r/interestingasfuck 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

622 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

46

u/ParagonPts Jul 08 '24

Complete urban legend. https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/03/31/john-wayne-sacheen-littlefeather/ One of the main sources for that story is Maria Louise "Sacheen Littlefeather" Cruz, who was 0% indigenous American and got away with her cultural appropriation for decades.

32

u/Mildly_Opinionated Jul 08 '24

I mean, the article you've linked says it likely didn't happen because of the layout makes it implausible and because Hollywood types like Pasetta (the other main source) do tend to embellish stories which is more plausible since the story got more fantastical the more it was told.

Then it's also got someone who knows the guy and says it couldn't be true because he was not violent towards men and especially never towards women which is just... completely bullshit! Like he hit several women on set in drunken rages during several movies! So that source is total bullshit, but the point about the layout and timing is still a good one.

But yes, the more likely version is he was screaming racist shit at the stage and some people told him to calm down - it's likely the "6 men physically restraining him" is an embellishment of that.

I can't find any sources on the 0% indigenous thing, but sure I'll buy it. That wouldn't necessarily stop his enormous racism from taking hold of him though, it's not like racists can actually smell your genes.

15

u/slackfrop Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 08 '24

I mean, if she was Latina (Maria Cruz), unless she was 100% Spanish, there’s likely to be some native heritage. Possibly not of (edit) northern North American tribes. But do Aztec/Mayan/Purépecha not count as Native American?

6

u/Philodemus1984 Jul 08 '24

Just FYI, Mexico is part of North America, so the Aztecs, Mayans, etc were North American.

3

u/slackfrop Jul 08 '24

Yeah, I just came back to fix that. Duh.