Where’s the birth certificate? Oh, right: Her mother has it, and has been handing out copies to any media outlet that asks.

Is this the statement of someone who’s so desperate to preserve what’s left of her black “authenticity” that she feels she has no choice but to question her lineage, or are we dealing with someone who’s legit mentally ill? What I mean is, is she knowingly BS-ing us with this answer or has she talked herself into believing it? I’ve got to think it’s the latter, just because there’s no good reason for her to claim her parents aren’t her real parents. It doesn’t hurt her argument that she’s felt black since she was a little girl, whatever her biological race may be. The fact that she’d say something this nutty regardless makes me think she’s much further gone than we thought. Either that or she hates her parents so much that she can’t bring herself to acknowledge them as her real mom and dad, all racial politics aside. Given the fraught family history here, that’s a possibility.

This is weird too:

She said her identification as a black woman “solidified” when she got full custody of her adopted black brother, Izaiah Dolezal, when he was in high school.

“He said, ‘You’re my real mom,’ and for that to be something that is plausible, I certainly can’t be seen as white and be Izaiah’s mom,” Dolezal said.

Uh, why? Or is this just her way of blaming her brother for her physical transformation?

By the way, after a burst of disdain for Dolezal by America’s black commentariat over the weekend, some black authors are starting to speak up on her behalf. Barrett Holmes Pitner and Camille Gear Rich have op-eds out today defending her with the same argument I’ve been making — namely, if Dolezal lacks authenticity because she’s free to drop her black identity whenever she finally tires of the bigotry it attracts, what do we do if she goes on living as black for the rest of her life? If race is a social construct and the sine qua non of black authenticity in America is oppression, why shouldn’t Dolezal be able to construct her race as black if she resolves to accept that oppression? Pitner makes a good point: If it’s true under the modern “one drop” rule that Dolezal could claim black identity if, say, one of her great-grandparents was black, why not just institute a “no drop” rule and let her claim it anyway? Either “race is a social construct” means something or it doesn’t.