I am not a culture vulture. I am a culture leech.
September 3, 2020 11:37 AM Subscribe
For the better part of my adult life, every move I’ve made, every relationship I’ve formed, has been rooted in the napalm toxic soil of lies. Jessica A. Krug, a white professor, confesses in a blog post that she falsely claimed Black identity.
"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."
"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."
There's a lot of them aren't there? isn't there that famous one who outed herself a while ago? some perversity that makes you hate what you aspire to be?
posted by infini at 11:52 AM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by infini at 11:52 AM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
I mean, "I don’t believe that any anti-Black life has inherent value"? That, uh. That. Either I'm being fucked with or she's been fucked with. Possibly both.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:53 AM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 11:53 AM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
qannon plant?
posted by infini at 11:56 AM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by infini at 11:56 AM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
I've been seeing some obviously provocative shit show up - may be the race war guys?
posted by infini at 11:57 AM on September 3, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by infini at 11:57 AM on September 3, 2020 [5 favorites]
All the reporting I've seen on this is based entirely on the Medium post, from an account with no history or link to other social media. I'm not saying it's fake, but that's kind of weird. Maybe I'm too paranoid.
posted by theodolite at 12:06 PM on September 3, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 12:06 PM on September 3, 2020 [5 favorites]
I don’t believe that any anti-Black life has inherent value. I don’t know what to build from here.
The context strongly suggests that by "life" she does not mean lifeforms or individual living beings, but life as is lifestyle or way of life and of living. She does not know what life to build because the life she had built was anti-black, and she can find nothing of "inherent value" in it upon which to build a new life.
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:06 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
The context strongly suggests that by "life" she does not mean lifeforms or individual living beings, but life as is lifestyle or way of life and of living. She does not know what life to build because the life she had built was anti-black, and she can find nothing of "inherent value" in it upon which to build a new life.
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:06 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
Judging from academic twitter, I don't think this is "fake" or a "qanon plant"…
posted by Ahmad Khani at 12:18 PM on September 3, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by Ahmad Khani at 12:18 PM on September 3, 2020 [6 favorites]
This is gross and horrible and that’s all there is to say right now. Please let’s elevate other things than this as well.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:18 PM on September 3, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 12:18 PM on September 3, 2020 [13 favorites]
Actually a big discussion among many in the academic community.
In particular, among many Black colleagues.
In case you didn't notice, there are numerous other threads to "elevate".
posted by Ahmad Khani at 12:27 PM on September 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
In particular, among many Black colleagues.
In case you didn't notice, there are numerous other threads to "elevate".
posted by Ahmad Khani at 12:27 PM on September 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
She's definitely castigating herself, but I'm confused. Is she saying that she either overtly or implicitly claimed to have Black ancestors and/or be Black? Or that, as a scholar of African and Caribbean history, she has somehow appropriated Black identity? These two things are not the same.
posted by jb at 12:27 PM on September 3, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by jb at 12:27 PM on September 3, 2020 [6 favorites]
I mean, goodness knows I've now and then felt bad about how boring my cultural identity is and been frustrated about wanting to speak up for justice but not having the (moral) right to take up space that should be given to the actual people involved, but the whole idea of taking those feelings and concluding "I'll just pretend to be [whatever]!" seems utterly bonkers to me.
posted by Scattercat at 12:29 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Scattercat at 12:29 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
Ahmad Khani: not to impose, but are there particular tweets or threads that you would recommend?
posted by jb at 12:31 PM on September 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by jb at 12:31 PM on September 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Absolutely. Thank you for asking.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(apologies for the weird formatting; a couple are accounts that have been posting many individual tweets, and a couple are threads that delve into the issue/conversation. this is a sampling of just a handful)
posted by Ahmad Khani at 12:36 PM on September 3, 2020 [30 favorites]
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(apologies for the weird formatting; a couple are accounts that have been posting many individual tweets, and a couple are threads that delve into the issue/conversation. this is a sampling of just a handful)
posted by Ahmad Khani at 12:36 PM on September 3, 2020 [30 favorites]
She's definitely castigating herself, but I'm confused. Is she saying that she either overtly or implicitly claimed to have Black ancestors and/or be Black? Or that, as a scholar of African and Caribbean history, she has somehow appropriated Black identity? These two things are not the same
I'm sure someone will come along with a screenshot, but one of her old author bios has lots of how she came up in El Barrio and talks about her overcoming the adversity that comes with growing up a black child in American society.
I literally only know of her from that bio and this post, but to me it feels like embellishment to sell more books verses a sinister plan to undermine the Black experience. Kinda like how Vanilla Ice pretend he grew up somewhere rough instead of the upper middle-class suburbs of Miami.
posted by sideshow at 12:38 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm sure someone will come along with a screenshot, but one of her old author bios has lots of how she came up in El Barrio and talks about her overcoming the adversity that comes with growing up a black child in American society.
I literally only know of her from that bio and this post, but to me it feels like embellishment to sell more books verses a sinister plan to undermine the Black experience. Kinda like how Vanilla Ice pretend he grew up somewhere rough instead of the upper middle-class suburbs of Miami.
posted by sideshow at 12:38 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
Rudo Mudiwa @Seka_hako
The main thing I take away from this is that the Black female students always know what’s up. Such folks are always aggressive to Black women (Rachel did the same) belittling them out of envy and spite.
11:10 AM · Sep 3, 2020·Twitter Web App
posted by Ahmad Khani at 12:39 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
The main thing I take away from this is that the Black female students always know what’s up. Such folks are always aggressive to Black women (Rachel did the same) belittling them out of envy and spite.
11:10 AM · Sep 3, 2020·Twitter Web App
posted by Ahmad Khani at 12:39 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
I know this is a dumb point but I'm amazed that she can write so explicitly, so carefully, and so forcefully about her own crimes and their implications. I just find it astounding that she can be so aware of what she's done and express it so clearly... and also be the same person who has been perpetrating this fraud all along.
posted by chaz at 12:47 PM on September 3, 2020 [19 favorites]
posted by chaz at 12:47 PM on September 3, 2020 [19 favorites]
Please disregard my previous comment: I suppose if she hasn't come out to refute the post by now, it's real. Completely infuriating. I clearly have work to do on my own racism and think about why I was so skeptical when it's not even remotely the first time this has happened.
posted by theodolite at 12:57 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 12:57 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of the @Sciencing_Bi hoax that happened last month. In short, a white scientist who had been pushed out of leadership for discrediting/speaking over women of color invented a bisexual Hopi anthropologist to be her best friend. This person, @Sciencing_Bi, claimed to have been forced to teach by her university, following which she got COVID and died. The tragic ending to the storyline did not in fact resolve anything in the scientist's favor.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:11 PM on September 3, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 1:11 PM on September 3, 2020 [10 favorites]
I know this is a dumb point but I'm amazed that she can write so explicitly, so carefully, and so forcefully about her own crimes and their implications.
She's a professor and a writer, it's what she does for a living. People are often weirdly detached from problems they themselves have caused.
Also from her bio:
She is deeply interested in intellectual histories of those who never wrote documents and the use of embodied knowledge for both research and teaching.
On one hand, this is legitimately interesting and it's very meaningful to try to bridge the gap between important undocumented histories and the very textual modern academy. On the other hand, in light of her confession this could be read as "I like to steal from people who I know won't call me out on it."
posted by GuyZero at 1:23 PM on September 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
She's a professor and a writer, it's what she does for a living. People are often weirdly detached from problems they themselves have caused.
Also from her bio:
She is deeply interested in intellectual histories of those who never wrote documents and the use of embodied knowledge for both research and teaching.
On one hand, this is legitimately interesting and it's very meaningful to try to bridge the gap between important undocumented histories and the very textual modern academy. On the other hand, in light of her confession this could be read as "I like to steal from people who I know won't call me out on it."
posted by GuyZero at 1:23 PM on September 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
That Medium essay somehow tries to come off as blunt, but I still have no idea what she did from just reading it. Could she not have said "I pretended to be Black by doing this this and this," with examples? Because how it is now reads as STILL ambiguous and like she's hiding something, even as she keeps telling us she's coming clean.
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:35 PM on September 3, 2020 [16 favorites]
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:35 PM on September 3, 2020 [16 favorites]
This is where I read about it. If you scroll down, you can see video of her addressing the NY city council, and see how she presented herself. Language definitely NSFW.
posted by zorseshoes at 1:52 PM on September 3, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by zorseshoes at 1:52 PM on September 3, 2020 [13 favorites]
Firecupcake, it appears that (according to this twitter thread), 2 or 3 of her Black students had thought something was up and did the legwork to uncover the truth. I read her "ambiguity" as reluctance. She doesn't actually want to admit what she did was wrong. She's not interested in people knowing her mistakes, she is posting this to get ahead of the story.
posted by FirstMateKate at 1:57 PM on September 3, 2020 [29 favorites]
posted by FirstMateKate at 1:57 PM on September 3, 2020 [29 favorites]
That video that zorseshoes posted... wow, no words. She has a fake accent and everything. It wasn't just an academic creating career opportunities by writing from a different perspective, it was an entire costume, accent, history, name, everything. It's insanity. I wonder how many other people like this are out there?!
posted by chaz at 2:01 PM on September 3, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by chaz at 2:01 PM on September 3, 2020 [18 favorites]
I read about this on Jezebel a little earlier.
The part that stuck out to me from the article is similar to previous comments here: 1) wouldn't a person with this particular area of expertise make different choices? And 2) for gods' sake why?
We'll probably never know why exactly. I think there are circumstances in which we humans don't have as much control over our choices as we believe, and that a lot of what we put down to 'choice' is just the post-hoc illusion of control. Obsession and compulsion are tricky to reconcile in an ethical framework and I strongly suspect this person is ill.
I condemn her actions as despicable and hope that her academic reputation is never rehabilitated even as I hope that the human being here finds some peace from her demons.
posted by Horkus at 2:03 PM on September 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
The part that stuck out to me from the article is similar to previous comments here: 1) wouldn't a person with this particular area of expertise make different choices? And 2) for gods' sake why?
We'll probably never know why exactly. I think there are circumstances in which we humans don't have as much control over our choices as we believe, and that a lot of what we put down to 'choice' is just the post-hoc illusion of control. Obsession and compulsion are tricky to reconcile in an ethical framework and I strongly suspect this person is ill.
I condemn her actions as despicable and hope that her academic reputation is never rehabilitated even as I hope that the human being here finds some peace from her demons.
posted by Horkus at 2:03 PM on September 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
Was she about to be exposed? I'm not calling the essay insincere, but it feels like she's trying to get her story out on her own terms.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:18 PM on September 3, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by betweenthebars at 2:18 PM on September 3, 2020 [6 favorites]
Maybe a cop stopped her on the street?
posted by infini at 2:24 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by infini at 2:24 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
Never heard of this woman before.
