White US professor admits she has pretended to be Black for years

[mysteryowl]

Jessica Krug, an activist who teaches African American history, writes Medium post apologizing for false identity.

A seasoned activist and professor of African American history at George Washington University has been pretending to be Black for years, despite actually being a white woman from Kansas City.

In a case eerily reminiscent to Rachel Dolezal, Jessica A Krug took financial support from cultural institutions such as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for a book she wrote about fugitive resistance to the transatlantic slave trade. But according to a Medium post allegedly written by Krug herself, her career was rooted in a “toxic soil of lies”.

“To an escalating degree over my adult life, I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness,” she wrote.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/03/jessica-krug-white-professor-pretended-black

This must be some kind of psychological condition.
I would assume it is rare, but maybe not.

[ck4829]

1. Yeah, the psychological condition is "race"

We're assigning more power to the social construct of race than we need to.

I think the only real problem is HOW she went about it, not that she did it. The thing is, race itself does need to be defied and subverted.

Imagine if a chunk of white people said "Treat me as though I'm black" to the police and shop owners during the civil rights movement.

Imagine if this was used to resist redlining and sundown towns.

Maybe this is along the thinking we need to do for the worst white people, these gross white nationalists taking more and more root today. You know, *cough* Trump's base. I think we're not doing enough to resist them, it would be nice if we white people could collectively rise up and tell these white nationalists who act like being born white is an achievement that "We're not the same in any way, you're disgusting."

It would be interesting if race turned into something you *became* rather than something you were born into.

[stopdiggin]

3. you make a good point about

social construct and identity on an intellectual level. Not so sure that it will fly with a lot of people on a emotional gut level.

In this case -- the woman obtained "benefit" from her constructed "identity." I'm sure that will offend many -- and perhaps disqualify any legitimate claims she might offer toward a true and sympathetic "identification" she has. But .. as you point out .. this is a much deeper subject than many are willing to accord it.
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[LuvNewcastle]

2. I don't know how common this sort of thing

is with college professors, but I've known quite a few lower class white women who pretended to be black women. Whoever wrote this article needs to get out more.

[Delarage]

4. I don't know any "out" white nationalists....

But I do say "We're not the same in any way, you're disgusting." to any Trumpers I meet at work or wherever. And after that, they're dead to me....unless I have to interact for work, there is NO contact.