Friday, September 4, 2020

The Strange Case of Jessica Krug

A woman named Jessica Krug, apparently history professor at GWU, just posted a long confession on Medium saying she was raised Jewish but has been pretending to be black since adolescence. The whole piece is a torrent of guilt and shame, but then she admits she started because of "trauma" and "mental health issues.":

I absolutely deserve to be cancelled. . . . No white person, no non-Black person, has the right to claim proximity to or belonging in a Black community by virtue of abuse, trauma, non-acceptance, and non-belonging in a white community. The abuse within and alienation from my birth family and society are no one’s burden but my own, and mine alone to address. Black people and Black communities have no obligation to harbor the refuse of non-Black societies. I have done this. I know it is wrong and I have done this anyway. 

I have not lived a double life. 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. I have built only this life, a life within which I have operated with a radical sense of ethics, of right and wrong, and with rage, rooted in Black power, an ideology which every person should support, but to which I have no possible claim as my own.

Looking around the world at the shootings and the murders and the wars, I have trouble taking this seriously as a crime. So far as I can tell, Jessica Krug has made a decades-long, entirely serious attempt to live as a black person, both socially and intellectually. She clearly thinks this is very wrong, but I am not sure I get it. Consider this:

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. That I claimed belonging with living people and ancestors to whom and for whom my being is always a threat at best and a death sentence at worst.

I am not a culture vulture. I am a culture leech.

But don't we all craft our identities from the fabric of other people's lives? Aren't we all culture leeches? How else could we acquire culture?

In a biological sense, race does not exist. People from east and west Africa are more different from each other than Chinese are from Scots. What force race has is entirely a cultural construct. So if you construct your own race culturally, by taking from the living fabric of people of that race, then you are doing exactly what everyone else does. There is no biological basis for the notion of race; race is culture. So what underlying reality is there that Jessica Krug was betraying? That she was "really" white? What does that mean? Who decided that Jews are white? Whiteness has no biological reality. None. So if the argument is that Jessica Krug is "really" white, what could that possibly mean? If you're just saying that she could have "passed" for white if she had wanted to, well, that is equally true of many people who have been considered black from birth. Heck, Kamala Harris could consider herself Indian if she wanted to. Does that make her blackness a sham?

Suppose Jessica Krug had been adopted into a black family and raised black from birth, rather than choosing it during her struggles with trauma and madness; would that be any different?

If you can change your sex – which absolutely does exist, and has existed for a billion years, and is the most fundamental division in almost all animal species and many plant species as well – then why can't you change your race, a concept that has only been around for maybe 400 years?

When I ask people to explain this to me, they just shake their heads, as if it were so obvious that they don't know where to start. 

I simply don't see  how what Jennifer Krug did is some kind of unforgivable crime. In her confusion she sought, through her very identity, to bridge the gap between races that is one of our worst problems. She did this deceptively, but with complete sincerity. I will save my anger for the racists who think that gap is unbridgeable. Because this is what I believe: as long as we think that race is some sort of absolute division between people, more important than sex or nationality or anything else – if the very existence of white people is "is always a threat at best and a death sentence at worst" for black people – if that barrier is so impermeable that no one can ever cross it –then there is no hope, racism cannot be defeated, and in the long run we are doomed.

13 comments:

G. Verloren said...

Tribalism: it doesn't have to make sense!

I seem to recall you posting at some point about a historical French (?) minority who weren't really a minority - they spoke the same language, ate the same food, lived exactly like their neighbors, and yet were labeled as "Other" on a hereditary basis and shunned reflexively. It doesn't make any goddamn sense, and yet...

David said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David said...

I guess I'll say three things:

1. When a person does something like this, which might hurt someone they care about, that person apologizes. That's what a good person does. Saying, "No, I'm not sorry, because X is a cultural construct"--well, what do you think that looks like?

2. Race may be a cultural construct, but, like it or not, 5 centuries of history have made it the most important, defining way of categorizing humans in the western hemisphere. Here, over time, ethnic and political divisions that mattered in the Old World, or in the New World before 1492, have gradually come to be subsumed in this broad system. Those divisions may not have disappeared--yes, Hopis and Navajos still don't like each other, and for decades Irish immigrants were hated in this country, and there are still German towns in Brazil and Welsh ones in Argentina, and so on--but overall they are subordinate to the big racial categories in our culture. And for many, this has been a powerful and traumatic reality. I don't think you have to be a whimpy, bleeding-heart liberal--or want to signal yourself as one--to see or admit that race has powerfully shaped identity and experience and individual emotions (as in, how one might react to the Krug story) in a way that can’t be dismissed.

