If y’all want some incredible indigenous fiction, check out Son of a Trickster by Eden Robison or Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline. Both are incredible.
Thanks for the recommendation! I've been wanting to have my hands on deck for any books written by indigenous authors. Do you have other recommendations that I should get??
Anything by Katherena Vermette. She's Metis. Amanda Peters, Wab Kinew, Brian Thomas Isaac, Richard Wagemese, Michelle Good, and Angeline Boulley are also good.
Unfortunately that's the society we live in. We're not allowed to enjoy a FICTION book without knowing that person's race or sexuality. That's why I hate the "book community".
@@itsgonnabeanaurfromme when the fiction book draws from the folklore/traditions/historical experiences/otherwise centers around a specific culture, it is Weird As Hell to lie about belonging to that culture in some attempt to get more support from that community or whatever these peoples' aim is.
@@itsgonnabeanaurfromme tbh YOU are allowed to do and enjoy anything you like.... nobody is forcing you to do research..... you know as they say - ignorance is bliss....
Unbelievable. We have authors pretending to be Latin American, Korean, Black, and now Native American… but we still haven’t had an author pretend to be South Asian? What, are we unpublishable?
Southeast Asian here. We haven't gotten our share yet. Though considering I've only seen like probably 5 books written by SEAsian out there, that's probably fair
I have to say as a white american who could've gotten a scholarship because my great-grandmother was native (and no not cherokee): I didn't and will continue to not take advantage of that kind of stuff because I did not grow up on a reservation or in a tribe and I never even met my great-grandmother. Often white kids with some native genealogy are told to take advantage of it to get scholarships and stuff like that, and the "bloodline" thing is a much more white way of looking at it rather than community and tribal registration. If colby grew up with native family, I could see how she felt she could say she's native but if that family is long long dead and you have no relation to any living relatives - why even remotely say you are native? It definitely comes across (to me) as doing the thing white kids are often told to do and taking advantage of it. It doesn't mean you can't write a character who isn't white but it definitely means you should treat bipoc with basic respect, do your research, and just admit you're a white person writing.
Dude, same. I did meet my great-grandma who was full Native American (she was Choctaw though), and she shared some of her life stories with me and my brothers. We all still identify as white though cause it'd be super weird to claim that little piece of ancestry, especially since I also saw people try to use their own ancestry like you've described. It just... does not sit right.
Man this rings true, my mother often sought out resources she could possibly exploit due to her membership status despite being white passing. I haven’t done the same because it feels extremely gross ethically, especially seeing how many resources are there in my area without counting racial factors.
@@Kinkajou420 being white passasing doesn't equal being white tho someone's that's white passing but isn't white should take the opportunities that are offered to them because at the end of the day they aren't white
That's funny, I have Native(by marriage) family that I grew up with and their tribes attitude was always very open. Before they closed their rolls, I think the requirement was something like 10-15% blood. Their attitude about this kind of thing was take what you can get because at some point your family suffered. Things have changed and the younger generations are understandably hostile towards outsiders. I wonder sometimes if I were a child now, if the people that have replaced the ones I knew would take me in and care for me the way their parents and grandparents did. Can't say I think they would.
Even if she does have indigenous ancestry, finding out later in life that you have certain ancestry (pretty distant, I might add) then taking on that identity is odd, especially in a white/native context. If she'd been raised with Cherokee culture, her centering that in her books would make sense. But her finding out she maybe had a Cherokee ancestor back in the 1800s would not give her any expertise to tell stories about modern day native cultures and life in her books. If a white American takes a DNA test and sees they're 50% French, they'd probably be like "okay, cool," not suddenly put "French" in their bio and monologue about their French culture and identity. Somehow, that only seems to happen with marginalized identities 👀
Not trying to make light of something that is serious…. But as a 100% Asian person, if I find that I am 0.001% British, I’m ready to fully channel my British ancestor(s) and start speaking with British accent for at least one whole month 😂😂
I guess it is different for everyone. Some people like to explore and celebrate their heritage even if it is 0.000001% but there is a difference between claiming to be something and claiming it as part of your heritage
There can be nuance there, because reconnecting to your nation can be a thing, and sometimes the reason your family got disconnected to the culture and community was because of colonialism/violence/shame. Different nations decide their own criteria for membership/citizenship, and some nations welcome back the descendants of those who left the community. There’s good ways to reconnect, and there’s bad ways, and it can be complicated. As white-looking people and reconnecters we have different responsibilities to go about things in a proper way, understanding the advantages that inherited when our ancestors left the community and passed as white. Fair disclaimer, this is my experience- and getting citizenship, making connections, and learning the language has been very meaningful and significant for me, BUT, that being said, it’s super weird to then go, as this person reconnecting to their very distantly related community, and become this super indigenous author writing ‘authentically’ about the modern Indigenous experience and speaking on behalf of that modern experience you haven’t actually lived. And then doing that while not even actually getting citizenship or connecting to the community? Hell no that’s not at all okay.
I agree, it seems incredibly strange and not rational. White Americans in general seem starved for any kind of meaningful cultural identity, and in many places it seems the more marginalized ones are the ones they see represented as being significant. I'm sure that feeling like membership to a marginalized identity can absolve them of some of their white guilt is a factor, and thinking it makes them more interesting, and a lack of respect for the people whose culture they're claiming. I have also seen people discover and identify with ancestries that don't involve marginalized groups. I've heard my Irish friend complain about how on St. Patrick's Day everyone suddenly has Irish ancestry. I would guess a lot of what determines if you identify with, e.g., your French heritage is the presence (or lack thereof) of French culture where you live and how interesting France and French culture are to you personally.
For some reason, white people who want to claim Native ancestry to feel special seem to pick on the Cherokee nation in particular. I'm white af and know a fair amount about my family's white af history due to having a very dedicated amateur genealogist in the family, but I still have family members claiming a ✨mystical Cherokee ancestor✨ to make them feel more comfortable about their own privilege, and I've heard a lot of similar stories. I totally understand why the Cherokee nation decided to put out the strict guidelines you mentioned on who can call themselves Cherokee.
OH I kinda sorta have a (possible) answer to this! The Cherokee people used to live primarily in the south-eastern USA. What else was there? Plantations! Many white settlers found them to be the most "civilized" of all Native tribes they encountered along the way, so they were basically deemed like... European adjacent. Which is a gross notion. But I digress. Many white traders also married Native women for the same reason royalty married: to establish trade and good relations. That's where some think the "Cherokee princess" myth comes from since the merchants could then equate themselves to royalty since they married the "princess" of the local tribe. (One possible explanation for "princess" is a misunderstood word of affection) As time went on, more Cherokee people intermarried and thusly became more... adapted? to colonized society. This gave them the opportunity to learn English reading and writing, which allowed them to be viewed as intelligent and gave them opportunities to travel. Thusly, people within the Cherokee nation soon spread out from the south-eastern USA and to neighbouring territories. Then, at some point in time in the 1800s, the federal government started tracking Native blood to sort out land allotments. If you could prove you were some percentage Native American, you'd get "free" government land! So of course, white colonizers being white colonizers decided to lie and claim Cherokee heritage, as they were the most widespread and notable Native group. The government basically went "yeah seems legit" and gave the lying bastards the land. Actual Cherokee groups got pissed and started tracking and that's why you have to be enrolled nowadays. Cause white people lie and ruin everything. (FWIW I am white) And then the Cherokee nation was... "relocated." By force. And once they were gone and no longer a "nuisance" to local plantation owners and merchants, they started getting romanticized. It also seemed to legitimize southerners by proving they were true MURICANS, since they were part Cherokee, and the Cherokee were the original inhabitants, so therefor, a Cherokee-heritaged white person was a more legitimate American than one who didn't claim such. Plus they were still obsessed with royalty even though we had a full fledged Democratic Republic by that time and being descendants of Native royalty meant they had a higher social status. More American and more social power? Hell yeah. Lie through your motherfkn teeth, you racist colonizers. So.... yeah! It's basically a mix of good ol' colonialism/colonization and ego boosting lying, with a dash of romanticized false narratives. Supposedly. No one knows for sure. But it's the best guess people have got.
bruh it's not even just yt peepo 🤦🏾♀️😭 my family is African American and my mom swears because my grandma (who's from Louisiana) has red undertones and a prominent nose that she's Cherokee like girl please stop 😩
(I tend to not like to comment too much so I might delete this) I'm a racially white enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma for my entire life and I really appreciate the nuance and research you did for this video - especially with your points around political identity vs indigeneity. I personally have very complicated and mixed feelings about whether or not to identify as an indigenous woman - since it feels inaccurate and screams of a lack of self awareness. One thing I'll add: Membership for our nation is akin to citizenship to any other nation - there's strict rules and paperwork involved. Like, for example, someone claiming German ancestry in the US is politically different than someone who's a German citizen. Also every tribe/nation within the United States has their own sovereignty about membership - what works for Choctaw Nation may not work for, say, Navajo Nation. Our nation explicitly does not use blood quantum and instead opts for a lineal descendancy from someone listed on the Dawes Rolls. Because of specifics of those rolls - it is much easier for racially indigenous and racially white descendants to be enrolled than racially black descendants. As a result - I think it is important that un-enrolled black descendants claiming ties to be given much more grace than un-enrolled white ones. If you are racially white and claiming any association with our tribe make sure you have your citizenship LOCKED DOWN before because the system is quite literally designed for you to succeed and tbh if you don't everyone is going to assume that you are lying. My question and suspicion around people like Colby Wilkens is that she can't really point to any specific experiences outside of maybe being a member. Like, yes, citizenship is determined from a document in 1914 - but a lot has happened to us besides that. Did she have any family who are mission/boarding school survivors? Did any of her family need assistance via the FDPIR program? Does she attend any cultural events - either on the reservation or in major urban areas (there's lots of urban Indians in major metro centers like la and nyc)? It doesn't seem like shes connected with the culture and more like she's using a potential ancestor as a way to market herself Anyway yakoke to anyone who reads this rant
I am the the process of applying. It is a lengthy process which most people do not understand. But how is the system "gamed" if I am mixed race with white? And blood quantum was designed to shrink tribal populations until they no longer exist. Why is that a good thing? 🤔
Seeing the comment thread is mainly a discourse on what it means to be Native American... I'm Native American from the Navajo tribe, full blood 4/4, and the Navajo tribe does in someways have the privilege of being the tribe with the largest amount of full bloods... But many of the metrics used by many of the comments I've seen would disqualify many of the people in my tribe from being "Native American". As many other groups of people, the Navajo tribe is extremely diverse. So i feel many people don't take that into account when they say this and that about tribes assuming we're a a single monolith. That to say I think people pretending or trying to use a Native persona for selfish reasons are definitely in the wrong; but metrics such as cultural knowledge or "identity" is not going to get anywhere far. Many Navajos are not "traditional" Navajo but that doesnt make them any less Navajo, as I feel many of these comments would lead you to believe regarding Native American tribes. So yes this author is in the wrong but using metrics instead of a case by case basis would disqualify many Navajo from their own tribe.
Especially since the U.S. and Canadian governments have specifically tried to cut off Indigenous people from their culture through residential schools and the 60s scoop in the hopes that they would assimilate. It was a genocidal strategy.
This isn't super relevant but I loved the artwork on these covers so I went and found out the artist is Jenifer Prince, who does a lot of really beautiful sapphic retro style artwork. Just leaving this in case anyone else was curious.
She is one of my favorite artist and I really wanted to buy the book If I Dig You just because she made the cover but this video find me first so I am just gonna go buy another poster from her instead
Regardless of if she is or isnt indigenous, it fewels weird to me that this organization unilaterally looked into someones ancestry without their knowledge
Apparently they had received complaints from people who knew the author. Identity fraud is a HUGE problem for Native people, tribes, and tribal sovereignty and you wouldn't believe how prevalent the problem is.
I knew a girl who was Cherokee and she had to do a lot of work to properly have all the offical recognized as Cherokee. Her and her brother worked a lot with family federally recognized to also be official Cherokee. I dont remember what tribe of Cherokee she belonged to but the work she went theough made me realize how much work it takes to be official recognized and she was proud to do so. Like you said, its not blood, its connection and paperwork. Apologies if i phrased anything wrong, it had been about 4 years since i remember her going through this
If this is the case, the organization should be more forgiving of folks who are trying to connect with their tribe. It’s possible that she isn’t faking at all but it’s very hard to get recognized in the first place
@@TryinaD but there are SO MANY people trying to join Cherokee tribes. In order to be federally-recognized and protect their citizens there needs to be a process. Also, with no blood quantum minimums, Cherokee Nation is already an "easier" tribe to be enrolled into.
It’s literally always cherokee, i do feel kind of bad for her though since at least she had a name of an ancestor which is more than 99.9% of pretendians. It is kind of weird how they all want to claim to be native but dont put any effort whatsoever in engaging with the community or culture. Like a lot of pow wows and other events are open to everyone!!!!
It reminds me of the people who claim to "appreciate asian culture" when what they really mean is they watch anime and have an asian fetish. they dont actually care about the history, culture, language, etc, just about seeming cultured. It really grosses me out.
It's really interesting to me how some Native American tribes/nations determine who has a right to be indigenous legally as it's so different to the way indigenous peoples in my part of the world think. Here in Aotearoa, if you whakapapa Māori (have Māori ancestry) you are Māori, because you cannot be severed from your tīpuna (ancestors). To register with your iwi (tribe) you need to be able to show that you're descended from members of the iwi (how this is done varies by iwi/hapu), but even if you're not registered with your iwi you're still Māori. Our Aboriginal neighbours in Australia have a saying - coffee is still coffee no matter how much milk you add. This is especially important in Aotearoa due to how many Māori children were removed from their whānau by the state and were therefore severed from their whakapapa. To deny their indigeneity is just furthering the trauma perpetrated against them at the hands of the state. Blood quantum is viewed as a deeply harmful colonial construct. I can't imagine an organisation trying to out people as not actually Māori would manage to function here for very long without getting loudly admonished by their kaumatua and rangatira.
Oh wow thanks for sharing! It all sounds so complex and every tribe is different! But I think it's kinda cool that there's no universal rule bc it depends on each community
As an Australian. I have seen this. There was a family I worked with that had flaming red hair and very much looked white Irish. But they were indigenous and were very engaged with their culture. Often indigenous families I have worked with. Even if they were white passing, we're still struggling due to generations of trauma that has passed down. I also think in Australia how it is viewed is very different than in America. I'm not really qualified to talk about it but have known a lot of indigenous Australians in passing from work and school and to block them out due to the blood quantum rule just feels like it furthers the trauma cycle that is still being felt today
Thanks for pointing out the ick vibes of the organization, as the run down went on, it just didn't feel right to me, especially with that direct messaging to the author just felt like a bullying tactic that had blackmail coding. Sure, the author is still weird, but unfortunately we shouldn't believe so soon that people are doing these good things because they’re "good people". Like, I've seen too many victims' voices get boosted only because the person boosting them wants to use them, abusing them once again, in order to play for their political side in front of a large public. Thank goodness I'm a Zuni native registered in our census, is what I discovered, as I'm sure these people would jump on the surface level fact of my melanin levels as some sort of "taint" on my experiences, as if I suddenly haven't been raised by my mother or go to the ceremonies and practices. Nah, surely they pull out the Family Guy skin tone scale every time they need to see if a native kid is permitted to learn about their own family's culture /s
it also feels icky that there is an org out there that would go thru ur family tree and publicize it in such a shaming way ... esp if blood quantum is not a true evaluation of someone being native american
@withcindy Treating *any* race like they only exist as a dog breed percentage statistic to add in or subtract in order to get an "ideal mutt" will always make me vomit...
TAAF has a consistent track record. Of weaponizing people's anger, to cause their target to disappear off the web. They've gone after people who are enrolled, They've gone after people who aren't enrolled, but have ALL the documentation that they're Native. But DON'T meet the blood quantum They're all around bullies and one of their cofounders/cohorts. Jacqueline Keeler, herself. Has sketchy Indigenous background
This really hits home for me personally as someone who identifies culturally as Mexican. My mom’s side of the family is Hopi and Navajo mix while my dad's side is Navjo (like my grandpa and his mom were both from Arizona). It's a very confusing feeling because I know from a historical context that Mexico once extended to Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, etcetera. So there are other families out there that became indigenous and Mexican culturally (A lot of Mexicans are already indigenous to begin with). Anyway, I still would feel strange claiming I'm Native American. Because culturally I am not at all. It always feels like white people are the most comfortable saying they have that one Cherokee ancestor, and that means they're Native American and so yeah...this one just feels strange to me haha.
But at the same time, I think it’s acceptable to, if you decide, try learning about your Navajo and Hopi culture and reconnect with it. The reason you lost it is due to colonialism, if you want to put in the work and connect with your community you should! Of course that’s just my opinion, as someone who grew up with my Shawnee/Choctaw culture. Everyone will have different thoughts on it.
as another fellow mexican, i totally understand what you mean about seeing white people fight for an ounce of culture in a place like america that has so many different people with diverse cultural backgrounds. it’s funny how the white man tried so hard to erase who we are but now seek any ounce of culture, the same one they tried to destroy. anyways i also agree with the other commenters, i believe leaning into your native american and indigenous ties would only lead to amazing personal internal findings 🫶🏼
It’s honestly all about intention. If your intention for connecting is to capitalized off it for fame, money, taking opportunities, etc. that’s an issue. If your intention is genuine connection, then feel free to explore that piece of you! The biggest issue with pretendians is that they take opportunities and resources for actual natives.
