To all the Black & Brown folks socially assaulted and stolen from by Jessica Krug, I know how you feel.
The same thing happened to me with Rachel Dolezal.
On Wednesday, September 2, 2020 I woke up to a Facebook message, “Hey have you seen this?” from a current colleague, and a Signal message from a long time Spokane friend, “Hey I just heard about this Rachel type, and I wanted to check on you.” One very close friend, like my sister, who saw me go through all the trauma of the Rachel Dolezal situation, asked me how I was holding up. But when she checks on me she often ends with a term of endearment, “how you holding up, mama?” and she actually is Latina, and specifically Puerto Rican, she spent many days in the Bronx, but she isn’t from the Bronx, she never claims to be more than she is. And for me, in that moment, I thought, how are you holding up?
I have been through all of this before. To all my Black & Brown folks, I know what your mind, your body, and soul is doing to you right now. And as someone that has come through to the other side, I want to know, how are you holding up?
I remember that moment after I found out. I remember the impact it had on me when I first heard. For me it was a bit of validation. Why? Because I had thought for the majority of my time in Spokane that something was off with Rachel. Never had I thought it was her self-proclaimed complex racial identity. Always, I thought it was her over exaggeration of stereotypical Blackness, and always getting support for it from ere’body! But not me. I could no longer drink the kool-aid.
And oh, did I suffer because of it.
My suffering at Eastern Washington University is not the main story here. But I bet that story, of institutional racism and colorism, which fed the continued thievery by Rachel of Black women, Black life, Black culture, Black experiences, and Black trauma, is similar to those stories at George Washington University and the other institutions Jessica socially assaulted and gaslighted. Gaslighted is the word she used so I recognize she did do this but she did so much more as well. I am healed from this assault by Rachel, but I will say the assault I have not yet fully healed from is the institutional assault by some white, Black, and Brown people at EWU and in Spokane. They refused to hold Rachel accountable for her theft of our narratives as Black women. We grew up Black. We had to learn to self-police as Black, and as women. Her freedom in Blackness and apparently the freedom in Jessica’s Afro Latina-ness, makes many of us go “hmmm.”
Stereotyped and obsessed defines how these two white women decide to wear us. Because we are a costume?
So you transform your bodies, your hair, your dress, and your voices, to hide from us, while banking off of us.
I know a few things here, and most of it relates to how all those assaulted and gaslighted by Jessica Krug are feeling right now, how they are replaying moments in their head. Additionally, I know how others may respond to those assaulted and gaslighted. One thing I do not know, five years after Rachel Dolezal, is how people will respond to the perpetrator, Jessica Krug, but I have some thoughts.
This is what it looks like to be Dolezal’d.
1. I know that all the folks never gaslighted and assaulted by Jessica are like, “wow, how could you not know?”
2. I know why they didn’t “know.” Often, being a woman of color in higher education, what time do we have to assess if there’s a white woman wanting to be included in an “endangered” group in our profession? What woman wants to teach in topic areas that many question their validity? Why would anyone want to do that? And what time do we have to be searching?
3. We might get a, “hmmm… something different ‘bout her” when we first engage with a Rachel or a Jessica, but all the Black and Brown folks around us have said, “she’s good.” So, you give her a chance, you try, but something is still off.
4. Most likely she has insulted your own identity, saying you are not Black enough specifically in my Rachel-case, and in their case they are not Afro-Latina enough.
5. She questions your approach to things. Things you grew up with.
6. You notice that her style screams “I’m a Black woman! I’m a Black woman…” and you feel uneasy because it’s often the stereotype/caricature you have tried your best to debunk as you entered academia. Because unfortunately we must prove our intelligence first, and yet when she tells you how male students give her certain attention it doesn’t sound like she is reporting it, but wanting you to hear it… it’s uncomfortable for you but not for her.