But now I have.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 2:24 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
But now I have.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 2:24 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm not sure what's ambiguous or hard to figure out about what she writes in practically the very first paragraph (after the opening blurb):
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 but also etc. etc.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:41 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
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 but also etc. etc.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:41 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
How on earth do you claim the identity of an increased melanin count? I claim the identity of a blue eyed blonde. Even the framing is weird. I passed myself as black is accurate.
posted by infini at 2:49 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by infini at 2:49 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
A few other pretty unambiguous statements:
my continued appropriation of a Black Caribbean identity
every step I’ve taken has gaslighted those whom I love
my false identity was crafted entirely from the fabric of Black lives
I [falsely] claimed belonging with living people and ancestors
I have built my life on a violent anti-Black lie
No white person, no non-Black person, has the right to claim proximity to or belonging in a Black community by virtue of abuse, trauma, non-acceptance, and non-belonging in a white community.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:49 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
my continued appropriation of a Black Caribbean identity
every step I’ve taken has gaslighted those whom I love
my false identity was crafted entirely from the fabric of Black lives
I [falsely] claimed belonging with living people and ancestors
I have built my life on a violent anti-Black lie
No white person, no non-Black person, has the right to claim proximity to or belonging in a Black community by virtue of abuse, trauma, non-acceptance, and non-belonging in a white community.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:49 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
How on earth do you claim the identity of an increased melanin count?
Huh? "increased melanin count"? I have no idea what this is asking.
You "claim" the identity by saying "my name is Jess La Bombera and I am Puerto Rican-black woman from the Bronx" when you aren't. I would think that was fairly clear?
Is it just that people are confused by the phrase "claimed the identity"? I mean, it is "academic-speak" to some extent -- a bit more "theoretical" than saying "passed as" -- but it's not particularly ambiguous (to me at least).
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:55 PM on September 3, 2020 [5 favorites]
Huh? "increased melanin count"? I have no idea what this is asking.
You "claim" the identity by saying "my name is Jess La Bombera and I am Puerto Rican-black woman from the Bronx" when you aren't. I would think that was fairly clear?
Is it just that people are confused by the phrase "claimed the identity"? I mean, it is "academic-speak" to some extent -- a bit more "theoretical" than saying "passed as" -- but it's not particularly ambiguous (to me at least).
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:55 PM on September 3, 2020 [5 favorites]
What the ever-loving f..
Not a leech - the leech allows its host to live. More like cuckoo - displacing the true offspring and over-demanding of those who look after you.
Totally cuckoo
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 2:57 PM on September 3, 2020 [20 favorites]
Not a leech - the leech allows its host to live. More like cuckoo - displacing the true offspring and over-demanding of those who look after you.
Totally cuckoo
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 2:57 PM on September 3, 2020 [20 favorites]
Yes, we read the article as well. "I lied" is a cheap, short sentence that she manages to drag out for a painfully long and self-sacrificial medium "article". Lying to your friends or job is just the surface. Did she steal resources? Sway activist groups? How deep was her influence? She's a professor - how many of her black female students failed her class, how many shouldn't have? Was she involved in non-profits? Has she elbowed out actual black people from positions of power? Did she sit on any committees, have any sway in the admission process at the university? I don't think she's claiming accountability at all. It's all a façade. She didn't just "gaslight those whom I love" - she's completely derailed and terrorized, yes, in my opinion this is terrorism, a minority community. That's the kind of unambiguity she's lacking.
posted by FirstMateKate at 3:01 PM on September 3, 2020 [43 favorites]
posted by FirstMateKate at 3:01 PM on September 3, 2020 [43 favorites]
Christ, what an asshole
posted by thelonius at 3:02 PM on September 3, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 3:02 PM on September 3, 2020 [12 favorites]
She stole the pittance allocated to black academics when she could have wallowed in the white academic pool.
posted by infini at 3:06 PM on September 3, 2020 [21 favorites]
posted by infini at 3:06 PM on September 3, 2020 [21 favorites]
Saxon Kane: I was confused by her statement - it could be interpreted that by writing books about Black history and making a career of it, she was saying that she had metaphorically assumed those identities; or it could be saying that she literally assumed those identities. As the Twitter comments and other links make clear (thank you all!), she was doing the latter.
I was confused because writing other people's histories is fraught, especially for someone from a higher status position. I have met other white scholars of Black history (American and African), and they took their own privilege and position in regards to their research subjects as serious matter, something for them always to be aware of. I could imagine that someone might, particularly in this time of reflection about race, start to believe that they should not be doing this scholarship and doing so involved claiming a connection to Black identity that they did not have.
Given the vagueness of her statement - in which she doesn't say how she claimed Black identity - and my lack of connection to the scholarly communities involved (these days, I really only follow marine scientists on twitter), I couldn't tell what had happened. But thanks to the additional links, this has all been clarified.
posted by jb at 3:10 PM on September 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
I was confused because writing other people's histories is fraught, especially for someone from a higher status position. I have met other white scholars of Black history (American and African), and they took their own privilege and position in regards to their research subjects as serious matter, something for them always to be aware of. I could imagine that someone might, particularly in this time of reflection about race, start to believe that they should not be doing this scholarship and doing so involved claiming a connection to Black identity that they did not have.
Given the vagueness of her statement - in which she doesn't say how she claimed Black identity - and my lack of connection to the scholarly communities involved (these days, I really only follow marine scientists on twitter), I couldn't tell what had happened. But thanks to the additional links, this has all been clarified.
posted by jb at 3:10 PM on September 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
Yarimar Bonilla 👩🏾💻 @yarimarbonilla
Many are asking themselves how #JessicaKrug managed to fool anyone into believing she was Afro Latina. Well, let me tell you: we were both fellows at the Schomburg and I suppose she fooled me. (a thread 🧵)
12:57 PM · Sep 3, 2020·Twitter Web App
680 Retweets 162 Quote Tweets 1.9K Likes
Those interested, please click thru for the thread.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 3:25 PM on September 3, 2020 [18 favorites]
Many are asking themselves how #JessicaKrug managed to fool anyone into believing she was Afro Latina. Well, let me tell you: we were both fellows at the Schomburg and I suppose she fooled me. (a thread 🧵)
12:57 PM · Sep 3, 2020·Twitter Web App
680 Retweets 162 Quote Tweets 1.9K Likes
Those interested, please click thru for the thread.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 3:25 PM on September 3, 2020 [18 favorites]
roxane gay @rgay
And I think this apology is BS. The self-flagellation is absurd and a performance. I believe in apologies and redemption. This one checks all the boxes, says the right things but it doesn’t feel genuine.
11:37 AM · Sep 3, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
36 Retweets 2 Quote Tweets 988 Likes
posted by Ahmad Khani at 3:26 PM on September 3, 2020 [8 favorites]
And I think this apology is BS. The self-flagellation is absurd and a performance. I believe in apologies and redemption. This one checks all the boxes, says the right things but it doesn’t feel genuine.
11:37 AM · Sep 3, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
36 Retweets 2 Quote Tweets 988 Likes
posted by Ahmad Khani at 3:26 PM on September 3, 2020 [8 favorites]
She consistently trashed WOC and questioned their scholarship. She even described my colleague Marisa Fuentes as a "slave catcher" in the introduction to her book. Kind of amazing how white supremacy means she even thought she was better at being a person of color than we were
Frankly, I want to close this thread already and just delete the damn FPP
I don't need this shit on top of the everyday racism of being a woc doing a phd
posted by infini at 3:32 PM on September 3, 2020 [17 favorites]
Frankly, I want to close this thread already and just delete the damn FPP
I don't need this shit on top of the everyday racism of being a woc doing a phd
posted by infini at 3:32 PM on September 3, 2020 [17 favorites]
The New Yorker didn’t question her accent or identity.Factchecking is so over.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:38 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 3:38 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
Was she about to be exposed? I'm not calling the essay insincere, but it feels like she's trying to get her story out on her own terms.
A series of tweets from @DrYoFiggy, aka Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, author of Decolonizing Diasporas, begins here:
A series of tweets from @DrYoFiggy, aka Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, author of Decolonizing Diasporas, begins here:
The only reason Jessica Krug finally admitted to this lie is bec on Aug 26th one very brave very BLACK Latina junior scholar approached two senior Black Latina scholars & trusted them enough to do the research & back her up. Those two scholars made phone calls & reached out to...posted by Lexica at 4:01 PM on September 3, 2020 [24 favorites]
other senior scholars & institutions with proof. There was no witch hunt, but there was a need to draw the line. Krug got ahead of the story because she was caught & she knew the clock was ticking bec folks started to confront her & ask questions. DO NOT BELIEVE FOR ONE SECOND..
That Medium post reads like an abuser’s suicide note. Like she’s redirecting the narrative to dodge accountability, not like she is at all sorry for what she did. If I knew her I’d be concerned she was going to die by suicide, but I don’t say that with any sympathy for her actions.
posted by centrifugal at 4:19 PM on September 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by centrifugal at 4:19 PM on September 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
I was confused by her statement - it could be interpreted that by writing books about Black history and making a career of it, she was saying that she had metaphorically assumed those identities; or it could be saying that she literally assumed those identities.... she doesn't say how she claimed Black identity
I guess? But, in fact, there's nothing in her statement that refers to her career as a scholar of Black history. She mentions politics and activism, but never that she writes books about Black history. If you didn't know that from this FPP (and I think the vast majority of us had no idea who she was or what she did before this FPP), then I don't think anyone would find her claims all that ambiguous. Also, in the rest of the paragraph, she talks about forming intimate relationships based on claiming a false identity, which doesn't make any sense if she only means "writing books about another community/people/race" by "claiming identity" -- "my friendships were based on a lie because I'm a white woman who writes books about black history"?
I'm not trying to defend her or anything she did or garner any sort of sympathy for her. I just don't think there's anything ambiguous about anything she says (again, I think it is simply unfamiliarity with the phrasing of "claim an identity" that is catching people up). She doesn't give an extensive autopsy of every wrongdoing she's ever made, but I'm not sure why we should expect (or want?) an exhaustive list of names and dates in what is a public admission of guilt, not testimony. Questions about resources, admissions committees, etc. are probably best dealt with (at first at least) by the people and organizations affected -- who would be better able to quantify the extent of the damage she's caused and even just know how to start addressing it. Furthermore, those people whom she has deceived, manipulated, or victimized may not appreciate these details being aired in public without their knowledge or permission -- that seems potentially a second violation on top of the first.
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:30 PM on September 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
I guess? But, in fact, there's nothing in her statement that refers to her career as a scholar of Black history. She mentions politics and activism, but never that she writes books about Black history. If you didn't know that from this FPP (and I think the vast majority of us had no idea who she was or what she did before this FPP), then I don't think anyone would find her claims all that ambiguous. Also, in the rest of the paragraph, she talks about forming intimate relationships based on claiming a false identity, which doesn't make any sense if she only means "writing books about another community/people/race" by "claiming identity" -- "my friendships were based on a lie because I'm a white woman who writes books about black history"?
I'm not trying to defend her or anything she did or garner any sort of sympathy for her. I just don't think there's anything ambiguous about anything she says (again, I think it is simply unfamiliarity with the phrasing of "claim an identity" that is catching people up). She doesn't give an extensive autopsy of every wrongdoing she's ever made, but I'm not sure why we should expect (or want?) an exhaustive list of names and dates in what is a public admission of guilt, not testimony. Questions about resources, admissions committees, etc. are probably best dealt with (at first at least) by the people and organizations affected -- who would be better able to quantify the extent of the damage she's caused and even just know how to start addressing it. Furthermore, those people whom she has deceived, manipulated, or victimized may not appreciate these details being aired in public without their knowledge or permission -- that seems potentially a second violation on top of the first.
