美國白人民權領袖冒充黑人 不承認說謊

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.

華盛頓州斯波坎市——2004年，蕾切爾·A·多爾扎爾(Rachel A. Dolezal)搬進愛達荷州科達倫鎮的叔叔家，住在他的地下室裏。科達倫鎮的居民大部分都是白人，當時的蕾切爾還是白膚金髮。她也自稱是個白人，和黑人丈夫離了婚，帶着一個混血孩子來到這裏。

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，她之前就對黑人的理想與文化產生的強烈認同又有所深化。同事和親戚開始聽到她說，自己來自混血背景，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.

不少人曾對她形容自己的方式提出質疑，其他人則簡單接受了這一點。但似乎沒人把它當成一件大事，他們大多都在她身上感受到一種人格力量，這種力量使她成了科達倫人權教育協會(Human Rights Education Institute)裏一名堅定而富有激情的倡導者。她在改變身份後沒多久就開始在這裏工作。

“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.

“她的成就令人讚歎，給這些地方帶來很多活力，”她的叔叔丹尼爾·A·多爾扎爾(Daniel A. Dolezal)在週二進行的電話採訪中回憶到，他說到了上述人權機構和全國有色人種協進會(NAACP)在斯波坎市的分支，多爾扎爾最終成了後者的負責人。他回憶了她一路走來的旅程，最初是一個不走運的單身母親，兼職做着教師工作，後來試着出售自己創作的藝術品，並在他開在科達倫鎮上的照相機商店裏打工。當地屬於愛達荷州走廊的一部分，一度曾是白人至上主義組織雅利安民族(Aryan Nations)的總部所在地。

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.

自多爾扎爾成爲一場有關種族認同和身份造假的熱烈爭論的對象以來，她在週二首次出現在全國性的電視節目上。一點也不令人詫異的是，儘管無法證明自己有絲毫的黑人血統，她還是拒絕讓步和承認自己之前誤導了任何人。“我覺得自己是黑人，”她微笑着說。

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.”

她不會改變這種說法，而且“我向你保證她永遠也不會，”十多年前在她婚姻破裂時收留了她的叔叔說。“這就是她，永遠不會後退，永遠向前，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.

本週二，NBC電視臺的馬特·勞爾(Matt Lauer)在他主持的《今日》(Today)節目中問她，“你是從什麼時候開始騙人的？”週一剛剛卸任NAACP斯波坎市分支負責人一職的她就此做出了強烈迴應。

“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.”

“我反對你這種說法，因爲這可比稱自己是黑人或回答‘你是黑人還是白人’的問題複雜一些，”多爾扎爾說。在這一天當中，她還稱自己“跨種族”，她說：“好吧，我絕對不是白人。有關白人的描繪完全不適用於我。”

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.

她的故事在全美國引發了有關種族身份的爭論，一些人贊同她所傳達的信息和目標，其他人則譴責她的方式和行爲。一些批評人士稱，對於多爾扎爾來說，認同、欣賞甚至分享黑人文化是一件事，但試圖成爲黑人是另一件事，她甚至改變了自己的外貌。

“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.”

約翰·傑刑事司法學院(John Jay College of Criminal Justice)英語教授、《近似黑人：美國文化中白人冒充黑人的現象》(Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture)作者巴茲·德萊辛格(Baz Dreisinger)表示，“這涉及有關扮演黑人、呈現黑人特徵及整個文化遺產的所有問題，這讓這種行爲顯得更加低下。”

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.

一些只知道多爾扎爾黑人身份的人說，他們感覺受到傷害和誤導，並且表示即便沒有僞裝，她也可以成爲同樣有力的NAACP領導者。

“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.”

“對於我來說，問題在於欺騙、撒謊，把自己描繪成另外一個人，”NAACP斯波坎市分會的資深成員、該市的前副城市經理多蘿西·韋伯斯特(Dorothy Webster)說。“我無法理解。”

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.

