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At this point I think that the best thing any Indigenous academic or writer could do is disavow any previous connection with or support of Keeler and her work.
I got sucked into that letter early last year. Within a few months I recognized the harm and shifted my thinking.
I got sucked into that letter early last year. Within a few months I recognized the harm and shifted my thinking.
It is important for organizations to do their own work when hiring Indigenous people. The Yellowhead Institute has a great protocol that will help you. Because the key is in the relationships your organization makes. Not in cross checking a list https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2019/08/20/research-ethnic-fraud-and-the-academy-a-protocol-for-working-with-indigenous-communities-and-peoples/
Lists are always going to be fraught because they will always reflect the biases and intentions of the people involved in making it and checking the list becomes a way of offloading your own responsibility to MAKE RELATIONSHIPS.
It is not just about the person you are hiring. Ever. It is about the relationship that you make and maintain with the communities.
Colonialism atomized our communities and networks into individuals. Lists support that work.
Make. Relationships.
Colonialism atomized our communities and networks into individuals. Lists support that work.
Make. Relationships.
Pretendians are a problem. Making claims without making relationships is a problem.
Kim Tallbear is instructive at this point. Identity is a poor substitute for relations. When somebody tells you about their Indigenous identity change it in your mind to relations.
Kim Tallbear is instructive at this point. Identity is a poor substitute for relations. When somebody tells you about their Indigenous identity change it in your mind to relations.
Are they describing relations? Are they situating themselves in a community that claims them back? Or are they claiming an isolated ethnic presence.
Is your organization looking for relations, or for an isolated ethnic presence you can put on your masthead.
Is your organization looking for relations, or for an isolated ethnic presence you can put on your masthead.
Leroux and others do important work but you don't see them creating lists and what you do see is reluctance to do that kind of large scale vetting because it is dangerous
We want them to. We want them to do the work for us because it's easier. But it's harmful. Step away from it
We want them to. We want them to do the work for us because it's easier. But it's harmful. Step away from it
I actually left a race shifting group on Facebook because it had changed from discussing the phenomena to going after particular people and at times went off the rails into misogyny and anti Blackness. No disrespect to the moderators. They did their best.
But these discussions always go sideways unless you work very hard at not. And I've gone sideways on it myself. Learning how best to have these conversations without devolving into attacks on individuals because we don't know everything and genealogies are complicated.
Particularly regarding Blackness because often in records people known to be Native are documented as Black. Then researchers look at the documents, see the record and say "pretendian!"
Relationships.
It's always about Relationships.
Relationships.
It's always about Relationships.
