For some reason when I’m talking to an American from the North East and the fact that I’m mixed comes up they always say they aren’t white they’re actually native because his grandpa once mentioned something about a Cherokee ancestor.
It’s always Cherokee, no other tribe but that one. And it’s always the whitest looking person ever, straight up 6ft tall blue eyed and blond guy.
I get it, I’m mostly white too, Spanish and Slavic. But even tho I’m not mostly native American I still look native enough that people think I’m Asian.
But when your ancestry has been so diluted over the generations… You’re not native. It’s not just that you don’t look native, it’s also that you don’t even participate in the culture.
Dude you’re just a farm boy from Philadelphia you’re probably more Amish than Cherokee, if that supposed ancestor is even real at all and not just some random claim by some of your ancestors to have a “right over these lands”.
There’s a few good chapters on “self-indigenization” in Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - Not a nation of immigrants.
I see it with White middle aged Americans.
Them: Oh me I’m Irish
Me: Oh, your parents, grandparents came over?
Them: No, Great Great Great Great… Grandfather
Me: huh, OK. Have you ever been to Ireland?
Them: No, I want to one day.
My great grandmother was a Catawba, I spent a lot of time with her as a kid, and I remember her telling me about a few things. She used to make little trinkets and decorations because her grandmother taught her how, and I wish I had paid more attention because that’s so cool and I hate that her knowledge died with her.
Instead, I was very little, so the only thing I actually got from her is some memories and my resilience against the sun. I’m a fairly pale lady due to being inside a lot, but I have an uncanny ability to recover from sunburn real quick, just like my mom and her mom. My wife will burn after 2-3 hours and be in pain for days but I’ll be fine the next morning after the same amount of time in the sun. The burn will have already become a tan.
… But importantly, I have never used that to say I am not white, and it confuses the heck out of me that anyone does.
I dont even think you skin colour or genetics should have anything to do with your it. People should be identified by there personal connection with culture.
For example if white colored person was brought up in a native american tribe they should still be considered a native american.
Race has no logical basis and anyone who consideres themselves native because they have whatever% genetics is racist. Thats my take at least.
The problem is many many native children were intentionally separated from their culture. Lots of people who would otherwise be able to speak a different language, engage in other cultural practices, etc, are unable to because of actions by the government.
Then you also have really messy cases like the descendents of people enslaved by certain tribes, who should be able to be members of the tribe, but aren’t able to.
Genetics do play a role and trying to pretend otherwise is disingenuous. I am visually not white, even if I don’t have a connection to my Andean heritage my looks are still impacted by them.
If someone asks me why I look like I do what do you expect me to tell them?
For example if white colored person was brought up in a native american tribe they should still be considered a native american.
Not for the bigots though!
Cherokee were matriarchal. So bagging a Cherokee princess or lying who knows has been a popular tall tale for a while. I’m sure some of that is horrible, but I’m sure some of that is people being people.
Because of that, I’m also fairly sure everyone in the South is a bit mixed as well. I think that’s why we’re so into separate cemeteries.
I guess I’d sort of guess the same to be true in other culturally racially mixed places.
Justification for settler colonialism
Linking to a reply I posted in this thread because it talks about a relevant aspect, which other (correct) comments haven’t named: hypodescent.
So generally you got three things happening that give the illusion it happens way more than it really does. Choctaw/Chinese/White mix btw. Yes that order is weird.
Anyway:
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White Americans want an identity, and the one they’re born with is broken. The US education system really, really fails to define ‘White’ in any way that makes sense, because as an identity it doesn’t make sense unless you’re racist. Most white Americans actually do understand this, and either embrace it while secretly denying it, or do anything possible to deny they were the ‘bad whites’ and that just happens to be their skin colour and then overcorrect and cling onto any identity they can find in their family history which brings us to:
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They probably are mixed somewhere around 1850-1920. Statistically they are. Lots of what are now white people mixed with brown skinned people during this time. During this time period Natives that were ‘integrated’ into society had their identity stolen and they were rebranded as either ‘mulatto,’ ‘the old word for black,’ or ‘Mexican/Latin (if they were in a real fancy area.)’ During this time in American history many “white” ethnicities were not considered white, most famously Irish and Italians were lumped in with the ‘slur for black people,’ which included pretty much all natives at that time that weren’t backstabbing their brothers and sisters by sucking up to the whites (not naming tribes but some tribes did end up better than others for some mysterious reason). So guess what happens when a bunch of disparate communities get together? They mix. The mixing was also encouraged by every single christian group in order to help ‘mellow out’ the native influence (i.e. actual cultural genocide to the survivors of the big genocide). It was also encouraged by a minority of natives themselves, i.e. if you mix with a white person you get their money/protection/you won’t be as subject to violence. This was ultimately wrong as an idea and was never a majority view… but it happened.
