美国白人民权领袖冒充黑人 不承认说谎

SPOKANE, Wash. — When she moved into her uncle's basement in the largely White town of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in 2004, Rachel A. Dolezal was still blond and pale-skinned and identified herself as a white woman — one who had left a black husband and had a biracial child.

华盛顿州斯波坎市——2004年，蕾切尔·A·多尔扎尔(Rachel A. Dolezal)搬进爱达荷州科达伦镇的叔叔家，住在他的地下室里。科达伦镇的居民大部分都是白人，当时的蕾切尔还是白肤金发。她也自称是个白人，和黑人丈夫离了婚，带着一个混血孩子来到这里。

But within a few years, her already deep commitment to black causes and culture intensified. Co-workers and relatives began hearing talk that her background was mixed-race — and even that she had called herself black.

但在短短几年中，她之前就对黑人的理想与文化产生的强烈认同又有所深化。同事和亲戚开始听到她说，自己来自混血背景，甚至就是黑人。

Many of them questioned the way she described herself, while others accepted it at face value. No one seems to have made an issue of it, but most People saw in her a force of personality that made her a strong and passionate advocate at the Human Rights Education Institute in Coeur d'Alene, where she began working soon afterward.

不少人曾对她形容自己的方式提出质疑，其他人则简单接受了这一点。但似乎没人把它当成一件大事，他们大多都在她身上感受到一种人格力量，这种力量使她成了科达伦人权教育协会(Human Rights Education Institute)里一名坚定而富有激情的倡导者。她在改变身份后没多久就开始在这里工作。

“It's really impressive what she accomplished, bringing a lot of energy to these places,” her uncle, Daniel A. Dolezal, recalled in a telephone interview on Tuesday, speaking of the human rights group as well as the NAACP chapter in Spokane, which she later rose to lead. He recalled her journey from being a down-on-her-luck single mother who took part-Time teaching jobs, tried to sell her artwork, and worked in the camera store he owns in Coeur d'Alene, in a part of the Idaho panhandle that was once the headquarters of Aryan Nations, the white supremacist group.

“她的成就令人赞叹，给这些地方带来很多活力，”她的叔叔丹尼尔·A·多尔扎尔(Daniel A. Dolezal)在周二进行的电话采访中回忆到，他说到了上述人权机构和全国有色人种协进会(NAACP)在斯波坎市的分支，多尔扎尔最终成了后者的负责人。他回忆了她一路走来的旅程，最初是一个不走运的单身母亲，兼职做着教师工作，后来试着出售自己创作的艺术品，并在他开在科达伦镇上的照相机商店里打工。当地属于爱达荷州走廊的一部分，一度曾是白人至上主义组织雅利安民族(Aryan Nations)的总部所在地。

So when Dolezal (pronounced DOLE-uh-zhal) went on national televisionon Tuesdayfor the first time since she became the subject of a raging debate about racial identity and fabrication, it was no surprise that while she cannot claim a hint of black ancestry, she refused to concede that she had misled anyone. “I identify as black,” she said with a smile.

自多尔扎尔成为一场有关种族认同和身份造假的热烈争论的对象以来，她在周二首次出现在全国性的电视节目上。一点也不令人诧异的是，尽管无法证明自己有丝毫的黑人血统，她还是拒绝让步和承认自己之前误导了任何人。“我觉得自己是黑人，”她微笑着说。

She would not backpedal, and “I guarantee you she never will,” said her uncle, who took her in more than a decade ago as her marriage crumbled. “That's part of her persona, never backing down — always forward, totally sure of herself.”

她不会改变这种说法，而且“我向你保证她永远也不会，”十多年前在她婚姻破裂时收留了她的叔叔说。“这就是她，永远不会后退，永远向前，百分百自信。”

On Tuesday, Matt Lauer ofNBC's “Today” showasked her, “When did you start deceiving people?” But Dolezal, who stepped downon Mondayas president of the Spokane NAACP chapter, pushed back.

本周二，NBC电视台的马特·劳尔(Matt Lauer)在他主持的《今日》(Today)节目中问她，“你是从什么时候开始骗人的？”周一刚刚卸任NAACP斯波坎市分支负责人一职的她就此做出了强烈回应。

“I do take exception to that because it's a little more complex than me identifying as black, or answering a question of, `Are you black or white?”' she said. Over the course of the day, she also described herself as “transracial” and said: “Well, I definitely am not ing about being white describes who I am.”

