Much fun was poked at Elizabeth Warren when she, despite her lily-whiteness, asserted Native American heritage a couple years back. Violating the first rule of trial attorneys - 'never ask a question whose answer you don't know' - she actually took and published a DNA test that found, to almost no one's shock but her own, there was barely a drop of Native American in her genetic code.
That she wasn't promptly defenestrated for cultural appropriation by her adherents and acolytes is just another example of the Joy Behar Rule, wherein personal failings (and worse) are overlooked if policy advocacies align. Nevertheless, such "stolen valor," to borrow a phrase from the military, doesn't sit right with some.
Including Native American writer Jacqueline Keeler, who has compiled a list of alleged "Pretendians," i.e. people who have asserted Native American heritage for personal gain or advancement or 'legitimacy' in the public sphere, but whose claims do not stand up to scrutiny. There are, in Keeler's words, "hundreds of frauds" littering the landscape.
That being Native American (or of another minority group) is a benefit in our present-day society is something that our race agitators really want to deny, but the plethora of poseurs puts the lie to such denial. "Anti-racism" ideator and racism gadfly Ibram X. Kendi quite unintentionally (and embarrassingly) made that clear with a recent tweet (that he promptly deleted upon widespread mockery):
That people's admission rates were positively influenced by assertion of minority identity is a surprise to no honest person. Everybody knows that being a member of certain identity groups gets you preferential treatment in admission to our elite universities. Everybody knows that politicians consider (often overtly and declaratively) identity in choosing political appointees. There is an amalgam of assertions that defend these practices, including:
- Balance out past bigotries.
- Override present-day bigotries.
- Provide a diversity of perspectives.
While only a fool or a liar would assert that there is no more bigotry in our society, more and more sane people are growing skeptical that such discriminatory practices are either beneficial or capable of producing a harmonious post-racist culture. That such as Kendi make it pretty clear they do not see a post-racist outcome ever happening doesn't make things any better.
Nevertheless, and setting the agitators aside, people want a less bigoted society, and a less bigoted society is a more harmonious one. So, actions that purport in that direction are understandable (even if misguided or falsely rooted or ‘token’).
Also understandable are the reactions.
Exhibit A: the Pretendians.
Why would people make false claim of a heritage? To leverage the benefits of such a heritage, rather obviously. Attention, prestige, money, power, and an ersatz legitimacy of opinion (what logicians call a Genetic Fallacy, wherein who said something is purported to add to the truth of what's said).
It is inevitable that, the moment you normalize unequal treatment, some people will jockey for that which will put them in the most favorable position. And, as with crabs in a pot, they will pull each other down in their bid for positional supremacy. This is human nature, it is incentivizing, it is as certain as the tide.
It is why such as Warren, Rachel Dolezal, Jessica A. Krug, Hilaria Baldwin, hundreds of Pretendians, Kelly Kean Sharp, CV Vitolo-Haddad, Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, Satchel Cole, and other alleged 'identity hoaxers' (as The Atlantic calls them) have spun their tales.
It is the fatal flaw of all remedy schemes that rely on unequal treatment. This leaves us with the original goal of the civil rights movement - equal treatment, i.e. "content of their character" judgment of our fellow humans - as the only solution to racism and other bigotries.
None of this denies cultural differences, or refutes that such diversity is a good thing. That, by the way, is the true diversity, wherein we can each present the worldview born of our heritage, family, culture, history, and the like. The artificial diversity of progressive-defined identity groups (do Mongols and Maoris share enough commonality of culture to be melded into the AAPI group?) actually quashes this true diversity in favor of forming groups of critical mass for political power purposes. The diversity of ideas and viewpoints is only permitted within the bounds of policy and forced perspective set down by the definers and sorters, thus labeling casting black conservatives, latino Republicans, and lesbian libertarians as identity-traitors.
This is also part of the "race to the top" outcome of unequal treatment as a remedy for bigotry. The end-goal is not a harmonious society, but rather the pursuit of power, fame, and/or Other People's Money. It's veneered with noble purpose and high dudgeon, but that veneer is paper-thin and easily seen through. All you have to do is look.
The only remedy that can produce a harmonious, post-racial society is an identity-neutral equality - of opportunity, of treatment under the law, of association. Not this "equity" business, which is by its very nature about unequal treatment so that a particular outcome can be engineered. That outcome, of course, will end up with certain people in power and in charge. And less liberty for everyone.
I enjoy your posts, Peter, and admire your perspective. To add to your comment about a less bigoted society being amore harmonious one, I would say it is also a more meritorious one. Less discrimination leads to more cooperation and progress towards common societal goals, rather than the destructive competition we experience today. Your "crabs in a bucket" example is apropos.