Jessica Krug, a white woman from Kansas, has been pretending to be Black for her entire...

[demmiblue]

Weird story of the day: Jessica Krug, a white woman from Kansas, has been pretending to be Black for her entire professional career, and now she’s apologizing for it:

"I am not a culture vulture. I am a culture leech."

Link to tweet

[ck4829]

1. Race is ultimately a social construct; it NEEDS to be played with, defied, subverted

[catbyte]

2. That's an interesting concept. I had to prove I was Native American, mainly to force the

State of Michigan and US Governments to honor treaty obligations. I know we're "special status," but it's always kind of pissed me off to have to prove my heritage. But it was worth it, I guess. If you can prove you're at least 1/4 blood quantum Native American, you have free tuition in any public college or university in Michigan. We had to force the republican legislature & governors to honor it, (of course) but it was a treaty obligation and a treaty is settled law.

[brush]

3. There are many, many black women who look like her. From the looks of her face...

I'd say she has some African American blood in her.

[demmiblue]

4. It is all cosmetic, similar to Rachel Dolezal.

She knows her heritage:

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.

[brush]

5. Not trying to discount your experience but I'm African American and I'm pretty sure from...

that photo, that woman has African American blood somewhere in her lineage. Her look is not at all uncommon in a gathering of black women.

As the old saying goes, one drop of black blood in America and...

I don't really have to finish that do I?

[LisaL]

7. So she admits she is a white Jewish woman who pretended to be black,

yet you insist she has to be black? I guess she is a convincing pretender.

[brush]

9. Like I said, her look is not uncommon. And why would you think having a person of African...

descent somewhere in a family tree is an impossibility?

[LisaL]

10. Because she made a living out of pretending to be black, but now she is admitting she is not?

Why in the world would she claim she isn't black if she was black?

[brush]

15. Who knows. She should register with 23 and Me.

[LisaL]

21. She admitted it because she was found out.

She is a White Jewish woman, and frankly I am amazed some here still insist she is Black when she admitted she is not.
“Jess Krug, professor at (George Washington University), is someone I called a friend up until this morning when she gave me a call admitting to everything written here,” Ziyad tweeted with a link to the Medium post. “She didn’t do it out of benevolence. She did it because she had been found out.”
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article245474050.html

[cwydro]

23. Yes.

Exactly.

[brush]

24. What are you so amazed about? Many people have different ethnicities in their family tree.

It's not that unusual. Who is pure with only one ethnicity in their make up? Very few, if any, I would say.

[LisaL]

25. She is admitting she is not Black.

Yet you still insist she is.
Why would she admit to not being black if she was?
She certainly isn't a "child of the hood."
She is a white Jewish woman from Kansas.

[brush]

29. Saying she might have a person in her family tree from the African diaspora is not...

the same as saying she's a black woman. How is that so hard to understand? Most people, like I keep saying, are not 100% pure of any one ethnicity.

I'm an African American with a white man and a half native American woman in my family tree three and four generations back. It's not that unusual.

[JI7]

11. There are some similarities among some Jewish and Black physical

appearances.

Similar to native American and asians.

So there may be long ago connection there.

[brush]

12. Yes. It's not all that unusual. She also looks Puerto Rican and many Puerto Ricans...

have roots in the African diaspora. And there are many descendants with Moorish blood from their conquest of much of Spain.

[Blue_true]

38. I tend to agree with you. I am Black with some White ancestry,

some of my features show that White ancestry. When I look at her, I see a White woman that has some Black ancestry in her past. There are Whites that have Black ancestry and their ancestors chose to deny that to make life easier for them, it is a process called “passing”. My maternal grandmother could have “passed” if she had chosen that route.

[brush]

42. I am African American too. Grew up in an AME church which had members who could've passed...

but chose to be AA. In fact, most black people have mixed ancestry from slave owners raping enslaved women, which is why we go from high yellow to deep chocolate and everything in between.

[Blue_true]

49. Yes. nt

[cwydro]

28. I have a close friend, who looks biracial or Latina.

We lived in South Florida, and Cuban-Americans always came up to her and spoke Spanish. She doesn’t speak a word of Spanish.

Her father was an Irish American and mother pure Irish English. No one else in her family had her dark good looks (big Irish Catholic Family), but their facial features were similar. She was born in Chicago.

She doesn’t have an ounce of anything other than Western European blood in her. Just like me, Ireland, Great Britain. She did the Ancestry thing, even though she knew her family several generations back.

