By Monique
This is a news story that just won’t go away. So here’s more about it.
Dolezal has stepped down from her post as Spokane NAACP president. She did release a statement. It says in part:
It is with complete allegiance to the cause of racial and social justice and the NAACP that I step aside from the Presidency and pass the baton to my Vice President, Naima Quarles-Burnley. It is my hope that by securing a beautiful office for the organization in the heart of downtown, bringing the local branch into financial compliance, catalyzing committees to do strategic work in the five Game Changer issues, launching community forums, putting the membership on a fast climb, and helping many individuals find the legal, financial and practical support needed to fight race-based discrimination, I have positioned the Spokane NAACP to buttress this transition.
Please know I will never stop fighting for human rights and will do everything in my power to help and assist, whether it means stepping up or stepping down, because this is not about me. It’s about justice. This is not me quitting; this is a continuum. It’s about moving the cause of human rights and the Black Liberation Movement along the continuum from Resistance to Chattel Slavery to Abolition to Defiance of Jim Crow to the building of Black Wall Street to the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement to the #BlackLivesMatter movement and into a future of self-determination and empowerment.
I will say that her commitment to the cause is admirable. That doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s messed up that she lied about so many aspects of her life, including who her actual family was. As it turns out, her lying also includes some of her artwork.
Remember how I wrote that Dolezal’s artwork was actually pretty good? The one painting I don’t think I did see was the one that’s now being called into question. Complex states that one of Dolezal’s paintings is a direct copy of J.M.W. Turner’s 1840 painting The Slave Ship.
Big sigh. What else is there to say about this? (A ton, I’m sure.) My only question is: WHY pretend you’re black?! Someone help me answer that question! I genuinely want to know what her thought process was when doing this. I want to understand. Between this one question and the “transracial” argument, I’ve been doing lots of thinking and ranting and raving in real life, let alone on the internet.
EDIT: Just learned that she had sued Howard University for racial discrimination in 2002. She asserted that the school was giving African-American art students deference over her, a white woman. SHE KNOWS SHE’S WHITE AND KNEW IT ALL ALONG!
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Picture from Twitter
Julian 