7. She informs you about how others, even Black and Brown folks, are policing her Black and Brown light skinned body. Questioning what she wears, how she sounds, and you are like, “well that’s not okay” and yet you feel some type of way yourself… but how dare you police your own people in a white supremacist industry of higher education.
8. So… you sigh, and remember how she polices your own Blackness.
9. You wanted to call out aspects of her behavior before to others. But, you look around wondering will anyone care about my voice, because: a. you are Black, b. you are a woman, and c. you could have been like me during the Rachel scandal — a staff member with two degrees in Black Studies but you couldn’t seem to be hired to teach anywhere. I teach now. Or in the Jessica-case you’re a junior faculty member and she’s an associate professor and junior faculty of color better just be quiet.
10. Maybe it is when you remember fighting for an opportunity to move your career forward only to get a complex about yourself, because a light skinned Black woman with a freedom you never felt, wins. For me it was my first opportunity to teach adjunct in Africana Studies and I signed the contract before winter break, only to find out that Rachel was given my class by noticing her solicitations for students for the course on her Facebook page. And those who were in charge were Black & Brown. I have not read Jessica’s CV, but I can guess there are awards and opportunities that many of you are wondering… should that have been me? Or you literally were competing within your own institution with her… and everyone preferred her name.
11. Perhaps it is in the moments that students seem to prefer her over you. Students speak about how pro Black she is, how unapologetic she is, and it hurts you, and you start to wonder if perhaps you are indeed playing respectability politics and you are a sell-out. And yet you know better. This is gaslighting.
12. The moments when she complains about you to a direct supervisor and somehow you are the one not supported, when it is obvious you are not doing anything wrong. Like the time I promoted a new social movements course, the quarter after my first adjunct option was stolen by her, and Rachel complained to the director that I was covering content that she would cover the next fall. In Spokane, in Rachel’s eyes, Black Lives Matter was trademarked by her. Apparently, she did not want me to cover BLM, and apparently the director who had never seen the flyer until she complained, felt it important to confront me in front of others. And this is why she is part of the problem but not solely the problem. I hope that with Jessica, the system was less aligned with her oppressive techniques.
13. When she is misrepresenting herself professionally, and you call attention to it to others and they are like, “oh that’s whatever.” Because many people still do not realize that Rachel was an adjunct faculty member, but she always referred to herself in a way that informed others that she was a full-time professor. She used her status as an Africana Studies professor to get community credit and access. She pulled on sympathizer’s heart strings when folks thought she was fired from her EWU position. In actuality it was simply a refusal to hire her again for adjunct teaching, this is not the same as Jessica’s tenure position.
14. You lifted her voice up, you gave her cred in different communities, and now you are sorry. Remember she tricked you! Various people are apologizing for lifting up Jessica’s voice, and in the beginning, I too lifted Rachel’s. It makes it almost harder to be heard when you wish to speak in opposition of her voice. Like the time that Rachel came to a community committee that I invited her to and somehow she stole my idea for an event and no one around the table remembered that I had already proposed the exact same thing, name and all. Literally, I look back now knowing that this was that moment when a person of color says something and no one hears you, but when a white person says it, it’s the most amazing idea to date. I ain’t gonna lie though, I was enjoying being petty when my hijacked event crumbled in front of her. I never returned to that POC community committee again.
15. When you see her speaking on campus for celebratory events, and somehow she always brings it back to Black trauma. Not for a community engagement but for a one woman show. For Rachel she always said, “my Black sons this…my Black sons that…” The emphasis on Black always had my ears listening in a unique way. This was so prevalent at rallies in Spokane for Black Lives Matter. Or the moment she outlined her own Black sons with chalk in the street….
16. Story swapping with mutual acquaintances that made you want to scream, but you still knew you would not be heard. Your tears were never white. Her interactions with others is so problematic for us Black and Brown folks, but still no one with the power cares. Rachel has told two of my women of color friends that she did not approve of their interracial relationships with white men… and after she was found to be white… I thought, but it’s perfectly okay for a white woman to date Black men, and have biracial children….