3. I too am troubled by the hypertrophy of an assertive, nationalist-type racial identity ideology among some circles (including right and left White ones) in contemporary America. For example, whether consciously or not, Kendi's How To Be an Antiracist seems to end up, at least in synopses, as a separatist, anti-cosmopolitan, nationalist screed of the type that has brought so much peace and kindness to Europe in the last two centuries. But I don't think one will get very far in combating this disturbing tendency by trying to claim that race isn't important. To borrow from Douglas Adams, you can't make the issue that most troubles our common life together disappear in a puff of logic.

(See, in order to edit my comment, I had to trash the first one. Bad Blogger program.)

G. Verloren said...

But I don't think one will get very far in combating this disturbing tendency by trying to claim that race isn't important. To borrow from Douglas Adams, you can't make the issue that most troubles our common life together disappear in a puff of logic.

So what's the alternative? Just sort of... let people engage in that worrying ultra-nationalism-through-racial-proxy? Do nothing, say nothing, and hope they eventually lose change their minds or lose interest?

Someone has to speak for reason.

When the Cold War was raging, there was a terrifying number of people who deemed nuclear weapons to be of the ULTIMATE importance, which of course had the horrific effect of proliferating them. Cooler heads had to stand up and say, "No, I'm sorry - that's irrational and insane. You can't define yourself, your nation, or the world by nuclear weapons. It's bad for everyone, yourself included. I know you THINK they are the most important thing in the universe, but you're wrong - they're only 'important' because people like you insist they must be, and it's going to get a lot of people killed."

Now obviously that's an extreme example, but the underlying concept remains the same. Just because something is important to someone doesn't mean they aren't delusional or that their actions based on those delusions aren't harmful. And the only way those delusions ever get dealt with is by people speaking out against them, and challenging people on their dangerous tribal tendencies.

We need logical consistency, and people willing to stand up for it, because otherwise you just get a bunch of irrational and emotional people splitting into warring camps and fighting each other over stupid reasons that "feel" "important". And nothing ever changes, because every side thinks their own views are supreme and inviolable, and dissenters are traitors clearly working for The Other!

Either we speak for reason, or we abandon ourselves to stupidity.

David said...

@Verloren

Actually, I can't think of any instance or evidence showing that that kind of argument had any effect on the Cold War whatsoever. Rather, sober, serious people concluded nuclear weapons were of the utmost importance, and too dangerous to use.

In general, I don't think much of arguments that run along the lines of "Humans are fools. So glad I'm not one of them."

G. Verloren said...

@David

In general, I don't think much of arguments that run along the lines of "Humans are fools. So glad I'm not one of them."

Who made that argument? Don't erect any strawmen, please.

Putting that aside, however, what's wrong with pointing to some facet of the foolishness of humanity, and being glad not to exhibit that facet too prominently? How is it wrong to criticize something that logic tells us is worth criticism? How does that equate to condemning humanity and separating oneself from it?

To quote Carl Sagan, "As if there were only one human nature!" Calling a single thing foolish is not the same as decrying humanity, because humanity is not defined by any single thing. Don't read more into something than is actually there.

Ironically, if anyone is doing what you accuse me of, in this case it'd actually be you - misrepresenting an argument in a reductionist manner, in order to dismiss it out of hand as the foolishness of lesser "others".

---

But we digress! You don't like my example of nuclear proliferation? Fine, let's consider a different example - any of countless arguments throughout history arguing against scientific theories and discoveries in the name of preserving faith.

The earth isn't the center of the universe? Blasphemy! It's of the utmost importance that it be, so we are going to insist that it must be!

Man "evolved" from apes? Nonsense! That can't possibly be true! Our belief in our own divine creation "in God's image" is vitally important to our entire understanding of who we are and our place in the universe! It has to be true!

Vaccines are safe and don't cause things like autism? Lies! Propaganda! I have an intense emotional conviction that says otherwise, and the anti-vaccine cause is one of the most important things in my life! Don't trust the pro-vaccine people! They're all liars and monsters! It's a conspiracy!

Global warming? Clearly that's a hoax invented by the Chinese in league with the Illuminati and the Bildebergs as part of Obama's radical left agenda of turning the country homosexual using chemtrails so he can impose Sharia Law! It's a terrible and important secret being kept from us! Wake up, sheeple!

Those other people? They're trying to tell me that the thing I believe in, the thing that is incredibly important to me, is wrong and bad, and that I shouldn't believe in it it, and shouldn't hold it so dear! That's how I know they're evil! Because I couldn't possibly be mistaken in my beliefs! They claim to have "facts" and "science" and "evidence" and "logic" to back up their position, but I'm too smart for them - I refuse to listen to their lies!