I won't comment on your famiky history because that's yours. You're mistaken about the history of Mexico, though. Mexico claimed those areas but it was never able to govern them or exercise sovereignty over them, not least because the native nations stopped them cold.
I really appreciate what you said at the end about "it's lowkey worse if she's indigenous." As a mixed person (Black and Asian american) i think so often people forget that whiteness/ambiguity is weaponized by lots of white biracials at the expense of Black and/or indigenous peoples (globally, not just in america.)
Thank you so much for covering this with respect to how complex an issue it is. As an indigenous person who is an enrolled tribal member but was raised far away from the reservation and therefore less connected to my tribal culture, I find myself with frustrated and conflicting thoughts around these issues. As an adult, I have reconnected with my culture a great deal and am learning our language which was very nearly lost. While I am so grateful for this reconnection, I am not more Peewaalia now than I was before I took those steps. I will not perform my culture in a way that is somehow recognizable by non-natives in order to be seen as indigenous. I am Peewaalia because I am Peewaalia. I know and my people know.
It’s a strange feeling, I’m just going thru the enrollment process at 34 having only just very recently moved closer to the tribe (a 4 hour drive instead of 8 hour plane ride), and I often can’t really figure out how to feel about it and sometimes feel ashamed for even applying because I haven’t had the opportunity to connect with the tribe until recently (or even apply since I only can now because they recently lowered their blood quantum). The most I knew before was just that my mom was a tribal member and who our ancestors were. I don’t really fully know how to go about reconnecting or how to navigate it emotionally.
I really appreciate how balanced and nuanced your discussion is here. I know enough to know tribal enrollment is such a complicated and varied reality that can be quite different from the way racial identity is usually talked about.
@@withcindydo you have any resources/websites you used that you could recommend for others who want to learn more about it? I’m trying to understand more about it but I’m not entirely sure where to start.
@@sunnfIower i looked more into Cherokee since that was discussed re: colby's identity, and found the Digadatseli’i group to be a helpful resource. they're a group of Cherokee scholars who had posted the statement of sovereignty. if you look up their website, they have books listed. there's also an NPR episode you can listen to called "Who belongs in the Cherokee Nation?" it might help to look up different tribes beyond Cherokee as well to see what enrollment is like for others!
@@sunnfIower for Cherokee identity specifically, Circe Sturm's Becoming Indian: The Struggle over Cherokee Identity in the 21st Century is a good academic overview of the problem. Also Pretendians podcast with co-hosts Robert Jago and Angel Ellis.
As an actual Native it’s pretty simple actually; who are your relatives? Even if someone doesn’t meet BQ they should still be able to name their Native fam. That’s standard operating procedure when we introduce ourselves. It’s part of the community based culture most of us share; how might we be connected even if we’re meeting for the first time? Many tribes also have clan systems that go back millennia. There’s been sooooo many times I’ve met someone and they knew one of my aunties/uncles/whoever. If someone is claiming distant lineage and hasn’t done the bare minimum of connecting with their relatives it’s VERY sus.
@@withcindy There's a video that went up on PBS Origins today called "What Does it Mean to be a Federally Recognized Tribe?" and it explains quite a bit about the legal recognition process. It's unbelievably messy.
This whole topic is very interesting to me. My biological grandfather was the child of a woman who was Chickasaw and Cherokee. My mother was adopted out due to circumstances and when she rediscovered my grandfather (and his native status), decided that that meant she and me and my older sister are all native, too. I don’t identify, simply because I was 12 by the time she learned and hadn’t grown up in the culture. I don’t feel that I am capable of claiming that as my identity. This whole topic of ‘can you claim an identity’ is very strange, when it seems to me that if you aren’t in the culture, you can’t claim it. Great video! Your perspective and thoughts are genuinely very interesting to listen to, as always!
I think adoption makes identity way more complicated especially with the long history of native kids being taken away from their family. My gf was adopted and always thought she was just black until she took a test and found out she has more native dna than african. I think there can be a more nuanced way to view it than either claim/not claim. theres a grey area of folks who are trying to reconnect to their heritage and struggle with feeling like they dont belong (not trying to argue or anything, i agree that if ur going to claim an identity u should be trying to connect to the culture)
@@selenagomez2504 Yeah, I don't want to make anyone identify as someone they don't wanna be or force them to be a particular culture, but with the history Native Americans have, that kind of thinking needs to be discussed more :0 I'm not attacking the op either, just wanted to point that out :0
@@selenagomez2504 there's no such thing as 'native dna'. thats race science. DNA testing may present genetic markers as geographically related (and thus likely to groups historically in those areas) but it cannot determine markers for ethnicity and race because those are social constructs. white supremacy predicates on the idea that race is innate, in our blood, genetics being its latest tool to manipulate. claiming heritage based off of genetic testing is another incredibly problematic phenomenon that indigenous activists are trying to fight. (geography is not the only factor to consider but gene testing is a complex subject not without bias and not my expertise, I recommend Kim TallBear's book titled 'Native American DNA' about this subject)
as soon as i saw TAAF was involved, i let out the biggest sigh. those “pretendian hunters” are very interesting to me. jaqueline, lianna, and jeremy are the most rancid human beings that have been harassing non-card carrying natives.
Didn't one of them want to wear blackface to intimidate black football players who played for teams with stereotypical Native American mascots? I think it was the person named Jaqueline but I'm not sure
Kim TallBear said on a podcast once that if someone claims to be Native, they should be able to answer her when she asks, "Do you know so-and-so?" As in, a prominent member of the tribe they're claiming. Wilkens didn't appear to be active in her community. It's telling that no enrolled Cherokee citizen has come out to speak on her behalf. (At least, not that I've seen.) Regardless, Cherokee Nation has specific criteria and it looks like Wilkens didn't meet that. At that point, the best thing to do is follow the laws of the nation you claim to be a part of, i.e. what's best for your people.
ooh thats interesting that a tribe can be so small and close-knit that you should be expected to know a prominent member, do u think that is the case universally?
@@withcindy I'm not Native American, so I can't speak on that, but I found the exact timestamp on the Warrior Life Podcast I was referencing. It's at 19:59 : ua-cam.com/video/SntbS06i_5E/v-deo.html
We should also. Remember. That there's a significant number of "Urban Indians", who are enrolled and know they're roots/ancestry. But do not and have never, lived in or around a Reservation. Or know any of their prominent Community Members. Due to Diaspora Kim Tallbear, is also someone I find. Is very judgemental of Urban ndns in a very weird way. And that's coming from someone who grew up on the Rez 90% of the time (me)
@withcindy yes. But also no. What's being left out of TAAFs bs-ery. Is that they don't typically acknowledge people who don't live or around Indigenous Communitoes (but who are, enrolled and everything) Because as of the current time. About 75% of Indigenous People, live off their Reservations. They don't have specifically strong ties to their Rez, and so their children don't know much of anything.
It’s so interesting that it’s like so hard to get published and then people like this get multiple book deals - like the publisher does no vetting? No background checks? Just anything?
@@teeayteeayetcactually, they don't 😅 when the last one occurred, i think it was the Cait Corrain situation, she had some shady business with a bookshop or something like that, and i heard someone from the area say that a publisher doesn't even need the author identity to publish a book, it's not required by law. It allow things like ghost writers and pen names. So, yeah. When there's money involved, anyone can publish anything.
The US' one drop rule doing its mess again. As a latina from and in LATAM, this is utterly ridiculous. If a white person with a great great great parent or whatever claimed to be from a native tribe, I honestly can only imagine the laughter. It would be one thing for her to be phenotypically white and her mom or dad be Cherokee, even if she did grow up outside of the culture for any reason, because that can be REALLY confusing, but to be far removed from the culture AND the cherokee relative be their great great whatever is ridiculous.
It's such a strange situation, damn. I wonder if she actually meant to fake it, or simply believed her family. We'll see if anything more will come out of this. About geneology being not being an exact science: I tried to find records from my family online. I soon realised that either two sisters had almost the exact same name with just a vowel changed, or one woman was made into two, with the former being more plausible, because they later married brothers? And it's even more missleading, because another woman had her name spelled differently in a few places... At this point I had to give up and look for other solutions.
my guess is that she didnt mean to fake it but leaned hardcore into it with her marketing, stories, etc. without checking the cherokee's statement of sovereignty
@@withcindy It feels like "Ok, family tells me i'm Indigenous, cool, that's who i am, let me just make that my personality -> oh no wait i'm not...? Screw it, sunk cost fallacy and all that."
In my experience it's pretty common for one person to be made into two on ancestry websites! A bunch of clerical errors were made back then on papers without being noticed, or because the uploader of said documents makes an error. Not saying it's the case for your situation tho! But I ran into my great great grandfather being made into at least 3 people after coming to the US from Albania because his name would be slightly misspelled, he didn't know his exact birth year, and once even a document mistakenly listed him as being from Alabama instead of Albania, lol. (We're sure it's him in my case though because of other matching information haha) it's crazy
Seems like it would be fine to accept your family story if you're not making lots of money off your identity. Then it would be a good idea to confirm it's OK.
Being Native is a complicated nuanced business that the government and outsiders seem to want to define for us constantly. And especially problematic with colorism that’s rife within the communities themselves thanks to standards the government imposed as a means to “access” and regulate the growth of tribes. It’s difficult enough being a tribal member in today’s world when as you stated, we’re not a static inbred people, and everyone and their dog wants to tell you how you’re supposed to look or speak based off some bigoted conceptual idea of plains Indians from the 1800s that they’ve got as a reference in their head when you’re not even plains Indian to begin with. But faking one’s ancestry is crazy. No one should be ashamed of their ancestry, but to fabricate one, that’s mind boggling. Look how long Dolezal ran on her identity or Warren, and I could list off a bucket full of weirdos who have done so. Profit makes people do crazy things.
I feel inclined to also use this opportunity to plug my former professor/mentor Erika Wurth. She's Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee and easily one of my favorite professors when I was in university.
@withcindy Would absolutely recommend any of them! They're raw as hell and provide a lot of perspective on growing up with Native ancestry in the modern US, and all the implications that go with it. Edit: Crazy Horse's Girlfriend is a fantastic place to start!
Unfortunately, Erika Wurth’s native ancestry is also disputed. She doesn’t say specifically which bands, such as White Mountain or Lipan, just says she’s Apache, which doesn’t mean anything and makes the claimed identity suspect. Same goes for her Cherokee and Chickasaw claims.
@@mimirants7935 She's made a statement about it that's on her website. It kind of speaks to how some groups try to police what indigeneity is and use those gray areas as their main argument-even though in Erika's case she's participated in her mother's culture all her life, has an indigenous partner, and has advocated for issues like safety for indigenous women and children and exposing predators in her community for years. Funny how these allegations can just as easily be weaponized by people who may have issues with that type of advocacy.
As someone who does a lot of amateur genealogical research, I'm not really a fan of this organizations approach to 'verifying' her race. The farther you go back, the harder it is to be sure that people are honest about who they are and some facts will always fall to the wayside. For instance, a woman who lists being a divorcee with a child on her marriage Certificate, but the family was told the child was born out of wedlock. What is true? How much is a lie? Her maiden name, parents, or just marital status? Especially in concern to race and ethnicity, there are so many reasons this may not be of public record or harder to find. Then there is the fact that there are always family secrets and they can result in misinformation being spread by well intentioned persons. I understand why this was done, out of a desire it curtail culture vultures for lack of a better phrase, but it is also an invasion of privacy.
I don't see it as an invasion of privacy given that authorities of Cherokee heritage and tribes has stated (in 13:39) that anyone who claims Cherokee heritage is essentially iniating a PUBLIC discussion on the validity and backing of their ancestry. Hence if people gather together to make formal investigation on her PUBLICLY STATED identity, it is completely valid. If she didn't know this prior, it's her literally fault for not being more aware and involved in the community and culture. Secondly, if it is something that she is financially benefitting off from, it deserves to be investigated regardless of any 'invasion of privacy'. I don't see genealogy reports as an invasion of privacy because you either have a valid connection to a community and culture, or a valid heritage/ancestral connection, or both. The former is usually more important than the latter.
I consider myself a white American, but I do have a lot of ties to the Native community around me. I’m a descendant in the tribe, enough native to be apart of the tribe through blood as my mom is officially recognized but not enough to get so myself. I grew up very close to the reservation and throughout my schooling I got the same treatment/tribe offered assistance as the other more closely related kids. I have distant family who work for the tribe and play a more active role in the community and I’ve been to a ton of events myself. It’s hard to explain but I wouldn’t say I’m Native American unless we’re getting into specifics. I don’t think it’s right to claim I am given how much further removed I am compared to the other kids I grew up with, but I’m very thankful for all they’ve taught me and done for me so I’d proudly say I’m a descendent. These are just my experiences and feelings and I don’t know if I’m making any sense, but I’d just thought I’d put it out there.
@@jasminv8653 Given that the indigenous population and tribes of the US were nearly wiped out and are still heavily marginalized and oppressed, it is valid. If they are not actively part of the tribe, although it is okay to say you are a descendant and sometimes participate, is is not okay to use and make that part of your identity public in order to market yourself and then profit off from when you aren't considered a representative by the actual people of the community.
Girl, I remember when you just did banger book reviews. Now you do banger book reviews AND give us that piping hot tea. Btw, just want to tell you that you are the main reason why I go to the library on a frequent basis nowadays. I've been watching your stuff since I was 15-16 (I'm in my twenties now) and I had never really... been to a library at that point. You got me there. So thanks.
My great, great grandfather on my mother's side was Choctaw. Although he was allowed to be buried in the same graveyard as his wife (a Swiss immigrant), he remains buried in an unmarked grave. I think about it sometimes, and it makes me sad. I'm trying to familiarize myself with the language, it feels nice ❤
Absolutely, being indigenous is not about your ancestry but it’s about your culture and participation. I know I have quite a bit of indigenous ancestry since I am a mixed Puerto Rican person (mixed being the combination of white settler, indigenous Puerto Rican, and black people brought to the islands as slaves). But that does NOT make me indigenous. I grew up in the Puerto Rican culture and it’s mixed history but I have not participated in any specifically indigenous Puerto Rican practices. It is a closed practice as well. The frustrating part is the fact that despite this she used her possible indigenous heritage all the time like leverage. I don’t really care if she truly believes she has indigenous ancestry, the Cherokee nation’s statement is clear and final. And if you truly wanted to reconnect with a culture you believe was lost to your family, then you need to respect the voices of those who ARE in the nation. Point blank
Agreed, as someone who comes from a similar background (I’m half Puerto Rican and my abuelo’s mother was Taino) the most that I would feel comfortable saying or claiming is that I have Indigenous Taino ancestry, not that I myself am Indigenous. (I identify as being Hispanic since that’s the culture I’ve grown up with and have known.) And that’s not even going into the whole history of how the tribe itself was wiped out by the Spanish, both culturally and literally, so there unfortunately doesn’t seem to be much cultural or tribal practices or community to join.
@ absolutely! I do know of several practicing Taino communities in Puerto Rico that, while some are open to reconnecting people, they are closed practices. So for me claiming any thing but having ancestry feels like I am not respecting the very real culture and wishes of those who are still embedded in the culture. I’m not sure about yourself but I would personally be open to reconnecting at some point, but not without extensive research and permission from practicing groups. Which is why this whole situation is cut and dry to me :)
@@incuriousgaze Oh that’s interesting! I didn’t know there was actually practicing communities, I haven’t found much mention of them online. And hard agree with you on the point of only claiming ancestry, especially since we haven’t grown up or practiced the culture. But I’m glad to know that there communities who are keeping the cultural and tribal practices alive, especially after so much has been lost. That’s very heartwarming to know. ☺️☺️☺️
Like many people with family in the South and also the Pacific Northwest, I heard my entire life that I have some Native American heritage. However, having not been raised with any actual connection to that culture, it would never have occurred to me to promote myself as Native American in any way, or to write books centering that culture when I have no real experience with it. I'm all for authors doing the work (research, consultants, etc.) and I do believe authors can write from POV that are not their own, but only IF they've done that work. In any case, if it's an honest mistake (vs a calculated tactic to profit)... I'm inclined to extend some grace and allow the author a chance to correct herself. It's mostly about what the author does going forward. (However, if it's true that she's just using it as a marketing tactic, ⛔🚫)
I'm inclined to think it was a mistake on her part because of how much she embraced this as an identity fully with her books and constantly tweeting about it, but I also understand native people's frustrations over countless times that white ppl didn't do their due diligence
Idk what Wilkens is talking about when she says you can’t apply for enrollment with a family tree as like, a blanket statement. A family tree is literally all my tribal enrollment application *was* beyond my basic info. And then I had to get a DNA test to verify that I was my mother’s daughter (she is a tribal member). I’m applying late in life at 34 due to them lowering the blood quantum, and I’ve only been to the reservation twice because my mom didn’t live there & moved all the way across the country as a teenager; so I was born like 3,000 miles away from Suquamish. But I recently moved to the PNW (sadly for now I’m still like 4 hours away by car but that’s way better than the 8 hours by plane that it used to be) and have been trying to work up the hudspa to make connections with them (some of my relatives live there & are quite involved with the tribe, so I’m fortunate to have some loved ones there). It’s an extremely confusing and awkward feeling to be trying to connect with this part of my heritage so late in life (as a 34 year old who is white af), and it’s hard not to feel unworthy of membership. The blood quantum requirements meant that I couldn’t be a member for most of my life, and I wasn’t even close with my mom for a good chunk of my life, so it really wasn’t something that I had any way of connecting to from across the country before now. But yeah, it’s a weird place to be in. I was always familiar with the issues of people incorrectly claiming they had a native princess in their lineage and everyone apparently being some part Cherokee, but I didn’t realize just how prolific it was until I was researching the application process myself. I have sympathy for the experience of connecting with this stuff later in life, and having not been able to apply for enrollment for a long time but I truly CANNOT FREAKIN’ IMAGINE telling people I’m Suquamish or putting it in an online bio or any of that without being enrolled or being involved enough with the community & doings of the tribe that it was a present and significant part of my world. But that’s just me.
