Riveting, fascinating, delusional are just a few of the subjective terms that have been used to describe Rachel Dolezal over the past week and now after stepping down from her post at the NAACP, she is giving her first interview to TODAY’s Matt Lauer.

During the sit down with Rachel which aired on Tuesday June 16 she opens up on her racial identity and discusses the firestorm she has been engulfed in as well as why she resigned from her position after many were outraged and called for her resignation. She gave background on her story and reveals that from the time she was a young girl she felt that she was black and even drew self portraits of herself as a black child.

“I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon, and black curly hair. 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?”

“As much as this discussion has somewhat been at my expense recently, and in a very sort of viciously inhumane way come out of the woodwork, the discussion is really about what it is to be human.”

“I hope that that can drive at the core of definitions of race, ethnicity, culture, self determination, personal agency and, ultimately, empowerment.”

Watch the full interview below.