The College Fix

I’m still unclear as to why it’s OK for Bruce Jenner to declare he’s a woman but it’s not OK for Rachel Dolezal to declare she’s black. In today’s world of you-are-what-you-feel-like-being-nevermind-truth-and-biology, it makes perfect sense.

At any rate, in the aftermath of the scandal in which she was “outed” as caucasian, Eastern Washington University has not renewed her contract, Vanity Fair reported this week. That means her days of lecturing on “African and African-American art history,” “African-American culture” and “the black woman’s struggle” are over, for now.

In a lengthy interview with Vanity Fair, she weighed in on the controversy that captured the nation:

“It’s not a costume,” she says. “I don’t know spiritually and metaphysically how this goes, but I do know that from my earliest memories I have awareness and connection with the black experience, and that’s never left me. It’s not something that I can put on and take off anymore. Like I said, I’ve had my years of confusion and wondering who I really [was] and why and how do I live my life and make sense of it all, but I’m not confused about that any longer. I think the world might be—but I’m not.” …

“It’s taken my entire life to negotiate how to identify, and I’ve done a lot of research and a lot of studying,” she says. “I could have a long conversation, an academic conversation about that. I don’t know. I just feel like I didn’t mislead anybody; I didn’t deceive anybody. If people feel misled or deceived, then sorry that they feel that way, but I believe that’s more due to their definition and construct of race in their own minds than it is to my integrity or honesty, because I wouldn’t say I’m African American, but I would say I’m black, and there’s a difference in those terms.”

Read the full article.

RELATED: Rachel Dolezal’s time as professor, student marked with bizarre, controversial claims

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