If you can choose your gender, why not have the ability to choose your race?

That appears to be the argument shaping up to explain the bizarre case of NAACP Spokane, Washington chapter president Rachel Dolezal, whose parents have gone public with the fact that she was born blond and blue-eyed.

CBS News:

Rachel Dolezal, the president of the Spokane, Washington, NAACP, is being accused of falsely portraying herself as a black woman, CBS News' Adriana Diaz reports.

Her biological parents claim she is misrepresenting "major portions of her life," including being born white. As the city's mayor says it has opened an investigation and is gathering facts to determine if any city policies were violated, Dolezal is denying these accusations.

"Actually, I don't like the term African-American; I prefer black. So, if asked, I would say, yes, I consider myself to be black," Dolezal said to Spokane affiliate KREM.

But Dolezal's biological parents say that's just not true.

"Our daughter is primarily German and Czech and of European descent," her mother said.

Her parents, Ruthanne and Larry, live in a rural home in Troy, Montana.

Her father described a young Dolezal as blonde, blue-eyed and freckled-face.

"No way to get around it," he said.

The couple say their daughter is pretending to be someone she's not.

"Rachel has wanted to be somebody she's not. She's chosen not to just be herself but to represent herself as an African-American woman or a biracial person," Ruthanne said. "Rachel is a master artist, and she's able to disguise herself and make her appearance look like any ethnicity."

Dolezal's biography at Eastern Washington University says she received her master's degree from Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, D.C.

KREM-TV obtained police reports in which Dolezal claims to be the victim of several hate crimes. They found that police responded but no suspects were identified and no arrests were ever made.

She said the only ones questioning her identity are Larry and Ruthanne.

"I don't give two s**** what they think," Dolezal said.

"It's more important for me to clarify that with the black community and my executive board than with people who don't understand," she said.

This picture should convince even the most skeptical:

Doleazal gave a local reporter a bizarre explanation:

The 37-year-old told the Spokesman Review on Thursday she would prioritise speaking to her executive committee before commenting on speculation in the media. “I feel like I owe my executive committee a conversation,” she said, adding the subject was a “multi-layered issue”.

“The question is not as easy as it seems. There’s a lot of complexities … and I don’t know that everyone would understand that. We’re all from the African continent.”

The police are interested because she was given a paid spot on a police commission solely because of her race.  This represents a fraud upon the public, but don't expect a trial anytime soon.

She is also apparently a faker of "hate crimes":

Her Eastern Washington University bio also says that Dolezal has been the victim of at least eight 'documented hate crimes'.

While in the position, Dolezal filed multiple police reports ranging from theft to harassment to the racially motivated hanging of a nooses in her home.

In a more recent claim of racially motivated harassment, Dolezal made local headlines early this year when hate mail was supposedly sent to her at the NAACP post office box in Spokane.

However, police reports on the case revealed this week that whoever placed the letters and packages into the box would have had to have the key because none had bar codes or stamps.

She can't even fake hate crimes with any competence.

But the issue here, one that will almost surely be taken up by the left, is that Dolezal is perfectly within her rights to pretend to be a black woman, no matter what she was when she was born.  "Racial identity" is what you create for yourself, not what your birth certificate says.  Making up an alternative reality and then getting government to force everyone else to accept it is the ultimate goal – just as it is with transgender people. 

The fact that she has lied about her real identity won't matter to most liberals.  That's because in her intent, she means well.  That kind of nonsense always trumps the facts and can excuse everything else – including murder (Ted Kennedy, for example). 

In the end, I doubt that Dolezal will lose her job or her position.  And another slippery slope will have been created in the process designed to throw the culture into chaos and cause everyone to question everything we thought we knew about our cultural identities.

Thomas Lifson adds:

I disagree with Rick's prediction and expect Dolzeal to get almost no support from the left.  Rick is being logical and applying the same standards, and that is a mistake when the subject is the left.  The left wants to destroy the natural familty, and make eveything relating to sex alienated from nature.  Race, on the other hand, is a matter of utmost importance, a tool to divide society and rank its members.  There is no constituency for fluidity of race.  The very concept threatens the Black Privilege inherent in affirmative action and disparate impact theory.