How!...?
Three Canadian women have been accused of falsely claiming Inuit heritage to defraud indigenous organisations of benefits. It's a pretty shonky thing to do; some people simply have no morals. But it upset Aluki Kotierk, president of one such organisation, more than most.
Mr Kotierk characterised the alleged fraud as "another form of colonisation" and part of a wider trend of non-indigenous Canadians claiming indigenous heritage. "You've wanted to take our language away from us," he said. "You've wanted to take our culture away from us. Now you're trying to claim our identity? It's just flabbergasting."
Bernd Debusmann Jr, BBC News
It's not another form of colonisation, you cock, it's an attempt at fraud; obtaining money under false pretences. If there's a loophole in anything, some unscrupulous crook will exploit it. Honestly, I have sympathy with disadvantaged minorities, and then some arsehole comes out with hyperbolic bullshit like this and I lose all interest in their self-absorbed pity party. Misusing meaningful words for effect devalues them and desensitises the audience.
But I did learn Canadian's have a tongue-in-cheek reference to people who falsely claim indigenous ancestry: pretendians
. So it wasn't a complete waste of time, and I can console myself on having been edumakated to a small degree.
It's not really worth a post of its own, so I'm just sticking this thought here.
In reference to a folk singer being accused of appropriating indigenous identity, one presumably genuine indigenous Canadian got similarly indignant to Mr Kotierk.
Crystal Fafard, a lawyer from Yellow Quill First Nation and a founding member of the Indigenous Women's Collective in Canada, said feigning indigenous identity is "a form of colonial violence". "Colonialism itself is a taking - it is about taking resources, land, culture and language and children," she said. "Now, it's taking identity."
Nadine Yousif, BBC News
Does that extend to taking a photograph?
Personally, I think that both Ms Fafard and Mr Kotierk are playing fast-and-loose with the definition of colonialism, presumably for the purposes of point-scoring.
- colonialism | kəˈləʊnɪəlɪz(ə)m | noun [mass noun]
- the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically: the state apparatus that was dominant under colonialism.
No mention is made of pretending to be a subject of a colony, although one could argue that economic exploitation might apply, at a stretch. It still seems a little fragile though. (snowflake)