also rape and forced marriage if they are white but not italian or irish. Statistically that’s a thing, especially if they’re more than 1/128 and over 30.
That also brings us to:
- Being native after the 1980s is a good thing, actually. You get a lot of federally guaranteed things, on tribal land at least. For example the only group besides congress which gets free healthcare* are native Americans. You’re also seen as ‘more legitimate’ of an American for some ancestor of yours being here longer, and you generally have a better sense of community and belonging once you’re confirmed into a tribe (which can range from actual DNA tests to just finding your ancestor and proving you’re related).
For white people that don’t care that much and don’t want to go through that trouble but want to belong to the native group for clout, just saying they’re related gives them that feel good ‘I’m a real american, I’m special and not just white, I can’t be the bad white because my alleged ancestor suffered.’
To really narrow down the problem, the white identity sucks for obvious reasons unless you want to go full racist. The American identity sucks if you’re white skinned, because of the whole genocide thing, also it’s too new, too cosmopolitan, and not real to most other people. And most white americans have no cultural basis from their immigrant past because either they had to integrate to survive, it’s shameful, or they come from the whites that hated the countries they were from (i.e. the English whites.)
This leads to any attempt to latch onto something they’re missing at their core, mainly due to the natural alienation that comes for everyone under capitalism, but especially in a cosmopolitan nation built to integrate everyone under a constructed identity.
The American identity sucks if you’re white skinned, because of the whole genocide thing, also it’s too new, too cosmopolitan, and not real to most other people.
I dunno American Identity sometimes seems more real outside the US.
There’s the fact that we constantly tell americans who don’t speak a word of german or french that they are neither, they are american to us, no matter where their great-great-grandparents were from.
And then there is the time when an aquaintance of mine one day seemed very happy and I asked him why he was so chipper. He said he’d figured out that over here, he wasn’t “african american”, he was just seen as “the american” and that had never happened at home. Yes he clearly was recognized as black, but it never once came up as a qualifier on his identity.The idea of “whiteness” being good is a super new concept in the grand scheme of things. People like to say things like “Irish and Italians werent considered white”, which is not accurate because they’ve always been considered white.
“White” just wasn’t enough to be part of the “in group” and people nowadays dont have any other terminology to describe what the in group was other than just white. If you go back to the early 1800’s, the in group was Protestant anglo-americans. That doesnt mean people from other European countries werent white, it just means they werent part of the in group.
“White” being the defining factor of the racist top hierarchy is super new, like 1966 new. The leader of the American Nazi party realized that they could gain more power by folding in white people from outside of their traditional in group (germanic or nordic), so inspired by the black power movement, he coined the term “white power”.
Even now, just being white isnt enough to be part of the top category to racists. Maybe an Italian is considered part of the in group, but not middle easterners (who are legally white in the USA).
Since “white” as an identity of people is relatively new (and only really makes sense in a racist framework), a lot of European/Middle Eastern Americans tend not to identify as “white” but instead by whatever jumble of identities their grandparents might have had. If your grandparents tell you they had a Cherokee grandparent, how are you supposed to know any different.
I wish they’d channel that energy into developing class consciousness instead, but then they’ve been heavily disincentivized to do so between propaganda and the desire for wealth of their own.
Temporarily embarrassed billionaires
If there were an equivalent to reddit gold on Lemmy, I’d give it to you. This is such a great overview and explains what I wish I had words for a decade ago when I had a conversation with a leftist friend of mine who was in her 60s, and she posed a question along the lines of, “Why can’t I have white pride?”
