A white professor of African American History at George Washington University has admitted she’s been pretending to be black for years.
Jessica Krug, wrote a medium post admitting her lies and has become the subject of discussion around the world. The case is reminiscent of that of Rachel Dolezal, in 2015, who was outed by her parents as impersonating a Black person.
‘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,’ opens Ms Krug’s post.
‘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.
Ms Krug reportedly took financial support from institutions like the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for a book on the transatlantic slave trade. In the book, Fugutive Modernities, she says: ‘My ancestors, unknown, unnamed, who bled life into a future they had no reason to believe could or should exist. My brother, the fastest, the smartest, the most charming of us all. Those whose names I cannot say for their own safety, whether in my barrio, in Angola, or in Brazil.’
It's been reported Krug used the name Jessica La Bombalera in activist circles.
In her medium post, Krug explains: ‘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.’
She adds: ‘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.’
Speaking of ‘restorative justice’ she adds: ‘I should absolutely be cancelled. No. I don’t write in passive voice, ever, because I believe we must name power. So. You should absolutely cancel me, and I absolutely cancel myself.’