Oh Vito

Vitolo Hadaad isn’t Black. Another woman in academia comes out and gives a half baked apology. Why is it always women in higher education?

https://medium.com/@polite_keppel_dinosaur_57/cv-vitolo-haddad-another-academic-racial-fraud-c5c41fe3211

https://usatodaysun.com/university-of-wisconsin-madison-graduate-resigns-from-teaching-job-after-lying-about-being-black/


A University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student has resigned from their teaching role after admitting they have been lying about being black.

CV Vitolo-Haddad, who identifies as non-binary, admitted they pretended on multiple occasions to be black or Latino when they are actually Southern Italian and Sicilian.

They said they failed to correct peoples’ assumptions about their racial identity, ‘entered Black organizing spaces’ when they should not have and recounted three times when they didn’t say no when others asked if they were black.

Vitolo-Haddad confessed to the deception in two Medium blog posts where they apologized for ‘every ounce of heartbreak and betrayal’ they caused and announced they were standing down from their teaching assistant job at the university as well as their role as co-president of the Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA).

CV Vitolo-Haddad (pictured), a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student has resigned from their teaching role after admitting they have been lying about being black
Vitolo-Haddad published a blog on Medium on September 6 apologizing for taking some ‘very wrong turns’ and deceiving people over their racial identity.

‘In trying to sort through parts of who I am, I’ve taken some very wrong turns. I never really owned up to them as they became apparent, nor recognized the trail of damage behind me,’ they wrote.

The grad student said they had let people make assumptions on their ancestry and did not correct them.

‘I have let guesses about my ancestry become answers I wanted but couldn’t prove. I have let people make assumptions when I should have corrected them,’ they wrote.

I wonder if he still honestly believes that.

https://www.theroot.com/wait-nbc-sports-announcer-mike-tirico-isnt-black-1796985416

lol @ this:

"When people go around and say, ‘You are black’—well, I don’t encourage it, but by the same token I don’t back off of it,” he says. “If you want to call me that, that’s fine. But, you know, in my whole family, there’s nobody I know who is black."

then this:

"Tirico’s parents, Donald and Maria, were separated when he was about 4, and he says he has since lost contact with his father’s side of the family. Tirico is an only child. Because of his dark skin and ethnic features, Tirico says, most people assume he is black. But he’s seen pictures of his father, his father’s mother and his father’s sister—all of whom are white, Tirico says."


C'mon bruh.

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

his daddy.

When I lived in Kentucky there were a lot of Obama babies who identified as white. Dudes would come down from the city to play football and knock up a white girl and the family would raise them white.

My wife was like... “umm, these kids really think they are white and check the boxes and everything”

i died laughing

would have gotten my seal of authentication....


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

https://medium.com/@polite_keppel_dinosaur_57/cv-vitolo-haddad-another-academic-racial-fraud-c5c41fe32110

That person broke they, them, CV all the way down.

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

and before you say Shaun King, he's been fighting "You Ain't Black" accusations for years, and I've not seen any receipts to expose him in that regard either.

angle to get out of most of these questions?

It’s one of the reasons I don’t trust white women when it comes to this election. They can’t be trusted.

And there's an obsession with making every latino person black, no matter how pale and eurocentric their features are.

If anyone called her out im sure there would be another black person complaining about "gatekeeping," erasing afro-latino people, and how they have a cousin in Louisiana that looks just like the fraud.

still doesn’t excuse her lying ass.

White people refused to love their family, we recognized that they're also our family.

It's crazy that white people's hyperpolicing the boundaries of whiteness via shit like the one-drop rule (and all it's variations), has created a huge spectrum of blackness that they themselves would, centuries later, exploit for their own deceptive entry into blackness.

That shit is wild.
Its like fuckin inception.

>and before you say Shaun King


Was reaching for Shift + S while I read that.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/shaun-king-biracial-black-lives-matter-controversy-031401699.html

we tend to give people a pass for being black based on situation and context.

We want "passing" people to claim their blackness but not too much.

We ride for Meghan Markle because she gets shit on by the press because she is symbolic and well, racism.

We were feeling it when Carol Channing at the end of her life said "alight ya'll, I'm actually black"

We like it and laugh when Maya Rudolph "blacks it up"

But, then, we have trouble accepting the blackness of others or questioning their blackness or not really openly claiming them even though they say "hey! I am black. I claim it, I am proud of it". People like, Kamala, Obama, Halsey and King.

Obama I should mention is simultaneously embraced and seen as other.

Which is why binlahab's crusade for describing black americans as upper B "Black" makes so much sense. Our phenotype and culture are vast and synonymous with each other.

There's people who have black phenotype but were raised in a culture that was devoid of blackness. it influences their politics, and not in a good way (Obama and Kamala)

There's people whose black features are more...subdued, but they were still raised as black, they acknowledge their privilege, and will go hard for black people.

The latter black folk deserve way more space than the former, because the kamalas and obamas are far more sinister.


With that being said, shaun kings shady for reasons that have nothing to do with his blackness. He has used his platform to bully black people that questioned him, he has a history of escalating conflict with black women and threatening to involve the law. Thats suspect as hell.

to the highest levels... that’s when everyone wants to point out their other parts.

I think most Black people want anyone who is actually Black to claim it.. not when it’s convenient or on their death bed.

believe it wasnt meant ancestral.

Warren G Harding made a statement "how do I know, Jim? One of my ancestors may have jumped the fence".....after being accused of mixed race by a challenger.

