native pretendians ; december 13 2022

content warning: racism, cultural appropriation, genocide, anti-Indian bigotry / word count: 279

one thing that non-natives do not understand (and really need to) is that american indians do, seriously, have real experience of 'fakers' causing us harm in a way that no other group i know of on this earth does, except maybe some closed religions/spiritualities.

it's not like with disabled people and medical resources where if someone's lying, they're taking nothing away from others, and can't harm the community.

for centuries, our practices have been being stolen and resold by colonizers claiming to be us. and it's been killing us.

my tribe's name is used as a national identity for the settler state on our land. we're believed to be 'extinct.' we're a sports mascot, and people from that country will call themselves from my tribe while reacting with disgust to being called 'indian.' they control our narrative.

shamans and charlatans in the americas have been writing books, publishing DVDs, performing sacred rituals, and spreading lies about our religions while claiming to be 'red men' themselves. they control our narrative.

white people with no interest in supporting us or truly identifying with us use us as a costume after getting 'fun' ancestry.com results, and other white people mock them with the nickname of little Amonute.

it is not the place of white people to gatekeep who's native or call out pretendians, but it's even less the place of white people to insist that our history of fakers is comparable to "fake queers," or that our discussing it parallels bigoted rhetoric that disproportionately harms us.

our cultures are closed for a reason, and you cannot compare them to the rules of open cultures that are narratively dominated by white people.