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Doug Clark: Dolezal at NAACP perfectly OK in fake world

Rachel Dolezal has resigned her NAACP presidency.

Aw, say it ain’t so.

I haven’t been this broken up since Richard Milhous Nixon abdicated the Oval Office three months after opening Expo ’74.

The Dolezal drama has provided some of the best theater I’ve witnessed around here in ages.

Attention? Seems like the whole world has been obsessed with Spokane over this. Lord knows what it will do to tourism, but I remain optimistic.

Dolezal, to recap, is the NAACP president who came under fire last week due to her repeated claims of being an African American.

Her parents, however, say she’s white.

Her birth certificate says she’s white. Family photos show her as white.

One news account quoted her adopted brother, Ezra, as saying that Dolezal took him aside three years ago and asked him “not to blow her cover.”

OK, let’s be honest. Anyone with an IQ higher than a Q-tip has concluded by now that Rachel Dolezal is not just white, but Vanilla Ice white.

But quit? I totally missed this.

“Please know I will never stop fighting for human rights and will do everything in my power to help and assist, whether it means stepping up or stepping down, because this is not about me,” wrote Dolezal in her resignation letter.

“It’s about justice.”

This lady has more stones than the St. Joe River bed.

The NAACP needs to launch a “Recall the Recall” and get her back. No wonder she’s been credited for reinvigorating the organization.

The way so many members were dragging their feet, I believed they’d circle the wagons and defiantly decide to keep their faux soul sister.

You know, like what happened to that other charismatic leader who was exposed to be as phony as a telemarketer’s promise.

As with Dolezal, people were hotly divided.

One camp called for the flimflammer’s head. The other camp wanted to live and let live.

“Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana, Gary …”

That’s right. It’s the plot to “The Music Man.”

Gawd I love that musical.

The point is that it all worked out to a rosy climax.

Prof. Harold Hill was a fake and a fraud, sure. But his intentions were good and he got the kids to at least try to squawk out melodies on their mail-order band instruments.

Drop the curtain.

Cue the lights.

Applause. Applause.

Too bad the NAACP’s Spokane chapter didn’t study this Meredith Willson classic before allowing Dolezal to pull the plug.

This admirable organization could’ve recast Dolezal as the poster girl for a new “Black Like Us” recruiting program.

Why not? Race relations have never been so strained.

Events in Baltimore, and Ferguson, Missouri, and Sanford, Florida, have created a powder keg with a lit fuse.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could finally all get together and laugh and scratch and accept each other for all of our faults and false IDs?

Count me in, although if anybody’s noticed, my complexion closely resembles the underbelly of a deceased carp.

I know. The NAACP doesn’t exclude other races from joining or even holding office.

What did in Dolezal, critics contend, was her evasiveness and dishonesty.

It spawned the recall petition. It inflamed many TV pundits, who, hiding behind their makeup and implants, clucked their tongues through capped white teeth about truth, integrity and the American Way.

Give me a break.

Sure, there was a quaint time back when our grandparents were young when those old-school virtues were important.

But now? In this modern age?

We’re living in the time of Brian Williams and Stephen Glass and Caitlyn Jenner and Beyonce lip-syncing the national anthem and Lance Armstrong, not to mention Bill Clinton defining “is.”

The Secret Service is getting blitzed and hiring hookers. Bogus soldiers are stealing valor. Tom Brady’s on the hook for deflated balls.

Up is down. Down is up.

Everybody’s hiding something. Everybody’s telling lies.

And television has become a vast wasteland of one fake reality show after another.

What happened here in Spokane pales by comparison.

Face it, people. The truth just isn’t black and white anymore. In this world we’re damned lucky if it shows up wearing an orange spray tan.

Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by email at dougc@spokesman.com.

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