Dwight Eisenhower, mother was of mixed race mulatto.

Alexander Hamilton, mother passed as white, yet had a darkskinned brother who was treated as black.


and folks already know about J. Edgar Hoover blood line.


Entertainers like Carly Simon, Steven Tyler, Slash, Clarke Gable, Jackie Kennedy, Rashida Jones, Beethovan, Wentworth Miller starred in Prison Break.


Queen Charlotte--->the mother of Queen Victoria had the moor blood pumping thru them veins along w/ her recent descendants Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, pedophile Andrew, William and Harry

First off, I don’t remember dude, he only went to our school his senior year.

Second, he was definitely passing or we just didn’t care to ask because he was a new face.

Third, we prolly joked the shit out of him because we were young and dumb and if we didn’t know you we were joking you for our entertainment because again, we were young and dumb and bored af in HS.

Look at him now...

This shit is wild, you'd think after Dozeal they would've just stopped this shit.

being a Black man. You can pretty much get away with anything in these academic circles as a Black woman now. This is not the case for Black men, and it all kinda ties to the way white society wholly approves of Black misandry. All of the things a white woman would be called racist for saying about Black men, a Black woman can say and it's a celebrated critique of the community. The "double minority" theory is applied but not to Black men even tho Black men are the minority in these spaces (and in Black society at large when you account for incarceration)... their voices stifled if they suggest that programs are needed for themselves... they're assumed to have privilege that fails to manifest empirically, etc. A white man would be a complete idiot to wanna be a Black man in the academy. Malcolm once said the most unprotected person on earth is the Black woman. The opposite of that is true in academia now w/ *maybe* the exception of white men, but even white males' racist thoughts about Black men will be called racist. That's why I think you see white women wanting to be Black women. White folks like to do whatever the fuck they want. Black women in the academy are pretty much at that point.
I realize this might be controversial to say on here, but I believe that those paying attention and willing to be honest can see the validity of it.
I love to see Black people winning and succeeding (in this case, women), but I also hate when it's at the expense of other Black people (in this case, men and boys).

Born Anthony David Lennon. Both parents white.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/07/anthony-lennon-theatre-director-accused-of-passing-as-black-interview-simon-hattenstone

All his life, people have assumed the theatre director is mixed race – and he was happy to embrace that identity. Then he was accused of faking it

Simon Hattenstone
Sat 7 Sep 2019 05.00 EDT

1550
Anthony Ekundayo Lennon remembers the moment his life spun out of control. It was late morning, Friday 2 November 2018. The actor and director was giving a talk about the performing arts to university students, and his phone kept flashing. It was so incessant that the students suggested he’d better take a look. He told them it wouldn’t be anything important, turned the phone over and got on with his lecture. When the class broke for lunch, he saw missed calls from Talawa theatre company, where he had been working for the past year, as well as several unknown numbers and messages.

One text stood out. It was from a journalist at the Sunday Times, asking for a comment on a story the paper was preparing to run about Lennon’s place on a prestigious scheme – the artistic director leadership programme (ADLP) for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) theatre practitioners. Lennon had been awarded an 18-month residency with Talawa, Britain’s best-known black-led theatre company. He scrolled down the text.

“It does seem striking that neither the ADLP nor the Talawa has ever made clear that you are a white man,” the journalist wrote, adding: “Why has neither Talawa theatre or the ADLP programme made clear that you have received BAME funding as a white man with Irish parents?” Lennon decided not to respond. It was true that his parents were white, but this was no secret; nor was the fact that he believed he had African heritage. He had always been treated by people as mixed race, and so identified as a person of mixed heritage. “I didn’t think I had anything to answer,” he tells me now. We’re sitting in a pub in north London. “Talawa knew about my being of mixed heritage while having white parents. I’ve never not spoken about it.”

Two days after Lennon received the text, the Sunday Times published its story, accusing Lennon of “passing” as black. “A theatre director who has won funds meant for ‘people of colour’ has admitted his parents and grandparents were all white,” ran the introduction, going on to quote one unnamed black actor who had expressed disquiet: “When I discovered his background, I thought it was unfair that a white man had taken a black person’s place on a BAME scheme.” The article compared Lennon to Rachel Dolezal, the former president of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the US, who claimed she was black despite having white parents, and when challenged in 2015, argued that “the idea of race is a lie”.

Actor and director Anthony Ekundayo Lennon as a boy, with his brother Vincent
With his brother Vincent (on left). Photograph: courtesy of Anthony Ekundayo Lennon
Lennon was floored. “I call it the hit,” he says. “It really did feel like an assassination – a character assassination.” But there was more to come. The story was picked up by other journalists, and Lennon was portrayed as a conman who had cheated his way to the top at the expense of people of colour. As a dramatic plot, it appeared to have everything: hubris, nemesis, mistaken identity, even the occasional hint of comedy.

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The Sun suggested that Lennon had chosen to identify as black because he had “curly hair” and had struggled to find decent parts as an actor. The Daily Mail pointed to the £406,500 Arts Council grant shared between the four recipients of the ADLP award and suggested that Lennon had cheated the taxpayer. The Mirror said he had won the grant “because he believes everyone is African”. It was true that British theatre, like much of the arts world, was, and is, disproportionately white: the Independent published data showing that, in 2016-17, people from BAME backgrounds made up just 8% of chief executives, 10% of artistic directors and 10% of theatre chairs; Lennon’s award, it argued, was “a kick in the teeth” for practitioners of colour. Trevor Phillips, former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, told the Telegraph: “We should be doing more to help individuals of talent from black and ethnic minority communities, and we cannot do that if the few opportunities that exist are going to white people who are self-identifying as something else.”