[Blue_true]

35. I agree. She looks like what some African Americans call a "high yellow", or a Black

person that is mostly White.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

64. Nope. No African American blood in her within

the past 20,000 years or so.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

65. I happen to know her personally.

From when she was a student at the Barstow School in Kansas City, Missouri. She lived a mile or so from me, and was my carpool girl during her senior year. I picked her up every morning and drove her to Barstow. I was reasonably friendly with her mom. She is Jewish, no more African heritage than I have, and all of my grandparents came to this country from Ireland. Oh, yes, we are all originally from Africa, but those of us whose ancestors left several tens of thousands of years ago have a very different genetic profile than those who left only a few hundred years ago.

[Dream Girl]

6. She looks black to me.

But I’ve known a few white people who became black by sheer will. The was one women I knew in college who “acting so black” I actually assumed she was just very, dry white looking. Turns out she was Irish and Italian...

[cwydro]

30. What is "dry" white?

That’s a new one for me.

[Dream Girl]

33. Typo...very, very is wat I meant

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

67. Pinot Grigio is a somewhat dry white. Moscato is not as dry.

But, a desperate host might try to make that Moscato pass as Pinot Grigio. Some guests may not notice.

[cwydro]

68. Bwah!

Just saw this!

[Jeebo]

8. Which race is she?

She belongs to the same race we ALL belong to: The human race.

Thom Hartmann likes to point out on his radio show that there is no gene for race. There are only genes for individual characteristics -- curly hair or straight hair, blue eyes or brown eyes, fair skin or light brown or medium brown or dark brown skin, things like that.

Anybody looking at me would say I'm a "white" guy, but I'm also descended from a Jewish maternal grandfather and from a Native American paternal grandparent. When I fill out a form and there's a question about my race, I check the "Other" box and fill in, "The human race".

-- Ron

[Blue_true]

40. Race is a social construct. Geneticist point that out.

Two Black people and a White person can be sitting in a room. The White person could be closer to one of the Black people genetically that the two Black people are to each other.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. White people, don't do this.

[irisblue]

44. Yeah

[LexVegas]

14. White people love to pretend they are another race. Or say that there is no race but the human race

It's easy for them to do either.

[sweetloukillbot]

16. Great! Do Shaun King next! nt

[JonLP24]

19. I don't get it

How is Shaun King not black? He certainly looks light skinned but that doesn't mean he isn't black.

[salin]

26. I stumbled across the controversy around him just recently. It is shrouded.

It seems his wife admits that both of his parents are white, that it is complicated, and that it is his story to tell if/when he chooses (paraphrase of her reported comments.) I don't follow him closely, but have picked up that within the BLM movement he has come to be viewed with some skepticism (mostly, it seems, due to a sense that he is a bit grifty.)

[LisaL]

27. Per wikipedia, his claim to being biracial is that his official father wasn't his biological father.

Other than a DNA test, there is obviously no way to figure out if that is true.

[salin]

31. Thanks for the additional into. I have/had no idea.

I just chimed in since the second poster in that subthread was as puzzled as I was a month or so ago when I ran across the question/claim.

[JI7]

39. Yes , it's not just because the question of his race but he scams people out of their money

I think he tends to target black women for money .

[Blue_true]

41. Both of his parents could be mostly White. That is not as uncommon as one would believe.

But, he can chose to be what he chooses to be for classification purposes.

[LisaL]

57. His official parents aren't "mostly" white. They are white.

He is claiming his official father is not his biological father.

[Blue_true]

58. Can you say that he is wrong? Maybe his Mom had an affair that produced him.

I will take him at his word until solid evidence to the contrary comes out.

[Dr. Strange]

59. Why does he get to choose and not Jessica Krug?

Does Rachel Dolezal get to choose?

[sweetloukillbot]

34. He's not according to his birth certificate or pictures from high school

There’s a reason he’s called Talcum X.

[JonLP24]

37. I heard of that nickname but no idea

I do know both the right and the left hates him. I have seen the Talcum X nickname from right wingers as well.

[sweetloukillbot]

47. Black Twitter has a field day with nicknames for him

Any thread where he's mentioned always devolves into creative nicknames...

[ecstatic]

62. Lol! nt

[marybourg]

17. She doesn't look like any Ashkenazi Jewish woman I saw in my

47 years of living in predominantly Jewish areas of NYC. I have known some Sephardic Jews who had a Black forebear and who looked biracial. She looks biracial or black to me.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. I'm going with

Last edited Sun Sep 6, 2020, 04:26 AM - Edit history (1)

she's dyed her hair black gotten a perm or some such. And her skin tone is probably makeup.

