Jessica Krug

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Jessica A. Krug
Bornc. 1982 (age 38–39)
NationalityUnited States
Other namesJess "La Bombalera"[1]
Jessica Cruz[2][3][4]
EducationThe Barstow School (1999)[5][6]
Alma materUniversity of Kansas
Portland State University, M.A. (2007)[7]
University of Wisconsin at Madison, PhD (2012)[8]
Occupation
  • Historian
  • author
  • activist
  • essayist
Known forControversy revealing false claims of racial and cultural identities
AwardsFulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (2009)[8]

Jessica Anne Krug[2] is an American historian, author, and activist (sometimes using the "salsa" pseudonym Jess La Bombalera[1][9][10]).

She is the author of a few articles and one book relating to African American history and Latin America,[11] and was a tenured associate professor of history at George Washington University (GWU) (2012–2020)[12] until scrutiny from colleagues led her to admit her assumed racial and ethnic identities were falsified, leading to her resignation.

Her only single-authored book is Fugitive Modernities: Kisama and the Politics of Freedom,[13] about the Quiçama people at home in Angola and within diaspora, especially in Brazil.[8][14] The book was a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Prize[15] and the Harriet Tubman Prize.[16] According to Krug, her principal focus has been in advocacies on behalf of people of color as well as in anti-gentrification activism.[8] She has published essays in Essence and at the race-exploring website RaceBaitR.[17][18][19]

Krug took financial support from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture that led to her book, Fugitive Modernities.[20] In 2009, she was awarded a $45,000 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship.[21]

In a September 3, 2020 blog post, Krug confessed that: "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." These identities included that of being half-Algerian-American and half-German-American and of being a Bronx-bred Afro-"boricua" (Afro-Puerto Rican) who went by the self-described "salsa" name of "La Bombalera".[8][22][23][20] Krug's resignation from GWU shortly followed her confession.[24]

Early years and personal life[]

"When I was a teenager fleeing trauma, I could just run away to a new place and become a new person."

 —Jessica A. Krug (a quote from her September 3, 2020 personal essay)

Krug – who pronounces her surname Cruz[25] (/kruːz/ or /kruːs/, kruuz or kruus—in General American) – grew up in a Jewish family in Overland Park, Kansas,[26] in the Kansas City metropolitan area. She graduated from The Barstow School, a co-ed private college prep school in south Kansas City.[5] She later attended the University of Kansas as a white woman.[6][27] In her September 2020 blog post, Krug said she had "been battling some unaddressed mental health demons for my entire life" and, to escape from unspecified emotional "issues" and "severe trauma", began passing as a light-skinned person of color in her youth.[28]

Krug taught university classes in the Washington D.C. area, and lived in East Harlem in New York City.[29][30] According to Krug, she has been a part-time dance instructor.[31]

Works[]

Fugitive Modernities[]

In Krug's book Fugitive Modernities, she engages in a "rigorous examination of identity formation" of Kisama,[32] a mountainous region in Angola that became a destination for those fleeing the slave trade in the late 16th century.[33] Krug's intellectual history of Kisama was "impressive in its breadth of research" and gave scholars different ways of thinking about how Africans influenced Black people elsewhere around the world. It was also the first history of the Kisama region. Krug argued that "Kisama allows us to imagine a more humane and less brutalized form of interpersonal relationship in which the structures erected by states to constrain us are overcome in favor of shared liberation."[34]

Academic scandal[]

Screenshot of Jessica Krug's September 2020 Medium blogpost

Discrepancies among racial claims over time[]

Prior to Krug's 2020 admission in the essay, one junior scholar noticed that ethnicities and racial groups of which Krug claimed had changed from being part-Algerian–part-German to Afro-Puerto Rican. Word of this discrepancy reached Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez,[35] an associate professor of Afro-diaspora studies at Michigan State University, who, upon researching the matter, discovered that Krug was from Kansas City and born to parents who were white.[25]

Aftermath[]

Hari Ziyad, the editor-in-chief of , a website where Krug had published articles, said she had only come forward with the revelation of her racial deceptions because they had been discovered by others and was about to be made public against her wishes. "She didn't do it out of benevolence," they said. "She did it because she had been found out."[1] Similarly, Michigan State University assistant professor Yomaira C. Figueroa believed that pending public revelations of Krug's true racial identity prompted her confession.[36]

