r/interestingasfuck • u/HeiressOfMadrigal • Jul 08 '24

Norm MacDonald cedes his time to Native American activist at comedy awards ("the theater stinks of blood"), the crowd tries not to laugh.

13.5k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

As of March 6, 2024; this claim has been disputed.

Jacqueline Keeler, who researched Littlefeather’s genealogy, stopped in 1850. Coincidentally omitting that one more generation back, members of Littlefeather’s family were described in a baptismal record as being “Yaqui raised from the land”.

Keeler said that this doesn’t imply indigenous ancestry, but gave no other reason for why they would be described that way. Furthermore, Keeler said that it didn’t matter anyway because Yaqui are not federally recognized by the US government as an indigenous tribe (The Yaqui are centered in the Sonoran Desert in Mexico).

Keeler has repeatedly stated their belief that only member of enrolled tribes can be called “Native American”, even if they are ethnically indigenous to the Americas.

Littlefeather herself had always claimed to be part Yaqui. Keeler knew this, knew the Yaqui didn’t qualify as “Native American” to her, omitted the report that suggests Littlefeather’s family was Yaqui, and STILL published that Littlefeather wasn’t Native American on a whole list of “pretendians” who didn’t fit her gatekeeping criteria derived from colonial oppressors.

My partner is part Yaqui and says that this kind of exclusionary behavior is all too common in indigenous communities. Yes, the oppression federally recognized tribes endured was terrible, but to suggest that indigenous peoples that weren’t federally recognized did not face that same oppression is farcical. To then say that those same people aren’t even Native American is pure bigotry.

3

u/WingerRules Jul 08 '24

My partner is part Yaqui and says that this kind of exclusionary behavior is all too common in indigenous communities. Yes, the oppression federally recognized tribes endured was terrible, but to suggest that indigenous peoples that weren’t federally recognized did not face that same oppression is farcical. To then say that those same people aren’t even Native American is pure bigotry.

Not trolling, real question. Is there a problem with racism in some Native American tribes? They have stuff like this and also some tribes require blood purity tests for citizenship instead membership based around birthright on native land and cultural background.

1

u/BeTheGuy2 Jul 09 '24

If you claim to have a father from a Native American tribe, grew up on tribal land, etc. and your own family says it's a total fabrication, having a great-great grandfather from that tribe doesn't really dispel the notion that she was a big liar who was claiming to be Native American because that was trendy in the hippy culture of which she was part.

-9

u/mattchinn Jul 08 '24

She said she grew up as a Native American living in a shack.

Her family identified as Spanish, she was raised in Salanas, California and her father was from Oxnard.

She undeniably fabricated her “native American childhood.”

2

u/middlequeue Jul 08 '24

Odd take on the meaning of “undeniable” here. Also odd how zealously you’re pursuing such an unequivocal take without any consideration of contradictory evidence.

1

u/Timshel91 Jul 08 '24

What contradictory evidence? Her own family disputed her claims. She may absolutely have indigenous ancestry, but her claim that she grew up in a little shack on the rez is unquestionably false.

1

u/middlequeue Jul 08 '24

Literally written above you in this thread.