Canada

As a 100% full blooded Ojibwe-Cree .... this whole thing is messed up.

It doesn't matter what the Piapot family says about the matter ... Wab Kinew did the same thing for Boyden during that controversy

As an indigenous person, the whole message I get out of all this is that ...

• As Indians, we have to fight to be anything - and most of the time we'll lose
• As whites, they can be whatever they want as long as they make money

I've spent my entire life surrounded by Native people who could only dream of being white and like the majority of Canada and live without stigma, or shame for who they are ... as a young person, I didn't like the fact I was a brown Indian who was looked down upon and thought that I would never live up to anything

It's completely sickening to watch a privileged white person who had everything going for them to make a decent career and take on the identity of a people that didn't want to be who they were and use that as a shortcut to make millions for herself and everyone that supported her.

She built her career on our misery ... she built her wealth on the image of our poverty ... the Piapot family don't mind the controversy and moral ambiguity because they probably stand to gain a bit of fame and fortune from it all, I'm sure Santamaria has some financial rewards to share with them .... as for the rest of us Indians, we're left with the bitter taste of knowing that white people can still say and do whatever they want to us and get away with it.

It's a pretty sick and disgusting situation. I was feeling good in my life as an Indigenous person until today ... now I feel like I did years ago as a teenager wondering why the hell I should keep identifying as an Indian when it hangs a like a curse for me and a blessing for a white person.

Ultimately, this is about who gets to police Indigenous identity, and regardless of whether the answer to that is "each tribe can decide its own membership" or "some significant number of Indigenous people have to agree", it's obvious that the correct answer is not "the government established established by European colonists decides" or "the news media decides". The people involved need to argue it out. The opinions of those of us who aren't Indigenous or claiming to be really aren't important.

This whole scandal has blown my Canadian mind more than anything I can remember. She has done an impressive job of bringing attention to First Nations people, and indigenous people in Canada overall, her Piapot family clearly loves and claims her. BUT, she’s also literally a colonizing liar who has benefitted off the struggle of our indigenous people. It turns out she wasn’t an advocate at all but an identity thief. I feel like everything I ever knew was a lie. Next someone’s going to tell me stompin’ Tom kept women chained up in his basement. Frig.

The "Notable Examples" section here is much longer than I expected:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretendian

This must be so hurtful to some people, I can't even imagine. The CBC investigation looks thorough. A response like this is just weak.

Making up rules on the spot is a pretty weird way to handle things like genetic testing. But I've lived on the coast.