Apart from the friends and colleagues closest to him (both Talawa and the Arts Council stood by Lennon, arguing that they had never been misled), he found himself damned right across the political spectrum. He was hardly a household name, but as an actor with 30 years’ experience – much of it with black theatre groups – he was well-respected within the industry, and starting to show promise as a director. But overnight he had become a pariah.

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Lennon wrote a column for the Guardian, explaining that the Sunday Times had misrepresented him – but refused all other requests for comment. The controversy was taking its toll. He went to ground, took time off work, and came very close to taking his own life.

Ten months on, Lennon has chosen to tell his story for the first time. Rather than trying to “pass” as black, he says, he has spent a lifetime failing to pass as white – from babyhood to the present day. And many years ago he decided to embrace that – to live with the identity the rest of the world persisted in giving him.

***

Lennon first calls me out of the blue in July. We have never met, but a mutual friend has suggested he get in touch. He outlines his story, and says he has just received information that sheds new light on his racial identity. He sounds nervous, and asks if we can meet.

From the moment I was born, I used to feel I’d damaged my family – that my arrival was like a bomb had gone off
A few days later, we get together for a coffee. Lennon, aged 53, has an extraordinary face – sculpted cheekbones, caterpillar eyebrows, flared nostrils, piercing blue eyes. These days his head is shaved, but as a child and young man he had an afro; that was the way his hair grew naturally. He shows me a series of photographs. Here he is with his younger brother, Vincent, aged six and four – two cute, gap-toothed, mixed-race boys, or so you would assume. There he is at 18, body-popping with his all-black crew in London. And in his early 20s, as a politicised young man with a big afro worn under his black leather beret. Sometimes he looks black, sometimes mixed race. The one thing he doesn’t look is white.

We agree to meet again in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile he emails and texts me regularly, almost obsessively – notes, mini essays, childhood recollections, most of them painful. He remembers being with Vincent in a cupboard upstairs, hiding from the prying neighbours who had come round for a nosy at the two strange children; friends asking where his black parent was; the school caretaker threatening to set dogs on him and telling him, “Run, nigger.”

Almost a year into his stint at Talawa, Lennon says he was warned by the company’s artistic director Michael Buffong that a number of people weren’t happy about him winning the award, but he didn’t think much about it. Nobody had said anything to him, and he assumed any mutterings would subside.

Old black and white photograph of actor and director Anthony Ekundayo Lennon's mother
Lennon’s mother…
Old black and white photograph of actor and director Anthony Ekundayo Lennon's mother
…and father. Photographs: courtesy of Anthony Ekundayo Lennon
When the story broke last year, Buffong released a statement saying, “I have always been aware of Anthony’s unique and complicated story. For my generation, and when Talawa started as a company in 1986, there was a spirit of inclusivity which meant that he was accepted by many, inside the organisation and externally, as a person of mixed heritage.” The Arts Council backed this up, arguing: “This is a very unusual case and we do not think it undermines the support we provide to black and minority ethnic people within the theatre sector.” Forty-eight prominent black artists and activists wrote to the Guardian in support of Lennon, including Michaela Coel, Clarke Peters, Roy Williams and Lennon’s friend, the actor and writer Lennie James. Lennon shows me a text he recently received from James: “I just want to check in to make sure you’re good and looking after yourself. Remember you don’t have to say, answer or justify yourself to anyone. Those who know you know you. If people aren’t ready for the nuance of the conversation, you may just have to wait for them to catch up. Don’t get dragged back. I’m thinking of you, my friend. Be strong.”

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Lennon was anything but strong, though. The allegation that he was a fraud was devastating. All his life, he says, his mother had worked to instil in him her core values: don’t lie, say please and thank you, don’t bring police to my door. And here he was, accused not only of living a lie but of making money out of it.

His first worry was the impact the accusation would have on her. “I saw a look in my mum’s eyes when she was telling me about the reporters knocking on her door or loitering around the back. I’d never seen her looking so frightened and so confused. I felt completely helpless and I wanted to take it all away.” His voice rises, and he starts crying. “From the moment I was born, I used to feel I’d damaged my family – that my arrival was like a bomb had gone off.” It had taken him so long to feel OK about himself, and now he felt he’d done the worst thing possible: he made life difficult for his mother.

***

When I ask Lennon why he is so sure that he is not the result of an affair, he smiles and says he knows his mother. But there is more to it than that; his two younger brothers also looked mixed race, the youngest less strikingly so. But Lennon asks if I really believe that his mother would have such a long-term affair, given the hostility she faced. She told him that when he was a baby, people would stare at the two of them in the street – if they were lucky. “Some would shout at her from the other side of the road, some would spit, some would throw stones at the pram. But we’re talking the 60s – Enoch Powell, teddy boys, skinheads,” he says. Even his grandmother told him he was a curse on the family, and sent him to bed clutching rosary beads so he could pray for forgiveness. A Sunday school worker chastised him for using a light brown pencil when drawing a picture of himself and Vincent; maybe they looked the way they did because they had been bad when they were younger, he said.