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:30 PM on September 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
To be clear, I'm not making any claims about her sincerity or lack thereof. I'm just saying that, to me, saying "I claimed black identity" means... well, "I claimed black identity": to ask for especially as a right; to take as the rightful owner; to assert in the face of possible contradiction; to claim to have; or to assert to be rightfully one's own.
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:37 PM on September 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:37 PM on September 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Upon review, I conflated comments from different people in my responses. On the one hand, there's the question about whether "claiming an identity" means literally saying "I am black" or not (from jb et al) -- and on the other hand there's the question of the actual consequences of her falsely claiming an identity (i.e. what FirstMateKate was saying). While I don't think the first question is particularly difficult to answer (but that's neither here nor there and I've already gone over that and ultimately it is a trivial issue), I do understand what FirstMateKate was getting at: that you want her to go beyond saying "I did a bad thing and I'm real sorry" to evidence of actual penitence and intention for restitution on her part. And I agree that her confession is, at best, incomplete (and at worst, bullshit) without that.
posted by Saxon Kane at 5:03 PM on September 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Saxon Kane at 5:03 PM on September 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
there's nothing in her statement that refers to her career as a scholar of Black history
No, I learned that from her GWU page, which is the second link in the FPP. I read all three links before commenting: her Medium post, her faculty page, and the WP article which (at the time) mainly repeated what her Medium post said, and - as I mentioned - I was confused, so I asked for more information which was very provided - for which I am very grateful. Thank you again to the people providing links, especially Ahmad Khani.
posted by jb at 5:05 PM on September 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
No, I learned that from her GWU page, which is the second link in the FPP. I read all three links before commenting: her Medium post, her faculty page, and the WP article which (at the time) mainly repeated what her Medium post said, and - as I mentioned - I was confused, so I asked for more information which was very provided - for which I am very grateful. Thank you again to the people providing links, especially Ahmad Khani.
posted by jb at 5:05 PM on September 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
1) wouldn't a person with this particular area of expertise make different choices?
You'd sure like to think so, yes. But there are always people who become so lost in the pursuit of academic success that they will do anything that they think will help them attain it. There have been cases of medical researchers at top institutions who were eventually caught for fabricating entire lab notebooks of research data, for example. You'd think they would know better, too, and they did, but it didn't stop them from proceeding. Maybe something like that happened here.
posted by thelonius at 5:17 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
You'd sure like to think so, yes. But there are always people who become so lost in the pursuit of academic success that they will do anything that they think will help them attain it. There have been cases of medical researchers at top institutions who were eventually caught for fabricating entire lab notebooks of research data, for example. You'd think they would know better, too, and they did, but it didn't stop them from proceeding. Maybe something like that happened here.
posted by thelonius at 5:17 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
This story fascinates me because my own mother raised my sister and I to believe that we had a First Nations background. And we did go to some band events when I was really little (with the family mentioned below.) It was such a forceful given that I’m embarrassed to say it took me until I was out of her home to apply some simple genetic understanding to my family tree and realize that her cousin had Native roots - but on the side of the family unrelated to us, and if we did have any it would have been in the great-great-great generation to mine (but unlikely.)
My mum has issues.
The best I can figure out, at some point in my mother’s childhood she decided she must, by virtue of being related to her cousin, be First Nations. I dunno. But she brought it up this summer and I finally cracked enough to ask her which of her grandparents were First Nations and she basically had to go and fled. It’s really weird and appropriative and gross. It sounds like Krug was much more deliberate about it but it is a thing that happens.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:49 PM on September 3, 2020 [16 favorites]
My mum has issues.
The best I can figure out, at some point in my mother’s childhood she decided she must, by virtue of being related to her cousin, be First Nations. I dunno. But she brought it up this summer and I finally cracked enough to ask her which of her grandparents were First Nations and she basically had to go and fled. It’s really weird and appropriative and gross. It sounds like Krug was much more deliberate about it but it is a thing that happens.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:49 PM on September 3, 2020 [16 favorites]
I note that she didn't really apologize in her Medium letter (for which, if it's viral, is probably making her money?) and she says that she wants and deserves to be canceled but has not, as yet, taken the obvious cancelation step of resigning from her position.
It's also beyond gross that she tries to blame this all on mental illness.
posted by TwoStride at 7:03 PM on September 3, 2020 [13 favorites]
It's also beyond gross that she tries to blame this all on mental illness.
posted by TwoStride at 7:03 PM on September 3, 2020 [13 favorites]
Krugs Medium mea culpa grosses me out. I hate that it’s using all this woker than thou academic-y jargon to sort of try and obfuscate what she did. I want to take a red pen to it. Like:
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 lied about being Black/Afro-latina. I am a white jewish woman.”
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.
“I lied about being Black/Afro-Latina to lots of people.”
Intention never matters more than impact. To say that I clearly have been battling some unaddressed mental health demons for my entire life, as both an adult and child, is obvious. Mental health issues likely explain why I assumed a false identity initially, as a youth, and why I continued and developed it for so long; the mental health professionals from whom I have been so belatedly seeking help assure me that this is a common response to some of the severe trauma that marked my early childhood and teen years.
But mental health issues can never, will never, neither explain nor justify, neither condone nor excuse, that, in spite of knowing and regularly critiquing any and every non-Black person who appropriates from Black people, my false identity was crafted entirely from the fabric of Black lives. That I claimed belonging with living people and ancestors to whom and for whom my being is always a threat at best and a death sentence at worst.
“I have some mental health problems, but also independent of that I am a liar. I am also a thief since I stole things that didn’t belong to me.”
etc. Like dude, you can try and dress up what you did in self flagellation and five dollar words, but really you’re just a racist liar and thief. And given that she apparently shit on actual women of color, she’s also a white supremacist and a crappy person. You don’t need a whole medium article to say that.
posted by supercrayon at 7:19 PM on September 3, 2020 [48 favorites]
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 lied about being Black/Afro-latina. I am a white jewish woman.”
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.
“I lied about being Black/Afro-Latina to lots of people.”
Intention never matters more than impact. To say that I clearly have been battling some unaddressed mental health demons for my entire life, as both an adult and child, is obvious. Mental health issues likely explain why I assumed a false identity initially, as a youth, and why I continued and developed it for so long; the mental health professionals from whom I have been so belatedly seeking help assure me that this is a common response to some of the severe trauma that marked my early childhood and teen years.
But mental health issues can never, will never, neither explain nor justify, neither condone nor excuse, that, in spite of knowing and regularly critiquing any and every non-Black person who appropriates from Black people, my false identity was crafted entirely from the fabric of Black lives. That I claimed belonging with living people and ancestors to whom and for whom my being is always a threat at best and a death sentence at worst.
“I have some mental health problems, but also independent of that I am a liar. I am also a thief since I stole things that didn’t belong to me.”
etc. Like dude, you can try and dress up what you did in self flagellation and five dollar words, but really you’re just a racist liar and thief. And given that she apparently shit on actual women of color, she’s also a white supremacist and a crappy person. You don’t need a whole medium article to say that.
posted by supercrayon at 7:19 PM on September 3, 2020 [48 favorites]
GWU is apparently investigating. I wonder what they will choose to do.
posted by Westringia F. at 7:47 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Westringia F. at 7:47 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
This seems a good time to recall the aphoristic wisdom that I learned from the great sociologist Howard Becker: it is rarely useful to ask why people do things that are bad ideas; the interesting question is always why those things seemed like good ideas at the time.
posted by spitbull at 7:52 PM on September 3, 2020 [42 favorites]
posted by spitbull at 7:52 PM on September 3, 2020 [42 favorites]
There are MeFites who do this on a smaller scale.
posted by floam at 8:53 PM on 9/3
[+] [!]
Sure. There are people in all walks of life who do this kind of thing to greater or lesser degrees.
Academia does breed some wild shit though. “...cause the stakes are so small...” or something, right, to drop a little Albee
posted by From Bklyn at 8:58 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by floam at 8:53 PM on 9/3
[+] [!]
Sure. There are people in all walks of life who do this kind of thing to greater or lesser degrees.
Academia does breed some wild shit though. “...cause the stakes are so small...” or something, right, to drop a little Albee
posted by From Bklyn at 8:58 PM on September 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
How many times are people going to have to learn this before they start listening to black women.
I imagine a lot of people who listened to this "black woman" are perhaps drawing more complicated lessons from all this.
posted by AdamCSnider at 8:59 PM on September 3, 2020 [14 favorites]
I imagine a lot of people who listened to this "black woman" are perhaps drawing more complicated lessons from all this.
posted by AdamCSnider at 8:59 PM on September 3, 2020 [14 favorites]
There are MeFites who do this on a smaller scale.
That is quite the charge to throw out there without any further detail.
It’s almost as if people would just listen to black women so much harm in the world could be prevented. How many times are people going to have to learn this before they start listening to black women.
The tragic irony is that these are the sort of statements that guarantee more Dolezals and Krugs in the future. People respond to incentives and if there is an incentive to claim an identity that is not one's own without any corresponding disincentive (like DNA testing or something similar), then this will continue to happen.
posted by Ouverture at 8:59 PM on September 3, 2020 [14 favorites]
That is quite the charge to throw out there without any further detail.
It’s almost as if people would just listen to black women so much harm in the world could be prevented. How many times are people going to have to learn this before they start listening to black women.
The tragic irony is that these are the sort of statements that guarantee more Dolezals and Krugs in the future. People respond to incentives and if there is an incentive to claim an identity that is not one's own without any corresponding disincentive (like DNA testing or something similar), then this will continue to happen.
posted by Ouverture at 8:59 PM on September 3, 2020 [14 favorites]
Ah, I see. I think this is a flaw that commonly plays out in both liberal and leftist spaces: the valuation/devaluation of insights based on identity requires a completely reliable way of determining said identity. Otherwise, bad faith actors will continue to manipulate and exploit that trust.
Ironically, I have had white or straight people ask me to say something in these spaces because of my identity means I would be taken more seriously. It feels so strange and wrong and it makes me feel more and more every day that Adolph Reed was right about everything.
posted by Ouverture at 9:08 PM on September 3, 2020 [12 favorites]
Ironically, I have had white or straight people ask me to say something in these spaces because of my identity means I would be taken more seriously. It feels so strange and wrong and it makes me feel more and more every day that Adolph Reed was right about everything.
posted by Ouverture at 9:08 PM on September 3, 2020 [12 favorites]
Here's the write-up at the Chronicle of Higher Education (not paywalled for now) also detailing the underrepresented minority-targeted fellowships she stole.
posted by TwoStride at 9:34 PM on September 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by TwoStride at 9:34 PM on September 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
Framing this around her and her words is centering her in ways that just rub me the wrong way. And I think that's what she wanted and why she posted to medium.
