Rachel Dolezal Goes On Media Tour — And Just Raises More Questions
Rachel Dolezal, the former head of the NAACP’s Spokane chapter who was revealed to have falsely presented herself as black — she is in fact white, as her parents publicly revealed last week — has now embarked on a media tour to control the damage.
The problem is that her damage-control marathon seems to be causing her even more damage. Indeed, a picture seems to be emerging of a person who channeled her isolation and social alienation into the manufacturing of a whole new identity for herself, through a discovered affinity with the African-American community.
Dolezal’s press junket has criss-crossed the NBC News empire, with stops at many of their hosts’ studios. It started with an interview by Matt Lauer on the Today show, in which Dolezal said, “I identify as black” — shortly before Lauer showed Dolezal a picture of herself in her teens.
She also criticized her parents, who emerged to reveal her background: “I really don’t see why they’re in such a rush to whitewash some of the work that I have done and who I am and how I have identified.”
(In a situation like this, she might want to avoid the word “whitewash.”)
Dolezal said that beginning at age five, she “was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon,” and giving herself “black curly hair.”
She denied Lauer’s description that she had been “deceiving” people, claiming instead that during her early civil rights work she had been described by local newspapers as “transracial,” “biracial,” and eventually “black” — which she never corrected.
And in another interview that aired Tuesday night, Dolezal told NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie: “I definitely am not white.”
“I definitely am not white,” – Rachel Dolezal in our exclusive intv for @NBCNightlyNews tonight pic.twitter.com/G1B6SFP4G0
— Savannah Guthrie (@SavannahGuthrie) June 16, 2015
Sitting down with Amber Payne of NBCBLK, Dolezal had to admit that yes, she has still enjoyed white privilege throughout her life, in a way that black people have not been able to do.
Payne also got Dolezal to admit that her hair is indeed a weave.
MSNBC also showed a sneak preview of an interview by host Melissa Harris-Perry, which also aired Tuesday night — in which Dolezal insisted she is not a “con artist,” but is sincerely dedicated to “the movement, my work, my life, my identity.”
Dolezal also spoke to Harris-Perry of her connection with the black experience, notably as the mother of two black sons, and of her “spiritual, visceral, just very instinctual connection with ‘black is beautiful,’ just the black experience and wanting to celebrate that.”
Harris-Perry, who is herself of mixed racial parentage and identifies primarily as black, seemed skeptical. She told Dolezal: “My mother is a white woman — who interestingly, grew up in Spokane, Washington — who’s raised black children. But she doesn’t herself feel black. She’s a white woman doing the work of parenting black children,” and asked Dolezal to explain the distinction.
Dolezal also conceded to Harris-Perry that yes, she could see why some people out there — including black women — might be angry at her. But she also said she would “never want to be a liability to the cause” of civil rights.
As part of the network’s rolling coverage, MSNBC featured two other African-American commentators to talk about the clips — and they weren’t buying it.
How The Right Is Turning ‘Political Correctness’ Into Another Tool Of The 1 Percent
You may have noticed that when the right isn’t busy being outraged at the left for being outraged by comments by Republican reality stars, radio hosts and elected officials, they’re busy being outraged at the left for “offensive” comments about Republicans.
The current target is MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, who featured a brief segment on her show last weekend with panelists joking about Mitt Romney’s black grandchild. This was an issue so urgent, apparently, that Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus felt the need to demand an apology from the host just hours after the story broke.
While Republicans spent most of the last few decades being revolted by the idea of “political correctness,” there is now a conscious effort on the right to set the terms of discourse and play the role of the offended victim, whenever doing so is convenient. Then, just as quickly, conservatives will switch back to defending outrageous comments from the right and attacking “PC” thought by framing themselves as the defenders of free speech.
“Political correctness” is a term that — if you believe Wikipedia — originated in the Stalin-era USSR to describe acceptable thought to the regime. In the ’90s it became an epithet the right used to describe the intolerance of left-wing academic thought as progressives tried to reshape society to protect and encourage those who have been historically discriminated against. The great educator Herbert Kohl pointed out that the smear was meant “to insinuate that egalitarian democratic ideas are actually authoritarian, orthodox and Communist-influenced, when they oppose the right of people to be racist, sexist, and homophobic.”
The idea that rich, powerful people need to be protected from both bullying and the consequences of bullying comments often targeting minorities requires an agility and intellectual dishonesty that has been perfected by the right-wing media and spread to the movement’s more outlandish politicians, who thrive on the perpetual outrage of the Tea Party movement.
The perfect example of this is, of course, Sarah Palin. In 2009, she encouraged conservatives to “screw the political correctness.” A few months later she was demanding that President Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel be fired for allegedly using the word “retarded” in a meeting.
The right is investing in the outrage industry. Fox News is the Standard Oil of outrage, but a new breed of organization, born and thriving in social media, is designed to gin up and sustain outrage by using features unique to online marketing.
Ben Shapiro, who some call the right’s next Andrew Breitbart, is the face of a new venture called TruthRevolt, which is funded by The David Horowitz Freedom Center.
“The media must be destroyed where they stand,” its mission statement reads. “That is our mission at TruthRevolt. The goal of TruthRevolt is simple: unmask leftists in the media for who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding bases.”
The group’s blog is updated several times a day with stories that reinforce the right-wing worldview and fume at those who say things they disagree with. Additionally petitions help the site build its mailing list with campaigns against villains who refuse to honor “religious liberty” by expecting reality stars not to say things like homosexuality leads to bestiality.
TruthRevolt is a new project and characteristic of Shapiro’s desire to “fight fire with fire” and by using a tactic the right used to decry.
Twitchy — which was started by the Pope of Outrage Michelle Malkin and was recently purchased by the owners of Town Hall — is apparently trying to fight fire with a mob wielding digital torches.
After Melissa Harris-Perry gave in to the demands to apologize for the segment on her show, Twitchy decided the apology didn’t count because it was tweeted with a hashtag. What would the Founders think?
Being mentioned on Twitchy doesn’t just make you the target of vague scorn. It’s a batsignal to the right wing that you need to be attacked directly. Active Twitter users who have been vilified by the site are likely to see abusive mentions for days.
Perry, who is the product of an interracial relationship, is primarily a target because she’s on (slightly) left-leaning MSNBC. The right is in the process of racking up scalps from the news network.
Now-former MSNBC host Martin Bashir responded to Sarah Palin’s comparison of debt to slavery by describing a practice in which slaveowner Thomas Thistlewood forced one slave to defecate in another’s mouth as punishment. He concluded his point by saying, “She confirms if anyone’s truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, she would be the outstanding candidate.”
The right wing went into outrage overdrive to condemn the host, who apologized twice before leaving his job, likely involuntarily. Bashir suffered from a lack of a political base—and the fact that his indefensible comments involved human waste and a woman’s mouth.
“My role is to accept his apology and be humble enough to accept it and move on,” the ever-humble Palin said on Fox News. “But I just hope that unprovoked attacks like that don’t result in people being hesitant to jump in the arena anyway.”
A few weeks later, Palin was defending the “free speech” of a guy who suggested homosexuality could lead to sex with animals.
The former Republican nominee for vice president is worried about those who might be hesitant to speak out in favor of policies that benefit the rich and enforce historic discrimination. But she’s not as concerned about a gay teen who may be hesitant to go on living because his desires make him someone society is encouraged to despise.
Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr