It’s been two years since the public exposure of Rachel Dolezal, the former African-American studies professor and NAACP branch president who was revealed to have actually been a white woman passing as black.
Since then, Dolezal has reportedly fallen on hard times. According to a new interview in the Guardian, she’s now living on food stamps, she’s unemployed (she says she’s applied to more than 100 jobs to no avail), and she’s on the brink of homelessness. The only job offers she says she’s received are for pornography or reality TV appearances.
She reportedly is not, however, apologetic or remorseful for the years she spent spreading the belief that she was a black woman.
“I’m not going to stoop and apologize and grovel and feel bad about it,” Dolezal told the Guardian’s Decca Aitkenhead in a conversation at a Spokane, Washington hotel. “I would just be going back to when I was little, and had to be what everybody else told me I should be—to make them happy.”
The revelations two years ago set off a media firestorm, after a reporter famously asked her directly whether she was truly African-American. Dolezal’s stunned silence and quick exit from the conversation spoke volumes, and it signaled the beginning of the end for her years-long secret.
Her parents subsequently confirmed that Dolezal was white, which led to her firing from her university and her resignation from the Spokane, NAACP chapter.
To read the entire feature on Dolezal, click here for the Guardian’s story.