Read on Twitter
Last night, I just had to see what kind of work the now infamous —white scholar pretending to be Black — Jessica A. Krug did so I watched this 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten"> https://youtu.be/8vQH5tZJ6zU ">https://youtu.be/8vQH5tZJ6...
https://youtu.be/8vQH5tZJ6... " title="Last night, I just had to see what kind of work the now infamous —white scholar pretending to be Black — Jessica A. Krug did so I watched this https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten"> https://youtu.be/8vQH5tZJ6... " class="img-responsive" style="max-width:100%;"/>
My original intent was to see if I would read her as white or black and whether or not she was likeable but I soon forgot that as I concentrated to understand what she was talking about. Here’s what I learned:
It has been a trend in Black scholarship to isolate and describe elements of New World Black culture and then trace these back to Africa, to find their origin. (It’s fairly easy to do with recipes for example, acarajé
is street food in Bahia, Brazil as well, a Beninese friend assured me, as in Porto Novo.) That’s Bahia on the left and Bénin on the right. See how close together they are.)
It’s a lot harder to find African origins for things that are less concrete like values, behaviors, modes of social organization.
Jessica Krug spoke in this context about “kissima” which is at once a place in the Congo, a spirit of resistance, a form of organization in maroon communities, a war camp or a fishing village.
Oops, https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🥺" title="Pleading face" aria-label="Emoji: Pleading face">, I spelled it wrong, it’s “Kisama” and it’s part of her book “Fugitive Modernities: Kisama and the Politics of Freedom.”
, I spelled it wrong, it’s “Kisama” and it’s part of her book “Fugitive Modernities: Kisama and the Politics of Freedom.”" title="Oops, https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🥺" title="Pleading face" aria-label="Emoji: Pleading face">, I spelled it wrong, it’s “Kisama” and it’s part of her book “Fugitive Modernities: Kisama and the Politics of Freedom.”" class="img-responsive" style="max-width:100%;"/>
Fugitivity, she said, is a hot topic in Black scholarship.
But, did she seem Black or white and was she likeable?
But, did she seem Black or white and was she likeable?
she didn’t seem Black or White to me, actually, but I did think she looked sort of like Katie Halper but with black hair dye and a scowl, all the better to pass for Afro-Latinx." title="https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤷🏼‍♀️" title="Achselzuckende Frau (mittelheller Hautton)" aria-label="Emoji: Achselzuckende Frau (mittelheller Hautton)"> she didn’t seem Black or White to me, actually, but I did think she looked sort of like Katie Halper but with black hair dye and a scowl, all the better to pass for Afro-Latinx.">
she didn’t seem Black or White to me, actually, but I did think she looked sort of like Katie Halper but with black hair dye and a scowl, all the better to pass for Afro-Latinx." title="https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤷🏼‍♀️" title="Achselzuckende Frau (mittelheller Hautton)" aria-label="Emoji: Achselzuckende Frau (mittelheller Hautton)"> she didn’t seem Black or White to me, actually, but I did think she looked sort of like Katie Halper but with black hair dye and a scowl, all the better to pass for Afro-Latinx.">
Search for her on Twitter, you’ll find many people narrating their friendships with her, their feelings of betrayal and posting convos they had with her. Like this one, she is Jess La Bombera.
In this one https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👆" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach oben" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach oben"> she “really questions white people’s commitment to anything.” There’s another DM convo in which someone is asking her why she looks white and she claims she is the product of a white man raping a black woman. I can’t find it now https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤷🏼‍♀️" title="Achselzuckende Frau (mittelheller Hautton)" aria-label="Emoji: Achselzuckende Frau (mittelheller Hautton)">.
And if you look further afield you might find some of this too. https://twitter.com/wokemayo/status/1301586128462639112">https://twitter.com/wokemayo/...
