Rachel Dozeal Says She's Identified As Black Since She Was 5 When She Drew Herself With A Brown Crayon
Politico – Rachel Dolezal, the former president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington, said Tuesday that the timing of the controversy surrounding her racial identity took her by surprise. “The timing of it was a shock. I mean, wow. The timing was completely unexpected,” Dolezal said in a Tuesday interview on NBC’s “Today” with Matt Lauer, adding that, “I did feel that at some point I would need to address the complexity of my identity,” but not at this moment. Save for “probably a couple interviews” that she says she would have done a “little differently,” Dolezal however said she would not change any of her decisions. Dolezal clarified to Lauer that she identifies as black, not African-American, and that she began feeling that way when she was “about five years old.” “I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon,” Dolezal told Lauer. Shown a picture of her younger self, Dolezal acknowledged that at the time, she would have been visibly identified by people who see her as white. But the former NAACP chapter president said that she never corrected news reports that identified her as “black” or “biracial” because, she said, “it’s more complex than being true or false in that particular instance.” “I certainly don’t stay out of the sun, you know,” Dolezal said when asked about whether she has done something to darken her complexion. “I also don’t, as some of the critics have said, put on blackface as part of a performance,” she added. “This is not some freak ‘Birth of a Nation’ mockery blackface performance.”
Rachel Dozeal is an absolute lunatic, not gonna debate that. But I will say this – when you’re a little kid and you’re trying to draw white people its always a struggle. The peach colored crayon doesnt really do white skin justice. Your white people never look right. Plus that is confusing as fuck when you see the crayon is named peached and so then automatically you think that white people are “peach” people. So do you you color the skin in with the peach or do you just leave the white paper? One way looks wrong, the other way looks like you just didnt finish coloring your picture. Your family looks like a bunch of translucent vampires. Either way your picture kind of ends up sucking.
Thats why ordinarily I just colored everything blue. From like 3 years old to 7 years old I just colored everything and everyone blue. The sky was blue, water was blue, but also people were blue. Animals were blue. I drew the duck blue because I’ve never seen a blue duck before, and to be honest with you, I wanted to see a blue duck. But you dont see me running around telling people that I’m not a white person do you? Don’t see me saying I identify as a blue person. Not signing up for the NAABP, am I? I do like to BUMP that song “I”m blue da ba dee da ba di” but I dont think I’m actually fucking blue. Just because you were an idiot fucking 5 year old that grabbed the wrong color crayon when you drew pictures does not mean you go on the rest of your life pretending youre a goddam black person.
PS – Just a quick aside – while the color itself sucks, Burnt Sienna is the goat when it comes to Crayola color names