---

So again, I ask you... what are we supposed to do? Turn a blind eye to delusional people and the problematic beliefs they build their tribal identities around? Let them go about their business, causing actual, measurable harm?

No, we speak for reason.

The earth is not the center of the universe! Humans evolved, damnit! Vaccines are safe and save untold innocent lives, you idiots! And if we don't start taking drastic measures to stop global warming, untold billions will suffer catastrophically! So listen up, you nimrods!

If progress means standing up and insisting on the truth and refusing to be silent in the face of people building ridiculous tribal identities around delusions, so be it! We have an obligation to the truth and to the future of humanity! It may take centuries for the facts to become accepted, but eventually truth wins out!

David said...

Okay, you make good points. And there are certainly plenty of beliefs people cherish, like QAnon, that I think are stupid, and I'm so glad I have nothing--nothing, I tell you!--in common with the people who believe in them.

But I would say Black identity and the issue of race aren't simply delusions in the same way that, say, spontaneous generation was. See point #2 in my original post. Race may be a cultural construct, but you can't blow away 500 years of history by declaring it was all just some intellectual mistake, and let's move on.



Shadow said...

"But I would say Black identity and the issue of race aren't simply delusions in the same way that, say, spontaneous generation was. See point #2 in my original post. Race may be a cultural construct, but you can't blow away 500 years of history by declaring it was all just some intellectual mistake, and let's move on."

I agree, and would add that even if race was removed as a scientific or classification idea, we are still left phenotype differences, and it is those differences that so often trigger the deeper racism. Therefore, I think the cultural construct will remain.

G. Verloren said...

But I would say Black identity and the issue of race aren't simply delusions in the same way that, say, spontaneous generation was. See point #2 in my original post. Race may be a cultural construct, but you can't blow away 500 years of history by declaring it was all just some intellectual mistake, and let's move on.

...but spontaneous generation had 500 years of history, did it not? And yet we got rid of it.

You are correct - it wasn't accomplished simply by declaring it an intellectual mistake. These things never are. They are accomplished by making such declaration over and over, sometimes for centuries, by defending them with evidence and logic.

But these changes are never accomplished by ignoring the problems and letting people keep their delusions. If we say nothing, nothing changes.

And for the THIRD time I ask you... what's your alternative? If you're going to argue against my position, what do you suggest we do instead, other than nothing?

David said...

If I knew how to solve the racial problems in this country, I would be a great hero and a famous man. I am neither. But I would start by looking for something a little less arrogant than "Listen up, Nimrods."

Remember, John was essentially addressing Black Americans, not White racists. It strikes me as a bit high-handed, to say the least, to tell Black Americans that all that is in the past, it was a conceptual boo-boo, and they should just get over it right now. They might justifiably reply, "Let White Americans get over it first, and let our kids into their nice schools."

Spontaneous generation was an intellectual idea among a tiny minority of scholars. Racism has been a mass experience of forced migration, violence, and scorn involving millions over several centuries.

G. Verloren said...

@David

They might justifiably reply, "Let White Americans get over it first, and let our kids into their nice schools."

And well they should, and well we should support them full-heartedly in that!

Obviously systemic racism on the part of white bigots needs to be combated - schools, housing, employment, the justice system... they all need major reform.

But none of that is directly relevant to the topic at hand, which is cultural gatekeeping on the basis of race, and the building of a tribal identity which is more than willing to borrow from others, but doesn't want others borrowing from it.

Either we live in a society where your skin color doesn't matter, or we live in a society that actively promotes racism, were how you choose to identify and the cultural influences you choose to absorb can be judged or condemned by others based purely on your race and their opinions on your worthiness to belong.

It turns out being part of a minority that historically was the victim of racism doesn't magically make it impossible for you to turn around and do the exact same thing to other people and become racist yourself, just in the other direction.

The answer to our legacy of racism and our current systemic racism isn't to sit back and let people develop delusional tribal identities that are in themselves racist, trying to police who can identify as what or engage in which cultural practices, based entirely on the basis of their race. That just makes MORE racism.

And since you can't seem to suggest anything other than to shrug and do nothing, I'm going to stick with the approach of speaking out against that trend.

If you want to dismiss my position on the grounds that it's too... I don't know what, impolite? ...that I'm somehow being unacceptably arrogant in telling people to stop being so irrational, tribalistic, and racist? Then fine, ignore what I'm saying while your bury your head in the sand and do literally nothing.

David said...

I met with ten students today and helped them with their papers. I'm meeting with twelve tomorrow. I feel pretty good about myself. :P

szopen said...

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2012/02/28/are-there-human-races/