“我反对你这种说法，因为这可比称自己是黑人或回答‘你是黑人还是白人’的问题复杂一些，”多尔扎尔说。在这一天当中，她还称自己“跨种族”，她说：“好吧，我绝对不是白人。有关白人的描绘完全不适用于我。”

Her story has set off a national debate about the very meaning of racial identity, with some people applauding her message and goals and others deploring her methods and actions. It was one thing for Dolezal to identify with, appreciate and even partake in black culture, some critics said, but it was another thing for her to try to become black, going so far as to change her physical appearance.

她的故事在全美国引发了有关种族身份的争论，一些人赞同她所传达的信息和目标，其他人则谴责她的方式和行为。一些批评人士称，对于多尔扎尔来说，认同、欣赏甚至分享黑人文化是一件事，但试图成为黑人是另一件事，她甚至改变了自己的外貌。

“It taps into all of these issues around blackface and wearing blackness and that whole cultural legacy, which makes it that much more vile,” said Baz Dreisinger, an English professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, author of the book “Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture.”

约翰·杰刑事司法学院(John Jay College of Criminal Justice)英语教授、《近似黑人：美国文化中白人冒充黑人的现象》(Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture)作者巴兹·德莱辛格(Baz Dreisinger)表示，“这涉及有关扮演黑人、呈现黑人特征及整个文化遗产的所有问题，这让这种行为显得更加低下。”

Some people who have known Dolezal only as a black woman said they felt hurt and misled, saying she could have been an equally effective leader at the NAACP without the disguise.

一些只知道多尔扎尔黑人身份的人说，他们感觉受到伤害和误导，并且表示即便没有伪装，她也可以成为同样有力的NAACP领导者。

“The issue for me has been the deception, the lie, portraying herself as someone she isn't,” said Dorothy Webster, a longtime member of the Spokane NAACP and former deputy manager for the city of Spokane. “I cannot rationalize it.”

“对于我来说，问题在于欺骗、撒谎，把自己描绘成另外一个人，”NAACP斯波坎市分会的资深成员、该市的前副城市经理多萝西·韦伯斯特(Dorothy Webster)说。“我无法理解。”

Although her advocacy work has admirers, serious questions have been raised about Dolezal's credibility — and not just about her race. Her public statements about her family and upbringing have been challenged by relatives, including her parents, creating the odd spectacle of dueling interviews, with her making claims on one network, and them denying them on another. Over the years she has reported numerous complaints with the police of racially motivated harassment and intimidation, though the police have said that none have so far proved credible enough for charges to be brought.

虽然她的倡导工作得到钦佩，但除了种族问题，多尔扎尔的信誉也不断饱受质疑。她发表的有关其家庭及成长过程的公开声明遭到了包括父母在内的亲属的回击，以至于出现了双方通过采访隔空斗嘴的奇怪景象：她在一家电视网发表声明，她的家人则在另一家电视网予以否认。多年来，她曾多次向警方举报出于种族动机的骚扰及恐吓行为，但警方表示，到目前为止，没有足够的可信证据使其可以提出指控。

She is estranged from her parents, Ruthanne and Lawrence Dolezal, and in Spokane, she has represented a friend, an older African-American man, as her father. When Rachel Dolezal was a teenager, her parents adopted four black children, one of whom now lives with Dolezal and her natural son, whom she had with her former husband, Kevin D. Moore, who is black.

她与父母露丝安娜·多尔扎尔(Ruthanne Dolezal)、劳伦斯·多尔扎尔(Lawrence Dolezal)已断绝来往。在斯坡坎，她一直声称一名年长的非裔友人是自己的父亲。蕾切尔·多尔扎尔的父母在她十几岁的时候，收养了四名黑人儿童，其中一人现在与多尔扎尔及她的亲生儿子住在一起。这个亲生孩子的父亲是她的黑人前夫凯文·D·莫尔(Kevin D. Moore)。

She is also estranged from her biological brother, Joshua, who is facing charges in Colorado that, when he was 19 years old, he sexually molested one of his adopted brothers, who was 6 or 7 at the time, in the parents' home, which was then in Clear Creek County, Colorado. Ruthanne Dolezal told People magazine that the molestation charges are not true and were initiated by Rachel.