Honestly I wish this was about the scholars who found her out, or, given that they maybe don't want their names known, the friends and other people who have said that she tricked them.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 9:52 PM on September 3, 2020 [18 favorites]
Honestly I wish this was about the scholars who found her out, or, given that they maybe don't want their names known, the friends and other people who have said that she tricked them.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 9:52 PM on September 3, 2020 [18 favorites]
I am thinking about the BIPOC students of Jessica Krug and wondering who will write recommendation letters for them now. Who will vouch for them to the Black communities they write about? To their Black academic peers? They will be considered sus-by-association and risk being shunned in their fields of study.
posted by LMGM at 10:47 PM on September 3, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by LMGM at 10:47 PM on September 3, 2020 [10 favorites]
Oh, and also: as a mixed lightskin Latino with Sephardi curls, lemme tell you that I am feeling many kinds of ways about "Jessica La Bombalera" being a white Jewish woman from Kansas City suburbs.
posted by LMGM at 10:48 PM on September 3, 2020 [14 favorites]
posted by LMGM at 10:48 PM on September 3, 2020 [14 favorites]
That’s some you shit that isn’t a good look.
you've probably been taken in by the idiotic auto-sarcasm in comments on this site
posted by thelonius at 11:43 PM on September 3, 2020
you've probably been taken in by the idiotic auto-sarcasm in comments on this site
posted by thelonius at 11:43 PM on September 3, 2020
The lengths people will go for tenure in a contracts world never ceases to amaze me. I would be interested in knowing who flagged Krug to cause her to issue a mea culpa in the first place.
posted by parmanparman at 12:46 AM on September 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by parmanparman at 12:46 AM on September 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
I don't know Krug, but for various reasons I know a number of people who know her. It seems like a great many people made a great many excuses over time about why something felt wrong about her. Most report how she seemed obsessed with being the most authentic speaker in any given conversation.
I keep feeling bad for her students-- particularly her authentically Black students who found a very distorted mirror in Krug.
posted by frumiousb at 1:47 AM on September 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
I keep feeling bad for her students-- particularly her authentically Black students who found a very distorted mirror in Krug.
posted by frumiousb at 1:47 AM on September 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
it's not even remotely the first time this has happened.
I feel like this has happened enough times we should have a word for it, perhaps blackwashing?
The current dictionary definition of blackwashing is "to present (someone or something) in the worst possible light" but the meaning of words can change over time, of late the word has mostly been used to complain about the casting of black actors in traditionally white parts. What Jessica A. Krug has done seems to fit the word better than either of those definitions.
posted by Lanark at 3:41 AM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
I feel like this has happened enough times we should have a word for it, perhaps blackwashing?
The current dictionary definition of blackwashing is "to present (someone or something) in the worst possible light" but the meaning of words can change over time, of late the word has mostly been used to complain about the casting of black actors in traditionally white parts. What Jessica A. Krug has done seems to fit the word better than either of those definitions.
posted by Lanark at 3:41 AM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
stoneweaver, until things get sorted out, it's difficult to tell the difference between a black woman and a "black" woman. One of the nasty consequences of Krug's deception is likely to be actually black people side-eying each other.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:12 AM on September 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:12 AM on September 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
@Lanark, I think the word you’re looking for is “minstrelsy”.
posted by LMGM at 5:07 AM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by LMGM at 5:07 AM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
I wonder how many fellowships she got based on her fabricated background, I wonder if it affected her hiring at GW and her tenure. I hope they make her pay back every cent she ever got by pretending to be a member of a minority group from a poor family in the ghetto. I'm all for affirmative action and I'm against people who misuse it.
posted by mareli at 5:11 AM on September 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by mareli at 5:11 AM on September 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
@LMGM I don't think minstrelsy has quite the same meaning, anybody watching a minstrel show would be well aware that most, if not all the performers were actually white.
posted by Lanark at 5:25 AM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Lanark at 5:25 AM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
@LMGM I don't think minstrelsy has quite the same meaning, anybody watching a minstrel show would be well aware that most, if not all the performers were actually white.
To be fair, you are proposing using a word with multiple meanings that don't describe what is going on here. It's also complicated by the fact that "blackwashing" in the sense of casting POC in roles that were previously white is a problematic term to begin with. I agree that minstrelsy and blackface don't really capture what is going on here. Maybe it doesn't need a catchy term, and a descriptor like racial impersonation can suffice.
posted by snofoam at 5:45 AM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
To be fair, you are proposing using a word with multiple meanings that don't describe what is going on here. It's also complicated by the fact that "blackwashing" in the sense of casting POC in roles that were previously white is a problematic term to begin with. I agree that minstrelsy and blackface don't really capture what is going on here. Maybe it doesn't need a catchy term, and a descriptor like racial impersonation can suffice.
posted by snofoam at 5:45 AM on September 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
That Medium post reads like an abuser’s suicide note. Like she’s redirecting the narrative to dodge accountability, not like she is at all sorry for what she did. If I knew her I’d be concerned she was going to die by suicide, but I don’t say that with any sympathy for her actions.
I didn't know how to put it into words but that's exactly how I felt.
If she was really sorry, she'd quit, change her name (I mean use her given name...), leave academia and all leadership positions, and just work quietly for the rest of her life in some socially useful occupation. What's she's done instead is write a self flagellating but also self centred letter for everyone to see.
Literally every detail I read about this makes it worse, what does it say that she left them all out of her "apology"?
Black women did a ton of heavy lifting to expose her and she’s coming forward because the hammer was about to drop.
and took an enormous risk doing so. For a junior scholar to do that takes a lot of bravery, imagine what would happen to a young scholar who mentioned their doubts to the wrong person? Their career and reputation could have been completely destroyed. I wonder how many people thought there was something "off" about her but never dared to say it out loud.
posted by atrazine at 5:54 AM on September 4, 2020 [20 favorites]
I didn't know how to put it into words but that's exactly how I felt.
If she was really sorry, she'd quit, change her name (I mean use her given name...), leave academia and all leadership positions, and just work quietly for the rest of her life in some socially useful occupation. What's she's done instead is write a self flagellating but also self centred letter for everyone to see.
Literally every detail I read about this makes it worse, what does it say that she left them all out of her "apology"?
Black women did a ton of heavy lifting to expose her and she’s coming forward because the hammer was about to drop.
and took an enormous risk doing so. For a junior scholar to do that takes a lot of bravery, imagine what would happen to a young scholar who mentioned their doubts to the wrong person? Their career and reputation could have been completely destroyed. I wonder how many people thought there was something "off" about her but never dared to say it out loud.
posted by atrazine at 5:54 AM on September 4, 2020 [20 favorites]
The term you're looking for is "Blackfishing," which was coined about the various Instagram influencers who were pretending to be Black.
"Racial cosplay" is another good term.
I'm also struck by the ways in which people like this do it to have the best of both worlds: to bully WOC (by accounts Krug was harshest to WOC scholars), which white women do all the time--while at the same time gaining entrance to inner circles and confidences that an admittedly white woman would not.
posted by TwoStride at 6:05 AM on September 4, 2020 [20 favorites]
"Racial cosplay" is another good term.
I'm also struck by the ways in which people like this do it to have the best of both worlds: to bully WOC (by accounts Krug was harshest to WOC scholars), which white women do all the time--while at the same time gaining entrance to inner circles and confidences that an admittedly white woman would not.
posted by TwoStride at 6:05 AM on September 4, 2020 [20 favorites]
We'll probably never know why exactly. I think there are circumstances in which we humans don't have as much control over our choices as we believe, and that a lot of what we put down to 'choice' is just the post-hoc illusion of control. Obsession and compulsion are tricky to reconcile in an ethical framework and I strongly suspect this person is ill.
I feel a need to respond to this. I am obsessive compulsive. I am on the extreme end, it has stolen years my life and it is a daily struggle, though I am in a much better place than I have been.
I have never been driven to do things that benefitted my career. I've never felt compelled to steal an identity and use it to attack the people it belonged to. I never engaged in an elaborate charade. The nature of clinical obsession and compulsion is that they very, very seldom align with your actually ends. They paralyze you and rob you of energy and take your attention and focus away from your actual ends.
Using mental illness to explain away immoral choices is very simple and I imagine very comforting to healthy people, because it puts bad people in the "other" box and avoids any unpleasant introspection about how we justify our inequity and inhumanity to ourselves. But it stigmatizes those actually dealing with mental illness and let's abusers recast themselves as victims.
Krug is not the victim. The victims are the people she deceived, the people of color she used a stolen identity to undermine, and the the students she used her position to manipulate and gatekeep from academic life. Do not let her reframe this as about her personal issues.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:06 AM on September 4, 2020 [51 favorites]
I feel a need to respond to this. I am obsessive compulsive. I am on the extreme end, it has stolen years my life and it is a daily struggle, though I am in a much better place than I have been.
I have never been driven to do things that benefitted my career. I've never felt compelled to steal an identity and use it to attack the people it belonged to. I never engaged in an elaborate charade. The nature of clinical obsession and compulsion is that they very, very seldom align with your actually ends. They paralyze you and rob you of energy and take your attention and focus away from your actual ends.
Using mental illness to explain away immoral choices is very simple and I imagine very comforting to healthy people, because it puts bad people in the "other" box and avoids any unpleasant introspection about how we justify our inequity and inhumanity to ourselves. But it stigmatizes those actually dealing with mental illness and let's abusers recast themselves as victims.
Krug is not the victim. The victims are the people she deceived, the people of color she used a stolen identity to undermine, and the the students she used her position to manipulate and gatekeep from academic life. Do not let her reframe this as about her personal issues.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:06 AM on September 4, 2020 [51 favorites]
I would be interested in knowing who flagged Krug to cause her to issue a mea culpa in the first place.
Some students, I thought. I'd be very interested in hearing how all that went down.
posted by jquinby at 6:44 AM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
Some students, I thought. I'd be very interested in hearing how all that went down.
posted by jquinby at 6:44 AM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
"It’s unclear exactly how long Krug has been pretending to be Black, but it goes back to graduate school, at least. Krug earned her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2012, and some of her cohorts have publicly said she presented herself as Black throughout her time there. One former classmate tweeted that he always suspected Krug was “full of shit” but he wasn't sure what to do about it."
posted by mareli at 7:09 AM on September 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by mareli at 7:09 AM on September 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
One former classmate tweeted that he always suspected Krug was “full of shit” but he wasn't sure what to do about it.
That's the crux, isn't it? You can't say to someone that you don't think they're Black because they don't look Black to you.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:34 AM on September 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
That's the crux, isn't it? You can't say to someone that you don't think they're Black because they don't look Black to you.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:34 AM on September 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
"The only reason Jessica Krug finally admitted to this lie is bec on Aug 26th one very brave very BLACK Latina junior scholar approached two senior Black Latina scholars ^ trusted them enough to do the research & back her up. Those two scholars made phone calls & reached out to other senior scholars & institutions with proof. There was no witch hunt, but there was a need to draw the line. Krug got ahead of the story because she was caught & she knew the clock was ticking bec folks started to confront her ask questions. DO NOT BELIEVE FOR ONE SECOND that she would have come out with the truth on her own. She made a living & a whole life out of parroting Black Rican trauma and survival. (twitter thread)
posted by ChuraChura at 7:40 AM on September 4, 2020 [17 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 7:40 AM on September 4, 2020 [17 favorites]
stoneweaver, until things get sorted out, it's difficult to tell the difference between a black woman and a "black" woman. One of the nasty consequences of Krug's deception is likely to be actually black people side-eying each other.
The brunt of this will be borne by light skinned/white-passing people of color who are already often living in a liminal space in terms of their identity. Light skinned people of color are conferred a lot of advantages as a result of white supremacy and not by their own choice, but in this specific context, that same proximity to whiteness presents a profound form of alienation.