If this is the same Jessica Krug that I actually knew back in Kansas, her original appearance is a lot whiter than this.

[LisaL]

22. Well, the hair color certainly doesn't look natural to me.

So yes, she probably died it darker than her natural hair color. I guess it doesn't take much, since some posters here still insists she is Black when she herself is admitting she is not.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

32. I do find it weird that people here are insisting she's Black.

[Blue_true]

43. She has "Black" lips that Botox injections or plastic surgery can't produce. nt

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

45. Black lips?

She has very thin lips and is wearing dark lipstick. I have a stereotype in mind of "Black" lips being quite a bit fuller than this woman's.

And, you did see where she says she's a white Jewish woman from Kansas, yes?

I do happen to know a Jessica Krug, who went to high school with my son, is the right age, and oh, yes, is a White Jewish woman from Kansas. I am really hoping to find out if it's the same person. And if it is, this level of deception is simply not surprising.

[Blue_true]

48. Since I am Black, I have looked at Black lips almost all my life.

I know what the features look like that cause me to opine that she has “Black lips. I look at the very bottom of a person’s lips and the corners of their mouth. Even Black people have thin lips, so her lips being thin is really no tell.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

51. Well, since this turns out to be the Jessica Krug I knew back in Overland Park, KS,

I can assure you she is not Black. She is white and Jewish, and has been basically a liar for much of her life.

The bottom of the lips and corners of the mouth are hardly definitive.

Also, her natural hair color is basically a honey blond, and relatively straight. The hair you see in pictures is a construct, and artifact, to make her look "Black".

[Blue_true]

53. Did you do a genetic test on her? If you didn't, you can't say what her makeup is, even if you knew

her. You didn’t know all of her linage, so saying that she is all White is nothing more than conjecture on your part.

I have lived my life as a Black person, am racially mixed and have known many other racially mixed Blacks, including many that were basically White. During that time I learned how to look at people’s features and make comparisons that over time have been reliable. The bottom of people’s lips are distinctive and can’t be altered properly with chemical agents, nor can the corners of the mouth. When I look at some of her features that can’t easily be modified without turning her into a freak, I see a person that has some Black blood.

[LisaL]

56. OMG.

She has admitted she is white. She is a White Jewish woman from a suburb of Kansas.
I don't know what you think you see, but it ain't there.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

61. I did not need to do a genetic test on her.

Last edited Sun Sep 6, 2020, 04:17 AM - Edit history (1)

She is NOT Black. Trust me.

I knew her when she was in high school. She is white, Jewish, possibly less Black than I am, and all four of my grandparents came from Ireland.

I also want to point out that she was deceptive and deceitful even back then. She frequently took stances that weren't simply "controversial" but were intended to piss off as many people as possible.

And then there's plagiarism. In her senior year, she submitted a piece to the school literary magazine that she had not written. Unfortunately, the student editors didn't catch it, but when the magazine was printed and distributed to the school, several students immediately recognized that she hadn't written it. She was called up in front of the student honor board, and then told to clear out her locker and leave the school. This was about five days before the end of the school year. I understand they mailed her diploma to her.

Oh, and how I know this? She was my car pool girl. I drove her to school every morning (because her mother's job made that essentially impossible for her) for at least the second semester of high school. Oh, and she offered a truly lame excuse to me, the day I drove her back home after she was essentially expelled from Barstow, something about what do you do when you have a deadline? Well, I'm also a writer. I've had a small number of stories published in the science fiction world, and so I know about deadlines. You either meet the deadline or you don't. What you don't do is submit someone else's work under your own name. And she clearly understood that but was hoping no one would recognize what she'd submitted as her own.

I originally met her and her mother not long after Jessie started at the Barstow School when she was in 8th grade. Her mom, Sherry, was nice and easy to get along with. Jessie, not so much. She was always happy to defy norms, to cause trouble, to raise hackles.

A couple of days ago when I first saw something about her, I saw the name Jessica Krug and thought, OMFG, could that be the same Jessie Krug I knew 20 years ago? Yep. It was.

And so please do not try to say she might have some sort of African ancestry. Well, we all are originally from Africa, but some of us have ancestors who left that continent a VERY long time ago. I'm one of those, and so is Jessie.

