The Daily Show's Jon Stewart reaction to the Rachel Dolezal story could be summarized in one word: "Whaaaaaaaat?!"
Dolezal claimed to be a black woman as she headed the Spokane branch of the NAACP, but her parents claimed last week that she's a white woman, saying she's of Czech, Swedish, and German origin. "What? Czech, Swedish, and German is really fucking white," Stewart joked.
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But Dolezal presented herself as black for nearly 10 years. "So this woman took this lie very far. And at this point, you got to wonder, does she even know if she's lying anymore?" Stewart said, pointing to the infamous local TV news interview in which she was first asked if she's African-American.
"Are you African-American?" the KXLY reporter asked in the video. Dolezal looked around nervously, then said, "I don't understand the question."
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"So her mouth says, 'I don't understand the question,'" Stewart said. "But her eyes say, 'Fuuuuuuuuuck. I'm busted.'"
Since that interview, Dolezal has resigned from the NAACP.
Dolezal said she identifies as black
Dolezal told Today's Matt Lauer on Tuesday that she always expected at one point she would need to come forward and "address the complexity of my identity." Asked if she's an African-American woman, Dolezal responded, "I identify as black."
Dolezal insisted she never meant to deceive anyone. She said media outlets began identifying her as black, and she never bothered to correct them. "I've had to answer a lot of questions throughout my life," she said.
"This is not some freak, Birth of a Nation, mockery blackface performance," Dolezal explained. "This is on a very real, connected level how I've actually had to go there with the experience — not just a visible representation, but experience."