17. When you have a department meeting and somehow we only end up listening to her. Like that one time Rachel was upset that Tim Wise was coming to campus because he was white… (this ain’t no plug for Wise) and you realize looking back, that apparently a white person cannot do race work in her eyes….
18. You recall the fact that she knows her stuff. But why did she have to steal our bodies to do it. White people can do race work too. How can she possibly be doing the work she says she is doing if she is one of the ones oppressing us, by stealing from us?
19. The moments when you are listening to her share her horrid life story, because trauma is the only part of her Black identity that matters, and you are confused because: timing of things don’t seem to line up, who her parents are and where they are from just seems too convenient, and when you ask her a direct question her answer is just flat out impossible.
20. So… you pull away, and you watch as the rest of the world falls in line, and you know that she’s a minstrel show (not literally knowing for sure that she is not the race or ethnicity she claims, but what she performs is caricature for sure), but you are the one everyone is laughing at.
21. You remember how in a public space she did or said something that just made no sense as a person of color. For me, this was when Rachel posed for a picture for a story about the hate mail supposedly sent to her at the NAACP office. A Black single mother, who was in the news for death threats, who led open and publicized meetings with other people of color and white allies, was posing with a pistol. What Black person in Spokane, WA would do such a thing? A few weeks later we’d find out she was white. The caucasity.
22. You think about how many times she might have checked the racial identity box of “Black/African American” on applications. Some discussion about Rachel’s appointment to a police ombudsman commission circled around whether she checked the “Black” box when she applied. She was removed by a unanimous vote from the commission, but not related to racial misrepresentation, but for actual misconduct on the commission. People had been reporting prior to her white reveal, but again, no one was listening. Now they were. Since all of this Rachel has admitted to checking the Black box and the white Box on documents… The few opportunities for racial representation in a very white city and she took one of those seats, how many seats has Jessica taken?
23. And when you are now looking back you get why her energy for the outward fight for Black lives was so constant, she is not hurting like you. She did not grow up with the ancestral trauma of your Blackness. She grew up with the ancestral oppression of her whiteness. That’s why she be ere’where!
24. And then she’s found out, and here’s why my story is different from your story.
25. When Rachel was found out, her higher education career was not at the focus, it was her Presidency of the local NAACP. It seems thus far that Jessica’s higher education career, as a tenure line professor is central to this story.
26. No one cared about the Black women Rachel harmed, everyone wanted to know her story. What I have already seen is a focus beyond Jessica, a focus I never felt occurred with Rachel. Not even in the documentary in which I had a brief voice in, do they decenter Rachel. Rather the documentary creates sympathy for Rachel, deleting all the harm she caused.
27. Rachel went on a speaking tour. Not once did she interview with a local news source. Not once did she apologize to us. Not once did she admit she stole. I can only hope that Jessica’s letter tells news sources not to interview her.
28. Rachel got a book deal, I’m almost certain Jessica will get one and will take it proudly, thinking somehow unveiling her story would not still be theft of Black culture.
29. I know what else is going through the head of those assaulted and gaslighted by Jessica, “I don’t know what is real and what is fake… should I speak up? How will this affect my career?” And even, “will she be okay?” because let’s be honest a reason that you probably continued to let little messed up moments slide with her, was because she made you care about her wellbeing. With Rachel, she had two sons, and now she has three… and her primary source of income was adjuncting. Despite all the ways her presence in the white supremacy of higher education may have hindered my own progress, I did not hate her. As a Black woman in higher education I also did not have time for hate. I had to fight the system that created her but consistently shut doors on me.
30. After she was found out I thought perhaps people would say, LaToya, so sorry we refused to see you. But no, nothing like that. When I heard about Rachel, I was home on medical leave, was it about her, partially, but mostly it was about the university and the oppression of my Black body, one that apparently Rachel never experienced but was making money and gaining accolades off of. Only a white woman can do this. Be Blackity, Black, BLACK, and rise to the top with no added oppression.
