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Why so many white Americans claim to be native? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 1 day ago by choihanna@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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For some reason when I'm talking to an American from the North East and the fact that I'm mixed comes up they always say they aren't white they're actually native because his grandpa once mentioned something about a Cherokee ancestor.

It's always Cherokee, no other tribe but that one. And it's always the whitest looking person ever, straight up 6ft tall blue eyed and blond guy.

I get it, I'm mostly white too, Spanish and Slavic. But even tho I'm not mostly native American I still look native enough that people think I'm Asian.

But when your ancestry has been so diluted over the generations... You're not native. It's not just that you don't look native, it's also that you don't even participate in the culture.

Dude you're just a farm boy from Philadelphia you're probably more Amish than Cherokee, if that supposed ancestor is even real at all and not just some random claim by some of your ancestors to have a "right over these lands".

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[–] Reyali@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

If there were an equivalent to reddit gold on Lemmy, I’d give it to you. This is such a great overview and explains what I wish I had words for a decade ago when I had a conversation with a leftist friend of mine who was in her 60s, and she posed a question along the lines of, “Why can’t I have white pride?”

It was completely with good intention and not with an ounce of white supremacy. I realized it came from a place of wanting an identity or culture, to feel like she came from something. She saw others get to have a community around their ancestry and longed for something like it.

White supremacists have ruined any chance there could have been to find healthy pride in a white identity, and American history is completely mired in that. So many white people feel this loss or lack, and try to fill it with anything they can cling to. 1/32 Native, half Irish, 1/4 German; whatever, just to feel like there’s some history that ties you to who you are.

But you already said this more eloquently than I!