雖然她的倡導工作得到欽佩，但除了種族問題，多爾扎爾的信譽也不斷飽受質疑。她發表的有關其家庭及成長過程的公開聲明遭到了包括父母在內的親屬的回擊，以至於出現了雙方通過採訪隔空鬥嘴的奇怪景象：她在一家電視網發表聲明，她的家人則在另一家電視網予以否認。多年來，她曾多次向警方舉報出於種族動機的騷擾及恐嚇行爲，但警方表示，到目前爲止，沒有足夠的可信證據使其可以提出指控。

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.

她與父母露絲安娜·多爾扎爾(Ruthanne Dolezal)、勞倫斯·多爾扎爾(Lawrence Dolezal)已斷絕來往。在斯坡坎，她一直聲稱一名年長的非裔友人是自己的父親。蕾切爾·多爾扎爾的父母在她十幾歲的時候，收養了四名黑人兒童，其中一人現在與多爾扎爾及她的親生兒子住在一起。這個親生孩子的父親是她的黑人前夫凱文·D·莫爾(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.

她同親生哥哥喬舒亞(Joshua)也形同陌路。目前喬舒亞在科羅拉多州面臨數項指控，稱其在19歲的時候對父母收養的當時只有六七歲的一個弟弟進行了性騷擾。那時他們還住在科羅拉多州克利爾克里克縣的父母家中。露絲安娜·多爾扎爾向《人物》雜誌(People)透露，這些猥褻指控並不屬實，而且是由蕾切爾提出的。

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.

多爾扎爾來到今天這個尷尬境地是經歷了一段不同尋常的過往。她小時候住在蒙大拿州西北部偏遠地區的小鎮特洛伊附近。今年早些時候，她在自己當時任教的東華盛頓大學(Eastern Washington University)向一家新聞機構表示，自己出生在一頂印第安人的帳篷裏，並曾和家人在南非生活過一段時間。蕾切爾稱，生母和繼父曾痛打他們幾個兄弟姐妹，“他們會因爲我們的膚色而懲罰我們。”

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.

不過，多名家庭成員表示蕾切爾所說的這些話沒有一句是真的。他們一致表示她並沒有繼父，而這不過是她爲了否認生父勞倫斯的存在而採取的幾項動作之一。再者，蕾切爾長大離家後，她的父母纔去了南非。

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

至於虐待指控，她的父親在週五接受採訪時表示，“完全是假的。那纔是最傷人的。”

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.

多爾扎爾週二在《今日》節目中說道，“你知道嗎，5歲的時候，我畫自畫像用的就是棕色的筆而不是桃色的筆，頭髮畫的是黑色捲髮。”之後，其父母在Fox新聞臺對此予以否認。

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.)

丹尼爾·多爾扎爾在週二表示，蕾切爾對自己5歲時的自畫像的回憶並不真實。“她那個時候可能還不認識任何一個黑人，”他說。（時報在週二曾嘗試聯繫蕾切爾·多爾扎爾、露絲安娜和勞倫斯·多爾扎爾夫婦，以及喬舒亞·多爾扎爾，不過均未成功。）

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.

蕾切爾的叔叔透露，上高中的時候，她至少有一部分時間在家自學。在她15到17歲期間，父母收養了四個黑人嬰兒。

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

“她立刻就被這些孩子吸引了，”蕾切爾的父親說。“從此以後，她就同非裔美國人無比地親近。”

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.

儘管面對着嚴厲的批評聲，多爾扎爾週二在接受《今日》節目及NBC姊妹臺MSNBC的採訪時展現出了驚人的鎮定，仍然堅持認爲族裔遺傳並不等同於種族認同。對於有關她是否只是爲了獲得好處而改變自我認同的問題，她均不予回答。

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

勞爾還問道，如果她一直把自己描述成白人的話，能否成爲同樣成功的活動人士？

“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，”多爾扎爾回答。“我想我沒有機會以那樣的身份去體驗，所以我不確定。”