11:13. | :11:16. | |
eventually, we all go back to a black mother, if we believe science | :11:17. | :11:19. | |
to be true that we all came out of the African continent. Right, so you | :11:20. | :11:28. | |
do feel to be African diaspora. I mean, I've never thought that way, I | :11:29. | :11:34. | |
guess I self-identify as white, but you feel that Africanness, do you? | :11:35. | :11:37. | |
Absolutely. I mean, in the last several hundred years there has been | :11:38. | :11:40. | |
a great deal of oppression surrounding the behaviour of | :11:41. | :11:45. | |
classification with regard to race and even the definition of a race as | :11:46. | :11:49. | |
a world view and so I think that that particular mindset of some | :11:50. | :12:00. | |
groups being superior, inferior and classification for administrative | :12:01. | :12:01. | |
purposes and for social purposes has become very painful, you know, | :12:02. | :12:06. | |
there's a very - several hundred years of a very painful history with | :12:07. | :12:12. | |
regards to that. So - but at the end of the day, science has proven over | :12:13. | :12:15. | |
and over again that there is no biological premise or basis for | :12:16. | :12:20. | |
race. So, you know, what do we have then? We have kind of an imperative | :12:21. | :12:28. | |
to do difference differently. You know, if we're going to keep | :12:29. | :12:32. | |
grouping people, then, you know, what are we grouping them for? Are | :12:33. | :12:36. | |
we grouping individuals into categories where there's, like, | :12:37. | :12:40. | |
cultural bonding or language similarity or, you know, what are we | :12:41. | :12:43. | |
doing? Are we doing to actually leverage power and priflg all over | :12:44. | :12:51. | |
again? -- privilege all over again, like the colonnial era, like u -- | :12:52. | :12:58. | |
eugenics. You've clearly thought about this a lot and very hard, but | :12:59. | :13:02. | |
does it bother you that so many black activists and even friends of | :13:03. | :13:06. | |
your in the civil rights community, academics, simply don't buy your | :13:07. | :13:14. | |
explanation for your behaviours and your feelings? I will just quote | :13:15. | :13:19. | |
one, Gary Young, he is a leading black writer and commentator in the | :13:20. | :13:22. | |
UK but has lived a lot of his life in the United States. He has thought | :13:23. | :13:25. | |
a lot about your situation and says, "Rachel is a white woman who | :13:26. | :13:30. | |
identifies closely with the black community, but that does not make | :13:31. | :13:34. | |
her black". And I guess a lot of people would feel the same? Well, I | :13:35. | :13:38. | |
think people are weighing in on this on both sides. So some people are | :13:39. | :13:44. | |
saying, you know, kind of in support and solidarity, we understand that | :13:45. | :13:48. | |
this is actually innate, this is who she is. And then there are other | :13:49. | :13:53. | |
people saying, that this is actually not who she is and kind of demanding | :13:54. | :14:00. | |
that I somehow re-classify myself or change my identity. I guess what | :14:01. | :14:08. | |
he's saying, in a way, is this. That, you know, given from a very | :14:09. | :14:12. | |
young age our affinity with the black community, your care for | :14:13. | :14:16. | |
issues of civil rights, your perception that many black Americans | :14:17. | :14:18. | |
were disadvantaged and your desire to work with those communities to | :14:19. | :14:22. | |
raise them up, all of that people can understand very clearly. But a | :14:23. | :14:26. | |
lot of other people identifying themselves as white people feel the | :14:27. | :14:29. | |
same way and commit themselves to working with the black community, | :14:30. | :14:32. | |
living in the black community, maybe some marrying black men, as, indeed, | :14:33. | :14:38. | |
you did - but they don't feel that they have to present themselves as | :14:39. | :14:43. | |
black. That's the step you took that others who feel the same way as you | :14:44. | :14:46. | |
don't take. And I think everybody has the right to be exactly who they | :14:47. | :14:54. | |
are and so I'm not - I don't think that one individual's story needs to | :14:55. | :14:57. | |
be copied and pasted on to everybody else. So I'm not saying that there | :14:58. | :15:04. | |
aren't white mothers that, you know, have successfully raised black kids, | :15:05. | :15:09. | |
or that there are no white activists that have done important work, in | :15:10. | :15:11. | |
fact the NAACP was founded by a majority of white -identifying | :15:12. | :15:17. | |
individuals in the United States. So, uhm - but this is who I am. This | :15:18. | :15:21. | |
is how I feel most beautiful, wearing my hair, this is who I | :15:22. | :15:28. | |
identify to be on a very deep, core level. And I think, in as much as it | :15:29. | :15:35. | |
wouldn't be my place to say what somebody else should do, I find it | :15:36. | :15:39. | |
odd that people that don't know me... But does it upset you that a | :15:40. | :15:44. | |
lot of people who have been most critical of you have been black | :15:45. | :15:47. | |
Americans? Actually, I don't know that that's true. Well... There have | :15:48. | :15:50. | |
been some critical black Americans, but there have also been some... Who | :15:51. | :15:55. | |
I hear from with the most hate is, you know, white supremacy groups. So | :15:56. | :16:02. | |
there are a lot of ... Uhm, white individuals who are very angry and | :16:03. | :16:06. | |
feel that I have somehow been a traitor from -- from the black | :16:07. | :16:13. | |
community, one thing that I do really hear that bothers me is that | :16:14. | :16:18. | |
somehow I am, you know, the face of white privilege and ... Well, what | :16:19. | :16:25. | |
they say - they say a couple of things that seem to me important. | :16:26. | :16:30. | |
One is - and we'll get to the privilege point in a second, but one | :16:31. | :16:37. | |
thing they say which revives the trope of the black face, white | :16:38. | :16:41. | |
people blacking up in some sense to entertain or to mock the black | :16:42. | :16:45. | |