Hello, I've got a lot to say because I literally took a native people of North America class last semester at college LMAOOOOO First things first, blood quantum is such an annoying and antiquated idea. For those who don't know, it basically dictates that the people who count as indigenous need to have a certain percentage of indigenous blood in them (I believe it was 25%? If I'm wrong I'm sorry it's been months). Blood quantum is most commonly used in Canada to identify people as being part of a certain band. Also, the word band is used in Canada the same way that a tribe would be referred to in the US. Bands in Canada and tribes in the US need to be federally recognized. Blood quantum is an actual booty cheeks way of identifying people who belong to a band or tribe because it pushes out people who have more mixed blood. Genetics get diluted the more and more people of different ethnicities have kids, and the blood quantum boxes out all of these people that could have the right to this culture was the government not sick and twisted. Tl;dr - blood quantum sucks and shouldn't be used to identify people as indigenous anymore, live laugh love and make sure you tell every indigenous person you meet that they're braver than any US marine
Different tribes have different rules on blood quantum minimums. Cherokee Nation does not have a blood quantum requirement. Yes, some "benefits" are only available for citizens of federally-recognized tribes with a minimum of 1/4 blood quantum, but many tribes have lower or no blood quantum requirements.
If you are not Native your feelings do not matter. That makes you a settler-colonizer to think your opinion after one semester of studies matters more than actual Native people.
It is especially crazy to me to claim Choctaw heritage because they are keeping a tight record of that already. My ex bf was 6'4" blonde blue eyed and 1/256 Choctaw, and he had an identification card and they would send him a Christmas ornament every year. Literally they let you still be considered Choctaw if you are 0.4%, and we have people out here who still gotta lie about it??
Going back all the way to the 1800s to find one ancestor that is allegedly indigenous to then plaster that all over your books and social media is just....weird. Even if that is the right ancestor, its like okay and? Lots of people in America can do that, and lots of people dont make it their whole identity because it makes no goddamn sense to. You have absolutely no connection to the culture, none of your immediate family are recognized members because yall just found out you had one ancestor from more than a century ago. One of my great grandfathers was Cherokee and I actually have pictures of him but my other three great grandparents are black and werent raised in the culture (or by him because i believe he and my great grand mother separated and went no contact) so I identify as black. Like wtf is happening right now lmao
with the caveat that this is the first I'm hearing of this controversy, and I don't know any details about this author's "bullying" other than what's shared here... I feel weird about the conversation turning from rightfully criticizing the author for maybe faking her race to "I didn't like something they said once, or something I heard about them saying, no I can't provide details because ~*privacy*~". it starts to feel less like justifiably calling someone out and more like a personal vendetta against someone you happen to dislike. people can say rude things or come across as unsupportive in a discord group without deserving to be publicly pilloried for it. again, I really don't know the details of what this author said specifically, but these screenshots of people saying things like "she's the worst, just trust me!" rubs me the wrong way.
yeah i totally get what u mean - i think it is common for ppl to start dogpiling when someone is under fire for something. i think what gives me pause about her "bullying" is that other native american writers are echoing this, whereas i think it'd be different/petty writer beef if it were only non-natives. i think her behavior towards other indigenous writers adds another layer to this
@@withcindy very true, and that's an important distinction! I do think there is a difference between calling someone out for genuinely being a bully and taking opportunities away from other native american writers, vs. not having close friends on discord or reacting enthusiastically enough when someone gets a book deal lol (and maybe this is just me being oversensitive about tone being misinterpreted on the internet!)
I do think the main point is that she’s been a terrible person to other writers, but I do think it matters whether or not she’s indigenous here. Having a book deal (a spot in media that few Natives ever get to occupy) where you 1) have an only recently discovered link you *think* you have that is generations and generations back *if* it exists 2) you ignore the rules of the nation you claim to be a part of when all they ask is that you know for sure before claiming them as a public figure because they’ve been through enough 3) you have no cultural ties to that nation and did not grow up or even spend parts of your adult life in that culture (this feels like the most important part to me) 4) with all those combined, then with race being a social construct so the privileges and disadvantages connected to it in society are heavily based on what you look like-she is white. And to have a white person with a recently discovered link they *think* they have to Natives generations ago with no registration or specific upbringing or relation in the nation in her actual day to day even after finding the supposed link except when it comes to making money. She is pushing a Native out of the way (I’d argue that even if that great, great, great whatever turns out to be Native. What does that very distant and recently discovered relation matter if you did not actually grow up in the culture especially when nations don’t like using blood or bloodlines to determine if you’re Native anyway?). A Native who is registered and/or grew up in their nation/aspects of their nation in their life has likely heard ‘we have our Native book for the season’ at some point. She contributed to that. She is a colonizer. (Also, I’m biracial so I understand where white-passing and ambiguous POC are coming from when they feel a little ‘where do I go?’ from either side (especially being shunned from the white side if they are mixed with white which shuns the hardest), but I’m not going to sit here and pretend it’s harder than what monoracial POC have to deal with. I don’t think a white-passing POC situation is happening here, but I’m glad that one person retracted because it doesn’t feel like the situation is appropriate to bring that up). Amazing video as always, Cindy!
oh yes i totally agree!! bad wording on my part, i more so meant that her being a mean person should put her at fault among the writing community regardless of her race. however, if she is truly faking her indigenous identity, then that adds another layer of harm to that community
(im indigenous btw) yeahhhh its not only ancestry that makes you native, its about community because its the one thing we truly have. wilkens thinking being indigenous is just a title she can taken screams of privilege that i am very exhausted of seeing
It's interesting learning about this stuff because usually with race it's based on ancestry, but it's totally understandable why it's based on community for native Americans because so much of your history and people have been lost
@@withcindyto be honest with you, its mostly "natives" with more white blood that say its not all about ancestry. No one would dare tell an actual native who LOOKS native that they arent native if they have no ties to a community. So many tribes in usa allow mostly white people into their tribes if they are even 1/8th-- which is wild to me being first nations in canada where it is very more raced based like any other race. Culture is obviously important but in canada even 1/4 native isnt enough to be considered native bc youd be mostly white then if that makes sense
@greymoore86 why are you so obsessed with blood quantum and acting like Canada is right for that? So many Indigenous people have been fucked over by that. Like people who want their future kids in a tribe and decide to marry a random person from their tribe just so their kids can get in. Its messed up. White people made that stuff up about blood and race
@@greymoore86blood quantum sucks and was made by white people. People will literally marry and have kids with a random person from their same tribe just so their kids will be in the same tribe. That's how much it sucks. Also, most American tribes have it at just 1/4 not 1/8.
@@greymoore86 and meanwhile in australia and aoteroa, the vicious attempt to "breed out" aboriginal and maōri people has led in part to the saying, "no matter how much milk you put in tea, it's still tea." because this way the genocide would be fought against. it really depends on each place, each people, and their responses/reactions to the brutality of colonization. (I'm mexican-american of varying generation, my grandmother's father was a light-skinned man who lied about his nahua ancestry to pass for white and abused his native wife. it has created a really awful shredded wreck of disconnection and trauma in my family as a result.)
The thing is, I've heard of several indigenous tribes accepting non-indigenous people into their community and been perfectly fine with them claiming the culture, because it's about kin and mutual support, not blood quantum. This author doesn't make any mention of being part of these communities so why did they think they'd get away with going "oh a distant relative is indigenous and my whole family believes it so it's fine" like how tf are you going to intimately understand native issues because of some guy you never met? That organisation doing a genealogy deep dive feels inappropriate and intrusive, but also a massive waste of time because the real question all along was "are you claiming an ancestor for clout or are you genuinely in the community doing the work?". Which sounds like a significant chunk of what Cherokee enrolment requires tbf.
The singer Neil Young doesn’t have a drop of Native blood, but he received a sacred buffalo blanket from a Lakota elder for his work in stopping the Dakota Access Pipeline. Young knows full well he isn’t Lakota, the elders know, but he is honored because he has used his platform to help the Lakota tribe, and they care about that more than who his great grandpa was.
In personal experience this is sorta true. My cousins are Irish-Navajo [Dine']. My hometown is not far from reservations and even the schools have specific courses dedicated to mainly the Navajo Nations. Because of my cousins [and uncle] all of us who have been very close to the community and is treated as our own. My oldest cousin on that side has been trying to learn the language, and taught it to me before I moved for work. We were often invited to Pow Wows and invited to listen to their stories; maybe not all of them but its more than just "you need to have a certain amount of blood to be here." Even more, the town and Navajo community loves to try to invite majority of those in town regardless of background to come join-- to come listen and learn and experience. I grew up with those kids as friends, as then being my caretakers when my family was busy just as my grandparents watched them when they needed trusted adults to watch us. While not Native by blood and not claiming to be, my childhood home is filled with items given to us by the community, the piece of all the cultures that made us up. Blood is not what ties us to people, to communities and identities only-- I don't need distant relatives, and while its through my cousins that I had a gate connection there is more that comes to being part of something. I don't claim to be Native, Indigenous, Dine', Navajo, or whatever term needed like my cousins but nothing can take away that I am a piece of that community back home through everything they have offered me and I have been to them. The idea that its genetic, that its blood and who you were born from makes up purely someone's connect in my eyes is only a way to remove people of cultures from who they are-- I get Indigenous groups feeling like they have to because of how people continue to try to lie and steal their culture for profit but its sad that both sides I guess suffer from this. Annoying how blood percent and trying desperately to claim to unique cultural identities without any of the connection forces people into believing and feeling that genealogy is the only option to qualify people to any background.
I appreciate your including quotes from Rebecca Nagle, especially regarding documentation. Nagle spoke about how meticulous Cherokee records are, but Cherokees are not unique in how well their past is documented. That documentation was and is crucial to government control of indigenous people (unfortunately not restricted to the U.S.), and "Oops! I can't prove I'm telling the truth about being indigenous because records are bad!" is a common excuse among Pretendians. A much more high profile case that continues to push steam out of my ears is that of the musician Buffy Sainte-Marie, who knowingly maintained the lie that she's indigenous for more than 60 years and was only outed in late 2023. She, like Wilkens, also tried to claim she can't prove her story because "bad records." The Fifth Estate episode that revealed this info about her included commentary from a First Nations scholar who cleared up this misconception as Nagle did in one of the video quotes here. Pretendians can only continue to dodge accountability with this excuse if the rest of us don't learn the truth: There would be records supporting Wilkens' claims if her claims were accurate. Second, regardless of how respected the organization that outed Wilkens is, I think it's helpful to understand that there are multiple activists who dedicate their efforts to exposing Pretendians, and these people are not going after people who just say things like, "My family has always told me we're part Cherokee." Indigenous communities aren't immune from gatekeeping, which is a painful thing for many sincere people. There's more to being indigenous than blood and ethnicity, but it is possible to be full-blooded indigenous but not a high enough percentage of any one tribal nation to be eligible for membership. Anti-pretendian activists are more focused on people who claim to represent indigenous people or who pursue opportunities meant for them. I think you're right to speculate that Wilkens' latest is a bestseller because it was released in November--that bestselling spot could have gone to someone who's actually indigenous! That's the point of outing people like Buffy Sainte-Marie and Sacheen Littlefeather. It's because they capitalize on opportunities meant to mitigate the marginalization of First Nations people without having experienced any of that marginalization themselves. And finally, disappointing incidents like this can always be opportunities to seek out better representatives of the culture Wilkens was falsely laying claim to. You want a great Coast Salish writer? Try Sasha LaPointe! You don't like her? I promise you there are others. Sketchy people laying claim to a marginalization they don't have might have an easier time being heard over indigenous writers, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of indigenous authors to check out.
This whole situation is quite strange to me, branding yourself as Cherokee because of a great grandfather is a choice, and I still think it would be okay to write stories with Native American main characters and experiences even if you had no tribal blood at all. Also having a whole organization go through your family history is crazy
I struggle with the idea that native American people need to be connected to their tribe or their family to claim their heritage. Unfortunately, as a result of colonization native communities are disproportionately affected with alcohol and other forms of substance abuse, and their children have ended up in the system. I went through foster care with several childhood friends whose families we're ripped apart by this and no one in their family stepped up for them. (Very awar of ICWA but its interpretation especially in conservative southern states has been shady at best and if theres no family willing to advocate for the rights of these children they get swept into the system with the rest of us) Several of them are writers now and they are indigenous, but they don't engage with their families and their tribes for the same reason alot of us with fucked up abusive families don't. (This does not apply universally to native writers), but I would be heartbroken to see my friends' trauma investigated and published like this because people are trying to prove or disprove their identity. I'm probably not wording this well I think whether she's native or not this whole situation is a mess but I don't personally love the idea of marginally authors having to prove their marginalization in order to be accepted and ultimately stories like this will just create more barriers for marginalized people in publishing. I don't know how well I explained this publishing is a mess that we can agree on.
I'm glad that the discussion around appropriation and "pretendians" is becoming more focused on whether an indigenous community claims a person. In Canada documentation can be misleading because the way "Indian Status" is administered cuts out a lot of people who have active involvement and kinship in Indigenous nations, and there's been examples of genealogical researchers making mistakes and wrongly accusing people of lying. So I'm glad we're reaching a more accurate and potentially respectful point in the discussion - the only opinion about who's part of a tribe that matters is that of the tribe
this reminds me of an American dude from Reddit who recently found out he had some Scottish ancestry 300+ years back (maybe some reputable lineage ig?) and decided to travel to his "home" country to learn about his culture. He ended up being a complete idiot when he said he was "a true Scottish gentleman" to a bunch of native Scotts. When the natives validly criticized him, he got into a brawl with them and ended up being kicked to the curb, quite literally.
I love your commentary series detailing the issues within the book community bc it gives people a direct reference to point back to whenever ppl try dismissing these types of issues, because they keep happening! Anyway, thank you, Cindy! You’re doing valuable work.
Because it's easy to do. Academia and publishing are extremely racist. As such, they favor whites and white adjacent people over everyone else. Theft is common. Being around and having to hear from anyone else enrages them. Literally, they usually only promote/hire Black and brown people who hate other Black and brown people
Early. This is not a new trend of people playing Indian. Buffy Saint Marie is the most prominent “pretendian.” If anybody would like to look more into this phenomenon I’d start there since there is a documentary. ‘Grey Owl’ is coined as the first documented pretend-Indian. If someone truly has native ancestry it can be found. Contrary to popular belief, native peoples are very well documented. With research the truth can be found.
I've not got any Native American blood (I'm British) but my grandparents are Romani. Even though my link is super close (my grandad and mum still get racist abuse because of their "ethnic" features and skin tone), and I tick the "Gypsy/Traveller" box on the census form I still wouldn't feel comfortable writing a book with a Roma mc because I'm not immersed in the culture enough. There's parts of my identity that I am familiar with but I've never travelled like my grandad did and I've forgotten a lot of the words I knew as a kid. I'd also feel uncomfortable writing about Irish culture even though my father is Irish because I've never even been to the country. I claim both my Romani and Irish heritage as an ethnic identity but not as a cultural one because I know it's not my place to speak with authority about practices and culture that haven't been shared with me. I'm all for reconnecting with your heritage (I plan a trip to Ireland in the future and to relearn some Romani) but I think that's more of a private and personal thing, and using your heritage to sell books is a bit iffy to me, especially when so many native authors go unpublished.
I mean, you can still write about those cultures. With heavy research and proper respect it doesn't really matter if you 'belong' to a certain demographic or not. You're in a prime position to do so, as you can literally interview your closest relatives about it. In fact, featuring their culture would likely honor them, not offend.
