Non Binary professor accused of faking identities

My father's family came from Leinster and he was abandoned by his mother in London. She later married his father - I know this because my DNA picked up relatives of the same surname as the man she married, I carry their DNA though I can find no brothers or sisters as yet. I am interested in my family history and my brothers and I took great pains to trace our grandmother, who was the daughter of a dairyman in Dublin - last time I went to Ireland to visit my DH's relatives we went to see the house where she was born and lived. We traced our ancestry into the eighteenth century in Ireland and were and are very interested in our Irish ancestry. We also traced the ancestry of the man she married, who does indeed turn out to be our grandfather.

I am interested in Irish history - I always have been - but that doesn't mean I think I am Irish. I am not, I am English - though I am, apparently, eligible for an Irish passport and have an Irish maiden name (which had some disadvantages in 60s and 70s UK). I was most pleased when my SDD handed me a glass with a raven on it and said see 'saw' that this bird was connected to me. Since I also have the sight (perhaps from Irish ancestry?) I was not confounded but confirmed the connection. It is the totem of my family name and I am proud of it.

Some people like claiming things about themselves that give them an advantage, or make them feel special, and the modern fascination with Identity Politics has given this type of person the opportunity for social clout and advantage, which has sometimes diluted the help intended for the groups of people that policies were genuinely written to help.

99% of the time the way to prevent this is not to tie help to identities. Tie it to needing help. Radical I know but it works.

I’m Irish and when I’ve visited America I end up in conversations like that with Americans and I find them uncomfortable a lot of the time because the Americans involved have a really stereotypical and outdated view of Ireland. Even worse, I’ve met some Americans who big up their Irish ancestry for oppression points - this was more common during The Troubles - and as someone who was living through The Troubles at that time, I was incredibly irritated by those people.

Some people like claiming things about themselves that give them an advantage, or make them feel special, and the modern fascination with Identity Politics has given this type of person the opportunity for social clout and advantage, which has sometimes diluted the help intended for the groups of people that policies were genuinely written to help.

I'm sorry for the writer of the Quilette article, Hal Niedzviecki. Seems he's been through the 'woke' wringer. Perhaps being burned once that's why he doesn't point out the blind spot of the people who police appropriation, who decide who can write about what. That they completely fail to see, they'll cheer on in fact, a man appropriating womanhood. Or maybe Hal's okay with that too.

Gwen Benaway, Canadian man who says he's a woman, also claimed indigenous heritage and benefitted from that identity.

https://quillette.com/2020/06/27/the-mob-that-came-after-me-is-turning-on-itself-when-will-this-end-who-does-this-help/

Got called out eventually.

https://x.com/GB20209/status/1272608805034000385

I couldn't find 'Gwen' on the net; it seems he's changed his name again.

https://wgsi.utoronto.ca/person/gwendolywn-fay-benaway/

Hahaha what a tit.

He's the modern version of the Little Britain "Only Gay in the Village" - except he's the only two-spirit, queer, non-binary, disabled, indigenous, mixed-race person in the village.

@CervixSampler
”Crip & Mad” is more slur reclamation - by the physically disabled/chronically ill & people with MH problems. Of course, as with “queer”, it’s almost exclusively being done by people with no experience of being targeted with said slur; & frequently people who would not now attract ableist/saneist comments.

I think you just file this under "Americans are weird about race".

Mr Monkey was born in England to Irish parents, has a very Irish name and has Irish and British citizenship.

On a visit to Boston earlier this year he got a bit weirded out by all the Americans who wanted to talk to him about their Irishness (trans: great granny who was born in Cork). They in turn seemed very disappointed by what they saw as his lack of Irishness (he has a generic London accent and has limited interest in traditional Irish cultural stuff)

You're right, he's extremely funny:

"Driskill says.... "Our stories are necessary to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities if we are to change our current realities.""

Into total fantasy, one presumes.

8% of Americans claim Scottish heritage, 9.5% claim Irish heritage. (Obviously there will be some people in both groups). Massive market / voter base.

Biden bigs up the Irish part of his ancestry to enhance his appeal to the Irish American voter. I’m not so sure people vote that way anymore, though. Some of a large voting group is enough, I suppose.

