Controversy has erupted over the racial identity of an NAACP leader in Washington state, after her parents told media outlets that their daughter is white and has been pretending to be black for years.<\/p>\n
Rachel Dolezal, 37, is president of the civil rights organization\u2019s Spokane chapter and teaches Africana studies at Eastern Washington University.<\/p>\n
Lawrence and Ruthanne Dolezal, a white couple from Montana, have said in interviews that they are her biological parents. Rachel Dolezal has described herself publicly as biracial and has posted photos of herself online with a black man she identified as her father.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s our birth daughter, and we\u2019re both of European descent,\u201d Larry Dolezal told BuzzFeed. \u201cWe\u2019re puzzled, and it\u2019s very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dolezals said their daughter started to change her appearance after her divorce from an African-American man in 2004, KREM reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cRachel has wanted to be somebody she\u2019s not. She\u2019s chosen not to just be herself but to represent herself as an African American woman or a biracial person. And that\u2019s simply not true,\u201d Ruthanne Dolezal told the station.<\/p>\n
The couple added that they see nothing wrong with their daughter advocating for African-American rights but do not think she should deceive anyone about her own ethnic background, which they say is mainly German and Czech.<\/p>\n