@@fieryfox4493I'd love to do more research but I've found it pretty difficult as not only are our communities already small, isolated and weary of gadjes (for good reason) but a lot of the culture has been erased through the government trying to settle people, general urbanisation and anti-roma sentiment. Honestly the biggest barrier to learning about these cultures is just colonisation. My dad, a full blooded Dublin man, doesn't even have a strong connection to his heritage and he's born and bred Irish. A lot of the history and practices and language have just disappeared as England tried to control the population, or as Christianity tried to stamp out the country's myths and lore. And with both cultures there's an issue of nothing being documented well, hell Romany doesn't even have a consistent spelling or pronunciation of a lot of words. The best part of the culture my dad has to offer is the old folk songs he sings, like "The Wearing of the Green", whereas on my romani side there isn't much handed down to me as the general sentiment of our family was "if no one knows, no one will hurt you." Although I knew some Romany I stopped using the words in public as the kids at school used to hit me because they thought I was saying bad things about them. I don't generally tell people irl now either because for some reason it's totally fine to call every person of a certain ethnicity thieves and abusers but only if they're romani...
I am half Ukrainian Jewish and I only really experienced that culture for two weeks a year until I was 15. I thought I was Russian for nearly two decades because they left during the time Ukraine was still the USSR. I understand this immensely. My dads whole family are a mixture of Jewish Ukrainian, Moldovan, Georgian, Belarusian etc but I only know the Ukrainian but even I feel uncomfortable claiming it like you do. I grew up with some practices but not much. What I do now is I say I am half Russian (I now say Ukrainian since I now understand the difference now. But I used to say Russian because that's what my family always said) because my dad was born in Odessa. My mum is Australian (but she's a mix from early settlers). However I am white and always say white in documents. I am starting to find out that my great grandfather was likely middle eastern and further than Georgia into Azberjian but only say that as a fun tidbit if I am talking about genealogy and ancestry with someone. I personally feel like if you grew up with the culture but forgot or grew away from it. You can still mention it because that was a part of you. But I really and truly understand the difficulty of whether to claim who you are when you don't feel part of that culture Edit* I also want to add that my family also kept a lot of things hidden and refused to talk about things for the same reason that what I don't know won't hurt me. I was divorced from the language, culture, practices, and community but still have memories of growing up eating kotleti, superstitions about when to have my birthday party, Russian parties, not walking around without socks and slippers, and the being exposed to euro 80s fashion.
they think life is like college applications 😭 (just to clarify as a white person i am not lying on my application at all, not about anything because i feel like id be the one person they actually check, im not claiming to be another race, but i know people who are…)
@@withcindyoh also obviously it’s unethical and i don’t feel comfortable with that but i feel like most people don’t care as much bc our education system is crap so it feels justified to crap on it 😂
Natives mentioned! Aaniin/hello! Great video. I appreciate the nuance on a complicated topic. And girl don't even get me started on pretendians. My community recently collectively clowned on this old white guy that kept changing his identity for benefits thinking that no one would find out if he claimed our nation lol. It's so bizarre to me (but not really cause it's usually because money is involved somehow).
As a white presenting Native American it frustrates me when stuff like this happens. I want to support other Native Americans but then stuff like this comes out and I'm just left feeling betrayed by another Pretendian. I am Shawnee, Seneca Cayuga, Choctaw and Cherokee so hearing she was also Choctaw and Cherokee made me ecstatic and then this whole mess came out. When she claimed unenrollment due to "bad record keeping" and "missing documents" that's what confirmed the fact she's not Native American to me. Unenrollment due to bad or lost documents is sadly a prolific issue in the Native American community (especially in smaller tribes) however it is far less of an issue in the Choctaw and Cherokee tribes due to their extensive written records.
Exactly. My author bio is just gonna be like "they are Swedish", no need to go into detail about the Finnish side of my family tree, when I don't know the language, I don't know their culture other than what little they share with Sweden, I barely know Finland's history. I'm not gonna claim I'm Norwegian even if my mother's side has relatives from there. What matters is who _I_ am, not what blood runs through my veins. Connecting with ancestors is a personal matter - I want to learn about the vikings that lived on Lofoten in Norway for myself, not to brag about my status as a possible descendant. I only brag as a joke.
i do a lot of genealogy. working back 10 generations on anyone's family tree is insane, it would take thousands and thousands of hours, be VERY expensive (archive and record fees) and require a LOT of luck. if they did it, good for them. but the confidence with which they present this family tree is weird to me
In general, I don't think there's a problem with wanting to feel connected to your ancestry, even if you didn't grow up immersed in the culture associated with it. But when you then try to assert yourself as an authority of that culture, coopt experiences of oppression you've never actually had, and use it to market yourself, it becomes misappropriation no matter who your ancestors were.
this is the first time on a situation like this that I don't have a strong opinion for either side and this is a really complex topic but I love how well you put it all and phrased it
So, this had me think..."Once An Accident, Twice A Coincidence, Three Times A Pattern"... should there be a deep dive in the online book community or what, cause if there's a fourth or fifth like this...
There are so many authors pretending to be another race, very concerning (and dissapointing, ngl). I hope more people in the future can realize they don't have to do this to write a character/protagonist of another race. Even if it 'does' give them more apparent plausability for writing the character it's... icky at best My sentiment here generally is that one would be better off researching heavily but presenting oneself as thy own, or not at all. (basically, All or Nothing At All) I'm (African-American) writing an FN/NA character in a low fantasy retro anthology series (Cree, but this may be subject to change in the future?) and I may give him his own written story in the future, but I still attempt to take the highest sensitivity I can to research and incoporate elements of a culture that's not my own into a character. Since it's retro(semi-futuristic), I like putting aspects of history into my stories, espically those that involve specific cultures, but I try to stay away from things I feel are out of my lane or hands. I've gotten pretty nervous about it often, I'll admit (along with my other characters, who each have different cultural/ethnic BGs) but claiming another identity is something I would never consider, even if my anthology were to be published, and unfortunately it seems that some publishers would prefer you do just that, sad. On a lighter note, Great video! I love your reports on these situations, and I think you give lovely commentary
Cases like this always make me so insanely mad. It took my Grandmother and Aunts DECADES and moutains of paperwork to get their tribe to accept them as citizens even though their mother (who is still alive btw) is an active voting member of the tribe. Why was it so hard to prove on paper? Because prior to the 70s, every member of my family actively tried to scrub all eveidence of their Native heritage and ancestry to avoid employment discrimination. 25-50% of Native women were sterilized by the Indian Health Services throughout the 50s and 60s. So im not confident that my extended fanily would even exist if they had been recognized as Indigenous any earlier. This isnt some fun little thing people can just use for clout to get their damn books published. It comes with generational trauma and a healthy distrust of the US government. Sorry for the rant. This topic just gets me heated.
@withcindy thank you 😭 And thank you for discussing this with the respect and nuance that you did. This topic doesn't get much attention and it's just nice to know that people in other communities can recognize how tough it is. Keep up the good work! ❤❤
I haven't watched one of your vids for so long and this came in my recommended and just the first five seconds was so comforting for me, especially bc i used to watch ur videos at a very happy time in my life, and it takes me back to then! missed ur videos!
putting aside the possible pretendian thing for a minute, how weird is it that an organization decided to dig up this woman's whole family history without knowledge or consent? it must feel so violating.
I've never heard of it before but having a whole NGO with the philosophy of a 2010s tumblr callout group is worrying. It definitely feels like people coming with the intention to punch down and seem like the good guys
@@tarotsushima3332unfortunately they’re known to be anti-Black as well and really go after Black Natives and southern Natives and speak authoritatively on other communities they have no knowledge about.
So I am not Native American or a person of colour but this same feeling of "am I allowed to claim this ancestry?" Is something I experience daily. My father was born in Ukraine and raised Ukrainian Jewish. My whole life until I was 17 I thought I was Russian. I then learnt we were Jewish on top of that a few years later. I wasn't raised near my family who celebrated their Jewishness and Ukrainian heritage very much. Two weeks per year is the most I often got. I experienced a lot when I was with my grandparents and had my toes in it but not a lot. As an adult. I struggle to even say I am half Ukrainian. I just end up saying I am half Russian but actually Ukrainian due to them leaving during the USSR. I barely touch on the fact that most of my ancestry is Jewish and the trauma of those previous generations still touches my family even now. I relate so much to that side of my ancestry and yet this fear of not being involved enough, pure enough, being able to speak the language or engage with the culture is just so hard for me. Especially when it comes to participating in these traditions, I feel like an imposter to my own family. I can't imagine what it is like to be the ones who are engaged but excluded due to that blood quantum rule/ancestry. I can't imagine the ones who grew up in it but are too scared to be accused of pretending due to not seeming like they belong. I'm sorry if this seems self centred but the more I listen to this the more it makes me realise that these memberships to groups where it isn't obvious by skin tone that you belong can really mess with your sense of identity and where you come from. I have not enough knowledge of Native American tribes and I don't frankly have the right to say if the author is lying or not. But I can understand that feeling with others who feel like they cannot claim who they are due to this fear of being attacked for not being the perfect member of that group to be allowed membership to it. It's such a tricky space and topic
It’s actually not uncommon in black American families for people to believe they have native ancestry when they don’t. I think a lot of it stems from mixed race babies being taboo back in the day, so historically, you could claim an ethnically ambiguous family member or ancestor to be native without the ridicule or shame that came from mixing races My grandmother was bi-racial, kind of ethnically ambiguous but white passing. She married a black man, had a black family, and identified as black. In her youth she would have been “mulatto,” which was an offensive term. The terms “bi-racial,” or “mixed” didn’t really exist in that context in her day. I can easily see this being the case for white families too. If she had attempted to distance herself from her “mulatto” identity, attempted to live as a white person, I can easily see a reality where she explains her summer tan as being part native. I suspect that’s in part why so many white American families believe they have native ancestors without any proof, just family lore-they likely have a black ancestor, and it was better to be part native than black, which, because of the one-drop rule, they would have been If you’re going to make up a native identity, Cherokee is one of the best known Native American tribes, so it makes sense why so many claim Cherokee heritage. People might not even do it intentionally. It’s so easy to create false memories when your reasoning makes sense. “I think I remember hearing grandpa say his mama was half Cherokee” reinforces the “memory” that isn’t even real
She is native like Oli London is Korean... Just because you have a great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather that was (or could have been) native, that doesn't make it your culture. Great video, as always, with great points made.
This is such a great video. A lot of research was done, and I appreciate you pointing out we should come to our own conclusions instead of spoon feeding the viewers "drama"
Another great video, I always appreciate your thoughtful and informative discussions about these matters. I personally feel conflicted on the idea that belonging to a marginalized group makes it overall "worse" if you're shitty to people in that group. I can relate to how it does often FEEL worse to be hurt by someone who you would expect to understand and support you; it feels like a personal betrayal, and sometimes a betrayal to the community as a whole. But, I also think that as a society we tend to hold marginalized people to a far higher standard than we do the people marginalizing them, and I always try to be wary of falling into that trap.
I agree that it's not fair to hold marginalized people to a higher standard! I guess it's more like it FEELS worse bc we aren't uniting against the actual enemy/system that's oppressing both of us :/
Yellowface gave me a bit of insight into this as did Brandon Sanderson. Sanderson is constantly writing from POV's that aren't his own. He has written autistic, disabled, mentally ill and atheist characters. He uses beta readers to grow from his mistakes as a writer. I feel like research and talking to people who have that lived experience can make up for a lot. Much better than misrepresenting yourself. Plus there's an acknowledgement section for a reason
I cant speak for indigenous people since i am not one, however as a latino i see similar stuff all the time with people claiming to be latinos without ever knowing and living the customs and experiences of living as a latino or stepping foot in the country they claim they're from just bc their grandad has mexican blood or whatever, like i think you have to actively participate in the society/community you claim to be a part of and know whats it like to be one to say something like that and make it part of your entire identity otherwise i will just see it like youre trying to gain something from it
Genuine question, what does 'living as a Latino' mean? I'm asking because I have Latino heritage (my parents are Peruvian and Uruguayan) and raised by my parents in a western country. Given the country is multicultural and I'm at least partly white, I don't experience discriminate for being Latina apart from the bits of fetishisation. I'm not sure what would be the Latino experience.
For people who wonder why so many families have false stories of being Cherokee (and native or indigenous in general) best researchers can tell it was a way for families to explain away mixed race traits especially if those traits where from someone in the bloodline being a black slave but also Roma, darker skinned Hispanic etc. those families bragging about it so much just kind of made it trendy and exotic but not so exotic they’d be ostracised so other said it in a kind of keeping up with the Joneses type lie
In some of the indigenous communities I associate with, we have a running joke that “you, me, and the martians are all 1/16 Cherokee” with how often people try to claim that specific ancestry
I’ve probably said this already on previous videos, but I love the amount of research you put into these issues. It sucks that you keep having to make these damn videos, but I appreciate the work you put into them.
Love all your deep dives into various controversies, Cindy! Also super excited about the 50 Shades of Grey reaction video. Thanks for mentioning it! Gives us all something to look forward to. :)
22:14 Was not expecting for the CCBC to pop up in this video! Highly recommend visiting if you’re in the area sometime; they also have an amazing book sale every winter :)
If y’all want some incredible indigenous fiction, check out Son of a Trickster by Eden Robison or Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline. Both are incredible.
Thanks for the recommendation! I've been wanting to have my hands on deck for any books written by indigenous authors. Do you have other recommendations that I should get??
@@calsrestarea I've heard good things about "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" although I haven't read it myself.
@@calsrestareamoon of crusted snow by Waubgeshig Rice is also great, it’s a sci-fi/thriller and Bad Cree by Jessica Johns more fantasy.
Anything by Katherena Vermette. She's Metis. Amanda Peters, Wab Kinew, Brian Thomas Isaac, Richard Wagemese, Michelle Good, and Angeline Boulley are also good.
@@calsrestarearead Tommy Orange's books! There There and Wondering Stars are phenomenal novels. Also if you love poetry read Joy Harjo :)
If I had a nickel for every time an author fake being a race to sell their book, I'd have a frankly concerning amount of nickels
Unfortunately that's the society we live in. We're not allowed to enjoy a FICTION book without knowing that person's race or sexuality. That's why I hate the "book community".
@@itsgonnabeanaurfromme when the fiction book draws from the folklore/traditions/historical experiences/otherwise centers around a specific culture, it is Weird As Hell to lie about belonging to that culture in some attempt to get more support from that community or whatever these peoples' aim is.
Deadass!! Like why does this keep happening
@@itsgonnabeanaurfromme tbh YOU are allowed to do and enjoy anything you like.... nobody is forcing you to do research..... you know as they say - ignorance is bliss....
@@itsgonnabeanaurfromme Other people determine what you personally enjoy? Sounds like you need to work that out internally.
Unbelievable. We have authors pretending to be Latin American, Korean, Black, and now Native American… but we still haven’t had an author pretend to be South Asian? What, are we unpublishable?
Where's the south Asian non-representation huh!!!!
Don't give Freydis Moon any ideas
omg ikr I think because they can't fake South Asian. Desis would sniff that out too fast...
Someone out there is probably already doing that. They just haven't been exposed yet.
Southeast Asian here. We haven't gotten our share yet. Though considering I've only seen like probably 5 books written by SEAsian out there, that's probably fair
the way cindy is my main source of book community contreversies because i am just THAT chronically out of the loop lmaooo
its what im here for
@@withcindy thank yew 🙏
@@AnaAce19 - MEEEEE 😭😭
Me too
same lmao, specially after i left twitter for good 😂
It feels like it was three minutes ago that we had the last race-faking controversy, goodness me.
3 minutes was too long
it’s the 2024 version of white boy of the month
I was just watching cindy’s vid about Kim Crisci 🥲 Is this turning into a Pokemon type of situation where you gotta catch ‘em all?
it's gonna keep happening
@@withcindyI really like you Cindy you’re my best friend ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
At this point Yellowface by R.F Kuang is becoming non-fiction 😭
I know, like, why does this keep happening? Yellowface was making fun of this, not a how- to manual.
I just know R.F Kuang is cackling and saying I told y’all but y’all said no!!!
SO TRUE
Comedy becomes reality moment
Ending ain't mean shit to no one. 😭😭😭😭
I have to say as a white american who could've gotten a scholarship because my great-grandmother was native (and no not cherokee): I didn't and will continue to not take advantage of that kind of stuff because I did not grow up on a reservation or in a tribe and I never even met my great-grandmother. Often white kids with some native genealogy are told to take advantage of it to get scholarships and stuff like that, and the "bloodline" thing is a much more white way of looking at it rather than community and tribal registration. If colby grew up with native family, I could see how she felt she could say she's native but if that family is long long dead and you have no relation to any living relatives - why even remotely say you are native? It definitely comes across (to me) as doing the thing white kids are often told to do and taking advantage of it. It doesn't mean you can't write a character who isn't white but it definitely means you should treat bipoc with basic respect, do your research, and just admit you're a white person writing.
That sucks how it's so encouraged for white people to take advantage of, because it only hurts native people who need those opportunities :/
Dude, same.
I did meet my great-grandma who was full Native American (she was Choctaw though), and she shared some of her life stories with me and my brothers. We all still identify as white though cause it'd be super weird to claim that little piece of ancestry, especially since I also saw people try to use their own ancestry like you've described. It just... does not sit right.
Man this rings true, my mother often sought out resources she could possibly exploit due to her membership status despite being white passing. I haven’t done the same because it feels extremely gross ethically, especially seeing how many resources are there in my area without counting racial factors.
