Non Binary professor accused of faking identities

[Justme56]

Following a recent thread, this is an interesting article showing how some self identities (eg NB) arent questioned whilst others are.

https://www.thepublica.com/non-binary-oregon-state-university-professor-steps-down-after-being-accused-of-faking-mixed-race-black-indigenous-two-spirit-identity/

A previous one where disability comes up to.

https://www.advocate.com/exclusives/2019/8/28/two-spirit-queer-disabled-scholar-making-waves

Very interesting, thanks for posting. It's refreshing to read about somebody being told firmly 'No you're not.' when they claim an identity which is factually not theirs.

He was rumbled by a group with the wonderful name of 'Tribal Alliance Against Frauds (TAAF)', who bring fact to fantasy, and seem to be authoritative and respected in the research they carry out before declaring 'No you're not.'

As discussed in another thread, it's highly unlikely that he would have been called out in a similar way if he said he was a woman.

I think this is like the case of the Rachel Dolezal. It’s about appropriating the funds and support intended for people of non-white/non-European ethnicities/races [sorry if I am using the wrong terminology] and he just coincidentally appropriate Queer. Whilst you can self-identify into any of the queer groups and no-one is allowed to question you (because that would make them bigots), you cannot self identify into an ethnicity which - not unlike sex - is likely encoded into your DNA. It seems he knowingly and probably cynically faked his native and black heritage, whereas we can’t possibly even suggest that he is faking the queer aspect of ZIR identity 🤦🏽‍♀️.

The ridiculously large and unwieldy alphabet umbrella that now incorporates ‘two spirit’ beneath it, means that all of these issues have been conflated in that headline. He’s a despicable piece of shit, obviously, but I feel this story is less about his non-binaryness and mainly about fraudulent ethnicity claims that have been used to enhance his career and to garner income/funds/speaking engagement that should have been allocated others.

HAHAHAHAHA

oh lord i've heard it all

how can you be cancelled for fake Native American identity when ALL non-binary identities are also fake by definition?

I know that adopting oppressed identities is the way that mid-wits favour to get jobs they don't deserve in academia and other sectors, but honestly this guy overplayed his hand. One fake identity wasn't enough for him he had to co-opt about half a dozen!

Typical male behavior taking all the resources for himself

I've heard of a few people now disgraced for faking ethnicity, but this is the first time I've seen it happen to a male person. It sounds as if complaints had been made for some time, but it was only when the TAAF got involved, that something was done.
I do wonder what goes on in people's heads. Does he consciously know he's faking?
Or is he so absolutely arrogant that he genuinely thinks he actually has the right to it because he's that entitled?

Nice earrings. Shame about the lies.

Oh my goddes you all need to read the Advocate article if you haven't yet. It just made me snort coffee thru my nose and have all my colleagues looking at me funny

He actully said this:

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."
They explain, "I have several chronic illnesses as well as complex post-traumatic stress."

Oh man this dude is brilliant. He's a comedian! I haven't laughed this much since I went to the fawlty towers stage show in London.

I will be closely following this guy's future career he is genuinely hilarious

Time someone called-out Mr Biden on being Irish. I am 56% Irish, which means sod all when I was brought up in England, have English relatives but no known Irish ones and consider myself English, from family lines in Hampshire and possibly Cambridgeshire. The revelation might make me more interested in Irish history - but not much more than I am already.

This has already happened to male people, it's not new. Joseph Boyden, the writer, comes to mind.

It's rampant in academia in North America. In part because academic posts are difficult to come by and often it's an advantage - officially - to have a minority designation even if it's not related to the position - it's totally legal in Canada to do this and it happens in the US as well. It's not just people faking, but also people with some indigenous (or black) ancestry that they don't really have a connection to, who are polishing it off for job applications - that kind of thing goes on quite openly among young academics looking for positions. (And not just there, I've known families who needed to prove French ancestry for access to French schools and to call the connection tenuous is generous. But everyone accepts that this is the way you get access to special services and rights.)

It's likely to ramp up IMO. As more and more significant advantages and rights are being attached to indigenous identity in particular- taxes, jobs, fishing quota, etc - indigenous groups themselves are more and more wanting to have clear definitions of who is eligible. I suspect in many cases it's going to end up as something closer to a citizenship model (which already exists for some groups) rather than DNA as such.

I suspect the shit will hit the fan around the whole thing once we get to that point and hope I am not around for it.

Well, if that's you, that's grand Grammarnut, you do you.

But many people around the world, including Biden, are very interested in their family history and how they ended up living where they do now - the social, historical and economic reasons that they had to leave Ireland. They have relatives still living in Ireland who have family records of the departure of grandparents and great-grandparents - Biden is an example of that, he knew his relatives in Co Louth (and probably Co Mayo, I can only vouch personally for the long-established Louth connection) long before he was running for the presidency.

Many Irish emigrants have had aspects of Irish culture passed down through the generations, for instance traditional Irish music survived and thrived in emigrant communities to this day.
Claiming to be 'Irish' in this context usually means identifying with your family's Irish history. It's not like claiming to be something factually unconnected to you, like an African or Native American family background.

But it's not obligatory, if you're English, 'grand so'

I'll bet his colleagues love him. What a twat.

The Cherokee are a group who have very strict rules about who has citizenship. And they have extensive records that define who has ancestry, so there are very clear processes that someone like this guy would have to use to be considered Cherokee.

The African identity is vague isn’t it? Last time I looked Africa was a huge continent with many diverse cultures and ethnicities. Qwo Li is very specific about his other identities but has let himself down badly on the African claim imo.

That's all well and good.

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

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.

? 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

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Agree

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

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.

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

Pretedians are an increasingly common grift.

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?