She was dishonest and manipulative some 20 years ago. I'm both not surprised that she has pulled off this deception, and equally surprised no one uncovered it before this.

Again, I am speaking from personal experience with this woman. She is not to be trusted.

[a kennedy]

20. She's from the dumb race.

[Coventina]

36. It's sad to me, that our incredibly racist country causes situations like this.

It's all a product of racism.

And it makes me sad.

Having said that, I have a real problem with a person of privilege pretending to be something they are not.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

46. Yep. Turns out this is the young woman I knew

About twenty years ago. Well, well, well.

[struggle4progress]

50. I'm happy to let her sort this out with the people in her workplace and community

There's no such thing as race, from a scientific point-of-view, and yet "race" has been an overriding social concept in the US, with many strange outgrowths, such as the "one-drop" rule

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

52. Actually, there's nothing to sort out.

And going piously to to the "There's no such thing as race" completely misses the point. She claimed to be Black for years, and she's not. Pure and simple. Not even one drop.

I knew her back in Overland Park. She was my carpool girl for most of her senior year at Barstow, meaning I picked her up every morning at her house about a half mile from where we lived, and drove her to school along with my two sons. She was a piece of work, to say the least. A troublemaker, constantly wanting to agitate things and causing trouble. What is somewhat astonishing is that no one who used to know her had ever stumbled across her in her new identity, and said loudly, "Excuse me! You are NOT Black!"

She's been perpetrating a fraud for some time now.

I'd like to know if her PhD is actually valid.

She was essentially expelled from Barstow about a week before the end of the school year because she'd submitted a totally plagiarized piece to the school literary magazine. The students editing it did not realize it was plagiarized, but as soon as it was published other students recognized the piece. She was then told that she was no longer welcome on campus. She'd get her diploma, but would not walk in graduation. The day she was told that I drove her home, and she made some lame excuse about needing to submit under deadline. That does not justify plagiarism. I not only wonder about her entire academic career, but I wonder if her PhD is actually valid.

She was exceptionally bright, I will say that. But focused rather tightly on herself and her willingness to claim victimhood and cause trouble.

Again, I knew her back then.

[struggle4progress]

54. GWU plans to replace Jessica Krug

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/gwu-plans-to-replace-jessica-krug-the-professor-who-admitted-to-falsely-claiming-black-identity/2020/09/04/699fc2be-eedb-11ea-ab4e-581edb849379_story.html

It seems to me folk in her workplace have decided how they'll sort it out

[ecstatic]

63. Wow! Nt

[MerryBlooms]

55. wtf is this? I need money, buy my book?

[jcmaine72]

60. If she hadn't profited from pretending to be Black....

....this would be more of a personal issue and hardly newsworthy.

However, she clearly benefited professionally by identifying as a Black woman, thus removing an opportunity for an actual Black woman to advance. Sorry, but that's despicable, and is the very definition of White privilege.

I don't care if the right is mocking this woman. I'm not going to defend her simply because they're attacking her. What she did was loathsome, and unworthy of any support from those who believe in racial justice.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

66. You are right that what she did was loathsome.

She has been deceptive and dishonest her whole life.

I am also seeing that she's trying to claim that all this came about from childhood abuse or trauma. I call bullshit on that. Yes, I realize that none of us can be truly to the details of someone else's life, but from what I saw in the years I knew her, there was nothing like that going on. Her mother truly adored her, and could never stop praising her. Which is truly wonderful and touching.

But Jessie was always ready to battle everyone. Even back then it was tiresome. She was picking battles where no battles existed. I do know she claimed Lesbianism. I cannot begin to judge if she was a Lesbian or not. I can only pass on what she claimed. It certainly seemed as if she was making that claim to be as offensive to as many people as possible.

I honestly have no clue as to her sexuality. And in my semi-long lifetime (I'm currently 72) I have known gay men and women, transgender women. I might possibly have known transgender men who didn't bother to tell me that's what they were.

I can say this. Jessie Krug would go out of her way to offend people. She was also incredibly smart. Probably one of the smartest people I have ever known. So in many ways this deception is not a surprise. But I would really like to know how she presented herself at the University of Portland, where she got her Master's, and at the University of Wisconsin where she got here PhD. Did those schools accept her as an African American? Where exactly did that construct appear in her CV? What exactly persuaded George Washington to hire her?

It really feels as if there is a lot of missing information here.

[LisaL]

69. Her department wants her to resign.

"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."
https://history.columbian.gwu.edu/our-statement-jessica-krug