Actor and director Anthony Ekundayo Lennon with actor and writer Michaela Coel
With actor and writer Michaela Coel. Photograph: courtesy of Anthony Ekundayo Lennon
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His mother hated talking about “it” – the bewildering appearance of her boys – so she didn’t. As an adult, Lennon discovered that his father had accused her of having an affair. He says his appearance must have created such tension, he is amazed they stayed together for so long – until he was 12. “How do you apologise for accusing your partner of having an affair when they didn’t?” he asks. “And if you’re the mother of this child and you’ve got all these fingers pointing at you, the pain that must have come with that...” He trails off. While he and his brothers looked mixed race, they also resembled their father. Lennon says he doesn’t like to use the word, but can’t think of another that does the job: he believes he is a “throwback”. Yes, his family is white as far back as he can go – but he is sure that there is African ancestry somewhere.

At school, Lennon says, most of his friends were black or mixed race. He doesn’t know why he always gravitated towards people of colour – and they towards him. Back then, he didn’t have either the language or perspective to describe what was happening. He has some happy memories of that time: the school friend who snuck him an afro comb in solidarity; the neighbours who cooked him and Vincent African-Caribbean food and sorted out their hair on Saturdays; the ticket collector at the underground station letting him sit on the tall stool inside his ticket box, because he looked like his son; the friends who called him “Sidders”, after Sidney Poitier, when he told them he wanted to be an actor.

Casting directors often told my agent that there were no parts for mixed-race characters
As teenagers, both Lennon and Vincent developed nervous tics. He says that Vincent struggled with his identity, but in a different way; he couldn’t understand why Anthony embraced his “blackness”. Vincent became a skinhead and petty criminal, and suffered from depression. At the age of 19, he died after a terrible incident on a train: a door opened and he fell on to the tracks. That day, he had phoned their mother to tell her that he loved her – something he rarely, if ever, did. An investigation into Vincent’s death (in which a witness described him as “half-caste”) concluded that there was no fault with the door, and Lennon has always been convinced that his brother intended to take his own life. “I was devastated by his death, and still am.”

As a teenager, Anthony found his home in drama classes. He loved acting and decided he was going to make a career of it. But as soon as he turned professional, he realised the range of roles he was being offered was limited. “Casting directors often told my agent that there were no parts for mixed-race characters,” he says. Again and again, the same roles came up: loud, aggressive men, running into trouble or away from the law. Often the characters were criminals; occasionally, they were victims of a miscarriage of justice.

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He started to turn down roles because of the negative stereotypes. One part he did accept was in The Bill, playing a young man falsely accused of robbery: “The only reason I did it was because my character wasn’t guilty.” He watched the clip again recently and was reminded how many of the characters he played were the butt of racism. “At one point the police officer says to my character, ‘We know it’s you because we’ve got a set of prints.’ I say, ‘Fingerprints?’ and he replies, ‘No, lip prints.’”

Lennon says that, more than anything else, it was the prejudice he experienced as a child and young adult that made him want to identify as black. The Sunday schoolteacher and his own grandmother may have thought his appearance was something to be ashamed of, but he didn’t. If their attitudes were representative of being white, he was happy to renounce his whiteness.

In 1990, Lennon appeared in a TV play called Chilling Out, as part of the BBC’s Everyman slot. He sends me a link: it’s a brilliantly nuanced exploration of race, class and identity, in which seven young actors – including Lennie James – talk about the “experience and spirit of being black” in Britain. Although the actors played themselves and the scenes began with improvisation, the end result was a scripted docudrama. When Lennon is asked about his backstory, he says he is from Ireland. The other actors nod approvingly, and ask which island. “No,” he says, “Ireland, Ireland”, and goes on to explain that both his parents are white. The others look at him astonished and suggest he is in denial about his blackness; there are jokes about his mother and the milkman.

Anthony Ekundayo Lennon with two other actors in the BBC Everyman play Chilling Out in 1990
In the BBC Everyman play Chilling Out in 1990: the other actors suggested Lennon was in denial about his blackness
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The conversation moves on: if it is true that his parents are white, is he in denial, his fellow actors ask. Is race an objective truth, or a construct based on what others see in you, and what you see in the mirror? Lennon is asked how he himself identifies. He looks bashful, and says he has never talked about this before. “When I’m alone in my bedroom looking in the mirror, thinking about stuff I’ve written down, thinking about my past, relationship-wise, pictures on the wall, I think I’m a black man. I’ve not said that to anyone. And I won’t say it outside.” James tells the group he has seen Lennon changing over the six years of their friendship, and is puzzled by it. “Sometimes I feel like you are watching me,” he says. “Watching me to say, this equals a black man. Then you’re taking it from me and sticking it on yourself.”

When the Sunday Times story appeared, Chilling Out was cited as evidence that Lennon was a fraud, with James quoted as a witness for the prosecution. For Lennon, this was a deliberate misreading – of him, of James, of their friendship. At the time the drama was made, James had known about Lennon’s parentage for years. Perhaps more importantly, Lennon says, it should be obvious to anybody watching Chilling Out that the other actors were eager to help him make peace with his complex identity, rather than accuse him of cultural misappropriation.

One of the last conversations I had with Dad, he said, 'You’re white and I think you’ve got an identity problem'
Soon after making Chilling Out, Lennon decided to change his name formally. Anthony David Lennon did not reflect who he was, he thought, so he became Soweto Alkebulan Ekundayo: Soweto because his friend and mentor Paul Kinch had a son called Soweto (now a celebrated saxophonist); Alkebulan because it is said to be the earliest name for Africa; Ekundayo because he liked the sound of the Yoruba name, and discovered it meant “weeping becomes joy”. He started reading literature about black culture and politics, withdrew from the acting world and moved to Manchester, where he dedicated himself to developing his political consciousness. He read up on the history of British imperialism. “I’d be lying if I said all the literature I read was about loving black culture – some was derogatory about white people. I just wanted to read stories by black people, about black culture and history.”

