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Twitter drama: fake persona, covid, and #metoo

Started by bacardiandlime, August 03, 2020, 05:22:16 AM

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polly_mer

The weird part is such specific detail while claiming a need for anonymity.  "Indigenous lesbian scientist at a big state U" is much more preserving of a protective pseudonym than naming the department and school and specifying member of the Hopi tribe.  Hopi alone plus anthropologist with faculty rank is only a handful of people in the US.

I follow many scientists who use protective cover as a pseudonym, particularly when they have a steady stream of grievances about the field in general and their institution in particular.  They generally admit to being a chemist or physicist with possibly a geographic region, but that's it as far as identifying detail.

Quote from: hmaria1609 on June 27, 2019, 07:07:43 PM
Do whatever you want--I'm just the background dancer in your show!

financeguy

#31
Is anyone really surprised that this was so easy? Not only is it unacceptable to even remotely imply that something about a Me Too claim is questionable, you're not even supposed to bring up instances (Bryan Banks, Duke LaCross, etc.) that have been proven false.

When third-rate director Emily Lindin stated that any amount is "microscopic" and bringing it up is simply a "derailment tactic" she then followed it with her viral statement which mistakenly said the quiet part out loud:

"Sorry. If some innocent men's reputations have to take a hit in the process of undoing the patriarchy, that is a price I am absolutely willing to pay."

This is just one of the many more transparent versions of "believe all women" which either exclude the extremity of the above statement or fail to conclude the phrase following "all women" with "who make accusations against those I politically oppose and ignore or threaten those whose allegations are against my allies."

Who in the world would put their career on the line for something that could have no possible benefit to them but involves a radioactive topic that is guaranteed to cause backlash? I'm sure every white male on the planet is just itching to jump into that discussion!

By the way, I love how the fictional character doesn't become Native American until after someone whines about issues related to race, thus necessitating a feature to render the person "immune" by virtue of race.

After the 180 all of the original #metoo crowd had to take after Biden's accusers came out, this type of story really is just beating a horse that's been dead for some time. Everyone knows the entire me too movement was a fraud by people with other objectives. Most people just won't say so in public.

bacardiandlime

Quote from: financeguy on August 05, 2020, 09:31:59 PM
By the way, I love how the fictional character doesn't become Native American until after someone whines about issues related to race, thus necessitating a feature to render the person "immune" by virtue of race.

The white-person pretending to be native is such a well-known trope in academia (and in some cases this really pays off, career-wise. Ward Churchill, Andrea Smith, Gwen Benaway, etc).
As you say it's a convenient way to identify out of the "oppressor" class (or in this case, to give a white woman a non-white ally).

financeguy

Well, we're forgetting an even more well known academic who left for the Senate, but I digress...

I had a Native American roommate in grad school and the subject of living near the trail of tears at one point in my life came up. He asked if I had any background and I said my great grandmother was either full or 1/2 Cherokee, the most common affiliation in that region, but that "I don't know the specifics and that wouldn't make me native either way, so it isn't something I've looked into beyond hearing it mentioned by my grandmother a few times in passing." He joked that I had just given the long-winded white version of "Yes, I'm native also."

Parasaurolophus

Quote from: bacardiandlime on August 06, 2020, 02:35:56 AM

The white-person pretending to be native is such a well-known trope in academia (and in some cases this really pays off, career-wise. Ward Churchill, Andrea Smith, Gwen Benaway, etc).
As you say it's a convenient way to identify out of the "oppressor" class (or in this case, to give a white woman a non-white ally).

Just for fun, let's add Asa Earl Carter ("Little Tree") and Emily Carr ("Klee Wyck") to the list. (And Elizabeth Warren and Sarah Vowell, but I digress.)
I know it's a genus.

writingprof

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on August 06, 2020, 12:22:55 PM
Quote from: bacardiandlime on August 06, 2020, 02:35:56 AM

The white-person pretending to be native is such a well-known trope in academia (and in some cases this really pays off, career-wise. Ward Churchill, Andrea Smith, Gwen Benaway, etc).
As you say it's a convenient way to identify out of the "oppressor" class (or in this case, to give a white woman a non-white ally).

