The Many Blacknesses of a Confused White Academic

Jessica A. Krug is a history professor with a focus on “politics, ideas, and cultural practices in Africa and the African Diaspora, with a particular interest in West Central Africa and maroon societies in the early modern period and Black transnational cultural studies,” according to George Washington University’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Krug’s areas of expertise are listed as Africa, Latin America, imperialism, and colonialism. In fact, she is such an expert that she wrote a book, Fugitive Modernities, which in 2019 was a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, presented by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. But most significantly, up until Thursday morning, Jessica A. Krug claimed that she was Black. What the fuck is happening here, you might be wondering as I did when I first came across this story. The answer is a lot. A lot is happening here. Again.

Krug admitted in a lengthy, infuriating essay on Medium that she “assumed identities within Blackness” despite the fact that she is a white Jewish woman who, despite an author bio claiming “hood” status, grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City. Some of the identities she assumed were, “North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness.” Krug’s essay which does not include the words “apologize” or “sorry,” but frames her as a victim, blaming this assumption of identity on her state of mind. “Mental health issues likely explain why I assumed a false identity initially, as a youth,” she wrote, “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.” Krug also calls for her own cancellation and gives reason after reason as to why she behaved in this way, going as far as to list her childhood traumas.