She was probably nudged

Less than a week but still too long.

Less than a week after George Washington University announced Jessica Krug would not resume teaching this semester after the professor revealed she had been lying for years about being Black, the school announced she has resigned.

“Dr. Krug has resigned her position, effective immediately. Her classes for this semester will be taught by other faculty members, and students in those courses will receive additional information this week,” the university said in a statement obtained by CNN on Wednesday.

We need a word for this move – this form of fraud in which a person with more social privilege pretends to be a person with less social privilege. Maybe we already have the word, maybe “appropriation” is good enough, but it doesn’t capture the more/less aspect, or at least it doesn’t explicitly name it.

We don’t feel the same kind of repulsion at the idea of someone with less privilege pretending to be someone with more. Why? Because that’s the natural direction of flow, the reasons are obvious, and privilege is a form of injustice. Stealing other people’s disprivilege is gross. It’s a kind of mockery as well as a kind of theft.

It might make an interesting academic discussion, but let’s not invite Jessica Krug to participate.

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