I would like to live in a world where my thoughts and opininons are not dismissed because I am a person of color, but I also don't want to live in a world where my thoughts and opinions are automatically, mindlessly elevated because I am a person of color.
I think lived experience is important to consider, especially when it comes to complex conversations about politics and identity, but I don't think Clarence Thomas or Nikki Haley should have their voices inherently elevated just because they are people of color.
posted by Ouverture at 8:33 AM on September 4, 2020 [17 favorites]
The brunt of this will be borne by light skinned/white-passing people of color who are already often living in a liminal space in terms of their identity. Light skinned people of color are conferred a lot of advantages as a result of white supremacy and not by their own choice, but in this specific context, that same proximity to whiteness presents a profound form of alienation.
I would like to live in a world where my thoughts and opininons are not dismissed because I am a person of color, but I also don't want to live in a world where my thoughts and opinions are automatically, mindlessly elevated because I am a person of color.
I think lived experience is important to consider, especially when it comes to complex conversations about politics and identity, but I don't think Clarence Thomas or Nikki Haley should have their voices inherently elevated just because they are people of color.
posted by Ouverture at 8:33 AM on September 4, 2020 [17 favorites]
I have never been driven to do things that benefitted my career. I've never felt compelled to steal an identity and use it to attack the people it belonged to. I never engaged in an elaborate charade. The nature of clinical obsession and compulsion is that they very, very seldom align with your actually ends. They paralyze you and rob you of energy and take your attention and focus away from your actual ends.
Quite. People with actual mental illnesses are rarely so lucky that it manifests in just the right way to benefit them until they get caught. Do people with kleptomania defraud banks of millions and then jet off to non-extradition countries? No they don't because that isn't kleptomania, just greed. They get caught shoplifting trivialities because they are suffering from an illness.
I'm sure you will have experienced the profound irritation of people claiming to be "obsessive compulsive" because they're detail oriented at work. No Sandra, you're not an obsessive compulsive because you're good at working off your to-do list.
I'm reminded of something I read, written by a prison doctor about the inmates he spoke to. Frequently these men, many of whom were in prison for crimes of violence committed against their partners and children, would tell the doctor that when they got angry, they just couldn't control themselves. He observed that most of these men were somehow much better at controlling themselves when it came to prison guards and other inmates and that their records on the outside rarely seemed to include starting fights with the hardest, nastiest, lads in the local boozer. Almost as if it was just an excuse.
posted by atrazine at 9:12 AM on September 4, 2020 [22 favorites]
Quite. People with actual mental illnesses are rarely so lucky that it manifests in just the right way to benefit them until they get caught. Do people with kleptomania defraud banks of millions and then jet off to non-extradition countries? No they don't because that isn't kleptomania, just greed. They get caught shoplifting trivialities because they are suffering from an illness.
I'm sure you will have experienced the profound irritation of people claiming to be "obsessive compulsive" because they're detail oriented at work. No Sandra, you're not an obsessive compulsive because you're good at working off your to-do list.
I'm reminded of something I read, written by a prison doctor about the inmates he spoke to. Frequently these men, many of whom were in prison for crimes of violence committed against their partners and children, would tell the doctor that when they got angry, they just couldn't control themselves. He observed that most of these men were somehow much better at controlling themselves when it came to prison guards and other inmates and that their records on the outside rarely seemed to include starting fights with the hardest, nastiest, lads in the local boozer. Almost as if it was just an excuse.
posted by atrazine at 9:12 AM on September 4, 2020 [22 favorites]
I’ve usually encountered the term “passing” in terms of someone light-skinned “passing” as white.
Race is not a biological or scientific category, race is a power relationship made flesh. So escaping the negative consequences of that power relationship because you can “pass” as someone of the dominant “race” makes a utilitarian kind of sense.
What Dolezal and Krug have done is pass in the other direction as a path to professional/academic advancement. Whatever flavor of Munchausenesque ethno-racial envy that motivates choices like this, fuck em.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 9:54 AM on September 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
Race is not a biological or scientific category, race is a power relationship made flesh. So escaping the negative consequences of that power relationship because you can “pass” as someone of the dominant “race” makes a utilitarian kind of sense.
What Dolezal and Krug have done is pass in the other direction as a path to professional/academic advancement. Whatever flavor of Munchausenesque ethno-racial envy that motivates choices like this, fuck em.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 9:54 AM on September 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
grumpybear69 Yeah, there's a lot of Black people who are so bright they can pass for white if they choose. My partner is unambiguously Black, but she's got a cousin who could pass if she wanted to, she doesn't want to but it's undeniable that a lot of people who see her don't think of her as Black simply because she's got paler skin and a bit more of an European cast to her features.
Which is what allows parasites like Krug to exist.
There's an undeniable false idea of white victimhood involved here. The thinking that leads a person like Krug to impersonate a Black person in order to obtain academic position and benefits reserved for Black people is the same thinking that says Black people have it easier than white people.
I'm sure we've all met the resentful white supremacists who maintain that whites are the real oppressed class in America and that Black people have it easy. Krug is the ultimate expression of that lie. She decided that Black people had an easier time in academia than white people so she thought she'd grab some of that life on easy street herself.
The irony is that she had to be better at the academic parts of her job to get her position as a faux-Black person than she would need to in order to get her position as a white person. Her actions weren't just theft, but also self sabotage rooted in racist lies and feelings of inferiority.
I'm more angry that she took stuff that should have been a Black person's. But, not as important, I'm also angry that she could have been a useful and valuable white ally if only she hadn't decided to go along with white supremacist lies. Allies have an important place in any liberation and equality movement. No, we can't be on the inside. But using our privilege to help is critical! And instead she used her privilege to steal what wasn't her's and ultimately to reinforce those lies to the racists who will now hold her up as an example of why they think its ok to keep oppressing Black people.
posted by sotonohito at 9:55 AM on September 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
Which is what allows parasites like Krug to exist.
There's an undeniable false idea of white victimhood involved here. The thinking that leads a person like Krug to impersonate a Black person in order to obtain academic position and benefits reserved for Black people is the same thinking that says Black people have it easier than white people.
I'm sure we've all met the resentful white supremacists who maintain that whites are the real oppressed class in America and that Black people have it easy. Krug is the ultimate expression of that lie. She decided that Black people had an easier time in academia than white people so she thought she'd grab some of that life on easy street herself.
The irony is that she had to be better at the academic parts of her job to get her position as a faux-Black person than she would need to in order to get her position as a white person. Her actions weren't just theft, but also self sabotage rooted in racist lies and feelings of inferiority.
I'm more angry that she took stuff that should have been a Black person's. But, not as important, I'm also angry that she could have been a useful and valuable white ally if only she hadn't decided to go along with white supremacist lies. Allies have an important place in any liberation and equality movement. No, we can't be on the inside. But using our privilege to help is critical! And instead she used her privilege to steal what wasn't her's and ultimately to reinforce those lies to the racists who will now hold her up as an example of why they think its ok to keep oppressing Black people.
posted by sotonohito at 9:55 AM on September 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
I'm also struck by the ways in which people like this do it to have the best of both worlds: to bully WOC (by accounts Krug was harshest to WOC scholars), which white women do all the time--while at the same time gaining entrance to inner circles and confidences that an admittedly white woman would not.
Yeah. Her colleagues and students tweeted about how she would leverage her fake identity to shut them down.
So basically, she's doing the same thing as white people who post, "As a Black person, I ..." comments on the internet. Confronted with a situation in which BIPOC's voices would have special relevancy and her whiteness does not make her the immediate assumed "expert", instead of ... y'know... listening to BIPOC, she co-opts their identity to keep the mic for herself.
Agree that the way she filled her confession with woke language is eyeroll worthy. Abusers are bad enough on their own, but the ones who learn to use progressive language and credentials to hide their abuse... ugh.
posted by Emily's Fist at 10:39 AM on September 4, 2020 [12 favorites]
Yeah. Her colleagues and students tweeted about how she would leverage her fake identity to shut them down.
So basically, she's doing the same thing as white people who post, "As a Black person, I ..." comments on the internet. Confronted with a situation in which BIPOC's voices would have special relevancy and her whiteness does not make her the immediate assumed "expert", instead of ... y'know... listening to BIPOC, she co-opts their identity to keep the mic for herself.
Agree that the way she filled her confession with woke language is eyeroll worthy. Abusers are bad enough on their own, but the ones who learn to use progressive language and credentials to hide their abuse... ugh.
posted by Emily's Fist at 10:39 AM on September 4, 2020 [12 favorites]
This whole thing, and the conversation about it here, and the conversation about it in certain academic circles, is so disappointing. It's an the perfect storm intersection of a lot of different problems. First, academia is a fucked up place and the ways that power accrues and protects itself is problematic. This professor was feeding GW a pastiche of what they expected from a Black Latina woman. She performed a caricature, and she gatekept, and she took up resources, and she took up space. She did immeasurable harm to her students and colleagues. In her fear of being found out, she seems to have been especially hostile and vicious to actual Black Latinx scholars. The credulity of white academia, the fact that white academics (like me) are so far removed from the experiences of Black and NBPOC humans in general that she passed for years... it's really really damning.
And, because she was a tenured faculty member, it must have taken a huge amount of courage for the young scholar to actually pressure her into admitting what she had done. The academic freedom that tenure ostensibly protects is important, but what does it mean that she had tenure when contingent academic labor has a much higher proportion of black and brown academics? I am fighting like hell to get a permanent academic position right now, but it would be much better for academia, I think, if we abolished tenure and extended fair and protected contracts to all faculty, and redistributed power in our university systems. If we didn't have just a few scholars of color who are under extreme pressure to be productive, to "provide diversity" to their departments, to mentor students of color, to provide all the undervalued and unpaid servicework that they do, I think that both she would have been exposed sooner, and her voice would have been less important to the field anyways.
I also think there's something to the fact that she is (like me) a white Jewish woman. I think there's a lot to say about the complex ways that white American Jews navigate whiteness and fit into conversations about oppression and power. We're white, but maybe whiteness is contingent, so maybe we're not white, so maybe it feels easier to slip into another identity? I'm not sure, and I need to think about this more. Her Jewishness, though, doesn't feel incidental.
In the end, what I think this demonstrates is the importance of representation in positions of power. We need more voices from more people. We need a system where one masquerading person is just one person in a huge body of diverse scholars and research and ideas, and doesn't get to accrue power by virtue of making up a palatable presentation of white ideas of what scholarship by nonwhite researchers looks like.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:48 AM on September 4, 2020 [17 favorites]
And, because she was a tenured faculty member, it must have taken a huge amount of courage for the young scholar to actually pressure her into admitting what she had done. The academic freedom that tenure ostensibly protects is important, but what does it mean that she had tenure when contingent academic labor has a much higher proportion of black and brown academics? I am fighting like hell to get a permanent academic position right now, but it would be much better for academia, I think, if we abolished tenure and extended fair and protected contracts to all faculty, and redistributed power in our university systems. If we didn't have just a few scholars of color who are under extreme pressure to be productive, to "provide diversity" to their departments, to mentor students of color, to provide all the undervalued and unpaid servicework that they do, I think that both she would have been exposed sooner, and her voice would have been less important to the field anyways.
