Academic who faked being black can fall back on white privilege
AN American university professor whose work focuses on Africa and the African diaspora has confessed she lied about being black, calling herself a “culture leech”.
Jessica Krug, who lectured at George Washington University in Washington DC, has admitted she had been deceiving colleagues for years.
The 38-year-old was, in fact, a white Jewish woman from Kansas City despite claiming Black and Latina heritage. But in a selfpublished article, Krug revealed the truth that she is white.
She continued her deceit even after race activist Rachel Dolezal was exposed by her parents for the same lie in 2015.
Writing on the website ‘Medium’, Krug revealed: “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.”
Krug seemed to try on black identities like trying on dresses in Debenhams.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if she is offered some money-spinning self-redemption tour while promoting a book detailing her struggles.
Being white carries a lot of privilege in the States, even including it would seem, the privilege to get away with pretending to be black.