This Week in Racism: Meet Rachel Dolezal 2.0

It’s an embarrassment of riches in our new weekly roundup of the world’s most preventable disease!

Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.

Death and taxes used to be the only two certainties in life — but no matter how much progress it feels like we’re making sometimes, the sad fact is you can probably slide racism into that list. Are we in a moment of uprising that feels like it has the potential to create real, systemic change? Yes. Do people and organizations still show their ass on a daily basis? Oh, most definitely. And to keep tabs on all that ass-showing, we’re pleased to introduce our weekly racism surveillance machine. If you already get our newsletter, Minority Report, you’ve likely seen this — but now the rest of the internet can get a taste.

🗑Afro-Caribbean scholar turns out to be White, Rachel Dolezal wonders what the big deal is

If you’ve spent the last few days offline, you’ve likely missed the sizzling cocktail of fuckery known as the Jess La Bombalera situation. Meet Jessica A. Krug, an associate professor of history at George Washington University; Krug specializes in African and diasporic politics and ideas, and for years has been vocal on social media and in activism as a Black woman. Or possibly Colombian. Or perhaps Afro-Latinx. Point is, last week she admitted that she was actually a White woman from Kansas City. To those outside the world of academia—that is, 99% of people—the obvious question was HOW HAD NO ONE CAUGHT ON TO THIS? Whether deploying a hilariously inconsistent faux-Nuyorican accent, teaching struggle salsa dancing, or calling herself “an unrepentant and unreformed child of the hood,” everything about Krug smacked of trying way way way way too hard in that way that only White people can. (Also, the fact that she came clean at all seemed to be because people had sniffed out the charade.) Point is, with the post-summer days getting noticeably shorter, we need to bask in whatever light we can find—and nothing warms the soul quite like a good White People Blackfishing situation. Here’s to you, Jessica Krug; since you’re likely on the cusp of a career move, we’d like to suggest something a little more…