Rachel Dolezal is going to give America a headache. Breaking down the story in a nutshell, Rachel Dolezal is the President of the NAACP chapter in Spokane Washington, and over the weekend it was learned that the woman who said she had a black father and was black misidentified herself. Her parents are actually white.

Since the story broke, people have been trying to dig deep into the issue, either coming up with excuses for her behavior or throwing all sorts of negative reaction to her. It has been curious to watch reporters walk through the story, watch pundits divine some of the weirdest theories as to why a white woman would want to be black. What is the financial gain for this? Does she have mental issues? In one over the top needle threading, I saw where it was speculated that what Rachel Dolezal may have exposed could be something similar to what transgenders go through, meaning she was a black woman trapped in the body of a white woman.

A lot of the explanations could be seen as something from an Onion article or Comedy Central skit, but when there are professors and respected writers who give some validity to those claims, people begin to listen. When other subjects are woven into the fabric of the main story, issues that are close to but not related to the what Dolezal did muddy the analysis and perception of the public.

Along with the transgender issue, people have said she misrepresented herself to gain fame and fortune, that she may have an invalid degree and by not being black she has no business being head of the NAACP. All of that is clutter obscuring what should be the main focus of the story.

Thankfully, I found a link that lead me to the full eight and a half minute unedited video that caused the uproar over Dolezal. A good portion of the video, about 6-7 minutes, had the local reporter asking questions about the hate mail and hate incidents that Rachel Dolezal claimed happened to her for almost ten years. I read in some blog reports that the reporter ambushed her, and if you watch the cut down interview as most have it can seem like the question about her being black came out of the blue. Here’s the thing; for most of the interview, that 6-7 minutes, Dolezal has no problem answering the questions from the reporter. I would say some of her answers have a lawyer smell to them, but I understand why this might be the case of the police have an open investigation. For instance, she doesn’t want to come out and claim the police are dragging their feet because she’s a black woman in a leadership position. Just to be clear, I don’t know if that would be the answer she would give to some of the questions, but I could see it happening.

Using some Monday morning quarterbacking, there is a part of the video where the reporter asks if she may have sent the threatening letters. While she maintains, in my mind, a lawyer like response to the answer, you can tell she is offended and angered by the accusation. That’s a telling piece of video for me considering the question of her father and race just a few minutes later. When she is accused of sending the hate letters, she’s angry about. She is very strong in her defense against the accusation. When asked about her parents, she had the famous pause most news outlets have shown. In my mind, if the black man in the photo was indeed her father, and she was accused of being white, judging by the response she gave earlier I would think she would give a vigorous answer to that question, not a pause and then turning and walking away.

The main focus of the story is the lie about her parentage. She is on video claiming a black man is her father, then became silent when confronted about her ethnicity. You don’t need to go any deeper than that. You don’t need to bring on scholars and pundits to delve into the history of passing in America. That’s not the issue in her specific case. You don’t need her to resign from the NAACP because she’s white. The NAACP has a history of white people working with them, even in helping found the organization.

The big issue is her misrepresentation and how that effects herself, the people around her and the organization. I heard this morning that the Spokane Police have suspended the investigations into the hate letters sent to the organization. Because of the situation surrounding the letters, which the reporter went through in the interview, if there were letters sent by an outsider Dolezal’s deceit on her ethnicity has unfortunately clouded the waters. If she is to remain as head of the NAACP chapter, this revelation will prevent her from being an effective leader.

What I can’t understand, but in a way I do, is why she had to come up with the black father? This is what I mean. On the application she filled out for the police commission, she said she was white, black and Native American. People always claim to have Native American blood in their history, but that blood isn’t necessarily immediate. It could be a quarter, sixteenth or less. Some may identify with their heritage or not, but not many people would question if they want to identify with their Native American heritage. Rachel Dolezal could have easily said a grandparent was black or even a great grandparent and probably would have been just as accepted into the black community. She went full on and not only said her father was black but she presented a black man as being her father.

It will be an interesting week as the veil is removed and more is learned about Rachel Dolezal. Not only have her parents outed her as being white, so has one of her adopted black brothers claimed that she meant to come to Spokane and live as a black woman. The press has been waiting for a press conference she was going to hold on Monday but at the last moment she postponed it, which has added fuel to the controversy. Some members of the local NAACP have asked for her to resign. This story will be an interesting one to follow.

If you want to see the raw interview, you can check it out below.