The Off Topic Topic

[Admiral Yi]

Louisiana Cajun cuisine is very different from standard southern fried chicken, grits, and bbq.

[celedhring]

Louisiana Cajun cuisine is very different from standard southern fried chicken, grits, and bbq.

I know. I loved cajun cuisine when I lived in the US, but over here we only get the fried chicken and bbq variety.

[Josquius]

I found this fascinating. Top 100 baby names in England over the last 120 years.
It's interesting to see the trend of people naming kids for grandparents and some awful names that are but a flash in the pan.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc363/babyindex.html

[Sheilbh]

I found this fascinating. Top 100 baby names in England over the last 120 years.
It's interesting to see the trend of people naming kids for grandparents and some awful names that are but a flash in the pan.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc363/babyindex.html

Really interesting general trend lines - same names up and down but you can see white space until the mid-90s when lots of names seem to go in and out of fashion very quickly.

Turns out my name peaked many years before I got it and has really fallen off a cliff recently

[Sheilbh]

This story is insane - and I half the time roll my eyes when I see "cultural appropriation" being bandied around but then you see an example like this and you sort of get why the term exists:

White US professor admits she has pretended to be Black for years
Jessica Krug, an activist who teaches African American history, writes Medium post apologizing for false identity

Jessica Krug speaking at the Embassy of Haiti in Washington, DC. Photograph: Samira Rashid/Embassy of Haiti
Poppy Noor
@PoppyNoor
Thu 3 Sep 2020 21.02 BST
Last modified on Fri 4 Sep 2020 09.52 BST

A seasoned activist and professor of African American history at George Washington University has been pretending to be Black for years, despite actually being a white woman from Kansas City.

In a case eerily reminiscent to Rachel Dolezal, Jessica A Krug took financial support from cultural institutions such as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for a book she wrote about fugitive resistance to the transatlantic slave trade. But according to a Medium post allegedly written by Krug herself, her career was rooted in a "toxic soil of lies".

"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," she wrote.

In Krug's book Fugitive Modernities, published before her confession, she writes in her acknowledgments: "My ancestors, unknown, unnamed, who bled life into a future they had no reason to believe could or should exist. My brother, the fastest, the smartest, the most charming of us all. Those whose names I cannot say for their own safety, whether in my barrio, in Angola, or in Brazil."

Krug went by the name Jessica La Bombalera in activist circles and could be seen speaking in a New York City public hearing on police brutality in June.

"I'm Jessa Bombalera. I'm here in El Barrio, East Harlem – you probably have heard about it because you sold my fucking neighborhood to developers and gentrifiers," she begins as she introduces herself. A few moments later, she adds: "I wanna call out all these white New Yorkers who waited four hours with us to be able to speak and then did not yield their time for Black and Brown indigenous New Yorkers."

Those who knew Krug as La Bombalera have taken to social media today to announce their upset. "I'm dazed and still processing my emotions, but mostly, I feel betrayed, foolish and, in many ways, gaslit," said the author Robert Jones Jr on Twitter.

As far back as 2018, Jones had published his conversations with Krug in a thread he wrote for marginalized communities.

Krug alludes in her Medium post to a traumatic childhood and mental health issues, but says she does not believe they can be used to excuse her behavior.

"To say that I clearly have been battling some unaddressed mental health demons for my entire life, as both an adult and child, is obvious. Mental health issues likely explain why I assumed a false identity initially, as a youth, and why I continued and developed it for so long.

"But mental health issues can never, will never, neither explain nor justify, neither condone nor excuse, that, in spite of knowing and regularly critiquing any and every non-Black person who appropriates from Black people, my false identity was crafted entirely from the fabric of Black lives," she wrote.

The Guardian has reached out to Krug and George Washington University's Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, in Washington DC, for comment.

In 2015, the civil rights activist and former chapter president of the NAACP Rachel Dolezal was outed by her parents for impersonating a Black person when she was born white. Dolezal's own history of childhood trauma was later revealed. Dolezal later referred to herself as "the world's first trans-black case".

The video of her on this is kind of amazing
https://twitter.com/_ShamGod/status/1301576665529749506?s=20

[Josquius]

I vaguely remember something similar a few years ago. Iirc an actor with no black heritage won some award or scholarship or so for black actors.
The defence was quite interesting though. Because he looked black he faced the same crap during his life as somebody who actually had black parents so it was valid.

Edit -  this is the one

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/07/anthony-lennon-theatre-director-accused-of-passing-as-black-interview-simon-hattenstone

That woman though sounds mad and undoubtedly this will be big ammo for the racists.

[The Larch]

 

[Valmy]

This story is insane - and I half the time roll my eyes when I see "cultural appropriation" being bandied around but then you see an example like this and you sort of get why the term exists

The term exists for large corporations, and other dominant and powerful cultural forces, appropriating some culture for their own purposes and using their power to redefine what that culture is. Not because some of the weird actions of some random person...but granted being a professor of African American History so presenting yourself as some kind of spokesperson for that culture is a pretty good effort by an individual

That woman though sounds mad and undoubtedly this will be big ammo for the racists.

Unless this is a DIFFERENT white woman professor activist pretending to be black everybody has known about this for awhile. She called out her parents for having issues with race and they kind of outted her I think. She just finally came clean.

