White professor of African American history admits lying for years about being black

A history professor who has lived for years as a black woman said she was a "cultural leech" in a blog post in which she said she was actually white.

Jessica Krug, an associate professor with George Washington University, penned a Medium blog post entitled The Truth, and the Anti-Black Violence of My Lies where she confessed to deceiving friends and colleagues about her race.

The identities she claimed to be included "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," wrote Ms Krug, who specialises in African American history, Africa, and Latin America.

Instead, Ms Krug says she is actually white and Jewish.

"I am not a culture vulture. I am a culture leech," she wrote. "I have thought about ending these lies many times over many years, but my cowardice was always more powerful than my ethics."

The Independent contacted Ms Krug for a comment.

"We are aware of the post and are looking into the situation. We cannot comment further on personnel matters," Crystal L Nosal, a spokesperson for George Washington University, told The Independent.

Ms Krug claimed that she has not lived a double life, living no other life outside the lie she was telling others.

"There is no parallel form of my adulthood connected to white people or a white community or an alternative white identity. I have lived this lie, fully, completely, with no exit plan or strategy," she wrote. "I have no identity outside of this. I have never developed one."

Her post went on to detail how she suffered from "unaddressed mental health demons", and that influenced her to take on a false identity as a child.

"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 said.

"I am a coward," she added. "You should absolutely cancel me, and I absolutely cancel myself."

Ms Krug has taught classes at George Washington University since 2012, including some about the cultural practices in Africa and the African Diaspora.

Her book, Fugitive Modernities: Politics and Identity Outside the State in Kisama, Angola, and the Americas, c. 1594-Present, earned her a spot as a finalist for multiple awards, including ones named after Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass.

The backlash from her Medium post has already been abundant, as a number of prominent black writers and screenwriters have spoken out against Ms Krug.

"Jess Krug, professor at @GWtweets, is someone I called a friend up until this morning when she gave me a call admitting to everything written here. She didn't do it out of benevolence. She did it because she had been found out," Hari Ziyad, a black writer and screenwriter, wrote on Twitter.

Roxane Gay, a black author, tweeted: "Wait. Rachel Dolezal has a sister named Jessica Krug? How many more of these people are out there other than Talcum X?

Rachel Dolezal, the former president of NAACP's Spokane, Washington, office rose to notoriety in 2015 after it was revealed by a local reporter that she was white, despite always identifying as African American. Netflix went on to make a documentary about her life.