George Washington University spokesperson Crystal Nosal said in emails to news organizations that the university was "aware of the post" and "looking into the situation".[1][37] GWU's department of history asked Krug to resign her tenured professorship, saying that "With her conduct, Dr. Krug has raised questions about the veracity of her own research and teaching."[38] GWU cancelled her classes after the scandal.[39] On September 9, 2020, GWU confirmed that Krug had resigned from the university.[24]

Assistant professor of global diaspora studies at Michigan State University Yomaira Figueroa, believing that Krug "took up some of the very few — very few — resources and spaces that there are available to Black and Latino scholars and use those to her advantage," said to a reporter that she calls for there "to be a form of restitution for the things that she [Krug] took. It's egregious."[40]

Duke University Press, the publisher of Krug's Fugitive Modernities, said that all proceeds from her book will be donated to a fund that will assist Black and Latinx scholars.[41]

Commentary[]

Michigan State University's Yomaira Figueroa and Hunter College's Yarimar Bonilla, writing in an op-ed, labeled Krug's various cultural appropriations a current form of minstrelsy.[3] Figueroa told reporters, "The very first night that I learned about it, I couldn't sleep, because I just thought how awful it was that someone was perpetrating this identity, but not only that. Kind of preying on the white imagination, and pulling from some of the worst stereotypes that there are about black people and Puerto Rican people, and using that as a cloak for her identity" (referring to revelations that Krug had falsely claimed that her parents had been drug addicts and her mother a sex worker).[42]

Illinois State University's believes that Krug did not appropriate legitimate black culture but rather, within a "minstrel act", its "racist caricature."[43]