He had two daughters, who are now in their 20s – one is a dancer, the other works in the film industry – and named the oldest Soweto, too. Lennon’s mother continued to call him Anthony, but quietly embraced his African identity. His father, who died in 1999, thought Lennon had lost the plot. “One of the last conversations I had with Dad was him saying, ‘As far as I’m concerned you’re white and I think you’ve got an identity problem.’”

Some time after changing his name, he met the educational consultant Paul Wilson-Eme, who went on to have a huge influence on him. Wilson-Eme asked him why he had called himself Soweto. Lennon mentioned the obvious: the associations with South Africa, black pride, the uprising. Wilson-Eme asked him if he knew what Soweto meant. “To my shame I had no answer. Then he filled in the missing gaps – it stands for South West Township. Then he said, ‘I love you, my brother, but I think you need to check in with yourself as to why you have named yourself that.’” So he simply became Ekundayo. Then he changed his name legally again, choosing Taharka as a first name.

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His agent got in touch and said that directors were still keen to hire him, but there was a problem: if he returned to acting as Taharka Ekundayo, there would be too much explaining to do. “She said, ‘Why don’t we compromise – bring Anthony Lennon back, and put Ekundayo in the middle? Casting directors will know it’s the same old Anthony Lennon, but Ekundayo is there out of respect for your ancestry.”

And so began his fifth, and happiest, incarnation – as Anthony Ekundayo Lennon. He returned to the theatre, working largely for black-led companies, and segued from acting to directing. For two decades, he lived easy in his skin – a man with white parents, unknown African ancestry, and many friends, none of whom questioned his right to be who he said he was. When I ask if he ever considered he might not meet the criteria for the Talawa award, he says no: “To doubt my eligibility would be akin to doubting my existence.”

***

After the story broke, Lennon tells me people pointed at him in public places. I can’t help thinking of the little boy and his mother who were demonised in the streets 50 years ago. “It was surreal and scary, and the start of many panic attacks and sleepless nights,” he says. His worst childhood memories returned.

He says he reached his nadir soon afterwards. “I’m going to be totally up front with you. There’s a little part of me that knows I don’t want to say this next bit, because I worry about what family and friends will think.” He sips from the pint of strawberry and lime lager he’s been nursing for two hours. “I went to a tube station. I took myself to the mouth of the tunnel and looked at the tracks. I just felt I didn’t want any of this any more. I didn’t want the toxicity, the pain, the accusations. I was imagining everything my dad went though, my mum, my brother. I came so close.”

In the end, he says, what stopped him was thinking about his mother and his daughters. He sweeps away a tear. “And this is a message for anybody else thinking about it: force yourself to think about somebody you love, or who would desperately miss you if you are no longer there. Find a reason not to do it, then don’t. Let the next morning arrive.” He repeats the last sentence, more to himself than to me. “Let the next morning arrive.”

Head shot of actor and director Anthony Ekundayo Lennon, against a turquoise background
‘I’ve never not spoken about being of mixed heritage while having white parents.’ Photograph: David Vintiner/The Guardian
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He returned to work and saw out his contract at Talawa, which ended a couple of weeks ago. During his final months he mentored young artists, directed a reimagined Othello called Men Are Not Gods, and continued to learn the craft of running a theatre company. It’s been a tough year, but he says Buffong and other staff have always been supportive.

In March this year, Lennon was invited to the Globe theatre’s press night for Richard II – the first all-women-of-colour production of a Shakespeare play in the UK. Despite Talawa’s backing, it was the first major industry event he had attended since the media storm. He says it was an inspiring night – both the production, and the support from friends. But at the afterparty he struggled. “I noticed a few people who I didn’t know looking over at me, and it was clear I was being whispered about. I felt othered for the first time ever, in a space with a group of artists.” But he says no actor or director has ever challenged him to his face. A couple of months ago, Lennon was verbally attacked by a stranger on the underground. “A black guy came up to me, and said, ‘You’re a fraud, you’re a thief.’ A couple of people stood between us because they thought he might physically attack me. He was really angry: ‘You’re that guy in the paper. Why are you pretending?’” Did Lennon defend himself verbally? “No, because there’s nothing to defend.” By now, he was feeling stronger.

Would he have qualms about working for a black-led theatre company in the future? “No!” He sounds appalled. “I’ll work with anyone who wants to have a conversation with me, anyone who’s interested in telling stories. I’d really like to direct plays, please, and lead a company. That’s why I was put on the artistic directors’ programme in the first place.”

I ask him about the news he mentioned when he first called me a couple of months ago. Lennon smiles and whips out an envelope containing the results of an ancestry DNA test he recently took. It shows his genetic makeup, country by country: 46% Irish and Scottish, 22% from England, Wales and north-western Europe. He points me to the last stat: 32% West African. The science of ancestry DNA testing is not infallible, but it feels like a significant result. Does he feel vindicated? “All it’s done for me is confirmed in data what I’ve always known.” Some time in the future, he will trace those African roots right back through his family. But for now only one thing matters to him – that they are there.

• If you would like a comment on this piece to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazine’s letters page in print, please email weekend@theguardian.com, including your name and address (not for publication).

