Jessica Krug, an African American history professor and activist, has admitted that for years she has pretended to be black.
Jessica Krug, an African American history professor and longtime activist, has revealed that she has been masquerading as a black woman for years, despite being raised as “a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City”.
The George Washington University professor penned a confessional essay on Medium in which she revealed the secret, labelling herself a “culture leech” and demanding to be cancelled.
In an essay titled The Truth, and the Anti-Black Violence of My Lies, the 38-year-old Krug outlines how, ever since she was a youth, she has assumed a false identity. It’s a state she attributes to mental health issues and the “severe trauma” of her childhood and teen years; however, she clarifies that this does not justify her actions.
“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 Krug wrote.
“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 should absolutely be cancelled. No. I don’t write in passive voice, ever, because I believe we must name power,” she continued. “So. You should absolutely cancel me, and I absolutely cancel myself. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” she resolves.
Yet following the publication of the essay, others have come out against Krug, claiming that she only outed herself because she knew she had been caught.
Hari Ziyad, a black author and former friend of Krug’s took to Twitter, describing, “She didn’t do it out of benevolence. She did it because she had been found out.”
For years I defended her work, and her from her own self-loathing. I did it despite warnings from Black friends, from those who said she wasn’t Black enough even if they could accept that she was Black, and from my own mind and body.
— Hari Ziyad (@HariZiyad) September 3, 2020
Whilst Dr. Yomaira Figueroa, an associate professor of Afro Diaspora Studies at Michigan State University, corroborated the claims, describing that Jessica Krug was prompted to publish the essay after a black Latina junior scholar approached two senior scholars with her suspicions.
“Krug got ahead of the story because she was caught & she knew the clock was ticking bec folks started to confront her & ask questions,” Figueroa described. “Do not believe for one second that she would have come out with the truth on her own.”
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..
— Dr. YoFiggy (@DrYoFiggy) September 3, 2020
why chase the extra clout of being a hood raised Black Boricua? Why put on that life that isn’t yours & attempt to play it so well that you block, beat, and bully others? incl shit talking Black women? Whiteness is a hell of a drug.
But also she needs to account for everything— Dr. YoFiggy (@DrYoFiggy) September 3, 2020
I can only imagine how her actual friends & community must feel right now. Gutted.
I count myself *lucky* to not know her personally.
She gaslit folks I know, was openly racist, & manipulated so many people.One person’s lies affect so many folks.
— Dr. YoFiggy (@DrYoFiggy) September 3, 2020
Jessica Krug is yet to respond to the claims.