Biden does have Irish ancestry, though. So it is not like the chappie who has a multiple of identity claims to which he has no identifiable or verifiable ancestry. Not least, not being a chappie. He does identify as Homo sapiens, I presume. Does part Neanderthal confer any advantages, I wonder?

Buffy Ste Marie falsifying her First Nations background broke my heart.

Pretedians are an increasingly common grift.

What about 2 spirit? I've heard it was something someone pulled out of their arse nowhere relatively recently and gussied up with a romantic sounding name. However, I don't doubt that there were males who didn't fit in and there may have been categories for them. I don't believe it would have been the same over the diverse range of cultures found throughout indigenous American tribes.

Looks like a bog srandard white dude to me.

Given the egregrious history of discimination against first nations people and ongoing harms suffered by those communities as a result - appropriating their identity for social and financial gain really is the pits

Agree

What's a queer citizen or whatever it was, and what's "crip and mad"??

This appears to be true for Joe Biden. Wikipedia used to have Joe's family tree going back 5 generations. Of his 32 great great great grandparents, 6 were Irish, 2 were German and 24 were English or Welsh.

I would never sneer at someone's need/desire to connect with their ancestry. Family history is a massive interest for many and nearly everyone in the US/Canada knows that they have ancestors who originally came from other parts of the world. They are curious to find out who they were and what parts of the world they came from, and visit.
Funny that doesn't seem to be important at all for surrogacy.

You are right @Beowulfa. Americans (and Canadians, Aussies, NZ people) in general embrace the Irish and Scottish, less so the English and Welsh. Italian heritage celebrated, Germanic not so much. It's all the romantic ideas about castles and heather on the hills and lochs and glens and in recent years, bloody Outlander.

Qwo-Li Driskill is a two-spirit, queer (non-citizen) Cherokee; as well as a trans scholar, teacher, and activist also of African, Irish, Lenape, Lumbee, and Osage ascent, who also identifies as "Crip and Mad."

This is from a lost episode of a Chris Morris piss-take, right?

I read that far more white Americans have German heritage than Irish, but you rarely hear a celeb bigging up this particular ancestry. Dirk Benedict (the fit one in The A Tea) was born Dirk Niewoehner. Fred Astaire was born Frederick Austerlitz. Interesting what's cool and what isn't.

Te example about Biden claiming to be Irish was in relation to the topic of the thread.

That is, a person claiming an ancestry (Cherokee, African, Irish etc) in order to increase his employability.

If "being Irish" was a designation that could give you an advantage when applying to university posts, how many people would be bringing up their Irish ancestors? You'd also very likely get plenty of people faking them, it's not easy to show they are wrong, after all.

A lot of us have ancestors we have no real cultural connection to, it's not hard to see in that kind of job market how we could manipulate our "identity".

? I never saw 'being Irish' in a job description. Do you mean like a job working in an Irish Centre or something? I think they would ask for 'familiarity with the Irish community...' or something, to be on the safe side of equality laws.
I hope I haven't been missing out on ace job opportunities by not flaunting my Irish-ness

I would never sneer at someone's need/desire to connect with their ancestry. Family history is a massive interest for many and nearly everyone in the US/Canada knows that they have ancestors who originally came from other parts of the world. They are curious to find out who they were and what parts of the world they came from, and visit. I have no issue at all with Biden calling himself Irish-American. Trump's mother was born and raised in Scotland.

There is also a big issue with people claiming to be something they are not. In the case of Scottish or Irish descent, this is usually down to inexperienced and over enthusiastic researchers who just click on any records they think might fit in a desperate quest to get back to Niall of the 9 Hostages or Robert the Bruce or William the Conqueror. Misguided, but harmless.

This guy has faked his ancestry for personal gain, he would not have been asked to speak at a native American academic conference without claiming descent from that community. Likewise, he would not have been appointed a lecturer in gender studies without being "non-binary".

The problem is that ancestry/genealogy can be definitively proven one way or the other in most cases. All the non-binary stuff can't be proven because it's all made up in the first place.

That's all well and good.

It gets weird, however, when "being Irish" is part of your job qualification.