@@Kinkajou420 being white passasing doesn't equal being white tho
someone's that's white passing but isn't white should take the opportunities that are offered to them because at the end of the day they aren't white
That's funny, I have Native(by marriage) family that I grew up with and their tribes attitude was always very open. Before they closed their rolls, I think the requirement was something like 10-15% blood. Their attitude about this kind of thing was take what you can get because at some point your family suffered.
Things have changed and the younger generations are understandably hostile towards outsiders. I wonder sometimes if I were a child now, if the people that have replaced the ones I knew would take me in and care for me the way their parents and grandparents did. Can't say I think they would.
Even if she does have indigenous ancestry, finding out later in life that you have certain ancestry (pretty distant, I might add) then taking on that identity is odd, especially in a white/native context. If she'd been raised with Cherokee culture, her centering that in her books would make sense. But her finding out she maybe had a Cherokee ancestor back in the 1800s would not give her any expertise to tell stories about modern day native cultures and life in her books. If a white American takes a DNA test and sees they're 50% French, they'd probably be like "okay, cool," not suddenly put "French" in their bio and monologue about their French culture and identity. Somehow, that only seems to happen with marginalized identities 👀
✨ It ✨ Fucking ✨ Sucks ✨🙃
Not trying to make light of something that is serious…. But as a 100% Asian person, if I find that I am 0.001% British, I’m ready to fully channel my British ancestor(s) and start speaking with British accent for at least one whole month 😂😂
I guess it is different for everyone. Some people like to explore and celebrate their heritage even if it is 0.000001% but there is a difference between claiming to be something and claiming it as part of your heritage
There can be nuance there, because reconnecting to your nation can be a thing, and sometimes the reason your family got disconnected to the culture and community was because of colonialism/violence/shame. Different nations decide their own criteria for membership/citizenship, and some nations welcome back the descendants of those who left the community. There’s good ways to reconnect, and there’s bad ways, and it can be complicated. As white-looking people and reconnecters we have different responsibilities to go about things in a proper way, understanding the advantages that inherited when our ancestors left the community and passed as white. Fair disclaimer, this is my experience- and getting citizenship, making connections, and learning the language has been very meaningful and significant for me, BUT, that being said, it’s super weird to then go, as this person reconnecting to their very distantly related community, and become this super indigenous author writing ‘authentically’ about the modern Indigenous experience and speaking on behalf of that modern experience you haven’t actually lived. And then doing that while not even actually getting citizenship or connecting to the community? Hell no that’s not at all okay.
I agree, it seems incredibly strange and not rational. White Americans in general seem starved for any kind of meaningful cultural identity, and in many places it seems the more marginalized ones are the ones they see represented as being significant. I'm sure that feeling like membership to a marginalized identity can absolve them of some of their white guilt is a factor, and thinking it makes them more interesting, and a lack of respect for the people whose culture they're claiming.
I have also seen people discover and identify with ancestries that don't involve marginalized groups. I've heard my Irish friend complain about how on St. Patrick's Day everyone suddenly has Irish ancestry. I would guess a lot of what determines if you identify with, e.g., your French heritage is the presence (or lack thereof) of French culture where you live and how interesting France and French culture are to you personally.
For some reason, white people who want to claim Native ancestry to feel special seem to pick on the Cherokee nation in particular. I'm white af and know a fair amount about my family's white af history due to having a very dedicated amateur genealogist in the family, but I still have family members claiming a ✨mystical Cherokee ancestor✨ to make them feel more comfortable about their own privilege, and I've heard a lot of similar stories. I totally understand why the Cherokee nation decided to put out the strict guidelines you mentioned on who can call themselves Cherokee.
i didnt know it was so common until i looked until this! its so unfortunate how prevalent it is
@@withcindy like half the white families in the US have a great great grandma who was a "Cherokee Princess"
OH I kinda sorta have a (possible) answer to this!
The Cherokee people used to live primarily in the south-eastern USA. What else was there? Plantations! Many white settlers found them to be the most "civilized" of all Native tribes they encountered along the way, so they were basically deemed like... European adjacent. Which is a gross notion. But I digress.
Many white traders also married Native women for the same reason royalty married: to establish trade and good relations. That's where some think the "Cherokee princess" myth comes from since the merchants could then equate themselves to royalty since they married the "princess" of the local tribe. (One possible explanation for "princess" is a misunderstood word of affection)
As time went on, more Cherokee people intermarried and thusly became more... adapted? to colonized society. This gave them the opportunity to learn English reading and writing, which allowed them to be viewed as intelligent and gave them opportunities to travel. Thusly, people within the Cherokee nation soon spread out from the south-eastern USA and to neighbouring territories.
Then, at some point in time in the 1800s, the federal government started tracking Native blood to sort out land allotments. If you could prove you were some percentage Native American, you'd get "free" government land! So of course, white colonizers being white colonizers decided to lie and claim Cherokee heritage, as they were the most widespread and notable Native group. The government basically went "yeah seems legit" and gave the lying bastards the land. Actual Cherokee groups got pissed and started tracking and that's why you have to be enrolled nowadays. Cause white people lie and ruin everything. (FWIW I am white)
And then the Cherokee nation was... "relocated." By force. And once they were gone and no longer a "nuisance" to local plantation owners and merchants, they started getting romanticized. It also seemed to legitimize southerners by proving they were true MURICANS, since they were part Cherokee, and the Cherokee were the original inhabitants, so therefor, a Cherokee-heritaged white person was a more legitimate American than one who didn't claim such.
Plus they were still obsessed with royalty even though we had a full fledged Democratic Republic by that time and being descendants of Native royalty meant they had a higher social status. More American and more social power? Hell yeah. Lie through your motherfkn teeth, you racist colonizers.
So.... yeah! It's basically a mix of good ol' colonialism/colonization and ego boosting lying, with a dash of romanticized false narratives.
Supposedly. No one knows for sure. But it's the best guess people have got.
bruh it's not even just yt peepo 🤦🏾♀️😭 my family is African American and my mom swears because my grandma (who's from Louisiana) has red undertones and a prominent nose that she's Cherokee like girl please stop 😩
@@favouriteK this is really interesting. Thanks for sharing! 😊
(I tend to not like to comment too much so I might delete this) I'm a racially white enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma for my entire life and I really appreciate the nuance and research you did for this video - especially with your points around political identity vs indigeneity. I personally have very complicated and mixed feelings about whether or not to identify as an indigenous woman - since it feels inaccurate and screams of a lack of self awareness. One thing I'll add:
Membership for our nation is akin to citizenship to any other nation - there's strict rules and paperwork involved. Like, for example, someone claiming German ancestry in the US is politically different than someone who's a German citizen. Also every tribe/nation within the United States has their own sovereignty about membership - what works for Choctaw Nation may not work for, say, Navajo Nation.
Our nation explicitly does not use blood quantum and instead opts for a lineal descendancy from someone listed on the Dawes Rolls. Because of specifics of those rolls - it is much easier for racially indigenous and racially white descendants to be enrolled than racially black descendants. As a result - I think it is important that un-enrolled black descendants claiming ties to be given much more grace than un-enrolled white ones. If you are racially white and claiming any association with our tribe make sure you have your citizenship LOCKED DOWN before because the system is quite literally designed for you to succeed and tbh if you don't everyone is going to assume that you are lying.
My question and suspicion around people like Colby Wilkens is that she can't really point to any specific experiences outside of maybe being a member. Like, yes, citizenship is determined from a document in 1914 - but a lot has happened to us besides that. Did she have any family who are mission/boarding school survivors? Did any of her family need assistance via the FDPIR program? Does she attend any cultural events - either on the reservation or in major urban areas (there's lots of urban Indians in major metro centers like la and nyc)? It doesn't seem like shes connected with the culture and more like she's using a potential ancestor as a way to market herself
Anyway yakoke to anyone who reads this rant
Wow, thank you for sharing your experience! That's very insightful and helps me understand things a bit better.
Thank you so much for sharing this! It makes me feel less isolated in this experience racially.
This wasn’t just a rant, this was a thoughtful piece you’ve written.
Very insightful. ❤
Please don't delete this, it's very informative :)
I am the the process of applying. It is a lengthy process which most people do not understand. But how is the system "gamed" if I am mixed race with white? And blood quantum was designed to shrink tribal populations until they no longer exist. Why is that a good thing? 🤔
Seeing the comment thread is mainly a discourse on what it means to be Native American... I'm Native American from the Navajo tribe, full blood 4/4, and the Navajo tribe does in someways have the privilege of being the tribe with the largest amount of full bloods... But many of the metrics used by many of the comments I've seen would disqualify many of the people in my tribe from being "Native American". As many other groups of people, the Navajo tribe is extremely diverse. So i feel many people don't take that into account when they say this and that about tribes assuming we're a a single monolith. That to say I think people pretending or trying to use a Native persona for selfish reasons are definitely in the wrong; but metrics such as cultural knowledge or "identity" is not going to get anywhere far. Many Navajos are not "traditional" Navajo but that doesnt make them any less Navajo, as I feel many of these comments would lead you to believe regarding Native American tribes. So yes this author is in the wrong but using metrics instead of a case by case basis would disqualify many Navajo from their own tribe.
Especially since the U.S. and Canadian governments have specifically tried to cut off Indigenous people from their culture through residential schools and the 60s scoop in the hopes that they would assimilate. It was a genocidal strategy.
This isn't super relevant but I loved the artwork on these covers so I went and found out the artist is Jenifer Prince, who does a lot of really beautiful sapphic retro style artwork. Just leaving this in case anyone else was curious.
Ooh that’s cool, I’m gonna check out her other work!
I thought I recognised her art style!
She is one of my favorite artist and I really wanted to buy the book If I Dig You just because she made the cover but this video find me first so I am just gonna go buy another poster from her instead
Regardless of if she is or isnt indigenous, it fewels weird to me that this organization unilaterally looked into someones ancestry without their knowledge
It's pretty disturbing how easy it is to do as long as you've got basic info on a person & access to databases.
@@JuniperJadePRyeah it. It really puts into perspective how much information about us there is online, even stuff we haven’t posted.
@@vividraspberry "Right to be forgotten" should be an international thing.
That's a good point, surely it would have been enough to say that her claim isn't considered valid without being enrolled?
Apparently they had received complaints from people who knew the author. Identity fraud is a HUGE problem for Native people, tribes, and tribal sovereignty and you wouldn't believe how prevalent the problem is.
I knew a girl who was Cherokee and she had to do a lot of work to properly have all the offical recognized as Cherokee. Her and her brother worked a lot with family federally recognized to also be official Cherokee. I dont remember what tribe of Cherokee she belonged to but the work she went theough made me realize how much work it takes to be official recognized and she was proud to do so. Like you said, its not blood, its connection and paperwork. Apologies if i phrased anything wrong, it had been about 4 years since i remember her going through this
I'm glad she was able to be enrolled and that she was proud of it!!
If this is the case, the organization should be more forgiving of folks who are trying to connect with their tribe. It’s possible that she isn’t faking at all but it’s very hard to get recognized in the first place
@@TryinaD but there are SO MANY people trying to join Cherokee tribes. In order to be federally-recognized and protect their citizens there needs to be a process. Also, with no blood quantum minimums, Cherokee Nation is already an "easier" tribe to be enrolled into.
It’s literally always cherokee, i do feel kind of bad for her though since at least she had a name of an ancestor which is more than 99.9% of pretendians. It is kind of weird how they all want to claim to be native but dont put any effort whatsoever in engaging with the community or culture. Like a lot of pow wows and other events are open to everyone!!!!
Yeah I'm curious if she ever did? I wasn't able to find anything, only her talking about how hard it was to find paperwork
It reminds me of the people who claim to "appreciate asian culture" when what they really mean is they watch anime and have an asian fetish. they dont actually care about the history, culture, language, etc, just about seeming cultured. It really grosses me out.
At this point we are going to need to host classes for upcoming writers titled “how not to fake your race and why it is unethical”.
It's really interesting to me how some Native American tribes/nations determine who has a right to be indigenous legally as it's so different to the way indigenous peoples in my part of the world think. Here in Aotearoa, if you whakapapa Māori (have Māori ancestry) you are Māori, because you cannot be severed from your tīpuna (ancestors). To register with your iwi (tribe) you need to be able to show that you're descended from members of the iwi (how this is done varies by iwi/hapu), but even if you're not registered with your iwi you're still Māori. Our Aboriginal neighbours in Australia have a saying - coffee is still coffee no matter how much milk you add.
This is especially important in Aotearoa due to how many Māori children were removed from their whānau by the state and were therefore severed from their whakapapa. To deny their indigeneity is just furthering the trauma perpetrated against them at the hands of the state. Blood quantum is viewed as a deeply harmful colonial construct. I can't imagine an organisation trying to out people as not actually Māori would manage to function here for very long without getting loudly admonished by their kaumatua and rangatira.
Oh wow thanks for sharing! It all sounds so complex and every tribe is different! But I think it's kinda cool that there's no universal rule bc it depends on each community
As an Australian. I have seen this. There was a family I worked with that had flaming red hair and very much looked white Irish. But they were indigenous and were very engaged with their culture. Often indigenous families I have worked with. Even if they were white passing, we're still struggling due to generations of trauma that has passed down. I also think in Australia how it is viewed is very different than in America.
I'm not really qualified to talk about it but have known a lot of indigenous Australians in passing from work and school and to block them out due to the blood quantum rule just feels like it furthers the trauma cycle that is still being felt today
So any white Kiwi can just say they're Maori then for their own self-interest.
@@Biancaleigh693 generational trauma affects pretty much every ethnicity. Everyone has been oppressed at some point, just in different areas.
It’s called tribal sovereignty.
Thanks for pointing out the ick vibes of the organization, as the run down went on, it just didn't feel right to me, especially with that direct messaging to the author just felt like a bullying tactic that had blackmail coding. Sure, the author is still weird, but unfortunately we shouldn't believe so soon that people are doing these good things because they’re "good people". Like, I've seen too many victims' voices get boosted only because the person boosting them wants to use them, abusing them once again, in order to play for their political side in front of a large public.
Thank goodness I'm a Zuni native registered in our census, is what I discovered, as I'm sure these people would jump on the surface level fact of my melanin levels as some sort of "taint" on my experiences, as if I suddenly haven't been raised by my mother or go to the ceremonies and practices. Nah, surely they pull out the Family Guy skin tone scale every time they need to see if a native kid is permitted to learn about their own family's culture /s
it also feels icky that there is an org out there that would go thru ur family tree and publicize it in such a shaming way ... esp if blood quantum is not a true evaluation of someone being native american
@withcindy Treating *any* race like they only exist as a dog breed percentage statistic to add in or subtract in order to get an "ideal mutt" will always make me vomit...
TAAF has a consistent track record. Of weaponizing people's anger, to cause their target to disappear off the web.
They've gone after people who are enrolled, They've gone after people who aren't enrolled, but have ALL the documentation that they're Native. But DON'T meet the blood quantum
They're all around bullies and one of their cofounders/cohorts. Jacqueline Keeler, herself. Has sketchy Indigenous background
watching this while making the slideshow of my relationship drama to share at powerpoint night
omg that sounds fun
I want to come.
Powerpoint night sounds amazing 😮
I'll bring snacks! 🍪
That's iconic.
This really hits home for me personally as someone who identifies culturally as Mexican. My mom’s side of the family is Hopi and Navajo mix while my dad's side is Navjo (like my grandpa and his mom were both from Arizona). It's a very confusing feeling because I know from a historical context that Mexico once extended to Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, etcetera. So there are other families out there that became indigenous and Mexican culturally (A lot of Mexicans are already indigenous to begin with). Anyway, I still would feel strange claiming I'm Native American. Because culturally I am not at all. It always feels like white people are the most comfortable saying they have that one Cherokee ancestor, and that means they're Native American and so yeah...this one just feels strange to me haha.
But at the same time, I think it’s acceptable to, if you decide, try learning about your Navajo and Hopi culture and reconnect with it. The reason you lost it is due to colonialism, if you want to put in the work and connect with your community you should!
Of course that’s just my opinion, as someone who grew up with my Shawnee/Choctaw culture. Everyone will have different thoughts on it.
i agree with sarah dale, if it's something you're interested in learning and connecting with, then it could be a really enriching experience!
as another fellow mexican, i totally understand what you mean about seeing white people fight for an ounce of culture in a place like america that has so many different people with diverse cultural backgrounds. it’s funny how the white man tried so hard to erase who we are but now seek any ounce of culture, the same one they tried to destroy. anyways i also agree with the other commenters, i believe leaning into your native american and indigenous ties would only lead to amazing personal internal findings 🫶🏼
It’s honestly all about intention. If your intention for connecting is to capitalized off it for fame, money, taking opportunities, etc. that’s an issue. If your intention is genuine connection, then feel free to explore that piece of you!
The biggest issue with pretendians is that they take opportunities and resources for actual natives.
I won't comment on your famiky history because that's yours. You're mistaken about the history of Mexico, though. Mexico claimed those areas but it was never able to govern them or exercise sovereignty over them, not least because the native nations stopped them cold.
I really appreciate what you said at the end about "it's lowkey worse if she's indigenous." As a mixed person (Black and Asian american) i think so often people forget that whiteness/ambiguity is weaponized by lots of white biracials at the expense of Black and/or indigenous peoples (globally, not just in america.)
