Rachel Dolezal says she’d like to write a book

Rachel Dolezal would like to tell her story her way, she explains to Vanity Fair, and thinks a book is the best way to do it. “I would like to write a book just so that I can send [it to] everybody there as opposed to having to continue explaining,” she says in an interview.

What she has to explain is the strange story that fascinated America in June. Dolezal, who was had worked in social justice issues dealing with race and was head of the Spokane, Wash., NAACP, was revealed by her parents to be white.

Dolezal had been portraying herself as black, and the story of her misrepresentation gained media momentum. Dolezal resigned her NAACP position. Yet when she appeared on the Today show, Dolezal didn’t back down, telling Matt Lauer, “I identify as black.”

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She repeats that sentiment in her Vanity Fair interview. “It’s taken my entire life to negotiate how to identify, and I’ve done a lot of research and a lot of studying,” says Dolezal, who attended the historically black Howard University. “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.”

Among Dolezal’s confusing gestures are indicating an African American man was her dad, claiming to be a victim of racially motivated hate crimes and, in 2002, filing suit against Howard University claiming discrimination against her for not being African American.

Does sound like there’s a book’s worth of explaining to do.

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