Thanks to Barnaby and Nighthawk for their responses .
Reading this helped me think it through and better identify some of the specific situations that trouble me - and why I feel bugged by this.
Nighthawk
I don't think it's a problem at all, unless the person making the (false) claims (1) is a public figure, in a position of authority and able to influence public policy in some way; (2) is doing so for some financial benefit; (3) is just plain misrepresenting the people/community/culture that s/he claims to be a part of, but in a way that impacts on the people very directly and negatively or may harm others.
I agree with what you are saying here , but the problem is, people who post stuff about themselves on a public message board ,are to some degree public figures and presumably we all post here in the hopes of having some small influence on other people, and public policey.
I guess sometimes , there is just different opinions about how much importance a particular aspect of ourselves should be given. Maybe that person who calls themself Cherokee because there is a story their gr grandma's gr grandma was Cherokee , honestly believes the story and honestly believes that one drop of Native blood makes them an indigenous person.
The problem is , this belief gets often gets elaborated upon , and transforms into thinking that their "Native identity" entiles them to control over the resources and culture that belong to Native people. Or more specifically this control belongs in the hands of strong and viable native communities .
I seems to me that the process of colonization has never been acheived through the actions of just a few individuals and it is the mainly the assumptions of entitlement which get acted out by the general population which work together to displace the recognition and soveighnty of indigenous people.
So , as I see it, people who focus exclusively on a tiny part of their own heritage and claim a Native identity when no strong and deeply rooted indigenous Nation recognizes this , are comitting a small act of colonization, even if the person doing this is entirely innocent of this intention and simply identifies mostly with this part of their background.
Offering political or military support in exchange for consessions which undermine the soveriehnty of a nation is one of the oldest tricks in the book. So when I see people posting here , and offering helpful information , but at the same time making claims to a native identity that no strong and viable Nation would recognize , it seems completely contrary to our purposes here, and it does bug me .
As long as these claims are based in reality, it seems the discussions which come up from people having different opinions on this are constructive and educational.
But then there is the type of misrepresentation which can seem a lot more intentional or cynical as Barnaby calls it. Like for instance when someone claims they are from one tribe and provides some elaborate information about this, then a while later, maybe when they are involved in a different group, they claim they are from a whole different tribe and give different elaborate information , and these various stories don't fit together at all?
As I see it, people who consciously lie are trying to influence the public and are lying in order to get people to give them something people would not choose to give them if they had all the facts. So even if someone has learned some basic information and the cultural information is correct , and they aren't an exploiter in any other way , if they are misrepresenting themself there is still a fraud going on and IMO this is still wrong because people are in some way being tricked.
Maybe 99 percent of the time this is of little consequence, but in some situations for some people what seems to be a small lie might derail someone in a way that has serious consequences which they would not have chosen if they hadn't been tricked. And sometimes , if people or the circumstances make people vulnerable, this derailment can be really seriously harmful.
I guess I also have some personal beliefs around the importance of doing our best to tell the truth . I believe the Creator created what is real and lives in what is real , so when we do our best to work with the truth , we are doing our best to respect what the Creator created and to work with tthe Creator. When we neglect to do this , we disrespect the Creator and we get ourselves into trouble.
So anyone who plays a part of defending traditional ways of Prayer, but at the same time lies about who they are feels like someone working on getting soft drink machines removed from schools when the same person is lobbying to replace these with candy and potatoe chip machines.
I also believe people have a right to know the truth , just as much as they have a right to clean air, food and water, and anybody who withholds this from them through misrepresenting something , is doing so for personal gain, and that is wrong. It's fraud.
I don't mean people should have access to private information or that people should have to reveal anything about who they are. Being anonymous and not sharing much personal information isn't misrepresenting oneself.
It is kind of like our underwear. It's private, unless we or someone close to us posts something on the intenet making claims that we own the underwear that was worn by Marilyn Munroe when she married Elvis Presely. If someone makes a claim like that , out undewear is no longer nobody else's buisnes, and if all the evidence is that Mariyn Munroe never married Elvis Presely, to make such a claim is probalby a fraud and the claim is made with the intention of tricking someone into doing something they wouldn't do if they knew that underwear just belonged to someones grandma who was named Jane Smith.
The other problem with people who lie is that if anyone threatens them they tend to get really nasty , and all people have to do to make a liar feel threatened is to be capable of telling the truth.
I have seen situations where someone working in a Native organization falsely claimed to be mixed blood and decended from a particular tribe. The work they were doing was OK , but when someone who was really from the tribe they claimed began asking friendly questions about their relatives, the person who had lied did everything they could to get their coworker removed from the organization , and this serious impacted the person who really was from this tribe and the work the organization was involved in.
From what I have seen people who lie are unstable, frequently dangerous and they often do hurt people.
People who are researching questionable people do perform google searches and they do make judgments based on who people seem to be associated with and trusted by. I know behind the scenes someone recently did this with someone who does not appear to be who they are claiming to be, but because a google search showed them as involved in what appeared to be some good causes, in that persons mind that was enough to halt further inquiries . ,
It's true that the moderators do do a good job and a lot of this stuff appears to get dealt with behind the scenes , but that still leaves me wondering ;
If there is evidence someone is lying to the public, even if this isn't the sort of fraud which is usually exposed here, if the person has been involved posting here, does the public have a right to know that evidence and the right to make up their own mind what to do with it?
I guess this is a bit of a rant, but I really feel honesty is an important thing ... But so is maintaining a balance, not getting lost in unresolvable disputes and keeping our focus on the really serious frauds and exploitation out there.
Thanks again for the feed back ...