• This article was amended on 9 September 2019 because an earlier version said that Rachel Dolezal was the former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the US. She was the president of the association’s Spokane chapter.

I pause about him, because looking at him when he was younger, one could have made that mistake. The abuse he received as a child for his (and his brother's) looks... make me wonder if one of his parents were not telling the truth about their own parentage.

And it doesn't seem like he was legitimately trying to deceive people. As far as he knew, he had 2 Irish parents, but the black people embraced him in a way the rest of society didn't.

she looks like every racially ambiguous instagram model.

This is why we need race checkpoints.

"A cursory Google search and some old Facebook photos, however, reveal that they grew up looking like this:

https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*6ggLEJQarN6ODB33JMlUvw.png"

>she looks like every racially ambiguous instagram model.
>
>This is why we need race checkpoints.

https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=13397946&mesg_id=13397946&page=2#13398893

#95

just a little confused on the stance, that's all.

Im black.

When I reread it, I see I misunderstood. My bad. Didn't know Anonymous was white.

look African American.

That name/appearance would make me think they're Middle Eastern or something.

She goes “oh, you know Monnie? Light skinned Black girl from that area”

Me: yeah.. I grew up with Monnie, but she ain’t Black. Monnie is white.

Her: well she acted Black

I guess Monnie never corrected her when she assumed she was Black. Her kids are Black tho... lol.

But I guess that’s how it can happen. Someone assumes you aren’t white and you run with it.

if they think youre black then you try to correct them then you look racist.

"oh no im not black"

hmmm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUJKXs6W-4


"My great-great-great-great grandmother fucked a..."

We don’t even be in half of them but they always gotta shit on us.

Is he Italian?

with saying it in every movie.

Shit wasn't even historically accurate
She didn't understand how jarring it was to me

argument.....
smh...
that was just another way for him to take the flagrancy up a notch...


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

edited the pronoun to try and not be a dick.

hmm

This shit is not the same.

https://m.facebook.com/shaunking/posts/1986995704672671?locale2=fr_FR

I don’t see how anyone can look at his family

Look at his siblings

Look at the name on his birth certificate

See a picture of THAT man.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3205874/Never-identified-white-Black-Lives-Matter-activist-Shaun-King-outed-white-insists-father-light-skinned-black-man-comeback-allegations.html

And trust Shaun King of all people to be telling the truth when documents and your own eyeballs tell you differently.

.

Whose picture is also in the link.

And he's not a trustworthy person.
His biological dad could be Persian for all anyone knows. But according the documented liar he was a light skinned Black guy without a name that nobody else in his family claims or has spoken up about.

Trust me, his family wouldn’t say his name for obvious reasons. They wouldn’t want to remind themselves of the taint left on their precious daughter.

I worked at a rural university in Kentucky and the football players would come down for a semester, get a girl pregnant and never come back.

We would often see mixed babies with the whitest of grandparents. My wife and I called them Obama babies or Cornfield kids (cause the joke was they had to creep thru cornfields) since it was mad country.

I'm saying what we have to rely on is Shaun King's word. And that word is trash.

On a snark level, as biracial as he looks he's never had not one wave. He's not even orange can or black can level. He could answer the whole question by letting his joint grow out two inches or filling out his facial hair.

.

I’m from Western PA tho

I know a brother and sister who looks just like King... and their other siblings are white because they obviously had a different father than their other siblings.

Ionno man... maybe he masters the Black hair cut early on but those early photos of King look like a mixed kid.

But the only person saying he's Black is him.
Everyone else is white, claims white, and is documented white. Even him.

man dick down their daughter?

I grew up in an area where white girls were beat for dating Black dudes... so nah, of course they aren’t going to admit it.

It’s the Mike Torrico story. Dude looks Black af but swears he is Italian because everyone else in the family says he is and no one will admit who his daddy is..

If SK's entire ethos wasn't Fraud Inc. I'd have less reason to be suspect of him. I didn't make that man a professional grifter and thief, he did that himself.

We OUGHT to be suspicious of liars.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8749525/BLM-activist-Indiana-admits-race-faker-posing-black-person-years.html
(click the link for the pictures)

Yet another race faker is exposed: BLM activist and spokesman for family of man killed by cops -admits posing as a black person

- Community activist Satchuel Cole has admitted being a race faker after posing as a black person for years in Indianapolis
- Cole, born Jennifer Lynn Benton, admitted in a Facebook post to having 'taken up space as a Black person while knowing I am white'
- The activist was a member of the Indy10 Black Lives Matter group as well as being active in the LGBTQ community
- The shock admission comes amid a string of woman who have admitted to lying about being black.

By FRANCES MULRANEY FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 03:02 EDT, 19 September 2020 | UPDATED: 08:19 EDT, 19 September 2020

A community activist who campaigned for racial justice has outed herself as a race faker after posing as a black person for years despite being white.

Satchuel Cole, born Jennifer Lynn Benton, admitted in a Facebook post to having 'taken up space as a Black person while knowing I am white'.

The activist, from Indianapolis, was a member of the Indy10 Black Lives Matter group and in 2017 acted as a spokesperson for the family of Aaron Bailey, who was shot and killed by police following a traffic stop in June 2017.

Cole - who uses the pronouns they and them - is just the latest in a string of people who have admitted to lying about being black.

'Friends, I need to take accountability for my actions and the harm that I have done,' Cole wrote on a Facebook page with the name Satch Paige.

'My deception and lies have hurt those I care most about. I have taken up space as a Black person while knowing I am white. I have used Blackness when it was not mine to use.

