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.
Mar 15, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
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
Dec 9, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
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?
Aug 14, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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.
Mar 27, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
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 …”
Jan 23, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
i'm listening now to this week's @mediaINDIGENA roundtable where i join @theRickHarp and @candiscallison to discuss a Farewell to Fish Farms? Pt 2 (ep 241) mediaindigena.libsyn.com/farewell-to-fi…
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.
Jan 23, 2021 • 41 tweets • 7 min read
when we are told to simply trust SCIENCE---"LET THE SCIENCE SPEAK"--are we supposed to ignore that science has been built on the bodies of the marginalized with little regard for our agency & capacity to consent? are libs truly this ignorant of their colonial foundation?
BTW I don't take much time for people without a basic grasp of (settler) colonialism and the ongoing role of scientific practices within that. And who can't bother to read my twitter bio or click on a URL before asking and arguing super basic points that deny ongoing colonialism.
Sep 15, 2020 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Forced hysterectomies, theft of children, people sacrificed in pandemics, colonial devastation to the environment thus dispossessing and starving people--none of this is new or adequately explained in a Trumpian turn toward fascism.
He is but another manifestation of the core values that prompt these forms of violence, which have been key genocidal tactics of the US for a long time ("genocide" as defined in article II of the UN definition).
Jul 3, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
i've studied scientists who study human migration via genomics. i've also studied Indigenous, feminist, Black, African, and other diverse People’s accounts of science & technology history. I’ve learned 3 things about Indigenous histories: 1/61) i've no doubt “Europeans” weren't first to "discover America." A) There were already humans here. B) Peoples from other continents & islands sailed oceans blue way before the murderer Columbus & built ancient relations w/ one other. We have non-Euro documentation of this; 2/6
Feb 12, 2020 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
It strikes me that the Native must finally be sacrificed to save the empire. To be clear, I don't think US empire will survive. But as it declines and desperate Americans get more fearful, they get louder like during the Indian wars to eliminate, displace & become us.
for me, most cities in the US cause me low-grade heartbreak if not high-grade. i look around. I don't see Indigenous people everywhere. I see them in Edmonton everywhere. I was getting bitter living in the cosmopolitan US (e.g. Berkeley or Boston).
Feb 5, 2020 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Seriously? As critical race theorist Cheryl Harris showed way back in '93 , the white power structure seizes the RIGHT TO DEFINE ALL RACIAL CATEGORIES. This is what #pretendians are doing, defining the Native w/o regard for Indigenous definitions. essence.com/news/politics/…
& non-whites shore up white supremacy when they insist on definitions of Indigeneity forged in white supremacy. After stealing land & resources, white people & their institutions stole Indigenous children, bones, & blood. "Identity" theft is part of long line of appropriation.
Jan 18, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Just in case you missed this last year. & please don't "But Trump!" me. Many of you talk nonstop about him. His racism is intellectually unchallenging. The insidious anti-Indigeneity of Warren, however, is a final act of colonial theft. hcn.org/issues/51.2/tr…@highcountrynews
The avalanche of apologist denials from her supporters this last year, the demeaning of Cherokee & other Indigenous experts' analyses of this topic reveals even more the willful complicity of so many US Americans in ongoing colonial theft.
Dec 28, 2019 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
it seems a bunch of non-Natives need a 101 course in terminology. "Indian Country" is a legal term that also gets used colloquially by those of us who move through lands that fall in some measure within legal jurisdictions of tribal governments. Google for an exact definition.
As for everyday terms for ourselves, we have diverse POVs on what we're comfortable with depending on our age/generation, geographic location, and probably level of formal education. i know my personal terminology of choice has changed over time and across place.
Dec 3, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
in light of the "multispecies ethnomusicology" paper my Disrupting Sex, Disrupting Nature students are reading today re paying attention "to the music, song, and voices of Other-than-humans." cnn.com/2019/12/02/wor…
the paper the students are reading documents Muskogee Creek communication with plants, animals, and landscapes that also "speak and sing." another instance of science gaining partial understandings--slices of worldviews that Indigenous peoples have been genocided for.
Oct 27, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Powerful. Listen to this child sing. h/t @duncanmccue. Notice the reporter has no follow up on his grandma's politically astute observation that it's good Greta does this work. white ppl listen to her, not Indigenous ppl who've said same forever. Interviewer foregrounds culture.
I point this out because it's a mark of liberal multiculturalism to cede a little space to cultural performance but only so far as it doesn't require restitution of land and "resources" to Indigenous ppl. Which is actually required for decolonization & lessening climate crisis.
Aug 29, 2019 • 64 tweets • 24 min read
I was recently interviewed for a politico article, “Native American critics still wary of Warren despite apology tour” that appropriately focused on Cherokee critics’ voices. politico.com/story/2019/08/…
As I expected, most of my lengthy comments didn’t make the article. But that e-mail I sent to the reporter was another opportunity to think some things through.
Aug 26, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
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."
Aug 25, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Stop spreading this myth. It facilitates pretendianism. Pretendianism, as this professional genealogist demos in her research, was used historically to steal Native land. Today pretendianism is a pillar of the settler colonial structure & denies complicity in that theft.
When people claim our pushback against pretendianism is a distraction, they reveal their lack of understanding of the way that settler colonial institutions work in integrated ways to eliminate us both materially and our cultural & legal authorities over our lives.
Aug 20, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
From March. features history & politics of ancient DNA research, like all science fields develops from settler colonial agendas of (biological) resource appropriation. Also imposes settler origin stories. History of an industry that performed #ElizabethWarren's DNA test. & yours.
This article describes recent efforts of some researchers to revise unethical scientific practices to respect Indigenous life & authority. but we still struggle against a the colonial foundation underlying this & other fields & against the public embrace of colonial science.
Aug 18, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Replies to this tweeted CNN article build on the #IndigenousErasure of Warren's pretendianism. They demonstrate widespread & deep US American ignorance of Indigenous people, our histories, & issues. Across political & race backgrounds the lack of basic understanding is profound.
True though, grasping our peoplehoods that are co-constitutive with place can't be grasped well if one can't see beyond the settler state & US exceptionalism in any political tone. It's a horizon most Americans are incapable of seeing beyond. The US narrative is all encompassing.
Aug 10, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Twitter is an ideal field to gather data on low levels of critical learning on race among the white population. We should not be too optimistic about the likelihood of solving the white problem. They largely do not understand that whiteness is largely a construct.
Also white people do not like being treated like NDNs. They do not like being research subjects, gazed upon, analyzed. As a race they do not exhibit the sophistication to see why studying them is necessary. They'd have to actually understand race. There are exceptions among them.