It was completely with good intention and not with an ounce of white supremacy. I realized it came from a place of wanting an identity or culture, to feel like she came from something. She saw others get to have a community around their ancestry and longed for something like it.
White supremacists have ruined any chance there could have been to find healthy pride in a white identity, and American history is completely mired in that. So many white people feel this loss or lack, and try to fill it with anything they can cling to. 1/32 Native, half Irish, 1/4 German; whatever, just to feel like there’s some history that ties you to who you are.
But you already said this more eloquently than I!
Halito!
This is the best explanation I’ve seen on this online, completely agree. The loss, or even grief, that many have for a culture they never knew is very real and drives some unfortunate behavior.
Wow you should talk about this for a living. That was perfect.
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Its kind of an American thing to brag about having 1/16 of insert heritage here
“I’m Irish, you know.”
I was quite pleased doing my DNA to find:
“0.05% - Unknown”
Well that explains a lot!
Pretty sure it’s White guilt.
My family always said we had like a great great grandmother who my mom remembers who was 100% Blackfoot native.
Im legit the 2nd lightest shade of white for makeup.
Like I have a big patch of vitiligo on my abdomen and it’s barely visible.
I have green eyes and was blonde until I got older.
Yet supposedly I’m like 1/16 native.Now I realize physical traits like skin eye and hair color are only a small part of genetics. But my looks don’t offer any support for any native limeage.
So I do a DNA test. Not for that reason but just general curiosity.
Apparently I am 1% northern native American.
One. Percent.
That means it’s a straight up lie that I have a close maternal ancestors who was native.
Every now and then someone in the family mentions this mysterious native great grandmother. I don’t argue. I don’t say shit. But science says no way.
I’m mostly English with some Irish, Welsh, Scottish and German.
All the basic white peoples mixed in.
Not that I think you are wrong, but DNA tests dont necessarily paint the whole picture the way they companies selling them would like you to believe.
They’ve gotten better over time, but unless you have a bunch of samples you know for a fact are 100% Blackfoot (which already inherently doesnt make sense because the Blackfoot are a confederacy of different peoples), you have to just do your best to reconstruct what you consider to be “Blackfoot DNA”. People groups are also never static the way racists think they are.
In your case, for all you know, you could have had a few different Blackfoot ancestors who had offspring with French traders in the 1700s, or an English frontiersman in the 1800s. The offspring could have just been born and raised in the tribe and considered 100% part of the tribe, even if it turns out their DNA was 25% “Blackfoot”.
Your family could embrace some Celtic heritage then 😂
It’s always funny to me when someone mentions to me that they’re not white because they’re actually that random 5% that showed up in their DNA test.
Maybe us Southern Europeans are just used to have random percentages of DNA that we don’t consider our identity.
Through my Bulgarian side of the family I’m 13% Central Asian.
So yeah I’m not going to claim some Turkic ancestry from the 7th century expansion.
To me this just means that Americans are barely mixed despite being a country of immigrants, even if legal segregation doesn’t happen anymore Americans of different races don’t date outside their racial group.
If Americans were actually melting pot they wouldn’t pay that much attention to small percentages of random ethnicities.
Also let’s not talk about white families using the “Cherokee ancestor” excuse to hide a black ancestor as a part to justify darker features. I’ve seen this happen as well.
This is a huge part of it.
For my family it was the native kids that were forced into adoption with white families to force them to assimilate. We have photos of my dutch pilgrim family with daughters who are plainly native and in their photos as adults they often really lighten their skin on the face but don’t do the hands… it’s really bizarre to see
In Australia, it’s the opposite. My family has a story of an Afghani ancestor that was used to hide indigenous Australian heritage.
Though maybe that’s the same, because it’s hiding black ancestry behind pretend non black ancestry…
I just discovered Native Australians are considered black. I thought they were considered a distinct race since they’re genetically not Sub-Saharan African but South Asians
Yeah it blew my mind when a few times I was called black in Australia when I am of Indian heritage. One even made a joke about my penis being larger!