'I have asked for support and energy as a Black person. I have caused harm to the city, friends and the work that I held so dear. I will do the work to take responsibility for my actions and try to reduce the harm that I have already caused.'

Cole promised to work to repair the harm caused if possible.

'If there are ways to repair the harm, I will do the work that is required to do so. I will continue to seek the help necessary to heal myself,' the activist wrote.

'I am sorry for the harm I have caused. I am sorry for the hurt and betrayal. I will do what I can to show that I want to be a better person.'

Followers were split in their reaction, with some venting their anger while others rushed to defend Cole in their comments.

'What's also sad is you could have done all the same work and never had to lie to get it done. You just chose to,' wrote Kirei LynNenise.

'You asked to meet with me last Thursday and despite already knowing I decided to because I genuinely cared about you. You played on my kindness and were nothing but manipulative while you attempted to maintain your lie,' added Amber Chante.

'I don't believe s*** you have to say about doing the work to repair harm. '

However another friend Jennifer Lannclos added that she still supported Cole for the work they achieved.

'Satch love white black whatever I love you to the moon and back and you are a beautiful soul don't ever forget that! You fought harder than many and you damn sure looked out for me so know U will always be my friend and I got you!' she wrote.

Cole was a highly visible community leader in Indianapolis who advocated for racial and social justice across Indiana, as well as being active in the LGBTQ community.

As well as being involved with DON'T SLEEP, a group that advocates for equity and justice in Indianapolis, Cole was the founder of No Questions Asked Food Pantry, which has operated in partnership with Indy10 Black Lives Matter, Indy Pride, Queering Indy and Indy Feminists.

IndyStar reports that this year, Cole was also one of Indy Pride Parade 2020 Grand Marshals.

Cole is no longer listed on the DON'T SLEEP website.

Indy10 Black Lives Matter, Indy Pride and Indy SURJ have not yet commented on the revelation.

The No Questions Asked Food Pantry run by Cole received $35,000 to continue feeding families in need during the coronavirus earlier this year.

However, the grant application did not ask about race or identity, Pamela Ross, vice president of opportunity, equity and inclusion at Central Indiana Community Foundation confirmed.

Ross added that Cole's actions still remained unacceptable.

'We were funding the work of No Questions Asked Food Pantry and this particular fund was not only vetted through CICF staff but it was also vetted through residents who said the organization added value to the community,' Ross said.

'We granted support to the work being done, which was validated by the community,' she added.

'But we are disappointed that we have another instance of a white woman claiming to be a Black woman and it continues to perpetuate issues that we see in the community and it creates divisiveness.'

The admission and apology only came after the website BlackIndyLIVE.com published an expose on the community organizer's family and race which debunked Cole's claim to having a black father.

Cole's racial identity had long been questioned by other activist's in the community, according to the IndyStar.

Cole's name was legally changed from Jennifer Lynn Benton in Hamilton County Court in 2010.

Crystal Turner said that when she first met Cole at Black Lives Matter meeting, she questioned 'Why is this Black Lives Matter meeting being ran by a white woman?'.

'But she explained her lie of a story and she had enough other people betrayed that they vouched for her. And she would constantly acknowledge she was able to pass for white ... and how she had to use that to help others,' Turner said.

'So I'm sure a lot of people, like I did, just thought she was really aware of her privilege as a biracial Black woman, not that she was a white woman just pretending for years.'

Turner also comments on Cole's Facebook post to say that the same work could have been done as a white woman, telling the IndyStar that harm caused by the deception was massive 'especially knowing the personal struggles of the Black women she got close to, still using us for her benefit.

'She always wanted someone doing something for her,' Turner added.

Cole is the latest of a string of white people who have been exposed for pretending to be black.

University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student CV Vitolo-Haddad this week resigned from a teaching role after admitting to lying about being black.

Vitolo-Haddad pretended on multiple occasions to be black or Latino although the teacher is actually Southern Italian and Sicilian.

They failed to correct peoples' assumptions about racial identity, 'entered Black organizing spaces' and on three occasions didn't say no when others asked about being black.

Vitolo-Haddad confessed to the deception in two Medium blog posts and apologized for 'every ounce of heartbreak and betrayal' caused by the false claims.

'In trying to sort through parts of who I am, I've taken some very wrong turns. I never really owned up to them as they became apparent, nor recognized the trail of damage behind me,' Vitolo-Haddad wrote.

Jessica Krug, 38, a white professor of African American studies confessed in a Medium post earlier this month that she had been faking being black for years.

The professor at George Washington University admitted she had deceived colleagues and students for years.

Krug grew up as a white Jewish child in Kansas City but assumed a series of different black identities throughout her career, she confessed in a Medium blog post on September 3.

Krug resigned from her role at the university last week following a backlash over the deception.

One of the most notorious examples of race faking was Rachel Dolezal, a former NAACP leader from Washington state who was exposed as a white woman pretending to be black in 2015.

Experts on race claim that people may lie about their racial identity for a number of reasons including a need for attention or to run away from their past but that the effects are extremely detrimental to the communities they are pretending to be a part of.

'The negative consequences and harm to the community are tremendous — a racial justice advocate who has portrayed herself as Black has taken up space, opportunity, voice, and attention from Black advocates and activists,' Dina Okamoto, director of the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society at Indiana University, told IndyStar.

'Her fraudulent racial identity was used to build her career in activism for the Black community. Every person who has come into contact with this advocate did so with the understanding that she had lived and experienced her life as a Black woman, and she has broken that trust with the community.'

