So Much for color Being Only Skin Deep

How distinct is faking one's identity from inculcating a different one?

Mimicry has its fair share of practitioners, some even blissfully unaware they are engaged in this imitative practice. JesicaKrug, a history professor in George Washington University (GWU) in the US capital, is not one of them– she was very much aware of passing herself off as something she wasn't. Confessing recently about being a White woman pretending to be Black, the professor of African American, colonial and imperial history resigned, not because she was bad at her job, but because of peddling an identity lie. So much for colour being only skin deep.

It turns out that Krug was indeed suscepted by some colleagues of fakery–she had claimed that she was from New York City's Black-majority borough of Bronx,while she was actually from sunburn Kansas City. What raised suspicious included her being clearly 'inexpert salsa dancing' and 'awful New York accent'. Krug has since blamed unaddressed mental health demons'. One wonders what would have been the case if she was a Black women pretending to be White. Here in India, of course, someone passing herself of as a (brown) men-sahib is considered a virtue. One just needs to be careful of not being 'clearly inexpert' in pronouncing 'Gloucester'—fakers to be outed if they don't pronounce it as 'Gloster' – or not knowing which cheese to have with which wine.

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