I also think there's something to the fact that she is (like me) a white Jewish woman. I think there's a lot to say about the complex ways that white American Jews navigate whiteness and fit into conversations about oppression and power. We're white, but maybe whiteness is contingent, so maybe we're not white, so maybe it feels easier to slip into another identity? I'm not sure, and I need to think about this more. Her Jewishness, though, doesn't feel incidental.
In the end, what I think this demonstrates is the importance of representation in positions of power. We need more voices from more people. We need a system where one masquerading person is just one person in a huge body of diverse scholars and research and ideas, and doesn't get to accrue power by virtue of making up a palatable presentation of white ideas of what scholarship by nonwhite researchers looks like.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:48 AM on September 4, 2020 [17 favorites]
It seems worth layering that she cosplayed a “working-class” (Afro-Latina) identity. That is entirely common in the professional world well beyond academia. Hell, it’s essential for white political candidates and country singers if they have even a shred of credibility to mine about their humble background. Because while there are definitely not nearly enough BIPOC faculty in the academy, one thing there’s also not is a whole lot of working-class folks. Habitus and social capital are giant barriers to entry, and I say this as a 30-years-in scholar of working-class culture and ethnographer in working-class communities, majority white and majority Indigenous alike (they have much in common).
Class is a third rail in discussions of equity in the academy. It can’t be separated from or prioritized over racialized and gendered modalities of oppression, but it is a mechanism through which those structures operate. There’s a classed performativity going on here that may have helped bamboozle her colleagues and students. It isn’t familiar. It’s easier to mimic as a result.
Of course she benefited massively and materially from this theatrical con, and she’s not alone in that. But there would have been easier and subtler and more deniable ways to pull it off, if she was strictly a mercenary appropriator. One senses the contours of a disturbed mind here, which excuses nothing (as a colleague said, whatever trauma or mental illness is now invoked to excuse her bullshit, it sure didn’t seem to hold her back as a “Black woman scholar”). She was remarkably successful too, purportedly on the merits of her work as well as the spectacle of her stolen identity — I haven’t read her work so can’t say. One suspects that just leveraging the usual white privilege should have been enough to at least launch a career in the trade. So reducing her motivation to getting All The Stuff rings false to me. Narcissism seems the obvious special sauce. And academia can be remarkably tolerant of that.
Ugh this story. Over here on the Indigenous Studies beach, we have all kinds of similar crazy shit going on all the time. The modes of obfuscation and denial and ambiguity are well known and well exercised. As the brilliant Native scholar Kim Tallbear puts it, Native identity isn’t who you claim, it’s “who claims you?”
Applying that test has had bracing results in the last few years.
posted by spitbull at 10:57 AM on September 4, 2020 [34 favorites]
Class is a third rail in discussions of equity in the academy. It can’t be separated from or prioritized over racialized and gendered modalities of oppression, but it is a mechanism through which those structures operate. There’s a classed performativity going on here that may have helped bamboozle her colleagues and students. It isn’t familiar. It’s easier to mimic as a result.
Of course she benefited massively and materially from this theatrical con, and she’s not alone in that. But there would have been easier and subtler and more deniable ways to pull it off, if she was strictly a mercenary appropriator. One senses the contours of a disturbed mind here, which excuses nothing (as a colleague said, whatever trauma or mental illness is now invoked to excuse her bullshit, it sure didn’t seem to hold her back as a “Black woman scholar”). She was remarkably successful too, purportedly on the merits of her work as well as the spectacle of her stolen identity — I haven’t read her work so can’t say. One suspects that just leveraging the usual white privilege should have been enough to at least launch a career in the trade. So reducing her motivation to getting All The Stuff rings false to me. Narcissism seems the obvious special sauce. And academia can be remarkably tolerant of that.
Ugh this story. Over here on the Indigenous Studies beach, we have all kinds of similar crazy shit going on all the time. The modes of obfuscation and denial and ambiguity are well known and well exercised. As the brilliant Native scholar Kim Tallbear puts it, Native identity isn’t who you claim, it’s “who claims you?”
Applying that test has had bracing results in the last few years.
posted by spitbull at 10:57 AM on September 4, 2020 [34 favorites]
I mean, y’all get why bringing up people such as Clarence Thomas is a distraction and talking about this in bad faith, no? It’s like if we were saying “listen to women” and someone brought up Sarah Huckabee. Like no shit, turns out that you should bring discernment along.
In my experience navigating a white world as melanated as I am, the discernment you speak of is not there in these spaces. I brought up Clarence Thomas as an extreme, but the Black and brown misleadership class is even more strongly represented in the liberal and leftist politics that I so often find myself in.
This may not be your experience and that makes me glad! However, it is my experience and the experiences of similarly situated comrades in these spaces.
Maybe things would be different if I were light skinned or passing, but that's not what I get. Instead, what I get is essentialization, tokenization, and fetishization. For me, it seems like identity-based valuation will only encourage more grifters and worse discourse.
posted by Ouverture at 11:33 AM on September 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
In my experience navigating a white world as melanated as I am, the discernment you speak of is not there in these spaces. I brought up Clarence Thomas as an extreme, but the Black and brown misleadership class is even more strongly represented in the liberal and leftist politics that I so often find myself in.
This may not be your experience and that makes me glad! However, it is my experience and the experiences of similarly situated comrades in these spaces.
Maybe things would be different if I were light skinned or passing, but that's not what I get. Instead, what I get is essentialization, tokenization, and fetishization. For me, it seems like identity-based valuation will only encourage more grifters and worse discourse.
posted by Ouverture at 11:33 AM on September 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
Native identity isn’t who you claim, it’s “who claims you?”
This is great and makes a lot of sense.
As another mixed lightskin Latino with sephardic curls, this has been interesting and confusing for me.
I had a gross experience in a 'woke' place with 'woke' people a few years ago. I commented casually that I had participated in some early genetic mapping projects, and as the models got refined, I found out I had double digit percentages in several ancestries, including pacific coast mesoamerican native, and a series of mutations in mitochondrial DNA that indicate sephardic ancestry.
I personally see this as a curiosity, it is not like finding surprises in my genome will change my lived experience. But suddenly I got invitations from people in management to join an 'inclusion council' and two different minority action groups. One of the reasons given was "You've got the goods, but you are not one of the problematic ones". I did not join, but I did make it one of my personal OKRs to become one of the problematic ones.
posted by Dr. Curare at 11:38 AM on September 4, 2020 [21 favorites]
This is great and makes a lot of sense.
As another mixed lightskin Latino with sephardic curls, this has been interesting and confusing for me.
I had a gross experience in a 'woke' place with 'woke' people a few years ago. I commented casually that I had participated in some early genetic mapping projects, and as the models got refined, I found out I had double digit percentages in several ancestries, including pacific coast mesoamerican native, and a series of mutations in mitochondrial DNA that indicate sephardic ancestry.
I personally see this as a curiosity, it is not like finding surprises in my genome will change my lived experience. But suddenly I got invitations from people in management to join an 'inclusion council' and two different minority action groups. One of the reasons given was "You've got the goods, but you are not one of the problematic ones". I did not join, but I did make it one of my personal OKRs to become one of the problematic ones.
posted by Dr. Curare at 11:38 AM on September 4, 2020 [21 favorites]
I think there is a whole lot of interesting nuanced discussion to be had around that, AND it’s not a conversation that I think metafilter has made itself a safe place to have. It’s wanting to have space for those conversations that isn’t constantly mischaracterized and taken out of context that made me have so many conversations on MeTa about how race is handled here. But the long long history of conversation here makes me entirely aware that any pass at all for not listening to POC and particularly black people on their experiences and knowledge about racism will just be taken to extremes and used to invalidate concerns about pervasive racism.
Absolutely--I have these conversations with other people of color in spaces in which there is safety and trust. White people are always looking for reasons to invalidate POC voices as it is on our lived experiences and Metafilter is an overwhelmingly white space with a long history of being terrible at race.
posted by armadillo1224 at 1:25 PM on September 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
Absolutely--I have these conversations with other people of color in spaces in which there is safety and trust. White people are always looking for reasons to invalidate POC voices as it is on our lived experiences and Metafilter is an overwhelmingly white space with a long history of being terrible at race.
posted by armadillo1224 at 1:25 PM on September 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
Right, I think we are in agreement on this and our earlier posts. My concern is that "people should listen to PoC and particularly black people on their experiences and knowledge about racism" leaves a very big door open for grifters like Krug, Dolezal, and countless others to walk right through and exploit that trust and good faith.
As a result, it will keep happening to us, especially in extremely precarious and competitive fields like academia and activism. The gatekeeping needed to preserve this makes me just as uncomfortable as the voices of the marginalized being further dismissed and ignored.
I don't know the solution to this. But I do want to discuss the ways we are vulnerable and understand how we can mitigate these vulnerabilities.
posted by Ouverture at 1:29 PM on September 4, 2020 [6 favorites]
As a result, it will keep happening to us, especially in extremely precarious and competitive fields like academia and activism. The gatekeeping needed to preserve this makes me just as uncomfortable as the voices of the marginalized being further dismissed and ignored.
I don't know the solution to this. But I do want to discuss the ways we are vulnerable and understand how we can mitigate these vulnerabilities.
posted by Ouverture at 1:29 PM on September 4, 2020 [6 favorites]
Ugh this story. Over here on the Indigenous Studies beach, we have all kinds of similar crazy shit going on all the time. The modes of obfuscation and denial and ambiguity are well known and well exercised. As the brilliant Native scholar Kim Tallbear puts it, Native identity isn’t who you claim, it’s “who claims you?”
Interesting parallel. There's always been tons of cultural appropriation by white folks pretending to be first nations. But native identity is about family affiliation, which is not difficult to confirm if asked.
posted by ovvl at 1:57 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
Interesting parallel. There's always been tons of cultural appropriation by white folks pretending to be first nations. But native identity is about family affiliation, which is not difficult to confirm if asked.
posted by ovvl at 1:57 PM on September 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
It isn’t that simple. People claim Native identities based on a single known ancestor from 200 years ago on the regular. No modern family has to vouch for them. And nowadays a people increasingly validate Indigenous identity through the completely illegitimate mode of DNA testing. Indeed, it actually isn’t about family affiliation as much as tribal affiliation. Which itself reflects a troubling history of racist classification that weighs heavily on modern communities.
I’ve plugged this before on Mefi but I learned more from this one article about the intertwined histories of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism in the US than from the hundreds of books and articles on related topics I’d read before this. The article is by the recently deceased and brilliant scholar of genocide studies, Patrick Wolfe, and is entitled “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” (J of Genocide Research, 8/4, 2006). Tough going but worth the effort. You can grab it here.
posted by spitbull at 3:30 PM on September 4, 2020 [14 favorites]
I’ve plugged this before on Mefi but I learned more from this one article about the intertwined histories of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism in the US than from the hundreds of books and articles on related topics I’d read before this. The article is by the recently deceased and brilliant scholar of genocide studies, Patrick Wolfe, and is entitled “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” (J of Genocide Research, 8/4, 2006). Tough going but worth the effort. You can grab it here.
posted by spitbull at 3:30 PM on September 4, 2020 [14 favorites]
So much bad here.