Just for fun, let's add Asa Earl Carter ("Little Tree") and Emily Carr ("Klee Wyck") to the list. (And Elizabeth Warren and Sarah Vowell, but I digress.)

Yes.  Bacardi's failure to include Elizabeth Warren on the list is either criminal negligence or gross political hackery.

bacardiandlime

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on August 06, 2020, 12:22:55 PM
Just for fun, let's add Asa Earl Carter ("Little Tree") and Emily Carr ("Klee Wyck") to the list.

They weren't academics. Artists and writers faking an ethnicity is much longer list.

Quote
(And Elizabeth Warren and Sarah Vowell, but I digress.)

I wasn't aware of Sarah Vowell's Indian ancestry being fake - do you have any links?

Parasaurolophus

Quote from: writingprof on August 06, 2020, 12:27:43 PM

Yes.  Bacardi's failure to include Elizabeth Warren on the list is either criminal negligence or gross political hackery.

Nah, we're (I'm) just having fun naming famous names.

Quote from: bacardiandlime on August 06, 2020, 02:53:00 PM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on August 06, 2020, 12:22:55 PM
Just for fun, let's add Asa Earl Carter ("Little Tree") and Emily Carr ("Klee Wyck") to the list.

They weren't academics. Artists and writers faking an ethnicity is much longer list.

Right, academics. My apologies. Joseph Boyden, then!

Quote

I wasn't aware of Sarah Vowell's Indian ancestry being fake - do you have any links?

It's not that it's fake, it's that it's very distant (Wikipedia says "1/8 on her mother's side" and "1/16 on her father's side"), she's not tied to the Cherokee community, and yet she frequently presents herself as having a special affinity for the Cherokee, or talks about "her ancestors" on the Trail of Tears, that sort of thing. It's especially bad in her book Unfamiliar Fishes, which is supposed to be about the history of Hawai'i but features almost as much of "her ancestors" as it does Native Hawaiians (and a whole lot more about east coast missionaries than either). (Don't get me started about what's on display in that book. I hated it.) So: basically the same sort of case as Warren, although not nearly as bad because she doesn't actually characterize herself as Indigenous (she just takes on the ancestral mantle and appeals to familial affinity).
I know it's a genus.

dismalist

Looks like it's time to get Heini Himmler back and reinstitute skull measurements and such, so that we can have a scientific answer to these questions. :-(

People, this is a long road, and at the end there is another abyss.
That's not even wrong!
--Wolfgang Pauli

kaysixteen

Problem is, Elizabeth Warren does actually have native American ancestry.   Even the DNA test showed this, though the level was probably not as high a percentage as she thought.  Heck, most Oklahomans do.

Around here (SE Mass./ RI) lots of white folks do, too.  Another thing I learned in college anthro class was that the number of whites who would claim some native American ancestry on the decennial census forms generally has waxed and waned over the decades, based on how popular it was to admit one's NA ancestry, vs. how much of an incentive there was to hide it, pass as white, etc.  (remember, at many times and places here in the US, states, ahem, well, er, did not exactly let the NA folks in their midst just, well, be NA-- sometimes children were taken, etc., things like this).  I was probably 26 or 27 years old when I learned something my mom apparently forgot to tell me, but  had assumed I knew, someone else had said, etc., namely that her maternal grandmother, thus one of my great-grandmothers (who was still alive, albeit suffering from bad dementia, when I was young), had a mother who was NA, or half-NA (we're not exactly sure, nor does anyone seem to recall the tribe).   Why do I believe this?  Because, when my great-grandmother was a kid, there would have been no incentive whatsoever for her mom to lie and invent such a heritage, and really when my mom was young, well, no such an incentive would have developed by then as well.  Closer to now, there is a woman in my own church around here, whom everyone who saw her would say 'she's white', who is nonetheless an enrolled member of the Wampanoag tribe, and damned proud of that.  Her heritage includes at least one other NA nation, plus some Italian... and WASP Puritan ancestors as well.   Her outward Caucasian appearance is what it is, but it does not detract from reality.   My point should be clear enough-- before one assaults someone claiming to be NA, best one be real sure one is sure of one's facts.