References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Levenson, Michael; Schuessler, Jennifer (September 3, 2020). "University Investigates Claim That White Professor Pretended to Be Black". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 5, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Jackson, Lauren Michele (September 12, 2020). "The Layered Deceptions of Jessica Krug, the Black-Studies Professor Who Hid That She Is White". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on September 12, 2020. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Bonilla, Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez and Yarimar (September 9, 2020). "A white scholar pretended to be black and Latina for years. This is modern minstrelsy | Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez and Yarimar Bonilla". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 11, 2020. Retrieved September 11, 2020.
  4. ^ Sell, Laura (September 10, 2020). "Editorial Director Gisela Fosado Speaks Out About Jessica A. Krug". Archived from the original on September 14, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Stark, Cortlynn (September 4, 2020). "'Surprising': Professor posing as Black woman went to school with Kansas City mayor". The Kansas City Star. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved September 11, 2020.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b "Jessica Krug, white college professor who pretended to be Black for years, grew up in Johnson County". Shawnee Mission Post. September 4, 2020. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  7. ^ "Faculty | University Bulletin 2020-2021". The George Washington University. Washington, DC, US. September 4, 2020. Archived from the original on September 4, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Lumpkin, Lauren; Svrluga, Susan (September 3, 2020). "White GWU professor admits she falsely claimed Black identity". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 5, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  9. ^ Pento, Nick (June 10, 2020). "The NYPD & Mayor's Office Were MIA At A Police Oversight Hearing, So New Yorkers Turned It Into A Space Of Shared Grief And Rage". Gothamist. Archived from the original on September 15, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  10. ^ Burke, Kerry; Annese, John (September 4, 2020). "White professor who admitted to posing as Black ranted about the 'Barrio' during City Council meeting". NY Daily News. New York, NY, US. Archived from the original on September 4, 2020.
  11. ^ Lumpkin, Lauren; Svrluga, Susan (September 3, 2020). "White GWU professor admits she falsely claimed Black identity". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 5, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  12. ^ "Jessica Krug | Department of History | Columbian College of Arts & Sciences | The George Washington University". history.columbian.gwu.edu. Archived from the original on September 4, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  13. ^ "Duke University Press - Fugitive Modernities". Archived from the original on September 4, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  14. ^ "Jessica Krug and Vincent Brown Discuss Resistance in the Caribbean | Yale MacMillan Center Council on Latin American & Iberian Studies". clais.macmillan.yale.edu. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  15. ^ "Yale announces 2019 Frederick Douglass Book Prize Finalists". Yale MacMillan Center. August 9, 2019. Archived from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  16. ^ "2019 Harriet Tubman Prize Finalists". Lapidus Center. Archived from the original on September 6, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  17. ^ Reinstein, Julia (September 4, 2020). "A University Is Investigating After A White Professor Admitted To Pretending To Be Black Her Entire Career". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on September 9, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  18. ^ Krug, Jess (April 21, 2017). "We'll never create a freer future by role playing the past". RaceBaitR. Archived from the original on May 19, 2017.
  19. ^ Krug, Jessica A. (July 31, 2019). "Somos Más Y No Tenemos Miedo: What The Puerto Rican Uprising Means For Black Political Imagination". Essence. Archived from the original on August 31, 2019.
  20. ^ Jump up to: a b Noor, Poppy (September 3, 2020). "White US professor admits she has pretended to be Black for years". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 3, 2020. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  21. ^ "FY 2009 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on May 15, 2017. Retrieved September 11, 2020.
  22. ^ Krug, Jessica A. (September 3, 2020). "The Truth, and the Anti-Black Violence of My Lies". Medium. Archived from the original on September 4, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  23. ^ Koop, Chacour (September 3, 2020). "'I am a culture leech.' Professor posing as Black woman is a white Kansas City native". The Kansas City Star. Archived from the original on September 4, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  24. ^ Jump up to: a b Asmelash, Leah (September 10, 2020). "Professor who lied about being Black resigns from George Washington University". CNN. Archived from the original on September 10, 2020. Retrieved September 10, 2020.
  25. ^ Jump up to: a b Jackson, Lauren Michele. "The Layered Deceptions of Jessica Krug, the Black-Studies Professor Who Hid That She Is White". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on September 12, 2020. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
  26. ^ "Kansas City Star School Notes: Hyman Brand Academy". May 17, 1995. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved September 19, 2020 – via https://www.newsbank.com.
  27. ^ "Jessica Krug, the professor who faked an Afro-Latina identity, went to Jewish day school in Kansas City". Archived from the original on September 6, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  28. ^ Mele, Christopher (September 4, 2020). "Professor Investigated for Posing as Black Won't Teach This Term, Officials Say". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 5, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  29. ^ "Jessica Krug resigns from George Washington University after pretending to be black". September 10, 2020. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  30. ^ Magazine, Harlem World (September 8, 2020). "East Harlem Resident And Professor Jessica Krug Admits She Is Not Black (Update)". Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  31. ^ "Jessica Krug, the Professor Who Pretended to Be Black, Resigns From George Washington University | Washingtonian (DC)". September 9, 2020. Archived from the original on September 11, 2020. Retrieved September 11, 2020.
  32. ^ Lovejoy, Henry B. (March 2020). "Fugitive Modernities in West Central Africa: Kisama and the Politics of Freedom by Jessica A. Krug". The Journal of African History. 61 (1): 137–138. doi:10.1017/S0021853720000225. ISSN 0021-8537. S2CID 216233498. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
  33. ^ Domingues da Silva, Daniel B. (April 2, 2020). "Fugitive modernities: Kisama and the politics of freedom: by Jessica A. Krug, Durham, Duke University Press, 2018, 280pp., $25.95 (pbk), ISBN 978-1-4780-0154-6". Slavery & Abolition. 41 (2): 424–426. doi:10.1080/0144039X.2020.1752481. ISSN 0144-039X. S2CID 221062679. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
  34. ^ Green, Toby (May 1, 2020). "Fugitive Modernities: Kisama and the Politics of Freedom". Hispanic American Historical Review. 100 (2): 343–344. doi:10.1215/00182168-8178391. ISSN 0018-2168.
  35. ^ "Yomaira Figueroa | Chicano/Latino Studies | Michigan State University".
  36. ^ Lapin, Tamar (September 3, 2020). "Professor Jessica Krug only admitted she lied about being black after getting caught, pal says". NYPost.com. New York Post. Archived from the original on September 6, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  37. ^ Zoellner, Danielle (September 4, 2020). "White professor of African American history admits lying for years about being black". The Independent. Archived from the original on September 4, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  38. ^ "Our Statement on Jessica Krug | Department of History | Columbian College of Arts & Sciences | The George Washington University". history.columbian.gwu.edu. Archived from the original on September 5, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  39. ^ "Jessica Krug: university cancels classes by white academic who posed as Black". The Guardian. September 5, 2020. Archived from the original on September 8, 2020. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
  40. ^ Kennedy, Merrit (September 10, 2020). "George Washington Professor Who Reportedly Faked Being Black Resigns". NPR. US. Archived from the original on September 14, 2020. Retrieved September 11, 2020.
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  42. ^ "GWU Investigating Whether White Professor Invented Her Black Identity". NPR.org. Archived from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved September 18, 2020.
  43. ^ ""Jess La Bombalera" and the Pathologies of Racial Authenticity". jacobinmag.com. Archived from the original on September 9, 2020. Retrieved September 11, 2020.

External links[]

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