But I am a Black woman.
I remember the few women of color at EWU I rolled with back in the pre and post Rachel day. I remember our conversations. These conversations were essential to moving through this assault and gaslighting. I remember us talking about writing something. Presenting at a conference. I remember so many of them wondering about, “what would writing and presenting on this mean for me?” Unfortunately, I also remember my friends being able to move through and past this situation easier than myself. I am sure that the many voices speaking against Jessica right now, who are not those of you who worked to finally end her minstrel show, will move through this communal assault more swiftly too. And those of us in the closest proximity will continue to struggle as we recall all the moments, not only of doubting her but doubting ourselves.
I know that it should not be expected for me, nor those of you today, to swiftly move through this pain, because I went to work every day in a space that was supposed to support and uplift Black people in Africana Studies, and I felt like an outcast because I wondered about our (because I worked there) representation of Africana Studies, when in reality we projected that the main qualification was being Black (yup I said it). Where these folks whispered that I thought I was better than them because I have two degrees in Black Studies — and they have none. I went to work as administrative staff because I couldn’t even get adjunct positions. Looking back it burns to think that it was a white woman I was a bit jealous of as she taught the courses I longed for. Years later I presented about whiteness in the Pacific Northwest with some colleagues at a major conference on race, and one of the reviews of our session complained about me mentioning Rachel’s name. Because a Black woman in the audience did not listen to me when I told her why I was mentioning Rachel, because I’m the victim of this PNW whiteness, and the interracial anti-blackness in proximity to it. People tell us to move on. I know they do not fully understand what this is. But I do, and yet I do not.
I do not because Jessica is on a level beyond Rachel. Jessica is a tenure line faculty member at associate level. She’s published her own academic book, Rachel has not. She’s been trained officially in history and Ethnic studies, where Rachel was not. Jessica has moved around and altered her race openly in front of others in academia, where Rachel altered her race after moving from Idaho to Spokane, WA. Jessica’s identity became so distinct including an accent. Jessica has had support from major POC voices in academia, and she’s been given the mic in spaces that even the government was listening to. So, I do understand what folks are going through, but for me I lean back and say, “but Rachel, in small town isolated Spokane, did not span across these many lives… damn.”
My plea to those who are looking on as if this is that car crash you are driving by, don’t treat Jessica’s victims like they are the perpetrators. I felt this form of oppression with the silencing of dissenting Black and Brown voices in Spokane. With the consistent posts about how we should have known, like the responsibility was on us, not Rachel. Stop feeding into the white supremacy notion that we have more power than we do as people of color in academia. Think about how these two women were finally caught. In both cases, white people outed these women. Rachel’s very white parents, (despite her claim of an older Black man she met in Idaho as her father, and her white biological father as her step dad) because of familial issues related to her public negative discourse about them. And Jessica outed herself, by a force of hand. I wonder if anyone would have believed the group of POC scholars who were working to reveal Jessica Krug’s true identity, if they had called her out first. Because how many people are we seeing say, “I confronted Jessica… I told so-and-so.” Guess what? This happened in Spokane too.
Perhaps Jessica pulled her own Karen and called the police on a suspicious person (herself) and in Karen fashion she was believed. Perhaps she should have pulled a Rachel…own the identity, double down, and even reconstitute words to describe her own reality… time will tell for Jessica. And time will also be what will heal the ones Jessica assaulted and gaslighted. Take it from me, I was Dolezal’d too.
And because these days who can you trust, here’s an image of me with Rachel. And you can find me in that documentary that I thought would do better to showcase the truth. The only thing that documentary did for me was have a guy from Australia track down my information and call me to tell me how horrible I was to be mean to Rachel. So, if you are a victim of Jessica, avoid any unknown area codes…