Okamoto added to friends suggestions that there was no need to lie to become a good activist.

'Race and racial identity are complex issues, but they need not be fraught; the situation here and situations like it are fraught and harmful because of the ways in which people construct false identities and pasts to make inroads and gains within and at the expense of Black communities,' she said.

Michelle Moyd, the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor in the Department of History at IU, said that the recent spike in the exposure of race fakers will have extremely negative effects on the black community.

'Each time one of these frauds is exposed, the people around them are left to pick up the pieces,' she said.

'Those who understood (Cole) as a trustworthy member of the Indianapolis activist community now must repair the damage she has done, even as they also must continue their crucial social justice work. Nobody has extra time to do that kind of damage assessment, especially now.

'And yet because they are committed to the work, they will do so, and they will continue. Because they must.'

like...why. it aint enough to rock w/ us and our causes? that's all we ask.

now you gotta fake like you are us???

Let them sign up for all the vitriol, discrimination and unequal applications of the law.

Can better appreciate the struggle. Just don't capitalize off the opportunities to enrich yourself, at least not initially. Put some years in first...like maybe 10.

Maybe walk into it being honest with Black folx and never correct any others who ask. lol

If a big segment could experience it, they wouldn't dare spout that systemic racism doesn't exist.

Can't just see that we're mistreated and then stand with us.
For the extremely vast majority of white folks, there are themselves and "others." They either gotta be dating you, have a child by you, or BE you to personalize what's happening to you. No empathy.

She’s Sicilian? From Southern Italy?

Then hell she is half black.....

There is a reason why southern Italians are darker than northern Italians.

The Arabian Conquest of Sicily during the Middle Ages led to Sicily being
Heavily populated by African Moors, who took Sicilian women as Sex Slaves.

All of Italy used to be white, blonde hair, and blue eye....


Look at her nose and lips. Clearly she is half black.

...black american is white.

This article says "nearly a quarter," but I lean more towards the 15% number I've seen quite often in other places: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/12/genetic-study-reveals-surprising-ancestry-many-americans

She prolly like 3%

talking about "half black"
FOH

Get away with what? You don’t get to make that determination.

If she has an African ancestral background and if she were to acknowledge it, so be it.

Another person can’t determined what a person should be categorized as. There are tons of black folks who categorize themselves as being native american or Latin American simply based on how they look, and can get away with it. There are black Caribbean people bleaching their skin to appear as white as possible, as well as wanting to have blue eyes, etc, because their perception is that white or being light is more favorable.

However, in this situation, being that she is Sicilian, if you were to do a genealogy test on her blood, no doubt in mind it would come back with percentages of African genes in her blood. That girl is not a straight or pure Caucasian. I can see the African influence in her nose. lips and hair. African genetics carry over in more than just skin tone or color.

And the URBAN saying in black culture is, if you have a drop of black blood in you, then you are black.


Also, people made assumptions of her racial makeup, and she simply didn’t correct them. So this is where I don’t see a problem. It wasn’t like she plotted or constructed
to categorize herself as such. People looked at her and perceived her as such, and I probably would have done the same thing. I look at her and immediately think biracial, like she has black in her somewhere.

Krug and Dolazal look like white women who were painted black....this girl looks like a lot of biracial women that I have worked with, seen, and dated, etc.

>And the URBAN saying in black culture is, if you have a drop
>of black blood in you, then you are black.


You might wanna look into where that came from and why it even existed. It was enacted on Black folks... not from us. It was actually law at one time. I'm unmoved by any low self-esteem among Black people that causes us to wanna accept every white looking person with so-called "african features."

how she defrauded people...

She was all over the place.

The early photos too. I’m pretty sure she was reverse bleaching or pill tanning to darken her skin.

Black folk have no say in who’s Black. Only white people get to make that determination.

Smh.. so far gone.

>Black folk have no say in who’s Black. Only white people
>get to make that determination.
>
>Smh.. so far gone.

You know? What was I thinking? The white supremacists already gave us the one drop rule to determine who's Black and who's not. Let me get back in a nigger's place!

This has to be an act.

Ain’t no way.

It’s a matter of opinion. You have yours and have mine. I don’t fall in line with a narrative because everyone follows it. I have the ability to critically think.

Anyway, you’re just a user on Okayplayer just like I am, and you’re simply giving your opinion. You can’t make a determination on what a person can claim themselves to be, and neither can I. Only thing you can do is agree or oppose it.

There are people who claim to be white for whatever benefit that brings. There are people who claim to be black for whatever benefit that brings, and there are people who claim to be Latin or Asian for whatever benefit that brings. People will do whatever they need to do to survive or get ahead, and that is not limited to any single person or ethnicity.

Also, I’m simply going by the information in the paper that states she never corrected people who perceived her as black , and she just rolled with it, and she was able to benefit from that perception. Now if there is more to the story than what is being reported, then I would definitely reassess the information.

However, since she is Sicilian, and based on genetic evidence, Sicilians have 6 to ten percent North African DNA makeup. Now, regardless if she is aware of that or not, and based on the aforementioned scientific genetic information, and her physical features, her claim does not bother me. I support the one drop rule.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ejhg2008120

She admitted she was a fraud.

If you are out here posing and trying to put people on blast over race you better be able to defend who you claim to be.

Funny how you ask why we should be able to challenge someone yet you on here every day challenging facts with some of the weirdest takes I’ve ever seen.

...