University of California Professor Exposed as Claiming Fake Indian Heritage

Andrea Smith

[From article]
another professor stands accused of falsely claiming a different racial identity to advance her career.
[. . .]
Andrea Smith, a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of California at Riverside, has started to draw attention in the wake of the Dolezal incident from those who say she has for years falsely claimed to have Cherokee blood. The case is arguably much more significant, though, because while Dolezal was a relatively undistinguished academic at Eastern Washington University, Smith is recognized as a significant scholar in her field. She routinely appears as a featured scholar at major events and has written books that were well-received by her colleagues
[. . .]
David Cornsilk, a Cherokee genealogist, who says he actually researched Smith’s heritage back in 1993 (while she was still an undergraduate) at her request and found absolutely no evidence of Cherokee heritage. Cornsilk says Smith actually approached him a second time in 1997 to look again, allegedly telling him “her employment depended on finding proof of Indian heritage.” Once again, Cornsilk found nothing.
But that apparently didn’t deter Smith, who simply continued to claim Cherokee heritage directly or allow others to attribute that heritage to her. In 2008, her failed tenure bid at the University of Michigan caused a significant backlash, with activists claiming the school was marginalizing minority women.

[. . .]
but apparently even Smith’s siblings may be getting in on the fraud. An article published by Russell on July 1 accuses Justine Smith, Andrea’s sister, of not only falsely claiming Cherokee heritage but also getting a fake tribal ID card.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/06/top-american-indian-scholar-outed-as-fake-indian/

Top American Indian Scholar Outed As Fake Indian

BLAKE NEFF, Reporter

3:35 PM 07/06/2015

More Details About Use of Indian Names For Pro Teams

[From article]
Amanda Blackhorse, a Navajo who successfully moved a federal agency to withdraw trademark protections from the Washington Redskins because it considers the team's name derogatory, lives on a reservation where Navajos root for the Red Mesa High School Redskins. She opposes this name; the Native Americans who picked and retain it evidently do not.
[. . .]
In today's regulatory state, agencies often do pretty much as they please, exercising discretion unconstrained by law.
In today's regulatory state, agencies often do pretty much as they please, exercising discretion unconstrained by law.
[. . .]
Thomas Sowell is correct that "some people are in the business of being offended, just as Campbell is in the business of making soup,"
[. . .]
People offended by this might be similarly distressed if they knew that "Oklahoma" is a compound of two Choctaw words meaning "red" and "people."
[. . .]
When two Oregon bakers chose, for religious reasons, not to provide a cake for a same-sex wedding, an Oregon government official explained why tolerance meant coercing the bakers: "The goal is to rehabilitate." Tolerance required declaring the bakers' beliefs and practices intolerable. We are going to discover whether a society can be congenial while its government is being coercive regarding wedding cakes and team names.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will062814.php3#.U7IqGd0--yM

Jewish World Review
June 28, 2014

Are you offended?
By George Will

American Indians and Jews

An American Indian comes back to the Reservation to visit with his parents after spending some time in New York . He tells his father that he's fallen in love with a nice Jewish girl.
His father is mortified and says, "You're betraying your heritage and you'll break your mother's heart that you're not marrying a precious Indian girl....and you know how Jews are, they'll feel the same way and you'll be ostracized in both camps!"
The Indian son reassures his father, "Don't worry. The Jewish family has already accepted the situation because they've gone ahead and given their daughter an Indian name."
"Really?" asks the father. "What name?"
The son answers... "Sitting Shiva."