[Sheilbh]

The term exists for large corporations, and other dominant and powerful cultural forces, appropriating some culture for their own purposes and using their power to redefine what that culture is. Not because some of the weird actions of some random person...but granted being a professor of African American History so presenting yourself as some kind of spokesperson for that culture is a pretty good effort by an individual

Okay. I mean she's white but wrote a book about the slave trade and dedicated it to her ancestors (it reminds me of a scandal in Spain about someone who did a lot having claimed to be in a concentration camp, who was never in a concentration camp). And she went to events as an activist and criticised white people for hogging the mic. I mean

[Caliga]

Unless this is a DIFFERENT white woman professor activist pretending to be black everybody has known about this for awhile. She called out her parents for having issues with race and they kind of outted her I think. She just finally came clean.

Different person.  The activist is named Rachel Dolezal.

If you want to talk to her you can pay her on Cameo to give you a call.

[Valmy]

Unless this is a DIFFERENT white woman professor activist pretending to be black everybody has known about this for awhile. She called out her parents for having issues with race and they kind of outted her I think. She just finally came clean.

Different person.  The activist is named Rachel Dolezal.

If you want to talk to her you can pay her on Cameo to give you a call.

Damn. How many more could there be?

And she went to events as an activist and criticised white people for hogging the mic.

How ironic.

[Malthus]

Why should this be a surprise? Give identity politics power either way, and people will fake their identity to take advantage of it - that's just human nature.

People who would be classified as "Black" certainly attempt to "pass" as White to take advantage of White privilege; when, in certain circles (such as academic or activist) being Black is privileged for certain purposes, others will attempt to "pass" as Black to take advantage of that.

[Sheilbh]

Why should this be a surprise? Give identity politics power either way, and people will fake their identity to take advantage of it - that's just human nature.

People who would be classified as "Black" certainly attempt to "pass" as White to take advantage of White privilege; when, in certain circles (such as academic or activist) being Black is privileged for certain purposes, others will attempt to "pass" as Black to take advantage of that.

But I feel like there is a difference between "passing" and basically trying to take advantage of that so you can lead a normal life, and building your life around this identity that you don't have - especially, as I say, writing a book about slavery and dedicating it to your ancestors.

As I say it reminds me of the really interesting case of Enric Marcos in Spain (I've only read the novel - a "novel without fiction"):
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/20/649858876/javier-cercas-uncovers-the-truth-behind-spains-impostor

[merithyn]

I vaguely remember something similar a few years ago. Iirc an actor with no black heritage won some award or scholarship or so for black actors.
The defence was quite interesting though. Because he looked black he faced the same crap during his life as somebody who actually had black parents so it was valid.

Edit -  this is the one

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/07/anthony-lennon-theatre-director-accused-of-passing-as-black-interview-simon-hattenstone

That woman though sounds mad and undoubtedly this will be big ammo for the racists.

This guy *is* black, though. Just because he doesn't know where it comes from (maybe one of his grandfathers was the milkman?), he obviously is. This woman - and Dolezal - just... became. Pretended.

[merithyn]

Why should this be a surprise? Give identity politics power either way, and people will fake their identity to take advantage of it - that's just human nature.

People who would be classified as "Black" certainly attempt to "pass" as White to take advantage of White privilege; when, in certain circles (such as academic or activist) being Black is privileged for certain purposes, others will attempt to "pass" as Black to take advantage of that.

But I feel like there is a difference between "passing" and basically trying to take advantage of that so you can lead a normal life, and building your life around this identity that you don't have - especially, as I say, writing a book about slavery and dedicating it to your ancestors.

As I say it reminds me of the really interesting case of Enric Marcos in Spain (I've only read the novel - a "novel without fiction"):
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/20/649858876/javier-cercas-uncovers-the-truth-behind-spains-impostor

This is a different thing all together, I think, but still, I question the need to "uncover" these instances.

My grandmother came over from Germany in 1947, not speaking any English and when people still despised the Germans. Without question, she went through hell. Her neighbors crossed the street to get away from her, my mom and her siblings (my grandfather's children from a previous marriage) were treated badly because of their stepmother. It was hell. At some point, my grandmother started talking about what it had been like as a German who disagreed with the Third Reich. She told stories of helping Jewish children escape. She talked about the quiet underground in Germany during the war. And by doing so, she became accepted by her neighbors. She made friendships. And she educated them about what Germans did during the war to undermine the atrocities. (We know from other eye-witness accounts that these stories are true. They did happen.)

Did my grandmother participate in these things? I don't know. It all felt too... pat. Too easy. Of course these things happened, but it never really fit with my grandmother's personality. She wasn't the type to be magnanimous. She was more of the "take what I can get away with" type. I loved her, and she was a good grandmother to us, but those stories just never fit with the woman that I knew. Or with the mother that my mom described.

Does it negate those who did such things? Or does it show that it happened, and educate people? Who did she hurt by telling those stories? Her life was hell for a long while after she came over. She became an alcoholic. She abused the kids because she was so miserable. Then things changed. She became accepted, well-liked. She was happier, which, in turn, made her kids happier.

So again I'm back to, how important is it to "uncover" these kinds of things?