I've been thinking about Jessica A. Krug's shambling parade-of-pity confession on Medium. I can't express my feelings better than Nicole Symmonds' (https://twitter.com/NicoleSymmonds) words,
And then, a young Black/Latina scholar starts asking questions and so Jessica is about to be outed, and what does she do? She could just stop, y'know? Admit it to the young scholar, quit her job, stop publishing, stop pretending, just disappear and do something quiet and good, all that stuff which atrazine said.
But no. The story has to be about Jessica, and so she falls all over herself about how Bad and Terrible she is and it just screams out Look At Me And What I Did.
And now, it's like a force multiplier on the level of harm. Thanks to Jessica's need to publicly out herself, she's scaled up the damage by a couple orders of magnitude. Now there are thousands, tens of thousands of authors and activists and just regular people living their lives who will have to deal with the "oh are you really black because you seem kind of light-skinned" and all kinds of shit I can't imagine. Cue up the racists, who will play this one as long as they can.
It's hard to imagine a more damaging, more terrible course of action over the last 24 hours than the one Jessica Krug took. It's hard to imagine that a seemingly intelligent woman wouldn't see the damage that her Medium article would do to Blacks everywhere, hell, the damage this does to the country. She had to know, and yet she did it anyways. Jessica Krug must really, really hate Blacks. What other conclusion can we draw?
posted by fuzzy.little.sock at 8:06 PM on September 4, 2020 [26 favorites]
I've been thinking about Jessica A. Krug's shambling parade-of-pity confession on Medium. I can't express my feelings better than Nicole Symmonds' (https://twitter.com/NicoleSymmonds) words,
Also the audacity she had to say "I cancel myself." That is the epitome of white privilege, to control the terms by which you enter and exit any space. After faking blackness for years all of a sudden she doesn't want to get dragged like a Black person.I'm thinking about this in terms of measuring damage. Jessica did a lot of damage by taking on the role of a Black/Latina woman. There are likely dozens, maybe hundreds, of people who were directly harmed by her years of deception: students, professors, editors, community organizers, activists, and so on, who were pushed aside or replaced by this woman play-acting at being Black.
And then, a young Black/Latina scholar starts asking questions and so Jessica is about to be outed, and what does she do? She could just stop, y'know? Admit it to the young scholar, quit her job, stop publishing, stop pretending, just disappear and do something quiet and good, all that stuff which atrazine said.
But no. The story has to be about Jessica, and so she falls all over herself about how Bad and Terrible she is and it just screams out Look At Me And What I Did.
And now, it's like a force multiplier on the level of harm. Thanks to Jessica's need to publicly out herself, she's scaled up the damage by a couple orders of magnitude. Now there are thousands, tens of thousands of authors and activists and just regular people living their lives who will have to deal with the "oh are you really black because you seem kind of light-skinned" and all kinds of shit I can't imagine. Cue up the racists, who will play this one as long as they can.
It's hard to imagine a more damaging, more terrible course of action over the last 24 hours than the one Jessica Krug took. It's hard to imagine that a seemingly intelligent woman wouldn't see the damage that her Medium article would do to Blacks everywhere, hell, the damage this does to the country. She had to know, and yet she did it anyways. Jessica Krug must really, really hate Blacks. What other conclusion can we draw?
posted by fuzzy.little.sock at 8:06 PM on September 4, 2020 [26 favorites]
Statement from the GWU history faculty:With what she has termed her “audaciously deceptive” appropriation of an Afro-Caribbean identity, she has betrayed the trust of countless current and former students, fellow scholars of Africana Studies, colleagues in our department and throughout the historical discipline, as well as community activists in New York City and beyond. The discipline of history is concerned with truth telling about the past. With her conduct, Dr. Krug has raised questions about the veracity of her own research and teaching. Accordingly, the department calls upon Dr. Krug to resign from her position as associate professor of History at GW. Failing that, the department recommends the rescinding of her tenure and the termination of her appointment.
posted by TwoStride at 9:48 PM on September 4, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by TwoStride at 9:48 PM on September 4, 2020 [8 favorites]
The researchers and scholar who risked it all to out Dr. Krug deserve medals. Academe has such strange standards that I can fully understand the sad situation many people who had questioned Krug found themselves in - how do I know for sure / when is the time for action. Clearly, doing nothing has the consequence of allowing someone to grow and grow in prominence, making their destruction even more dangerous for the entire community.
What will be hard is now Krug has this half-life to look forward to where her books will be bought and cited but the author will be vilified. It's quite sad she will continue to profit from her deception for years to come.
posted by parmanparman at 12:51 AM on September 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
What will be hard is now Krug has this half-life to look forward to where her books will be bought and cited but the author will be vilified. It's quite sad she will continue to profit from her deception for years to come.
posted by parmanparman at 12:51 AM on September 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
Using mental illness to explain away immoral choices is very simple and I imagine very comforting to healthy people, because it puts bad people in the "other" box and avoids any unpleasant introspection about how we justify our inequity and inhumanity to ourselves. But it stigmatizes those actually dealing with mental illness and let's abusers recast themselves as victims.
I don't want to derail, but I also want to push back against this, because I see it a lot on Twitter. And I get why -- folks with MI are vulnerable, the world is ableist, etc.
But "bad people do bad things, mental illness doesn't have anything to do with it" is too simplistic and erases those of us (like me!) who suffer from MI who have symptoms that influence shitty behavior. I've yelled at loved ones during depressive episodes. My ideation comes from rage, not out of not wanting to be a burden. My friend's sister lies a lot when her disorder isn't being properly managed. The mainstream, outdated, reductive, "crazy people are scary and do bad things because they're nuts" is harmful, but honestly, so is the push-back counter-narrative that says bad behavior can't be influenced or caused by mental illness at all. Knowing one's MI is influencing or causing bad behavior doesn't excuse bad behavior; it helps one figure out how to curb it. It's on me to get and maintain treatment so that I don't treat myself or others shittily, that's my responsibility.
/end of derail, hoping the topic now goes back to race, if mods delete this, i understand
posted by pelvicsorcery at 2:33 AM on September 5, 2020 [16 favorites]
I don't want to derail, but I also want to push back against this, because I see it a lot on Twitter. And I get why -- folks with MI are vulnerable, the world is ableist, etc.
But "bad people do bad things, mental illness doesn't have anything to do with it" is too simplistic and erases those of us (like me!) who suffer from MI who have symptoms that influence shitty behavior. I've yelled at loved ones during depressive episodes. My ideation comes from rage, not out of not wanting to be a burden. My friend's sister lies a lot when her disorder isn't being properly managed. The mainstream, outdated, reductive, "crazy people are scary and do bad things because they're nuts" is harmful, but honestly, so is the push-back counter-narrative that says bad behavior can't be influenced or caused by mental illness at all. Knowing one's MI is influencing or causing bad behavior doesn't excuse bad behavior; it helps one figure out how to curb it. It's on me to get and maintain treatment so that I don't treat myself or others shittily, that's my responsibility.
/end of derail, hoping the topic now goes back to race, if mods delete this, i understand
posted by pelvicsorcery at 2:33 AM on September 5, 2020 [16 favorites]
stoneweaver, Metafilter seems like a place where people give hot takes easily because something like this doesn't matter that much to them, and then marginalized people it does matter to are left to deal with it, because it's possible to be civil and yet absolutely infuriating or exasperating in ways that avoid moderation, even if it's questionable under the site guidelines.
Like people rather glibly suggesting that the incredibly rare incidence of a lone individual perpetrating a fraud where they pretend to be Black somehow complicates listening to Black people collectively.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 3:36 AM on September 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
Like people rather glibly suggesting that the incredibly rare incidence of a lone individual perpetrating a fraud where they pretend to be Black somehow complicates listening to Black people collectively.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 3:36 AM on September 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
She's trending, just like she wanted to. White supremacy and Capitalism will now make her a viable asset and book publishers will come calling. Magazine publishers are likely RN pushing their Black editors to write a profile of this person. Professional photo shoots on the way...
The book will be titled something like: "Racial Matters: one white woman's journey into Black womanhood"
posted by mediareport at 5:29 AM on September 5, 2020 [6 favorites]
The book will be titled something like: "Racial Matters: one white woman's journey into Black womanhood"
posted by mediareport at 5:29 AM on September 5, 2020 [6 favorites]
This seems like a good time for my fellow white Jews to talk about our racial self identity. I know a handful of Ashkenazi Jews who state they are not white - because of Jewishness. Sure there's room for an examination of the way race functions in differently relationship to our Jewishness, but this is a good opportunity for our community to put the idea to bed. US Ashkenazi Jews of European ancestry move through the world as white people, with the privileges associated with that identity. And we need to own that.
posted by latkes at 11:57 AM on September 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by latkes at 11:57 AM on September 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
Like people rather glibly suggesting that the incredibly rare incidence of a lone individual perpetrating a fraud where they pretend to be Black somehow complicates listening to Black people collectively.
Is that unrelated to the Critical Race Theory sensitivity training now labeled unamerican propaganda?
posted by infini at 12:53 PM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
Is that unrelated to the Critical Race Theory sensitivity training now labeled unamerican propaganda?
posted by infini at 12:53 PM on September 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
I know a handful of Ashkenazi Jews who state they are not white - because of Jewishness.
I was reminded recently of my time in high school in Mississippi and reading this line made me remember one kid in particular that went to my high school. He was white, most definitely, but he was a short white guy who had a mix of friends but he was notable for how many black friends he had. His family wasn't wealthy and he may have even had a half sibling who was biracial. He wore clothes and spoke in a way that aligned himself with the black community at the school at that time. At my school, at that time (late 80s), there was a thing going on where we had all these superlatives and homecoming court and beauty revue (pageant) that had black/white ballots. So, there was a full all-black homecoming court and a full all-white homecoming court, white "most likely to success and black "most likely"..., etc..
I was lucky enough to have a conversation with a friend a few years ago about this who was at the school with her brother at the same time. They are Hispanic. When they enrolled in school they had to check a box whether they wanted to be "black or white" for school stuff. I don't know what it was called on the form and I'm sure we just glossed right over that. I asked what she chose and she chose "white." Now...tell me how our racial identity politics makes sense of that. And while it may have been different other years, as near as I can tell, no Hispanics or any other race other than black or white won those spots.
Back to the little white guy. He was very friendly and outgoing but he would absolutely call out racism and that kind of bullshit. I recall that he got into a snit with the school because he wanted to sign up as "black" for the purposes of these stupid internal elections and popularity contests. At the time, we all razzed him about this and I have no way of knowing exactly what was on his mind or in his heart when he was doing this but it feels, looking back, as maybe just a little bit revolutionary. Now, he was not telling us, his peers, that he was black but he was also, rightly, seeing white people for what they were and rejecting it as valid. And, in Mississippi, in the 1980s, he really had nowhere else to go with those feelings.
I wonder how Jessica Krug will talk and present herself now?
posted by amanda at 1:57 PM on September 5, 2020 [5 favorites]
I was reminded recently of my time in high school in Mississippi and reading this line made me remember one kid in particular that went to my high school. He was white, most definitely, but he was a short white guy who had a mix of friends but he was notable for how many black friends he had. His family wasn't wealthy and he may have even had a half sibling who was biracial. He wore clothes and spoke in a way that aligned himself with the black community at the school at that time. At my school, at that time (late 80s), there was a thing going on where we had all these superlatives and homecoming court and beauty revue (pageant) that had black/white ballots. So, there was a full all-black homecoming court and a full all-white homecoming court, white "most likely to success and black "most likely"..., etc..
