This came up on FB memories today. I get these emails regularly:
"Hello Ms Tallbear, My name is XXXXX. I am attempting to find college money for my daughter....I'm looking for a discussion on proving who and where we belong in this society..."
"...Seems like you don't agree with DNA testing to prove ancestry. I don't agree with you but would like to find a forum I can join to clear up life long questions arising from stories my grandparents explained to me growing up."
The email went on and on with their DNA percentages etc. LOL they think it's ok to write me (after reading my analysis of why genetic ancestry links to UNNAMED, tribally UNAFFILIATED ancestors don't support tribal ID claims) to ask for my free labor.
So their kid can CHECK A BOX on university applications.
This behavior is rampant in academia by students and faculty. This does NOT HONOR us. It's yet more theft of resources that could support Native life & self determination.
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Jacqueline Keeler takes the hit for people across Indian Country who want this problem solved & who work behind the scenes contributing data. Not everyone can afford to be out front. I trust many Natives I know IRL who support her work, not twitter strangers who defend theft.
I’ve been forced to think about & work with the pretendian issue every day since 2018 when liz warren’s DNA test hit the press. My inbox was filled with media requests. I’ve since become well connected with people in community, government, arts orgs & academia fighting ID fraud.
I regularly get asked to speak to and advise orgs on this topic. There is much going on behind the scenes that most of you know nothing about, but which will result in new policies and guidelines that protect against self-identification and massive self-indigenization.
i tend to have diff connections here vs. at @CriticalPoly. but some of you may be interested in this event i'm doing with @bloomcommunity1 this wed, march 16, 7pm MT/6pm Pacific.
Bloom Community is a "consent-forward social and dating app" with virtual & in-person events.
In my @CriticalPoly writing, i reflect on the politics of monogamy and non-monogamy as both are conditioned by settler colonial notions of sex, property, and family. I used to writing on my Critical Polyamorist blog & now do such thinking at kimtallbear.substack.com
After starting criticalpolyamorist.com in 2013, i received correspondence from people across North America & Europe who also wanted to practice open nonmonogamy in ways that go beyond ideas of personal autonomy & "freedom" to building community in ways that oppose settler norms.
in 2015, an Indigenous scholar told me it was only my "opinion" & she disagreed when i & 11 other Indigenous women wrote an open letter re andy smith's fraudulent ID claims. she resisted differentiating betw opinion & conclusions drawn on evidence b/c it made her uncomfortable.
We see this kind of willful denialism over & over as these cases come to light. It’s one thing to be deceived. It’s another thing to defend the deception once there is much evidence staring you in the face. Maybe refrain from attacking the messenger?
When I met andy, I just thought she was totally disconnected from Cherokee community, not lying. She got grumpy when i asked her questions re potential mutuals. In 2001, I still didn’t understand how pervasive fraud is and how many simply invent the most elaborate stories.
Self ID on the census is not in fact a good reflection of "Indian Country." We ARE racially diverse, but that is aside from the the distortions of self ID alone that privilege especially white ppl like Elizabeth Warren & Andrea Smith who check a box b/c of a NDN ancestry myth.
i'll post some links to academic articles treating multi-race and self-ID on the US census when i get a second. i used to teach an article on this in the first years after the multi-race box checking option appeared on the US census.
"Indian Country" needs to resist the inherently anti-Indigenous Peoplehood discourse of settler state multiculturalism that manifests itself in the US census.
Tara Reade has ANALYSIS of the conditions of her sexual assault and others. And Ryan Knight: The Dems “platitudes and the way they try to present themselves—is they’re some saviour of the working class and the poor and of women and of people of colour…”
“…it doesn’t match their actual track record and the actual policies that they support, which actually harm the very marginalized communities that they claim to protect. And so in a way it makes the Democratic party more dangerous than the Republican party …”
“…because the Republican party....[is] not out there saying yeah, 'we’re the party of women, we’re the party of people of colour, we’re the party of LGBTQ people.' They’re engaging in their brazen war-mongering and funneling more money to their corporate donors….”
we talk about the homogenization or racialization (race used to equal race) of salmon nations/ persons in mixed-stock ocean fisheries to capitalize on the material sustenance of salmon bodies in non-relational ways.
salmon in this kind of aquaculture are treated as simply a material resource. instead of salmon relatives, salmon are just protein to settlers. this is one more example of the insidious nature of ongoing racial and colonial science & technology.