Thank you so much for covering this with respect to how complex an issue it is. As an indigenous person who is an enrolled tribal member but was raised far away from the reservation and therefore less connected to my tribal culture, I find myself with frustrated and conflicting thoughts around these issues. As an adult, I have reconnected with my culture a great deal and am learning our language which was very nearly lost. While I am so grateful for this reconnection, I am not more Peewaalia now than I was before I took those steps. I will not perform my culture in a way that is somehow recognizable by non-natives in order to be seen as indigenous. I am Peewaalia because I am Peewaalia. I know and my people know.
It’s a strange feeling, I’m just going thru the enrollment process at 34 having only just very recently moved closer to the tribe (a 4 hour drive instead of 8 hour plane ride), and I often can’t really figure out how to feel about it and sometimes feel ashamed for even applying because I haven’t had the opportunity to connect with the tribe until recently (or even apply since I only can now because they recently lowered their blood quantum). The most I knew before was just that my mom was a tribal member and who our ancestors were. I don’t really fully know how to go about reconnecting or how to navigate it emotionally.
thank you! it is quite complex even to an outsider looking into this, so i cant imagine what its like for people who are actually dealing with this!
I really appreciate how balanced and nuanced your discussion is here. I know enough to know tribal enrollment is such a complicated and varied reality that can be quite different from the way racial identity is usually talked about.
im def not an expert, but learned a lot from diving into this and reading other perspectives!!
@@withcindydo you have any resources/websites you used that you could recommend for others who want to learn more about it? I’m trying to understand more about it but I’m not entirely sure where to start.
@@sunnfIower i looked more into Cherokee since that was discussed re: colby's identity, and found the Digadatseli’i group to be a helpful resource. they're a group of Cherokee scholars who had posted the statement of sovereignty. if you look up their website, they have books listed. there's also an NPR episode you can listen to called "Who belongs in the Cherokee Nation?" it might help to look up different tribes beyond Cherokee as well to see what enrollment is like for others!
@@sunnfIower for Cherokee identity specifically, Circe Sturm's Becoming Indian: The Struggle over Cherokee Identity in the 21st Century is a good academic overview of the problem. Also Pretendians podcast with co-hosts Robert Jago and Angel Ellis.
As an actual Native it’s pretty simple actually; who are your relatives? Even if someone doesn’t meet BQ they should still be able to name their Native fam. That’s standard operating procedure when we introduce ourselves. It’s part of the community based culture most of us share; how might we be connected even if we’re meeting for the first time? Many tribes also have clan systems that go back millennia. There’s been sooooo many times I’ve met someone and they knew one of my aunties/uncles/whoever. If someone is claiming distant lineage and hasn’t done the bare minimum of connecting with their relatives it’s VERY sus.
This video is quite timely given that it's Native American Heritage Month here in the US.
sadly yes
@@withcindy There's a video that went up on PBS Origins today called "What Does it Mean to be a Federally Recognized Tribe?" and it explains quite a bit about the legal recognition process. It's unbelievably messy.
I feel like at this point we need one of those osha "# days since last accident" signs but for race-faking controveries.
This whole topic is very interesting to me. My biological grandfather was the child of a woman who was Chickasaw and Cherokee. My mother was adopted out due to circumstances and when she rediscovered my grandfather (and his native status), decided that that meant she and me and my older sister are all native, too.
I don’t identify, simply because I was 12 by the time she learned and hadn’t grown up in the culture. I don’t feel that I am capable of claiming that as my identity. This whole topic of ‘can you claim an identity’ is very strange, when it seems to me that if you aren’t in the culture, you can’t claim it.
Great video! Your perspective and thoughts are genuinely very interesting to listen to, as always!
I think adoption makes identity way more complicated especially with the long history of native kids being taken away from their family. My gf was adopted and always thought she was just black until she took a test and found out she has more native dna than african.
I think there can be a more nuanced way to view it than either claim/not claim. theres a grey area of folks who are trying to reconnect to their heritage and struggle with feeling like they dont belong
(not trying to argue or anything, i agree that if ur going to claim an identity u should be trying to connect to the culture)
@@selenagomez2504 Yeah, I don't want to make anyone identify as someone they don't wanna be or force them to be a particular culture, but with the history Native Americans have, that kind of thinking needs to be discussed more :0
I'm not attacking the op either, just wanted to point that out :0
@@selenagomez2504 there's no such thing as 'native dna'. thats race science. DNA testing may present genetic markers as geographically related (and thus likely to groups historically in those areas) but it cannot determine markers for ethnicity and race because those are social constructs. white supremacy predicates on the idea that race is innate, in our blood, genetics being its latest tool to manipulate. claiming heritage based off of genetic testing is another incredibly problematic phenomenon that indigenous activists are trying to fight.
(geography is not the only factor to consider but gene testing is a complex subject not without bias and not my expertise, I recommend Kim TallBear's book titled 'Native American DNA' about this subject)
as soon as i saw TAAF was involved, i let out the biggest sigh. those “pretendian hunters” are very interesting to me. jaqueline, lianna, and jeremy are the most rancid human beings that have been harassing non-card carrying natives.
Didn't one of them want to wear blackface to intimidate black football players who played for teams with stereotypical Native American mascots? I think it was the person named Jaqueline but I'm not sure
@@thesealky6445welp, whole new rabbit hole to go down at 4am..
Kim TallBear said on a podcast once that if someone claims to be Native, they should be able to answer her when she asks, "Do you know so-and-so?" As in, a prominent member of the tribe they're claiming. Wilkens didn't appear to be active in her community. It's telling that no enrolled Cherokee citizen has come out to speak on her behalf. (At least, not that I've seen.) Regardless, Cherokee Nation has specific criteria and it looks like Wilkens didn't meet that. At that point, the best thing to do is follow the laws of the nation you claim to be a part of, i.e. what's best for your people.
ooh thats interesting that a tribe can be so small and close-knit that you should be expected to know a prominent member, do u think that is the case universally?
@@withcindy I'm not Native American, so I can't speak on that, but I found the exact timestamp on the Warrior Life Podcast I was referencing. It's at 19:59 : ua-cam.com/video/SntbS06i_5E/v-deo.html
(Sorry, the link was wrong when I posted it originally. Edited with the correct link.)
We should also. Remember. That there's a significant number of "Urban Indians", who are enrolled and know they're roots/ancestry.
But do not and have never, lived in or around a Reservation. Or know any of their prominent Community Members. Due to Diaspora
Kim Tallbear, is also someone I find. Is very judgemental of Urban ndns in a very weird way.
And that's coming from someone who grew up on the Rez 90% of the time (me)
@withcindy yes. But also no.
What's being left out of TAAFs bs-ery. Is that they don't typically acknowledge people who don't live or around Indigenous Communitoes (but who are, enrolled and everything)
Because as of the current time. About 75% of Indigenous People, live off their Reservations. They don't have specifically strong ties to their Rez, and so their children don't know much of anything.
I was watching this case in another bookchannel a few days ago and they said "wait until Cindy make a vídeo about it" 😂 well, here we are
haha who was it?!
It was Book Lover Laura. Someone wrote "withcindy needs to see this" and she hearted the comment. My bad 😂.
It’s so interesting that it’s like so hard to get published and then people like this get multiple book deals - like the publisher does no vetting? No background checks? Just anything?
@@teeayteeayetcactually, they don't 😅 when the last one occurred, i think it was the Cait Corrain situation, she had some shady business with a bookshop or something like that, and i heard someone from the area say that a publisher doesn't even need the author identity to publish a book, it's not required by law. It allow things like ghost writers and pen names. So, yeah. When there's money involved, anyone can publish anything.
@@eduardoribeiro8378 wow that’s just exhausting geez
The US' one drop rule doing its mess again. As a latina from and in LATAM, this is utterly ridiculous. If a white person with a great great great parent or whatever claimed to be from a native tribe, I honestly can only imagine the laughter. It would be one thing for her to be phenotypically white and her mom or dad be Cherokee, even if she did grow up outside of the culture for any reason, because that can be REALLY confusing, but to be far removed from the culture AND the cherokee relative be their great great whatever is ridiculous.
It's such a strange situation, damn. I wonder if she actually meant to fake it, or simply believed her family. We'll see if anything more will come out of this.
About geneology being not being an exact science: I tried to find records from my family online. I soon realised that either two sisters had almost the exact same name with just a vowel changed, or one woman was made into two, with the former being more plausible, because they later married brothers? And it's even more missleading, because another woman had her name spelled differently in a few places... At this point I had to give up and look for other solutions.
my guess is that she didnt mean to fake it but leaned hardcore into it with her marketing, stories, etc. without checking the cherokee's statement of sovereignty
@@withcindy It feels like "Ok, family tells me i'm Indigenous, cool, that's who i am, let me just make that my personality -> oh no wait i'm not...? Screw it, sunk cost fallacy and all that."
In my experience it's pretty common for one person to be made into two on ancestry websites! A bunch of clerical errors were made back then on papers without being noticed, or because the uploader of said documents makes an error. Not saying it's the case for your situation tho! But I ran into my great great grandfather being made into at least 3 people after coming to the US from Albania because his name would be slightly misspelled, he didn't know his exact birth year, and once even a document mistakenly listed him as being from Alabama instead of Albania, lol. (We're sure it's him in my case though because of other matching information haha) it's crazy
@@kyttenthis! Deff sensing a too far to turn back vibe
Seems like it would be fine to accept your family story if you're not making lots of money off your identity. Then it would be a good idea to confirm it's OK.
Being Native is a complicated nuanced business that the government and outsiders seem to want to define for us constantly. And especially problematic with colorism that’s rife within the communities themselves thanks to standards the government imposed as a means to “access” and regulate the growth of tribes. It’s difficult enough being a tribal member in today’s world when as you stated, we’re not a static inbred people, and everyone and their dog wants to tell you how you’re supposed to look or speak based off some bigoted conceptual idea of plains Indians from the 1800s that they’ve got as a reference in their head when you’re not even plains Indian to begin with.
But faking one’s ancestry is crazy. No one should be ashamed of their ancestry, but to fabricate one, that’s mind boggling. Look how long Dolezal ran on her identity or Warren, and I could list off a bucket full of weirdos who have done so. Profit makes people do crazy things.
I feel inclined to also use this opportunity to plug my former professor/mentor Erika Wurth. She's Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee and easily one of my favorite professors when I was in university.
ooh ive been curious about her books!
@withcindy Would absolutely recommend any of them! They're raw as hell and provide a lot of perspective on growing up with Native ancestry in the modern US, and all the implications that go with it.
Edit: Crazy Horse's Girlfriend is a fantastic place to start!
Unfortunately, Erika Wurth’s native ancestry is also disputed. She doesn’t say specifically which bands, such as White Mountain or Lipan, just says she’s Apache, which doesn’t mean anything and makes the claimed identity suspect. Same goes for her Cherokee and Chickasaw claims.
That's so funny because there are literally articles with same allegations against Wurth.
@@mimirants7935 She's made a statement about it that's on her website. It kind of speaks to how some groups try to police what indigeneity is and use those gray areas as their main argument-even though in Erika's case she's participated in her mother's culture all her life, has an indigenous partner, and has advocated for issues like safety for indigenous women and children and exposing predators in her community for years. Funny how these allegations can just as easily be weaponized by people who may have issues with that type of advocacy.
As someone who does a lot of amateur genealogical research, I'm not really a fan of this organizations approach to 'verifying' her race. The farther you go back, the harder it is to be sure that people are honest about who they are and some facts will always fall to the wayside. For instance, a woman who lists being a divorcee with a child on her marriage Certificate, but the family was told the child was born out of wedlock. What is true? How much is a lie? Her maiden name, parents, or just marital status? Especially in concern to race and ethnicity, there are so many reasons this may not be of public record or harder to find. Then there is the fact that there are always family secrets and they can result in misinformation being spread by well intentioned persons. I understand why this was done, out of a desire it curtail culture vultures for lack of a better phrase, but it is also an invasion of privacy.
I don't see it as an invasion of privacy given that authorities of Cherokee heritage and tribes has stated (in 13:39) that anyone who claims Cherokee heritage is essentially iniating a PUBLIC discussion on the validity and backing of their ancestry. Hence if people gather together to make formal investigation on her PUBLICLY STATED identity, it is completely valid. If she didn't know this prior, it's her literally fault for not being more aware and involved in the community and culture.
Secondly, if it is something that she is financially benefitting off from, it deserves to be investigated regardless of any 'invasion of privacy'. I don't see genealogy reports as an invasion of privacy because you either have a valid connection to a community and culture, or a valid heritage/ancestral connection, or both. The former is usually more important than the latter.
I consider myself a white American, but I do have a lot of ties to the Native community around me. I’m a descendant in the tribe, enough native to be apart of the tribe through blood as my mom is officially recognized but not enough to get so myself.
I grew up very close to the reservation and throughout my schooling I got the same treatment/tribe offered assistance as the other more closely related kids. I have distant family who work for the tribe and play a more active role in the community and I’ve been to a ton of events myself.
It’s hard to explain but I wouldn’t say I’m Native American unless we’re getting into specifics. I don’t think it’s right to claim I am given how much further removed I am compared to the other kids I grew up with, but I’m very thankful for all they’ve taught me and done for me so I’d proudly say I’m a descendent.
These are just my experiences and feelings and I don’t know if I’m making any sense, but I’d just thought I’d put it out there.
What a wild world to live in where some official decree decides whether or not you belong to the same culture as your own mother 😢
@@jasminv8653Just what I was thinking. In any where else, that would be very very strange.
@@jasminv8653 Given that the indigenous population and tribes of the US were nearly wiped out and are still heavily marginalized and oppressed, it is valid. If they are not actively part of the tribe, although it is okay to say you are a descendant and sometimes participate, is is not okay to use and make that part of your identity public in order to market yourself and then profit off from when you aren't considered a representative by the actual people of the community.
Girl, I remember when you just did banger book reviews. Now you do banger book reviews AND give us that piping hot tea.
Btw, just want to tell you that you are the main reason why I go to the library on a frequent basis nowadays. I've been watching your stuff since I was 15-16 (I'm in my twenties now) and I had never really... been to a library at that point. You got me there. So thanks.
That makes me so happy, it's crazy how books can reach people in so many ways!!
My great, great grandfather on my mother's side was Choctaw. Although he was allowed to be buried in the same graveyard as his wife (a Swiss immigrant), he remains buried in an unmarked grave. I think about it sometimes, and it makes me sad. I'm trying to familiarize myself with the language, it feels nice ❤
Needed this yt video during these dark times in the US
and with daylight savings it'll only get darker
@@withcindy 😭😭
Absolutely, being indigenous is not about your ancestry but it’s about your culture and participation. I know I have quite a bit of indigenous ancestry since I am a mixed Puerto Rican person (mixed being the combination of white settler, indigenous Puerto Rican, and black people brought to the islands as slaves). But that does NOT make me indigenous. I grew up in the Puerto Rican culture and it’s mixed history but I have not participated in any specifically indigenous Puerto Rican practices. It is a closed practice as well. The frustrating part is the fact that despite this she used her possible indigenous heritage all the time like leverage. I don’t really care if she truly believes she has indigenous ancestry, the Cherokee nation’s statement is clear and final. And if you truly wanted to reconnect with a culture you believe was lost to your family, then you need to respect the voices of those who ARE in the nation. Point blank
very well said!
Agreed, as someone who comes from a similar background (I’m half Puerto Rican and my abuelo’s mother was Taino) the most that I would feel comfortable saying or claiming is that I have Indigenous Taino ancestry, not that I myself am Indigenous. (I identify as being Hispanic since that’s the culture I’ve grown up with and have known.) And that’s not even going into the whole history of how the tribe itself was wiped out by the Spanish, both culturally and literally, so there unfortunately doesn’t seem to be much cultural or tribal practices or community to join.
@ absolutely! I do know of several practicing Taino communities in Puerto Rico that, while some are open to reconnecting people, they are closed practices. So for me claiming any thing but having ancestry feels like I am not respecting the very real culture and wishes of those who are still embedded in the culture. I’m not sure about yourself but I would personally be open to reconnecting at some point, but not without extensive research and permission from practicing groups. Which is why this whole situation is cut and dry to me :)
@@incuriousgaze Oh that’s interesting! I didn’t know there was actually practicing communities, I haven’t found much mention of them online. And hard agree with you on the point of only claiming ancestry, especially since we haven’t grown up or practiced the culture. But I’m glad to know that there communities who are keeping the cultural and tribal practices alive, especially after so much has been lost. That’s very heartwarming to know. ☺️☺️☺️
as a fellow puerto rican person, i couldn't have said it better myself
Like many people with family in the South and also the Pacific Northwest, I heard my entire life that I have some Native American heritage. However, having not been raised with any actual connection to that culture, it would never have occurred to me to promote myself as Native American in any way, or to write books centering that culture when I have no real experience with it. I'm all for authors doing the work (research, consultants, etc.) and I do believe authors can write from POV that are not their own, but only IF they've done that work. In any case, if it's an honest mistake (vs a calculated tactic to profit)... I'm inclined to extend some grace and allow the author a chance to correct herself. It's mostly about what the author does going forward. (However, if it's true that she's just using it as a marketing tactic, ⛔🚫)
I'm inclined to think it was a mistake on her part because of how much she embraced this as an identity fully with her books and constantly tweeting about it, but I also understand native people's frustrations over countless times that white ppl didn't do their due diligence
Idk what Wilkens is talking about when she says you can’t apply for enrollment with a family tree as like, a blanket statement. A family tree is literally all my tribal enrollment application *was* beyond my basic info. And then I had to get a DNA test to verify that I was my mother’s daughter (she is a tribal member).
