Pretendians

Let’s Talk About Jacqueline Keeler I want to preface this by saying that this is about my personal experience with Jackie and how we got from fighting Native mascots to where we are today. This is my perspective on the situation, such as it is. You can choose to read…

APTN host leaks flawed research meant to defame Métis singer Iskwē. Host unceremoniously exits APTN a week later. — Update Jan 20 2023: Iskwe has shared on Facebook a photo of her expired Manitoba Metis Federation and an MMF letter dated Jan 18 2023 confirming her current citizenship. APTN has an unofficial 'pretendian list' and it's being used against at least one Métis who didn't renew their citizenship card.

Jacqueline Keeler On Tuesday, The New York Times Magazine published a piece, “The Native Scholar Who Wasn’t,” written by Sarah Viren, a white nonfiction writing professor from Arizona State University, which examined the 30-year ethnic scam perpetrated by “Cherokee/Ojibway” Professor Andrea Smith. Smith, an already debunked fraud, teaches in the…

Appropriate Culturation In 2014, Christina Fallin, daughter of then Republican governor of Oklahoma Mary Fallin, set the bar for tastelessness. Christina had a band, Pink Pony, she sang and performed her own version of a war dance onstage at a music festival in Norman, Oklahoma. Here, she sports a mock headdress modeled…

Trials of a Traveling Show Alan had a good idea. He had moved to Seattle, got involved with Greenpeace in the early 1980’s, and was canvassing. After he gave the spiel one night, a person at the door asked, “How can you talk about whales and seals when people are dying in El Salvador?” It…

Playing Indian The Sixties arrived on the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement, change, finally, was in the air. At the intermission for Hair at the Geary Street Theatre, cash donations were collected for Indian activists occupying Alcatraz. Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee entered the popular imagination. Buffy Saint Marie found…

On being a multi-generational “Pretendian” — My mom told me I was “MÉTIS” (French for “mixed”) growing up. She wrote in the family genealogy that my great-grandmother was “SANG AMERINDIAN”. The knowledge and the unanswered questions have been a bit of a curse. Growing up in the suburbs of Ottawa (Algonquin word “adawe”, means “to trade”)…

Fact-checking a public shaming (with responses) — In Michelle Latimer’s career, she has given over 70 interviews or media appearances — half occurring in a three month press blitz starting August 2020. I have compared primary sources — what she has actually said — versus the top ten rumors about her online. …

Let me start with, I do not wish what is happening to [latest person to claim a false indigenous identity and get caught] on anyone. Public shaming must be overwhelming and feel like an insurmountable hole to climb out of. However, has no one here learnt from the past? Are…