financeguy

I just don't get why this matters to the woke crowd if they've suddenly said you can identify with your race of preference. Or is this not true? I though the twitter crowd determined that you are what you say you are and that it's racist to believe facts/science get in the way of one's self professed identity in a similar way that this is perceived in the trans debate regarding gender. No DNA test needed since the science not relevant. What am I missing here? I mean this person is a fictional character so the whole premise is able to be debunked, but how are we debunking NA ancestry when the entire concept of race is open to "whatever you personally feel like" as is the trans position regarding gender? I'm not trying to flame this, it really is confusing. What is the current  HR compliant/woke approved "I won't get fired for this" stance on someone identifying as a member of a racial group vs this being an objectively determined issue and if it's the former, why is the concept of "outing" someone even possible?

Hegemony

I'm not aware that anyone claims that people can qualify as members of a certain race by self-identifying as such without any actual genetic link. As far as I'm aware, it's just a straw man that the opposition sets up in order to try to show the ridiculousness of other kinds of self-identification.

I too have a tiny bit of Native American ancestry (Iroquois). The memory of it had been passed down in my family, and when I met some long-lost relatives of the same ancestry, they had exactly the same story as had been passed down to me. And I took one of those DNA tests — not for this reason, but for others — and it showed up there as well. I certainly don't claim to be Native American, and it gives me no particular authority on anything. But I think it's useful to remember those things, because it says something about the conditions of early America and the frontier, and because the truth is what it is — it's no more virtuous to paper over it than it is to overemphasize it. 

That said, whatever is fashionable will get lots of emphasis and some fakery. In the days when it was considered disgraceful to have some Native American ancestry, people kept very quiet about it. When it suddenly seems to give white folks street cred, all of a sudden many people are, in the words of one article, members of the "tribe called Wannabe."

bacardiandlime

Quote from: kaysixteen on August 06, 2020, 06:50:45 PM
Problem is, Elizabeth Warren does actually have native American ancestry.   Even the DNA test showed this, though the level was probably not as high a percentage as she thought. 

The level was so low I'd read it as margin of error. Because Native Americans were such a tiny reference pool compared to other groups, there were a lot of false positives when 23andMe and other DNA-heritage products started. They were identifying people from Pakistan as Native American.

 

polly_mer

Quote from: Hegemony on August 07, 2020, 02:25:35 AM
I'm not aware that anyone claims that people can qualify as members of a certain race by self-identifying as such without any actual genetic link.

"In Defense of Transracial Identity" written by Rachel Tuvel published in Hypatia and then the resulting public discussion fades so quickly from mind.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/transracialism-article-controversy.html
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/05/19/journals-board-directors-offers-its-support-editors-decision-publish-article
Quote from: hmaria1609 on June 27, 2019, 07:07:43 PM
Do whatever you want--I'm just the background dancer in your show!

writingprof

Quote from: kaysixteen on August 06, 2020, 06:50:45 PM
Problem is, Elizabeth Warren does actually have native American ancestry.   Even the DNA test showed this, though the level was probably not as high a percentage as she thought.  Heck, most Oklahomans do.

The results of that test can be found all over the Web, but I like the way FactCheck.org puts it:  "The report concluded there is 'strong evidence' she had a Native American ancestor approximately six to 10 generations ago."  In other words, it is likely that Warren's great-great-great-great-grandparent or great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent was a Native American.  Yeah, she should definitely get a leg up in the Harvard hiring process, contribute to tribal cookbooks, and allow herself to be called a woman "of color." 

Warren is basically Rachel Dolezal, except she's too big to fail, so the media can't properly condemn her.  She's a ridiculous fraud, and Harvard counting her toward its "diversity" is a synecdoche for everything that's wrong with this country.