I’m applying late in life at 34 due to them lowering the blood quantum, and I’ve only been to the reservation twice because my mom didn’t live there & moved all the way across the country as a teenager; so I was born like 3,000 miles away from Suquamish. But I recently moved to the PNW (sadly for now I’m still like 4 hours away by car but that’s way better than the 8 hours by plane that it used to be) and have been trying to work up the hudspa to make connections with them (some of my relatives live there & are quite involved with the tribe, so I’m fortunate to have some loved ones there).
It’s an extremely confusing and awkward feeling to be trying to connect with this part of my heritage so late in life (as a 34 year old who is white af), and it’s hard not to feel unworthy of membership. The blood quantum requirements meant that I couldn’t be a member for most of my life, and I wasn’t even close with my mom for a good chunk of my life, so it really wasn’t something that I had any way of connecting to from across the country before now. But yeah, it’s a weird place to be in.
I was always familiar with the issues of people incorrectly claiming they had a native princess in their lineage and everyone apparently being some part Cherokee, but I didn’t realize just how prolific it was until I was researching the application process myself. I have sympathy for the experience of connecting with this stuff later in life, and having not been able to apply for enrollment for a long time but I truly CANNOT FREAKIN’ IMAGINE telling people I’m Suquamish or putting it in an online bio or any of that without being enrolled or being involved enough with the community & doings of the tribe that it was a present and significant part of my world. But that’s just me.
thank you for sharing your experience!! that def adds more clarity on what the process is like
OMG- NOT AGAIN AHHHHHH 😭😭😭
oh boy here we go again
ISNT THIS LIKE THE 5TH TIME THIS YEAR?!!
Hello, I've got a lot to say because I literally took a native people of North America class last semester at college LMAOOOOO
First things first, blood quantum is such an annoying and antiquated idea. For those who don't know, it basically dictates that the people who count as indigenous need to have a certain percentage of indigenous blood in them (I believe it was 25%? If I'm wrong I'm sorry it's been months). Blood quantum is most commonly used in Canada to identify people as being part of a certain band. Also, the word band is used in Canada the same way that a tribe would be referred to in the US. Bands in Canada and tribes in the US need to be federally recognized.
Blood quantum is an actual booty cheeks way of identifying people who belong to a band or tribe because it pushes out people who have more mixed blood. Genetics get diluted the more and more people of different ethnicities have kids, and the blood quantum boxes out all of these people that could have the right to this culture was the government not sick and twisted.
Tl;dr - blood quantum sucks and shouldn't be used to identify people as indigenous anymore, live laugh love and make sure you tell every indigenous person you meet that they're braver than any US marine
Different tribes have different rules on blood quantum minimums. Cherokee Nation does not have a blood quantum requirement. Yes, some "benefits" are only available for citizens of federally-recognized tribes with a minimum of 1/4 blood quantum, but many tribes have lower or no blood quantum requirements.
If you are not Native your feelings do not matter. That makes you a settler-colonizer to think your opinion after one semester of studies matters more than actual Native people.
White authors read yellow face by RF and decided it was a instruction manual and not a cautionary tale
It is especially crazy to me to claim Choctaw heritage because they are keeping a tight record of that already. My ex bf was 6'4" blonde blue eyed and 1/256 Choctaw, and he had an identification card and they would send him a Christmas ornament every year. Literally they let you still be considered Choctaw if you are 0.4%, and we have people out here who still gotta lie about it??
Going back all the way to the 1800s to find one ancestor that is allegedly indigenous to then plaster that all over your books and social media is just....weird. Even if that is the right ancestor, its like okay and? Lots of people in America can do that, and lots of people dont make it their whole identity because it makes no goddamn sense to. You have absolutely no connection to the culture, none of your immediate family are recognized members because yall just found out you had one ancestor from more than a century ago. One of my great grandfathers was Cherokee and I actually have pictures of him but my other three great grandparents are black and werent raised in the culture (or by him because i believe he and my great grand mother separated and went no contact) so I identify as black. Like wtf is happening right now lmao
with the caveat that this is the first I'm hearing of this controversy, and I don't know any details about this author's "bullying" other than what's shared here... I feel weird about the conversation turning from rightfully criticizing the author for maybe faking her race to "I didn't like something they said once, or something I heard about them saying, no I can't provide details because ~*privacy*~". it starts to feel less like justifiably calling someone out and more like a personal vendetta against someone you happen to dislike. people can say rude things or come across as unsupportive in a discord group without deserving to be publicly pilloried for it. again, I really don't know the details of what this author said specifically, but these screenshots of people saying things like "she's the worst, just trust me!" rubs me the wrong way.
yeah i totally get what u mean - i think it is common for ppl to start dogpiling when someone is under fire for something. i think what gives me pause about her "bullying" is that other native american writers are echoing this, whereas i think it'd be different/petty writer beef if it were only non-natives. i think her behavior towards other indigenous writers adds another layer to this
@@withcindy very true, and that's an important distinction! I do think there is a difference between calling someone out for genuinely being a bully and taking opportunities away from other native american writers, vs. not having close friends on discord or reacting enthusiastically enough when someone gets a book deal lol (and maybe this is just me being oversensitive about tone being misinterpreted on the internet!)
Spot on. That’s cancel culture in action and it’s vile behaviour.
I saw this title and vocally said “another one?”
I do think the main point is that she’s been a terrible person to other writers, but I do think it matters whether or not she’s indigenous here.
Having a book deal (a spot in media that few Natives ever get to occupy) where you 1) have an only recently discovered link you *think* you have that is generations and generations back *if* it exists 2) you ignore the rules of the nation you claim to be a part of when all they ask is that you know for sure before claiming them as a public figure because they’ve been through enough 3) you have no cultural ties to that nation and did not grow up or even spend parts of your adult life in that culture (this feels like the most important part to me) 4) with all those combined, then with race being a social construct so the privileges and disadvantages connected to it in society are heavily based on what you look like-she is white. And to have a white person with a recently discovered link they *think* they have to Natives generations ago with no registration or specific upbringing or relation in the nation in her actual day to day even after finding the supposed link except when it comes to making money. She is pushing a Native out of the way (I’d argue that even if that great, great, great whatever turns out to be Native. What does that very distant and recently discovered relation matter if you did not actually grow up in the culture especially when nations don’t like using blood or bloodlines to determine if you’re Native anyway?). A Native who is registered and/or grew up in their nation/aspects of their nation in their life has likely heard ‘we have our Native book for the season’ at some point. She contributed to that. She is a colonizer.
(Also, I’m biracial so I understand where white-passing and ambiguous POC are coming from when they feel a little ‘where do I go?’ from either side (especially being shunned from the white side if they are mixed with white which shuns the hardest), but I’m not going to sit here and pretend it’s harder than what monoracial POC have to deal with. I don’t think a white-passing POC situation is happening here, but I’m glad that one person retracted because it doesn’t feel like the situation is appropriate to bring that up).
Amazing video as always, Cindy!
oh yes i totally agree!! bad wording on my part, i more so meant that her being a mean person should put her at fault among the writing community regardless of her race. however, if she is truly faking her indigenous identity, then that adds another layer of harm to that community
(im indigenous btw) yeahhhh its not only ancestry that makes you native, its about community because its the one thing we truly have. wilkens thinking being indigenous is just a title she can taken screams of privilege that i am very exhausted of seeing
It's interesting learning about this stuff because usually with race it's based on ancestry, but it's totally understandable why it's based on community for native Americans because so much of your history and people have been lost
@@withcindyto be honest with you, its mostly "natives" with more white blood that say its not all about ancestry. No one would dare tell an actual native who LOOKS native that they arent native if they have no ties to a community. So many tribes in usa allow mostly white people into their tribes if they are even 1/8th-- which is wild to me being first nations in canada where it is very more raced based like any other race. Culture is obviously important but in canada even 1/4 native isnt enough to be considered native bc youd be mostly white then if that makes sense
@greymoore86 why are you so obsessed with blood quantum and acting like Canada is right for that? So many Indigenous people have been fucked over by that. Like people who want their future kids in a tribe and decide to marry a random person from their tribe just so their kids can get in. Its messed up. White people made that stuff up about blood and race
@@greymoore86blood quantum sucks and was made by white people. People will literally marry and have kids with a random person from their same tribe just so their kids will be in the same tribe. That's how much it sucks. Also, most American tribes have it at just 1/4 not 1/8.
@@greymoore86 and meanwhile in australia and aoteroa, the vicious attempt to "breed out" aboriginal and maōri people has led in part to the saying, "no matter how much milk you put in tea, it's still tea." because this way the genocide would be fought against. it really depends on each place, each people, and their responses/reactions to the brutality of colonization. (I'm mexican-american of varying generation, my grandmother's father was a light-skinned man who lied about his nahua ancestry to pass for white and abused his native wife. it has created a really awful shredded wreck of disconnection and trauma in my family as a result.)
The thing is, I've heard of several indigenous tribes accepting non-indigenous people into their community and been perfectly fine with them claiming the culture, because it's about kin and mutual support, not blood quantum. This author doesn't make any mention of being part of these communities so why did they think they'd get away with going "oh a distant relative is indigenous and my whole family believes it so it's fine" like how tf are you going to intimately understand native issues because of some guy you never met?
That organisation doing a genealogy deep dive feels inappropriate and intrusive, but also a massive waste of time because the real question all along was "are you claiming an ancestor for clout or are you genuinely in the community doing the work?". Which sounds like a significant chunk of what Cherokee enrolment requires tbf.
The singer Neil Young doesn’t have a drop of Native blood, but he received a sacred buffalo blanket from a Lakota elder for his work in stopping the Dakota Access Pipeline. Young knows full well he isn’t Lakota, the elders know, but he is honored because he has used his platform to help the Lakota tribe, and they care about that more than who his great grandpa was.
In personal experience this is sorta true. My cousins are Irish-Navajo [Dine']. My hometown is not far from reservations and even the schools have specific courses dedicated to mainly the Navajo Nations. Because of my cousins [and uncle] all of us who have been very close to the community and is treated as our own. My oldest cousin on that side has been trying to learn the language, and taught it to me before I moved for work. We were often invited to Pow Wows and invited to listen to their stories; maybe not all of them but its more than just "you need to have a certain amount of blood to be here." Even more, the town and Navajo community loves to try to invite majority of those in town regardless of background to come join-- to come listen and learn and experience. I grew up with those kids as friends, as then being my caretakers when my family was busy just as my grandparents watched them when they needed trusted adults to watch us. While not Native by blood and not claiming to be, my childhood home is filled with items given to us by the community, the piece of all the cultures that made us up. Blood is not what ties us to people, to communities and identities only-- I don't need distant relatives, and while its through my cousins that I had a gate connection there is more that comes to being part of something. I don't claim to be Native, Indigenous, Dine', Navajo, or whatever term needed like my cousins but nothing can take away that I am a piece of that community back home through everything they have offered me and I have been to them.
The idea that its genetic, that its blood and who you were born from makes up purely someone's connect in my eyes is only a way to remove people of cultures from who they are-- I get Indigenous groups feeling like they have to because of how people continue to try to lie and steal their culture for profit but its sad that both sides I guess suffer from this. Annoying how blood percent and trying desperately to claim to unique cultural identities without any of the connection forces people into believing and feeling that genealogy is the only option to qualify people to any background.
I appreciate your including quotes from Rebecca Nagle, especially regarding documentation. Nagle spoke about how meticulous Cherokee records are, but Cherokees are not unique in how well their past is documented. That documentation was and is crucial to government control of indigenous people (unfortunately not restricted to the U.S.), and "Oops! I can't prove I'm telling the truth about being indigenous because records are bad!" is a common excuse among Pretendians.
A much more high profile case that continues to push steam out of my ears is that of the musician Buffy Sainte-Marie, who knowingly maintained the lie that she's indigenous for more than 60 years and was only outed in late 2023. She, like Wilkens, also tried to claim she can't prove her story because "bad records." The Fifth Estate episode that revealed this info about her included commentary from a First Nations scholar who cleared up this misconception as Nagle did in one of the video quotes here. Pretendians can only continue to dodge accountability with this excuse if the rest of us don't learn the truth: There would be records supporting Wilkens' claims if her claims were accurate.
Second, regardless of how respected the organization that outed Wilkens is, I think it's helpful to understand that there are multiple activists who dedicate their efforts to exposing Pretendians, and these people are not going after people who just say things like, "My family has always told me we're part Cherokee." Indigenous communities aren't immune from gatekeeping, which is a painful thing for many sincere people. There's more to being indigenous than blood and ethnicity, but it is possible to be full-blooded indigenous but not a high enough percentage of any one tribal nation to be eligible for membership. Anti-pretendian activists are more focused on people who claim to represent indigenous people or who pursue opportunities meant for them. I think you're right to speculate that Wilkens' latest is a bestseller because it was released in November--that bestselling spot could have gone to someone who's actually indigenous! That's the point of outing people like Buffy Sainte-Marie and Sacheen Littlefeather. It's because they capitalize on opportunities meant to mitigate the marginalization of First Nations people without having experienced any of that marginalization themselves.
And finally, disappointing incidents like this can always be opportunities to seek out better representatives of the culture Wilkens was falsely laying claim to. You want a great Coast Salish writer? Try Sasha LaPointe! You don't like her? I promise you there are others. Sketchy people laying claim to a marginalization they don't have might have an easier time being heard over indigenous writers, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of indigenous authors to check out.
This whole situation is quite strange to me, branding yourself as Cherokee because of a great grandfather is a choice, and I still think it would be okay to write stories with Native American main characters and experiences even if you had no tribal blood at all. Also having a whole organization go through your family history is crazy
yea im team no one here
I struggle with the idea that native American people need to be connected to their tribe or their family to claim their heritage. Unfortunately, as a result of colonization native communities are disproportionately affected with alcohol and other forms of substance abuse, and their children have ended up in the system. I went through foster care with several childhood friends whose families we're ripped apart by this and no one in their family stepped up for them. (Very awar of ICWA but its interpretation especially in conservative southern states has been shady at best and if theres no family willing to advocate for the rights of these children they get swept into the system with the rest of us) Several of them are writers now and they are indigenous, but they don't engage with their families and their tribes for the same reason alot of us with fucked up abusive families don't. (This does not apply universally to native writers), but I would be heartbroken to see my friends' trauma investigated and published like this because people are trying to prove or disprove their identity. I'm probably not wording this well I think whether she's native or not this whole situation is a mess but I don't personally love the idea of marginally authors having to prove their marginalization in order to be accepted and ultimately stories like this will just create more barriers for marginalized people in publishing.
I don't know how well I explained this publishing is a mess that we can agree on.
You explained it well and I agree with you; not everyone gets to have community and so it's hard to feel like you're not included as a result 😕
race in the US is so weird, 5 generations ago one of my greatparents came from another Spain... i'm definitely NOT spanish
I'm glad that the discussion around appropriation and "pretendians" is becoming more focused on whether an indigenous community claims a person. In Canada documentation can be misleading because the way "Indian Status" is administered cuts out a lot of people who have active involvement and kinship in Indigenous nations, and there's been examples of genealogical researchers making mistakes and wrongly accusing people of lying. So I'm glad we're reaching a more accurate and potentially respectful point in the discussion - the only opinion about who's part of a tribe that matters is that of the tribe
this reminds me of an American dude from Reddit who recently found out he had some Scottish ancestry 300+ years back (maybe some reputable lineage ig?) and decided to travel to his "home" country to learn about his culture. He ended up being a complete idiot when he said he was "a true Scottish gentleman" to a bunch of native Scotts. When the natives validly criticized him, he got into a brawl with them and ended up being kicked to the curb, quite literally.
Scots*, I doubt all of them were named Scott
@@jasminv8653 sorry, i was mistaken (not my native language)
Aye, Scots will do that...
need a playlist for this never ending series i just can't keep up
racefaking playlist is cracking me up rn plzzz
I love your commentary series detailing the issues within the book community bc it gives people a direct reference to point back to whenever ppl try dismissing these types of issues, because they keep happening! Anyway, thank you, Cindy! You’re doing valuable work.
I'm glad it's helpful!
20:40 calling a Native American character Skinner is like J.K.Rowling calling an asian character Cho Chang 😭
God im always so excited when cindy discusses book drama since i’m sooo out of the loop
I'm here to catch you up!
