Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know enough about her subject area to judge myself on whether she was smart or not. Maybe she wasn’t all that academically gifted. Let’s just say she knew she lacked the required talent to advance in her chosen field of study and either thought that in some perverse way if she took on the culture, race, and ethnicity of those she was trying to study, it would make it easier to understand; or she knew she was untalented and figured that by claiming ethnicity, culture, race of those she was studying, no one could question her research. All in all a very sad example of a human being.

Except she didn’t claim just one origin story. She’d tell people she was of North African descent, of African American descent, from the caribbean, black-Latina from the Bronx.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know enough about her subject area to judge myself on whether she was smart or not. Maybe she wasn’t all that academically gifted. Let’s just say she knew she lacked the required talent to advance in her chosen field of study and either thought that in some perverse way if she took on the culture, race, and ethnicity of those she was trying to study, it would make it easier to understand; or she knew she was untalented and figured that by claiming ethnicity, culture, race of those she was studying, no one could question her research. All in all a very sad example of a human being.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I'm going with sociopath or flat out opportunist who needs attention. Her avenue just happened to be US minority-majority politics and social policies.

I was kind of hoping this was a cascading event, where she told one small lie years ago that just snowballed.

I think it’s funny someone asks why these lies weren’t revealed on “background checks.” Background checks are when you’ve broken the law. She didn’t do that with the exception of lying on forms and wouldn’t be flagged by a background check.

I think what they mean is how did this not get caught in reference checks, or even through the grapevine, given that these sorts of circles are very small and it’s commonly understood that a person’s professional person and online image may not contain their true reputation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This scenario feels so Trump’y in its grifter’ness.

She got away with it for so long because white people are the ones who decide who gets tenure, hold the grant purse strings, etc. You think any white person wanted to be the one who said “Hey, we don’t think you’re a real Latina”? No. It was easier to go along to get along. If anything, white people in academic administration were incentivized to hire her because she checked the boxes. The people incident really displays how white academic administration is and how it also needs to diversify.

Most rational people who want to pass as another race/ethnicity would do it quietly. What does she do? She continually doubles down and becomes more egregious. The ridiculous, exaggerated fake accent. Makeup to darken her skin tone. The awful hair dye. Dressing provocatively in a stereotypical manner of an NYC Latina “from the hood.” She leaned into it, trying to get attention and push the boundaries of decency. It feels so Trump-like in its audacity. She was basically trolling polite people to call her out in an effort to paint herself as a victim.

It would not surprise me at all if this woman held hard-right conservative political views and was doing this to just troll POC in academia. It’s too nefarious.

Nope. I ran in some overlapping circles in social media and she seemed to be a true believer. She was a radical and did this on purpose. Heck, she wrote books that demonstrated a sophisticated analysis of these issues. This was deceptive but she actually is smart and sophisticated and a good writer and academic. Let's have a sophisticated conversation about race and deception and why, but she wasn't a Trump style grifter.

So, she is smart and added legitimate content and other contributions to academia in this area, correct?

Had she not lied about her roots, she would have been hailed as a talented academic and author, right?

Did she lie because it was impossible for a white lady to have a voice in African American history and racial justice? If so, what does that say about the US?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is very sad. I am sure many of her students and colleagues are feeling deceived. Her deception is a form of mental illness. I wonder what was the impetus to coming forward now?

No mental illness. She outed herself because some colleagues were planning to out her and she wanted to get ahead of the story.

Getting ahead of the story doesn’t mean she’s not mentally ill. You can have rational moments and thoughts but these many lies are a sign of something.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is very sad. I am sure many of her students and colleagues are feeling deceived. Her deception is a form of mental illness. I wonder what was the impetus to coming forward now?

No mental illness. She outed herself because some colleagues were planning to out her and she wanted to get ahead of the story.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it that her childhood friends or her family in particular did not out her previously. In this day and age you would think with as public an image as she had somebody would have exposed that she grew up in KS - not NY.

This is the part I also find so strange. It’s not like she’s 85 and could hide large swaths of her life. This is a woman whose entire adulthood has been in the era of social media, too.

Anyone know where she did undergrad?

Barstow high school in Kansas City and a PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Don’t know if that’s where she went for undergraduate degree.
Here’s her high school:

Self described an 'unrepentant and unreformed child of the hood'
LOL

Anonymous wrote:It is very sad. I am sure many of her students and colleagues are feeling deceived. Her deception is a form of mental illness. I wonder what was the impetus to coming forward now?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it that her childhood friends or her family in particular did not out her previously. In this day and age you would think with as public an image as she had somebody would have exposed that she grew up in KS - not NY.

This is the part I also find so strange. It’s not like she’s 85 and could hide large swaths of her life. This is a woman whose entire adulthood has been in the era of social media, too.

Anyone know where she did undergrad?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it that her childhood friends or her family in particular did not out her previously. In this day and age you would think with as public an image as she had somebody would have exposed that she grew up in KS - not NY.

This is the part I also find so strange. It’s not like she’s 85 and could hide large swaths of her life. This is a woman whose entire adulthood has been in the era of social media, too.

Anyone know where she did undergrad?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it that her childhood friends or her family in particular did not out her previously. In this day and age you would think with as public an image as she had somebody would have exposed that she grew up in KS - not NY.

This is the part I also find so strange. It’s not like she’s 85 and could hide large swaths of her life. This is a woman whose entire adulthood has been in the era of social media, too.