I was lucky enough to have a conversation with a friend a few years ago about this who was at the school with her brother at the same time. They are Hispanic. When they enrolled in school they had to check a box whether they wanted to be "black or white" for school stuff. I don't know what it was called on the form and I'm sure we just glossed right over that. I asked what she chose and she chose "white." Now...tell me how our racial identity politics makes sense of that. And while it may have been different other years, as near as I can tell, no Hispanics or any other race other than black or white won those spots.
Back to the little white guy. He was very friendly and outgoing but he would absolutely call out racism and that kind of bullshit. I recall that he got into a snit with the school because he wanted to sign up as "black" for the purposes of these stupid internal elections and popularity contests. At the time, we all razzed him about this and I have no way of knowing exactly what was on his mind or in his heart when he was doing this but it feels, looking back, as maybe just a little bit revolutionary. Now, he was not telling us, his peers, that he was black but he was also, rightly, seeing white people for what they were and rejecting it as valid. And, in Mississippi, in the 1980s, he really had nowhere else to go with those feelings.
I wonder how Jessica Krug will talk and present herself now?
posted by amanda at 1:57 PM on September 5, 2020 [5 favorites]
I wonder how Jessica Krug will talk and present herself now?
In whatever way best protects her ego in that particular moment.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:24 PM on September 5, 2020 [7 favorites]
In whatever way best protects her ego in that particular moment.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:24 PM on September 5, 2020 [7 favorites]
This seems like a good time for my fellow white Jews to talk about our racial self identity. I know a handful of Ashkenazi Jews who state they are not white - because of Jewishness. Sure there's room for an examination of the way race functions in differently relationship to our Jewishness, but this is a good opportunity for our community to put the idea to bed. US Ashkenazi Jews of European ancestry move through the world as white people, with the privileges associated with that identity. And we need to own that.
Whether American Ashkenazim are unmarked white is neither here nor there in this case though. If she had claimed that she was non-white because she was Jewish, I think academics and activists could have made their own decisions as to how to feel about that.
There is a huge difference between "I'm an Askhenazi Jewish woman, I don't think Ashkenazi Jews are "white" in this context because reasons A, B, and C". Someone hearing or reading that may well disagree with the second part of that sentence but it is not a lie. [n.b. context matters, in the context of a public meeting in New York, I would think claiming not to be white is ridiculous for an Ashkenazi Jew.]
Race in America is pretty complex but the strongest axis of oppression in the US is specifically anti-blackness, and certainly Ashkenazi Jews are not Black.
Not only did she claim to be Black, she claimed a series of specific identities, none of which she had even the remotest claim to. If you look at the series of identities she claimed, it is probably significant that the first identity she claimed was North African. North Africa was historically the home of the largest population of Sephardi/Mizrahi Jews. Who wants to bet that she first claimed to be Sephardic?
posted by atrazine at 4:30 AM on September 6, 2020 [6 favorites]
Whether American Ashkenazim are unmarked white is neither here nor there in this case though. If she had claimed that she was non-white because she was Jewish, I think academics and activists could have made their own decisions as to how to feel about that.
There is a huge difference between "I'm an Askhenazi Jewish woman, I don't think Ashkenazi Jews are "white" in this context because reasons A, B, and C". Someone hearing or reading that may well disagree with the second part of that sentence but it is not a lie. [n.b. context matters, in the context of a public meeting in New York, I would think claiming not to be white is ridiculous for an Ashkenazi Jew.]
Race in America is pretty complex but the strongest axis of oppression in the US is specifically anti-blackness, and certainly Ashkenazi Jews are not Black.
Not only did she claim to be Black, she claimed a series of specific identities, none of which she had even the remotest claim to. If you look at the series of identities she claimed, it is probably significant that the first identity she claimed was North African. North Africa was historically the home of the largest population of Sephardi/Mizrahi Jews. Who wants to bet that she first claimed to be Sephardic?
posted by atrazine at 4:30 AM on September 6, 2020 [6 favorites]
Important topic, different thread.
Good discussion, I await the story of how a or a crew of young scholar-detective(s) cracked this case, ran the info to selected players, and disclaimed this tenured prof from her position of power.
So many big lies right now, I need advice on how to fight them. I am weary, me.
posted by eustatic at 9:05 AM on September 6, 2020
Good discussion, I await the story of how a or a crew of young scholar-detective(s) cracked this case, ran the info to selected players, and disclaimed this tenured prof from her position of power.
So many big lies right now, I need advice on how to fight them. I am weary, me.
posted by eustatic at 9:05 AM on September 6, 2020
Anonymous: CV Vitolo “Haddad”: Another Academic Racial Fraud?
posted by chrchr at 10:00 AM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by chrchr at 10:00 AM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
I've come across some folks bringing up–again–the racial background and identity of activist, Shaun King who is not without other controversies and ardent detractors.
posted by amanda at 4:14 PM on September 6, 2020
posted by amanda at 4:14 PM on September 6, 2020
The piece I needed, and this time it is by Adolph Reed Jr's son, who is an accomplished academic himself:
However offensive Krug’s act is — and it is very offensive because it was a front — the demand for her performance is even more offensive. Indeed, the demand for the product Krug was selling merits far more attention than she does. Why? Well, Krug may have done damage to some people herself. But some of the people who bought her performance of blackness will continue to do damage to black and brown people, precisely because Krug tailored her racist performance to mesh with her intended professional audience’s racist presumptions about “black authenticity” — whatever that might be.posted by Ouverture at 9:14 PM on September 6, 2020 [7 favorites]
I am not in any way a Shaun King fan, but he has always said that his mom is white and his dad was black. This was true when he was a student at Morehouse 20 years ago.
He has appropriated the work of black women, he never manages to complete any of the projects he proposes, and he has almost definitely mismanaged the money he has fundraised for these various projects, but he is a different kind of problematic person from the problematic people being discussed here.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:42 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
He has appropriated the work of black women, he never manages to complete any of the projects he proposes, and he has almost definitely mismanaged the money he has fundraised for these various projects, but he is a different kind of problematic person from the problematic people being discussed here.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:42 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Follow-up on the CV Vitolo-Haddad story: They have stepped down as Co-President of the Madison Teaching Assistant Association.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 8:05 AM on September 7, 2020
She doesn't give an extensive autopsy of every wrongdoing she's ever made, but I'm not sure why we should expect (or want?) an exhaustive list of names and dates in what is a public admission of guilt, not testimony.
I think it's a very reasonable expectation, actually, it's not a legalistic thing. In real life, if one person gives an apology to another, a very common response will be a sharp "Sorry for what, exactly?" And if you ask why that response, and you keep asking carefully, you'll get a reason something like "she's not really sorry if she doesn't know what she's sorry for." There's a real need to make sure everyone - including bystanders - understand exactly what social rule was broken and what harm was done and why that social rule was in place. People object to the lack of clarity because it frustrates that need.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 11:47 AM on September 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
I think it's a very reasonable expectation, actually, it's not a legalistic thing. In real life, if one person gives an apology to another, a very common response will be a sharp "Sorry for what, exactly?" And if you ask why that response, and you keep asking carefully, you'll get a reason something like "she's not really sorry if she doesn't know what she's sorry for." There's a real need to make sure everyone - including bystanders - understand exactly what social rule was broken and what harm was done and why that social rule was in place. People object to the lack of clarity because it frustrates that need.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 11:47 AM on September 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
For those following along, word from a colleague is that Jessica Krug has resigned, effective immediately. Expect to see more on this shortly.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 3:26 PM on September 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Ahmad Khani at 3:26 PM on September 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
Here is official news that Jessica Krug has resigned, effective immediately.
posted by TwoStride at 3:32 PM on September 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by TwoStride at 3:32 PM on September 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
Courtesy of Duke University Press: Editorial Director Gisela Fosado Speaks Out About Jessica A. Krug
posted by Ahmad Khani at 9:46 AM on September 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
Lauren Michele Jackson, "The Layered Deceptions of Jessica Krug, the Black-Studies Professor Who Hid That She Is White" (The New Yorker)
Krug’s reckoning was finally set in motion after another G.W. professor, H. G. Carrillo, died, in April, at the age of fifty-nine, due to complications of the novel coronavirus. Carrillo, who went by the nickname Hache (“H” in Spanish, spelled out), was known as a queer Cuban-American author who captured the estranged experience of the Latin American diaspora, notably in his novel “Loosing My Espanish,” from 2004. Upon reading a tribute to the author in the Washington Post, however, Carrillo’s sister and niece contacted the paper with some critical updated information: Carrillo was not born in Cuba but in the United States, Detroit to be exact. His parents were also born in Michigan, and they, like Carrillo (born Herman Glenn Carroll), were Black Americans with no Latino heritage. This was a shock to Carrillo’s husband and to the literary community, prompting conversations among Afro-Latinx writers who had counted him as one of their own.posted by Ahmad Khani at 2:49 PM on September 12, 2020 [6 favorites]
It was also, the junior scholar told me, “a moment of synchronicity.” On August 26th, she texted two other Afro-Latinx scholars, after hinting, on Twitter, about a possible Carrillo-like situation within her field. One of the people she texted was Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, an associate professor of Afro-diaspora studies at Michigan State University. Together with a third scholar, Figueroa-Vásquez began doing research into Krug’s background and found proof of her identity once and for all in the obituaries of Krug’s parents. But there remained the question of what to do with the information. “We were not going to write some big flashy letter. We were not trying to ruin her life,” Figueroa-Vásquez said. “We were really thinking, as Black Latina women, how do we do this ethically?” They had no plans to contact G.W.; what they wanted, Figueroa-Vasquez said, was simply for Krug to “stop lying” and apologize. They reached out to people who know Krug personally, colleagues in her field and editors she had worked with, to gather more information. But Figueroa-Vásquez suspects that Krug was “tipped off” by one of those people. Within eight days of their initial conversation about Krug (“Black women are efficient if nothing else—we get to the bottom of things,” Figueroa-Vásquez joked), the Medium post was online and a frenzy of news coverage had begun.
Thank you for sharing that, Ahmad Khani. What caught my eye was this:
Krug spoke back then of trauma as part of her heritage, describing herself as the product of rape between her mother and father, and the junior professor said that she didn’t want to impinge on Krug by bringing it up, even as she and other friends, all Latinx, harbored doubts about Krug’s claims.
She knew exactly how to dress up a lie in such a way that it would be against the cultural norms of our society to press her on it.
posted by atrazine at 6:29 AM on September 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
Krug spoke back then of trauma as part of her heritage, describing herself as the product of rape between her mother and father, and the junior professor said that she didn’t want to impinge on Krug by bringing it up, even as she and other friends, all Latinx, harbored doubts about Krug’s claims.
She knew exactly how to dress up a lie in such a way that it would be against the cultural norms of our society to press her on it.
posted by atrazine at 6:29 AM on September 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
CV Vitolo-Haddad, who was accused of faking their background by an anonymous Medium post (and then admitted it), now has their tenure-track job offer from Fresno State under review.
posted by TwoStride at 9:41 AM on September 14, 2020
posted by TwoStride at 9:41 AM on September 14, 2020
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posted by Countess Elena at 11:51 AM on September 3, 2020 [14 favorites]