Rachel Dolezal’s Parents Say She Has A History Of ‘Seeking To Reinvent Reality’

The par­ents of Rachel Dolezal spoke to HuffPost Live on Friday after reveal­ing to the media that their daugh­ter, the pres­i­dent of the Spokane chap­ter of the NAACP, had been dis­guis­ing her­self as African American for years.

Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal told hosts Marc Lamont Hill and Nancy Redd that their daugh­ter has a his­to­ry of “seek­ing to rein­vent real­i­ty,” accord­ing to her moth­er. She had “expec­ta­tions of her­self that were not real­is­tic, and also just a neg­a­tive sort of view of peo­ple and fam­i­ly –- that sort of thing was also con­cern­ing,” Ruthanne added.

The cou­ple told HuffPost Live their daugh­ter “had a hap­py child­hood, grew up in a lov­ing home” along­side four adopt­ed African American sib­lings. The two claim that Rachel’s sib­lings “were warned not to let it out — not to blow her cov­er” by Rachel herself.

“They’re puz­zled, but [her sib­lings] told us that they are basi­cal­ly feel­ing that she’s basi­cal­ly been out­ed,” her father said.

“The chil­dren did not enjoy hav­ing to be secre­tive about Rachel’s real iden­ti­ty,” her mom added.

The Dolezals view their daugh­ter’s dis­hon­esty about her iden­ti­ty as a way of dis­own­ing them as par­ents, which “is the painful part of this,” they said.

“We’re very fond of our African American friends. We’ve always enjoyed eth­nic­i­ty and diver­si­ty and had friends, and Rachel grew up that way. Adopting the four chil­dren was an exten­sion of that as well. [Rachel’s] iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with African Americans is not hurt­ful to us, but for her to reject us as par­ents, that is what hurts, and the dis­hon­esty is very con­cern­ing,” her moth­er said.

Still, they have pos­i­tive and lov­ing mem­o­ries of Rachel that are not reflect­ed in the false­hoods about her iden­ti­ty. Ruthanne began to choke up as she recalled how, as a child, their daugh­ter “was always car­ing about oth­er peo­ple and spoke well of her fam­i­ly and want­ed to be iden­ti­fied with us” — a depar­ture from the Rachel they see now.

“We rec­og­nize her, obvi­ous­ly, but this isn’t the Rachel that we know,” Larry affirmed. “It hurts us deeply, and we’re quite sad­dened by that.”

Despite the strains this deceit has tak­en on their rela­tion­ship, the Dolezals have a mes­sage for their daugh­ter: “Rachel, we love you,” her moth­er declared. “Please tell the truth.“Rachel Dolezal’s Parents Say She Has A History Of ‘Seeking To Reinvent Reality’