A friend and I both have metis heritage that is more or less untraceable. She and I both have never experienced life on a reservation, nor the discrimination that comes from being visibly Indigenous in the city.

I totally get it. But I can tell you that I am sometimes embarrassed enough with white people that I might be quite happy to Dolezal myself.

Why yes. Yes, I do.

“The room audibly gasped, and Sessions looked stunned.”

This is an especially fascinating conversation for me because I am adopted and I JUST did the ancestry test because I have no idea about my background at all. I am dark haired and look (according to other people )-Italian, Greek, Spanish, and very very Sephardic.

It sounds like he has lived his life as a white man but gets to benefits off of indigenous people by claiming a nebulous ancestry. Simply put: if he has not lived the culture, he should not claim nor attempt to confer it to his other white friends.

Wait until you see the back and forth between him and Graham. It’s like some slow melting southern soap opera.

Everybody descends from princesses and chiefs, it is amazing! It is almost like all the regular imaginary native people were infertile, and only the chiefs were allowed to have kids...

Good call in quoting Gyasi

From what I understand, Boyden has defended his “Injun Joe” connection by saying that Uncle Joe didn’t want to claim Indigeneity because he was worried about the social ramifications. You know, racism.

I think some of that DNA Makes Me A Cherokee Princess thing stems from the despicable and fraught relationship White people have with their own whiteness. The One Drop laws, the “paper bag” tests, the which ethnic groups get taken under the white umbrella and when; all that got kinked and twisted into this perverse…

Yes, my wife has had so many people go oh yeah my great grandma was Cherokee( she jokes that the Cherokee must have really gotten around because every third person who does this is Cherokee- and we don’t live near Oklahoma ) and while she is nice to them it’s just- ugh.

There was a great segment on the CBC not that long ago about (lets face it, white) people taking DNA tests and then suddenly identifying as partially non-white/”ethnic”/nonsense. Like, “I thought I was white but I am of Icelandic and Aboriginal and Persian decent.” It was pretty hilarious.

Debbie Reese would be a great person to interview for this discussion: https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com

Osiyo, u-lv!

Saying “water is life” only makes a difference when the entity to whom you are saying it cares whether or not you live; it has no effect on people who regard your being alive as an impediment to their pleasures or profits.

I feel this so much as a Menominee woman. In my family, we went from just my grandmother being the only one to finish high school to all of her daughters having college degrees. The majority of my generation has been lucky enough to go to college. Still it’s not enough.

This is one of my fave shirts that I own, this story just makes me more proud to wear it

Crash taught young me never to trust white people’s recommendations on movies about race.