Talk about "cultural appropriation!" Yet another person trying to make money in the profitable industry that is pretending that you're something you're not. Usually we call them actors and actresses, but this is another white person claiming to be black in order to preach to actual black people about their lives. And go figure, the person at the center of this story isn't only a professor but an "activist" as well.
A white activist and professor of African-American History at George Washington University (GWU) in Washington D.C., Jessica Krug has allegedly admitted to pretending to be black for her entire career. In an article on Medium, allegedly written by Krug, the professor wrote how she portrayed herself as a black woman over the years.
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. I have not only claimed these identities as my own when I had absolutely no right to do so — when doing so is the very epitome of violence, of thievery and appropriation, of the myriad ways in which non-Black people continue to use and abuse Black identities and cultures — but I have formed intimate relationships with loving, compassionate people who have trusted and cared for me when I have deserved neither trust nor caring. People have fought together with me and have fought for me, and my continued appropriation of a Black Caribbean identity is not only, in the starkest terms, wrong — unethical, immoral, anti-Black, colonial — but it means that every step I’ve taken has gaslighted those whom I love.
Krug goes on to figuratively flagellate herself for carrying on such a charade for so many years.
"I am a coward," Krug wrote. "There is no ignorance, no innocence, nothing to claim, nothing to defend. I have moved wrong in every way for years."
According to Boston.com, GWU is investigating the validity of the article, claiming that they haven't yet confirmed the article's authenticity.
"We are aware of the post and are looking into the situation,” Crystal Nosal, a university spokeswoman, said in an email, Boston.com reported. “We cannot comment further on personnel matters."
Maybe it's just me, with all of my "logic," but why would someone advocate for a specific race - while pretending to be said race - all the while not being said race? Isn't it racist in itself to pretend to be black because you think it increases your victimhood status? Black people are not victims. They're just people like everyone else.
Ugh. Just ugh.
H/T: The Guardian