How to Free Ourselves of Fake Indigenous Celebrities

“F#%K!”

That was my response when I first heard author Thomas King had copped to not being a Cherokee Indian. It was immediately followed by “NOT AGAIN!” when I recalled the equally shocking news that Buffy Sainte-Marie wasn’t Cree, which she claimed to be for decades.

Soon, my emotions descended from anger to despondency as I contemplated this awful turn of events. This is what feelings of shock, betrayal, followed by pain does to a person.

Frankly, I’m stunned by the realization that I and so many other Native people were yet again led down the garden path by another fake Indigenous celebrity.

As it was with Buffy, I also put King on a pedestal for his many impressive artistic creations. But more so because to me he represented the best of what a creative Indigenous person could be, and others could become.

But now, he isn’t. And it hurts.

My only encounter with King occurred about 20 years ago at an Indigenous writers gathering in Vancouver. After he spoke, I approached him and, in complete fanboy reverence, told him how I once scoured his book, Green Grass, Running Water, to find anything that spoke to the title’s significance, and that proudly I did, which piqued his curiosity. Sensing I had an interest in writing, he encouraged me to start. He even mentioned some writers who started later in life as a way of saying there was still time. Yep, pedestal making stuff.

The irony of it, however, is that the panel he was on talked about authenticity in Aboriginal storytelling. I don’t remember his contribution, but given what I know now, that he said anything at all has turned the whole thing into a sour memory.

How? How in the hell did he, and, for that matter, Buffy, happily come into my life but then leave so badly, like a warm breeze that turns into a freezing gale I need to shelter from?

Honestly, after learning about King, and thinking about Buffy, I couldn’t help but think back to something I read in a literature class 30 years ago, where in Plato’s The Republic, Socrates wants to banish poets because they can’t be trusted to represent the truth of things. In other words, the contrivances poets deploy to create their works were similarly used by these artists to create their own self-designed Indigenous identity.

It's unnerving — and yet instructive — to think in today’s world a person’s Indigeneity can be had through the application of a diligent imagination, a bit of artifice and, when talented enough, media attention.

In Buffy’s case, there was never cause for me to doubt her portrayal, what with her dark hair and skin (both allegedly dyed and tanned), complete with Native-themed clothing and accessories. For King, it was the natural kind, specifically the eyes. I mean, when I first saw his photograph decades ago, the shape of his eyes clinched it. I’m guessing that even when he looked in the mirror, they worked to ease any doubt he may have had of not being the person that he was ultimately proven not to be — the keyword here being proven.

I give King credit for investigating his family tree, which he knew could debunk his claim of being part Cherokee. But let’s not forget, a claim is all it ever was, as it continues to be with Buffy. But boy, did he ever go a long way in his career on a simple, albeit stubborn claim of being Indigenous (rumours to the contrary had circulated online for a decade). He was, of course, helped along by being masterful at creating Indigenous-themed stories (as I now call them), among other things. But this ability to build a successful career based on a mere claim of being Indigenous is, I hope, coming to a fast end.

By now, Canadians are well aware of the many instances of Indigenous identity fraud in academia, which has forced post-secondary institutions to adopt verification policies to thwart future instances of identity theft.

One of them is the University of Victoria, which recently released its Indigenous Citizenship Declaration policy. It sets down criteria for students, staff and faculty wanting to access “Indigenous-specific opportunities that result in material gain.” Now, they are “required to demonstrate their eligibility for those material advantages by providing a declaration of Indigenous Citizenship and supporting information.”

The policy’s purpose is to ensure that “opportunities of material gain that are designated for Indigenous Peoples are accessed by Indigenous Peoples, and that the eligibility requirements for these opportunities are consistent with the ways that Indigenous Nations, Peoples and communities determine their Citizenship.”

This development is promising not only for academia, but society at large.

While I’m not foolish enough to think non-educational sectors, for example, the publishing industry, will adopt a similar approach anytime soon, I am hopeful that the healthy skepticism cultivated in the education sector will soon permeate elsewhere so that those in power will at least start asking pointed and timely questions. This way, whenever someone seeks out a notable opportunity that’s clearly associated with being Indigenous, they will be asked to substantiate it in some way.

Better yet, hopefully it gets to where opportunists will think twice about claiming to be Indigenous if they can't back it up with more than “trust me.”

At this point, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with my collection of King books. I’ll probably add them to my Buffy CDs, which I don’t listen to anymore and likely never will. After she was outed, I thought I could, but I haven’t. I just can’t. While it’s a damn shame, King’s stuff will likely meet the same fate.

My endnote to this whole affair is that I would encourage Indigenous youth to find their heroes not in the stars (i.e., the mediascape) as I did, but on the ground, where they can assess the truth of things for themselves.