In Britain, Asian means someone from Indian/Pakistani part of area of Asia, whereas in North America and Australia it means Chinese/Japanese parts of Asia.
Blackness/Whiteness is an interesting concept - it’s remarkably fluid, especially with changes in time and place. Race isn’t the same as ethnicity or genetics, or a direct result of it, although racists often try to claim it is - a stark example of this in Western societies like the US and Australia would be how they categorize Italian and Greek peoples, Slavic peoples, or ethnically-Jewish peoples - the idea of whether or not each of these is White has largely shifted over time, often as a group stops being the current biggest immigration demographic. The USA even had a concept of “Black Irish”, which originally meant a post-Famine Irish refugee. Human races are ultimately just social classes, not a biological concept.
Another aspect, related to this thread, is hypodescent. In some societies (it’s not a universal thing!), if a child has a Black parent and a White parent, is the child Black or White, or another label entirely? As mentioned in that article, some US states used to legally define someone as Black even if only 1 of their 16 great-great-grandparents were Black.
Different heritage, but very much considered black. Australia has a whole racist history that marginalises indigenous Australians explicitly on their blackness…
Because white folks already stole everything else from Native Americans.
Go back far enouph we are all not native. We are all immigrants from Africa as far as I know.
Not sure why you got downvoted, they have probed microchondrial DNA and shows the timeline of emergence from africa and spreading migration paths.
Quite a few Americans have the whole “Indian Princess Ancestor” mythology going on. Always a princess, BTW.
The #1 thing you learn by watching Antiques Roadshow is that most family stories are nonsense.
Can confirm, my mom gave me that story when I was a kid.
Yes I don’t understand the princess thing… Are they subconsciously copying Pocahontas life? Pocahontas was Powhatan not even Cherokee 😭
The kicker is, the folks claiming it don’t even know. Just “Indian princess”.
Yeah ironically there’s a huge lack of knowledge about Native people in America. The amount of people who aren’t aware that “Latino” isn’t a race, us Latino people look a certain way because we’re mostly Native American. But for some reason white Americans don’t make the connection?
In school, even in 100 level US history at Uni, the “beginning of America” is like:
First it was a huge swath of land with a shit load of Indians on it. They lived in teepees, wore feathers on their heads, and used every part of the animals they hunted! Europeans came over, and put a swift end to that. In the 80s and early 90s at least, it was still presented as though they were the adversary somehow, and whites were only trying to “civilize” them. And we were all just like, oh ok.
Sometimes we would learn a little bit about the specific tribe(s) that the region we were in lived before we shuffled them off, but even then it was really reductive and not at all thorough.
As a resident of the Pacific Northwest, there are so many Native names on everything, but the tribes themselves are unknown.
Example - Multnomah County:
The Multnomah were a division of the Chinook people, but I’d wager most folks aren’t even aware that Multnomah were a people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multnomah_people
“In 1830, a disease generally thought to have been malaria devastated the Multnomah villages.[2] Within five years, the village of Cathlapotle was abandoned and was briefly inhabited by the Cowlitz tribe. The Multnomah people had nearly been wiped out by the year 1834 due to malaria and smallpox outbreaks. With only a few Multnomah left by the year 1910, the remaining people were transferred to the Grand Ronde Community which is also located in the Northwest of Oregon.[3]”
American from the North East
they always say they aren’t white
In many lefty circles, White people are seen as lesser/placed lower. (And even formalized at many companies for hiring purposes.) So, instead many will say they are 3% Indian, referencing a blood test that (very likely) said so. Now they are a minority and not White.
(And even formalized at many companies for hiring purposes.)
Oh for fuck sake shut up and learn what DEI actually is
It is not at all that white people are seen as lesser or lower. It’s that everyone wants to be the underdog. It’s the same bullshit that has Christians feeling like their religion is being persecuted.
Not so much underdog - maybe. Everyone wants to be interesting or special, perhaps.
Yeah underdog might not be quite the right sentiment. I’m not sure exactly what it is honestly because I think it’s a bit ridiculous. I see it in my father in law. They’re so angry that other people are being helped in any way, so they convince themselves that they’re deserving of the same kind of help without acknowledging the intense harm that has been done to others in the past and present.