experience - some black people say that there's something deeply | :16:46. | :16:47. | |
uncomfortable about what you do because, by using colouring and | :16:48. | :16:52. | |
presenting with the hair, which to most people looks like a style that | :16:53. | :16:55. | |
is usuallily adopted by black people, they see a connection to | :16:56. | :16:56. | |
that horrible past. I understand that there is an | :16:57. | :17:19. | |
incredibly painful history with But I do not dress in black face. | :17:20. | :17:27. | |
That was some of the first statement is ever made in the press, that this | :17:28. | :17:32. | |
was a mockery or whatever. But, black face is something that is used | :17:33. | :17:38. | |
to make fun of, to belittle, to drive that pain and historical | :17:39. | :17:44. | |
oppression deeper. That is not, it doesn't in any way connect with | :17:45. | :17:56. | |
the... It must hurt you when you read this. Absolutely. There is | :17:57. | :18:00. | |
plenty of pain to go around. There is a lot of pain from where those | :18:01. | :18:04. | |
statements are coming from. I want to acknowledge that paying because I | :18:05. | :18:08. | |
might have my own personal pain, but the larger history of cultural | :18:09. | :18:14. | |
appropriation and mockery and black face, I spent hundreds of hours | :18:15. | :18:20. | |
doing other black women's care. Brady and styling... -- hair -- | :18:21. | :18:39. | |
braiding. There is a fundamental difference because you are white and | :18:40. | :18:44. | |
you can make the choice to be black. The editor of union Station magazine | :18:45. | :18:49. | |
wrote about your case and she said, to believe that one can transfer 1's | :18:50. | :18:53. | |
identity in this way is eight privilege, maybe even the highest | :18:54. | :18:57. | |
manifestation of white privilege. The ability to accept | :18:58. | :19:01. | |
marginalisation, to take on the identity of blackness, without truly | :19:02. | :19:04. | |
living the burdens of it and always knowing that you could escape it on | :19:05. | :19:09. | |
a whim, that is not a true transition to blackness. Well, once | :19:10. | :19:18. | |
again, I regret that people don't understand what I've lived. I have | :19:19. | :19:24. | |
taken the good with the bad. Meaning that I have taken half the salary of | :19:25. | :19:32. | |
a someone who had the exact same job description, the man before me | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
described me as a college girl and I took half the salary for the same | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
job. Cops have marked black on my traffic tickets. There are ways in | :19:42. | :19:46. | |
which I have experienced racism being seen. Identity is not just | :19:47. | :19:52. | |
what box a cheque or how I self identify, it is also based on power | :19:53. | :20:00. | |
and privilege dynamics, which people are acting out. There are ways in | :20:01. | :20:05. | |
which I have been treated by others who see me as black, and I haven't, | :20:06. | :20:14. | |
in those cases, I didn't interrupt the processes and say excuse me, I | :20:15. | :20:21. | |
want to rent an apartment so why will be whiter. I ... You don't say, | :20:22. | :20:38. | |
hold on, I am white. Exactly. I have raised my children to be committed | :20:39. | :20:43. | |
to fight for total freedom and justice and equality for black | :20:44. | :20:46. | |
people around the world. I think that within the All Black, for me to | :20:47. | :20:56. | |
then somehow be seen as the face of white privilege is very painful. It | :20:57. | :21:04. | |
is not representative of my life and when it comes to... I think your | :21:05. | :21:13. | |
question was twofold. There is my experience but there is also the | :21:14. | :21:19. | |
experience of people who are assuming... It was about the | :21:20. | :21:26. | |
privilege of choice. There is a long history of passing, which is | :21:27. | :21:30. | |
different in identifying hours. There is a long history of lack | :21:31. | :21:35. | |
people passing for white in America in order to... Get on. Yes, survive. | :21:36. | :21:45. | |
I think there is a range of light-skinned privilege. You could | :21:46. | :21:50. | |
say that as far as having the choice. I. You because we are almost | :21:51. | :21:56. | |
at a time. Some personal questions. Do you have any regrets about what | :21:57. | :22:00. | |
you've done? I am thinking particularly about the fact that you | :22:01. | :22:10. | |
are estranged from your biological white parents. Some of your adoptive | :22:11. | :22:16. | |
siblings who are black, they say they don't understand what you have | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
done. Do you have regrets on a personal basis? As far as, do I | :22:21. | :22:28. | |
regret... The pain that I imagine it has caused to your parents? I am not | :22:29. | :22:36. | |
going to talk about my parents. That's just not a subject that I | :22:37. | :22:40. | |
talk about. It is personal and I'm not going to talk about that. I will | :22:41. | :22:44. | |
say that I do regret any pain that it has caused anybody else, all | :22:45. | :22:49. | |
people feel like it has caused. I feel like a lot of that pain is | :22:50. | :22:56. | |
based on misunderstanding with regards to some of the family | :22:57. | :23:02. | |
dynamics -- or. Family dynamics have sometimes created those divisions, | :23:03. | :23:06. | |
those are deeply personal and something that maybe in time... | :23:07. | :23:13. | |
There is a lot of pain there. They will become more understood, but it | :23:14. | :23:17. | |
is nobody 's business what has splintered the family apart. But a | :23:18. | :23:24. | |
lot of pain? Yes, there is a lot of pain. Today, are you truly | :23:25. | :23:30. | |
comfortable in your own skin? I am comfortable being who I am, I am not | :23:31. | :23:35. | |
sure that the world is comfortable with that yet. Time will tell if we | :23:36. | :23:42. | |
can reconcile how I identify and how people see who I am. Rachel Dolezal, | :23:43. | :23:47. | |
thank you very much for being on HARDtalk. | :23:48. | :23:51. |