她同亲生哥哥乔舒亚(Joshua)也形同陌路。目前乔舒亚在科罗拉多州面临数项指控，称其在19岁的时候对父母收养的当时只有六七岁的一个弟弟进行了性骚扰。那时他们还住在科罗拉多州克利尔克里克县的父母家中。露丝安娜·多尔扎尔向《人物》杂志(People)透露，这些猥亵指控并不属实，而且是由蕾切尔提出的。

Dolezal's path to this curious point has been unorthodox, beginning with her childhood in a remote corner of northwestern Montana, in and around the little town of Troy. Earlier this year, she told a news organization at Eastern Washington University, where she taught, that she had been born in a teepee, that her mother and stepfather had beaten her and her siblings, that “they would punish us by skin complexion,” and that they lived for a time in South Africa.

多尔扎尔来到今天这个尴尬境地是经历了一段不同寻常的过往。她小时候住在蒙大拿州西北部偏远地区的小镇特洛伊附近。今年早些时候，她在自己当时任教的东华盛顿大学(Eastern Washington University)向一家新闻机构表示，自己出生在一顶印第安人的帐篷里，并曾和家人在南非生活过一段时间。蕾切尔称，生母和继父曾痛打他们几个兄弟姐妹，“他们会因为我们的肤色而惩罚我们。”

Family members say none of this is true. All agree that she has no stepfather, that this was one of several attempts she has made to deny the existence of her real father, Lawrence. Her parents moved to South Africa after Rachel was grown and out of the house.

不过，多名家庭成员表示蕾切尔所说的这些话没有一句是真的。他们一致表示她并没有继父，而这不过是她为了否认生父劳伦斯的存在而采取的几项动作之一。再者，蕾切尔长大离家后，她的父母才去了南非。

As for the abuse allegations, “that's just false,” her father said in an interview on Friday. “That's the most hurtful.”

至于虐待指控，她的父亲在周五接受采访时表示，“完全是假的。那才是最伤人的。”

Dolezal said Tuesday on “Today” that at age 5, “I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon, and the black curly hair, you know.” Her parents, appearing later on Fox News, denied that.

多尔扎尔周二在《今日》节目中说道，“你知道吗，5岁的时候，我画自画像用的就是棕色的笔而不是桃色的笔，头发画的是黑色卷发。”之后，其父母在Fox新闻台对此予以否认。

Daniel Dolezal said Tuesday that her recollection of her 5-year-old self did not ring true. “She probably wouldn't have known any black people” then, he said. (Efforts by The Times to reach Rachel Dolezal, Ruthanne and Lawrence Dolezal, and Joshua Dolezal on Tuesday were not successful.)

丹尼尔·多尔扎尔在周二表示，蕾切尔对自己5岁时的自画像的回忆并不真实。“她那个时候可能还不认识任何一个黑人，”他说。（时报在周二曾尝试联系蕾切尔·多尔扎尔、露丝安娜和劳伦斯·多尔扎尔夫妇，以及乔舒亚·多尔扎尔，不过均未成功。）

Rachel was home-schooled for at least part of the time she was in high school, her uncle said. And when she was between the ages of 15 and 17, her parents adopted four black infants.

蕾切尔的叔叔透露，上高中的时候，她至少有一部分时间在家自学。在她15到17岁期间，父母收养了四个黑人婴儿。

“She immediately was drawn to them,” her father said. “Ever since then she's had a tremendous affinity with African-Americans.”

“她立刻就被这些孩子吸引了，”蕾切尔的父亲说。“从此以后，她就同非裔美国人无比地亲近。”

In the “Today” interview one Tuesday and one that followed on a sister network, MSNBC, Dolezal, remarkably composed despite harsh criticism aimed at her, stuck to her insistence that racial heredity does not equal identity, and she would not answer questions about whether she had changed her self-identification to merely gain advantage.

尽管面对着严厉的批评声，多尔扎尔周二在接受《今日》节目及NBC姊妹台MSNBC的采访时展现出了惊人的镇定，仍然坚持认为族裔遗传并不等同于种族认同。对于有关她是否只是为了获得好处而改变自我认同的问题，她均不予回答。

Lauer asked if she could have been as successful an activist if she had portrayed herself as white.

劳尔还问道，如果她一直把自己描述成白人的话，能否成为同样成功的活动人士？

“I don't know,” Dolezal said. “I guess I haven't had the opportunity to experience that in those shoes, so I'm not sure.”

“我不知道，”多尔扎尔回答。“我想我没有机会以那样的身份去体验，所以我不确定。”