I was so stoned I needed to pause and just reread the title and thumbnail for SO LONG before just asking "what?"
i also watched this stoned
Why are there so many writers and academics faking their race?! 😭
they think it gives them more leverage i guess
The creator of this video said that white is a badge of shame. Put it together sis
to give cindy content, duh
@@espeonforever8 its a badge of shame because white creators keep pulling this goof 🙄
Because it's easy to do. Academia and publishing are extremely racist. As such, they favor whites and white adjacent people over everyone else. Theft is common. Being around and having to hear from anyone else enrages them. Literally, they usually only promote/hire Black and brown people who hate other Black and brown people
Early.
This is not a new trend of people playing Indian.
Buffy Saint Marie is the most prominent “pretendian.” If anybody would like to look more into this phenomenon I’d start there since there is a documentary.
‘Grey Owl’ is coined as the first documented pretend-Indian.
If someone truly has native ancestry it can be found. Contrary to popular belief, native peoples are very well documented. With research the truth can be found.
Cases like these are triggering to many and should be spoken about with care but with truth.
Yes! We are a very documented people.
I've not got any Native American blood (I'm British) but my grandparents are Romani. Even though my link is super close (my grandad and mum still get racist abuse because of their "ethnic" features and skin tone), and I tick the "Gypsy/Traveller" box on the census form I still wouldn't feel comfortable writing a book with a Roma mc because I'm not immersed in the culture enough. There's parts of my identity that I am familiar with but I've never travelled like my grandad did and I've forgotten a lot of the words I knew as a kid. I'd also feel uncomfortable writing about Irish culture even though my father is Irish because I've never even been to the country. I claim both my Romani and Irish heritage as an ethnic identity but not as a cultural one because I know it's not my place to speak with authority about practices and culture that haven't been shared with me. I'm all for reconnecting with your heritage (I plan a trip to Ireland in the future and to relearn some Romani) but I think that's more of a private and personal thing, and using your heritage to sell books is a bit iffy to me, especially when so many native authors go unpublished.
I mean, you can still write about those cultures. With heavy research and proper respect it doesn't really matter if you 'belong' to a certain demographic or not. You're in a prime position to do so, as you can literally interview your closest relatives about it. In fact, featuring their culture would likely honor them, not offend.
@@fieryfox4493I'd love to do more research but I've found it pretty difficult as not only are our communities already small, isolated and weary of gadjes (for good reason) but a lot of the culture has been erased through the government trying to settle people, general urbanisation and anti-roma sentiment. Honestly the biggest barrier to learning about these cultures is just colonisation. My dad, a full blooded Dublin man, doesn't even have a strong connection to his heritage and he's born and bred Irish. A lot of the history and practices and language have just disappeared as England tried to control the population, or as Christianity tried to stamp out the country's myths and lore. And with both cultures there's an issue of nothing being documented well, hell Romany doesn't even have a consistent spelling or pronunciation of a lot of words. The best part of the culture my dad has to offer is the old folk songs he sings, like "The Wearing of the Green", whereas on my romani side there isn't much handed down to me as the general sentiment of our family was "if no one knows, no one will hurt you." Although I knew some Romany I stopped using the words in public as the kids at school used to hit me because they thought I was saying bad things about them. I don't generally tell people irl now either because for some reason it's totally fine to call every person of a certain ethnicity thieves and abusers but only if they're romani...
I am half Ukrainian Jewish and I only really experienced that culture for two weeks a year until I was 15. I thought I was Russian for nearly two decades because they left during the time Ukraine was still the USSR. I understand this immensely.
My dads whole family are a mixture of Jewish Ukrainian, Moldovan, Georgian, Belarusian etc but I only know the Ukrainian but even I feel uncomfortable claiming it like you do.
I grew up with some practices but not much. What I do now is I say I am half Russian (I now say Ukrainian since I now understand the difference now. But I used to say Russian because that's what my family always said) because my dad was born in Odessa. My mum is Australian (but she's a mix from early settlers). However I am white and always say white in documents.
I am starting to find out that my great grandfather was likely middle eastern and further than Georgia into Azberjian but only say that as a fun tidbit if I am talking about genealogy and ancestry with someone.
I personally feel like if you grew up with the culture but forgot or grew away from it. You can still mention it because that was a part of you. But I really and truly understand the difficulty of whether to claim who you are when you don't feel part of that culture
Edit* I also want to add that my family also kept a lot of things hidden and refused to talk about things for the same reason that what I don't know won't hurt me. I was divorced from the language, culture, practices, and community but still have memories of growing up eating kotleti, superstitions about when to have my birthday party, Russian parties, not walking around without socks and slippers, and the being exposed to euro 80s fashion.
NOT AGAIN WHY DOESN'T IT STOP 😭😭😭
It's ridiculous because this happened in the summer and she's already planning a comeback
How many times this year alone??!!? 😭
too many to count
they think life is like college applications 😭 (just to clarify as a white person i am not lying on my application at all, not about anything because i feel like id be the one person they actually check, im not claiming to be another race, but i know people who are…)
@@withcindyoh also obviously it’s unethical and i don’t feel comfortable with that but i feel like most people don’t care as much bc our education system is crap so it feels justified to crap on it 😂
4 pretty sure
Natives mentioned! Aaniin/hello! Great video. I appreciate the nuance on a complicated topic. And girl don't even get me started on pretendians. My community recently collectively clowned on this old white guy that kept changing his identity for benefits thinking that no one would find out if he claimed our nation lol. It's so bizarre to me (but not really cause it's usually because money is involved somehow).
Wtf I hope he didn't get any money
@withcindy He was using his "identity" to get invited to art events, I believe. So probably.
As a white presenting Native American it frustrates me when stuff like this happens. I want to support other Native Americans but then stuff like this comes out and I'm just left feeling betrayed by another Pretendian. I am Shawnee, Seneca Cayuga, Choctaw and Cherokee so hearing she was also Choctaw and Cherokee made me ecstatic and then this whole mess came out. When she claimed unenrollment due to "bad record keeping" and "missing documents" that's what confirmed the fact she's not Native American to me. Unenrollment due to bad or lost documents is sadly a prolific issue in the Native American community (especially in smaller tribes) however it is far less of an issue in the Choctaw and Cherokee tribes due to their extensive written records.
Cindy don't apologize for these problematic authors I LIVE for your tellings of the mess !!
It’s the only way I know how to process the chaos 😭
when will these authors be themselves
beeeee whooo you areeeee
That was like the message of every 90s Disney movie but I guess it just didn't take
They need to watch more after school specials
Exactly. My author bio is just gonna be like "they are Swedish", no need to go into detail about the Finnish side of my family tree, when I don't know the language, I don't know their culture other than what little they share with Sweden, I barely know Finland's history. I'm not gonna claim I'm Norwegian even if my mother's side has relatives from there. What matters is who _I_ am, not what blood runs through my veins. Connecting with ancestors is a personal matter - I want to learn about the vikings that lived on Lofoten in Norway for myself, not to brag about my status as a possible descendant. I only brag as a joke.
Has R.F. Kuang picked up a second life as a detective? She better be donating at least a bit of her pay check to charity ASAP
i do a lot of genealogy. working back 10 generations on anyone's family tree is insane, it would take thousands and thousands of hours, be VERY expensive (archive and record fees) and require a LOT of luck. if they did it, good for them. but the confidence with which they present this family tree is weird to me
In general, I don't think there's a problem with wanting to feel connected to your ancestry, even if you didn't grow up immersed in the culture associated with it. But when you then try to assert yourself as an authority of that culture, coopt experiences of oppression you've never actually had, and use it to market yourself, it becomes misappropriation no matter who your ancestors were.
At this point this channel should be renamed teawithcindy
this is the first time on a situation like this that I don't have a strong opinion for either side and this is a really complex topic but I love how well you put it all and phrased it
thank you!!
So, this had me think..."Once An Accident, Twice A Coincidence, Three Times A Pattern"... should there be a deep dive in the online book community or what, cause if there's a fourth or fifth like this...
And I've been calling out this pattern since day one!!
As an European identifying as something from 5 generations back is wild to me
EXACTLY 😭😭
in DJ Khaled's voice: *ANOTHER ONE*
There are so many authors pretending to be another race, very concerning (and dissapointing, ngl).
I hope more people in the future can realize they don't have to do this to write a character/protagonist of another race. Even if it 'does' give them more apparent plausability for writing the character it's... icky at best My sentiment here generally is that one would be better off researching heavily but presenting oneself as thy own, or not at all. (basically, All or Nothing At All)
I'm (African-American) writing an FN/NA character in a low fantasy retro anthology series (Cree, but this may be subject to change in the future?) and I may give him his own written story in the future, but I still attempt to take the highest sensitivity I can to research and incoporate elements of a culture that's not my own into a character. Since it's retro(semi-futuristic), I like putting aspects of history into my stories, espically those that involve specific cultures, but I try to stay away from things I feel are out of my lane or hands.
I've gotten pretty nervous about it often, I'll admit (along with my other characters, who each have different cultural/ethnic BGs) but claiming another identity is something I would never consider, even if my anthology were to be published, and unfortunately it seems that some publishers would prefer you do just that, sad.
On a lighter note, Great video! I love your reports on these situations, and I think you give lovely commentary
Yeah, with how much information the internet can dig up, it's just not worth it unless you're sure and have done your due diligence!
Cases like this always make me so insanely mad. It took my Grandmother and Aunts DECADES and moutains of paperwork to get their tribe to accept them as citizens even though their mother (who is still alive btw) is an active voting member of the tribe.
Why was it so hard to prove on paper? Because prior to the 70s, every member of my family actively tried to scrub all eveidence of their Native heritage and ancestry to avoid employment discrimination.
25-50% of Native women were sterilized by the Indian Health Services throughout the 50s and 60s. So im not confident that my extended fanily would even exist if they had been recognized as Indigenous any earlier.
This isnt some fun little thing people can just use for clout to get their damn books published. It comes with generational trauma and a healthy distrust of the US government.
Sorry for the rant. This topic just gets me heated.
I'm so sorry they had to deal with that and how difficult it was :(
@withcindy thank you 😭
And thank you for discussing this with the respect and nuance that you did. This topic doesn't get much attention and it's just nice to know that people in other communities can recognize how tough it is. Keep up the good work! ❤❤
This is probably your more consistent content 😂
more consistent than my book reviews
I haven't watched one of your vids for so long and this came in my recommended and just the first five seconds was so comforting for me, especially bc i used to watch ur videos at a very happy time in my life, and it takes me back to then! missed ur videos!
That’s so sweet, I’m glad my videos can bring back happy memories!
Banging my head against the wall every time this happens now hope i don't get a dent in the skull
ouchie
putting aside the possible pretendian thing for a minute, how weird is it that an organization decided to dig up this woman's whole family history without knowledge or consent? it must feel so violating.
i totally agree
I've never heard of it before but having a whole NGO with the philosophy of a 2010s tumblr callout group is worrying. It definitely feels like people coming with the intention to punch down and seem like the good guys
No. It's not wrong to look up someone's history when they claim to be part of a tribe and no one knows them.
@@gnostic268 It's definitely not wrong to ask those questions. But this group doesn't seem to treat the issue with any kind of care.
@@tarotsushima3332unfortunately they’re known to be anti-Black as well and really go after Black Natives and southern Natives and speak authoritatively on other communities they have no knowledge about.
So I am not Native American or a person of colour but this same feeling of "am I allowed to claim this ancestry?" Is something I experience daily.
My father was born in Ukraine and raised Ukrainian Jewish. My whole life until I was 17 I thought I was Russian. I then learnt we were Jewish on top of that a few years later. I wasn't raised near my family who celebrated their Jewishness and Ukrainian heritage very much. Two weeks per year is the most I often got. I experienced a lot when I was with my grandparents and had my toes in it but not a lot. As an adult. I struggle to even say I am half Ukrainian. I just end up saying I am half Russian but actually Ukrainian due to them leaving during the USSR. I barely touch on the fact that most of my ancestry is Jewish and the trauma of those previous generations still touches my family even now.
I relate so much to that side of my ancestry and yet this fear of not being involved enough, pure enough, being able to speak the language or engage with the culture is just so hard for me. Especially when it comes to participating in these traditions, I feel like an imposter to my own family.
I can't imagine what it is like to be the ones who are engaged but excluded due to that blood quantum rule/ancestry. I can't imagine the ones who grew up in it but are too scared to be accused of pretending due to not seeming like they belong.
I'm sorry if this seems self centred but the more I listen to this the more it makes me realise that these memberships to groups where it isn't obvious by skin tone that you belong can really mess with your sense of identity and where you come from.
I have not enough knowledge of Native American tribes and I don't frankly have the right to say if the author is lying or not. But I can understand that feeling with others who feel like they cannot claim who they are due to this fear of being attacked for not being the perfect member of that group to be allowed membership to it. It's such a tricky space and topic
It’s actually not uncommon in black American families for people to believe they have native ancestry when they don’t. I think a lot of it stems from mixed race babies being taboo back in the day, so historically, you could claim an ethnically ambiguous family member or ancestor to be native without the ridicule or shame that came from mixing races
My grandmother was bi-racial, kind of ethnically ambiguous but white passing. She married a black man, had a black family, and identified as black. In her youth she would have been “mulatto,” which was an offensive term. The terms “bi-racial,” or “mixed” didn’t really exist in that context in her day.
I can easily see this being the case for white families too. If she had attempted to distance herself from her “mulatto” identity, attempted to live as a white person, I can easily see a reality where she explains her summer tan as being part native. I suspect that’s in part why so many white American families believe they have native ancestors without any proof, just family lore-they likely have a black ancestor, and it was better to be part native than black, which, because of the one-drop rule, they would have been
If you’re going to make up a native identity, Cherokee is one of the best known Native American tribes, so it makes sense why so many claim Cherokee heritage. People might not even do it intentionally. It’s so easy to create false memories when your reasoning makes sense. “I think I remember hearing grandpa say his mama was half Cherokee” reinforces the “memory” that isn’t even real
This should be its own playlist...
She is native like Oli London is Korean... Just because you have a great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather that was (or could have been) native, that doesn't make it your culture.
Great video, as always, with great points made.
This is such a great video. A lot of research was done, and I appreciate you pointing out we should come to our own conclusions instead of spoon feeding the viewers "drama"
Thanks, I tried to present as much info as possible but I also learned things while looking into it!
Another great video, I always appreciate your thoughtful and informative discussions about these matters.
I personally feel conflicted on the idea that belonging to a marginalized group makes it overall "worse" if you're shitty to people in that group. I can relate to how it does often FEEL worse to be hurt by someone who you would expect to understand and support you; it feels like a personal betrayal, and sometimes a betrayal to the community as a whole. But, I also think that as a society we tend to hold marginalized people to a far higher standard than we do the people marginalizing them, and I always try to be wary of falling into that trap.
I agree that it's not fair to hold marginalized people to a higher standard! I guess it's more like it FEELS worse bc we aren't uniting against the actual enemy/system that's oppressing both of us :/
Yellowface gave me a bit of insight into this as did Brandon Sanderson.
Sanderson is constantly writing from POV's that aren't his own. He has written autistic, disabled, mentally ill and atheist characters. He uses beta readers to grow from his mistakes as a writer.
I feel like research and talking to people who have that lived experience can make up for a lot.
Much better than misrepresenting yourself. Plus there's an acknowledgement section for a reason
The fact that these authors race-faking is becoming so common that it’s now a series on your channel💀
a series i did not intend....
I cant speak for indigenous people since i am not one, however as a latino i see similar stuff all the time with people claiming to be latinos without ever knowing and living the customs and experiences of living as a latino or stepping foot in the country they claim they're from just bc their grandad has mexican blood or whatever, like i think you have to actively participate in the society/community you claim to be a part of and know whats it like to be one to say something like that and make it part of your entire identity otherwise i will just see it like youre trying to gain something from it
Genuine question, what does 'living as a Latino' mean? I'm asking because I have Latino heritage (my parents are Peruvian and Uruguayan) and raised by my parents in a western country. Given the country is multicultural and I'm at least partly white, I don't experience discriminate for being Latina apart from the bits of fetishisation. I'm not sure what would be the Latino experience.
when will the race fishing madness stop, authors need to stop doing this i swear 💀
idk, why does this keep happening? 😭
For people who wonder why so many families have false stories of being Cherokee (and native or indigenous in general) best researchers can tell it was a way for families to explain away mixed race traits especially if those traits where from someone in the bloodline being a black slave but also Roma, darker skinned Hispanic etc. those families bragging about it so much just kind of made it trendy and exotic but not so exotic they’d be ostracised so other said it in a kind of keeping up with the Joneses type lie
Ohh so basically being mixed race was just lumped under being part Cherokee?
@@withcindy, in a lot of cases, yes.
In some of the indigenous communities I associate with, we have a running joke that “you, me, and the martians are all 1/16 Cherokee” with how often people try to claim that specific ancestry
I’ve probably said this already on previous videos, but I love the amount of research you put into these issues. It sucks that you keep having to make these damn videos, but I appreciate the work you put into them.
Thanks, I really appreciate the support!
Love all your deep dives into various controversies, Cindy! Also super excited about the 50 Shades of Grey reaction video. Thanks for mentioning it! Gives us all something to look forward to. :)
You betcha! I'm excited for it too. 🤪
22:14 Was not expecting for the CCBC to pop up in this video! Highly recommend visiting if you’re in the area sometime; they also have an amazing book sale every winter :)