White civil rights leader has pretended to be black for years

[FridgeMagnet]

I just assumed that was what you meant (I had to Google it).

I meant as in "psychogeography". Well that will teach me to make up my own neologisms. Wait, no it won't.

 

[spanglechick]

If someone wanted to tell me who all my ancestors were (not ALL of them, clearly, but some of the interesting branches on the tree) or if I could find it all out within an afternoon’s moderate effort I think I’d find it fairly interesting.

I don’t know anything really past my grandparents, but my paternal grandmother was half Spanish, which is a bit of interesting Victorian immigration.

Actually my sister and I both separately came to the conclusion that my mum’s family aren’t far removed from North Kent gypsy heritage. Our mum reckons not, but I’d be interested to see if it’s true. (Tbh it’s mostly because my grandparents were first cousins, and my granddad used a fair bit of gypsy dialect)...

I don’t care enough to put any effort into finding out, but surely everyone’s ego is healthy enough to be interested in how they came to fit into the current context?

Regarding this woman, she seems a bit more troubled than Dolezal, whose adopted black siblings and apparently distant parents make for a plausible stimulus for what became a fantasy reshaping of who she was.
With the current case, this woman (whose name I’ve forgotten and cba to look up) seems to have created a more complex (pretending also to Latin heritage) and attention-seeking identity, and so far it’s much less clear how/why that misrepresentation of her identity began.

 

[pinkmonkey]

I wonder how many other people there are out there like this? Its a bloody old trick. I was reading the other day about The Outlaw Josey Wales and the whole Forest Carter / Asa Earl Carter thing. Do people just think they can get away with it or just get caught up in the lie and are in too deep?

Oh I can think of one - infact if you look on native American websites they write about how they get white people pretending to be Native American, making money off their culture. They call them Pretendians. But I knew a UK version. Theres a bloke out there (ok in London unless he’s finally fucked off to Portugal) who makes money pretending to be brown and a Shaman, but he’s white North London Jewish. When I originally knew him he was known for doing tarot readings (begging) in Goa, setting up crowdfunders for his bullshit charity (more begging In order to buy flights to Goa) and pretending to be Indian. He used the name of a famous Indian poet. But his cosplay was more Captain Jack Sparrow. My friend (who is actually Indian and not a pretendian) discovered he was pretending to be brown because how can you remain convincing if you know jack shit about the culture and language. So he had to own up to my mate who couldn’t get over it and couldn’t stop laughing. Everyone instantly knew after that, because he texted us all. After the shame of this, pretendian gave himself a new made up fake name that sounds a bit like the old one but could be Portuguese, because he’s now moved onto sweat lodges and Ayahuasca and all that ethnic central American shaman stuff thats more trendy than Indian gurus are now. He has a website, he teaches shamanism courses, it seems to involve a lot of barefoot people in fishermans trousers with their eyes closed, placing their hands on someones head and calling each other brother and sister, he sells war bonnets that he’s made out of dead geese that he’s found on Hackney Marsh (my mate said, ‘Hackney Eagle‘) and also these twig things with bits of dead mice on. I’m not sure what they are. He’s like a sitcom parody but he’s real and people fall for it. He’s universally loathed by everyone I know and is banned from the healing fields of even the most yoghurt weaving of festivals. TL;DR Never Trust A Hippy

 

[RubyToogood]

This definition of psychogenealogy sounds more plausible;

This underlines one of the premises of the psychogenealogy frame: the group is more important than the individual. A group mobilizes its individual members to satisfy group needs first before satisfying individual ones. This is most powerful when the individual is not even aware they are fulfilling a group function. Taking over the family business from his father, a son might believe this is the most natural thing to do, as everyone else in the family does. In a way, he gets groomed for the part. And this son may well be fulfilling a group need to ensure economic and social survival way beyond his own individual need!! To the point where his health might suffer or his marriage could fall apart and when he starts to ask, what’s going on here, nobody knows how to answer, or where to turn for answers.

 

[Marty1]

She definitely seems to have out-Dolezaled Dolezal.

Wow!

Who on earth did she think she was fooling?

 

[Marty1]

‘Nuka Zeus’ believes he’s the first trans-racial man.



A bit about Nuka:





Originally I thought he was on a wind up but apparently he’s not

Edit: one thing that occurred to me is that it must be very tiring if you constantly have to put on that fake accent.

 

[Raheem]

Just so everyone knows. All those people from way back who you think you're related to you''re not. Well, not by blood anyway. Every single family has crazy amounts of illegitimate children in the family tree and you normally don't even have to go that far back to find it.

True fact: My family tree can be traced back to the sixth century BC, but only if you ignore my great-times-a-few granddad being born over a year after the death of the man whose name he inherited.

 

[Raheem]

(dp)

 

[Raheem]

(tp, ffs)

 

[8ball]

(tp, ffs)

You can say that again.

 

[8ball]

True fact: My family tree can be traced back to the sixth century BC, but only if you ignore my great-times-a-few granddad being born over a year after the death of the man whose name he inherited.

I think we’re cousins.

 

[Raheem]

I think we’re cousins.

I don't want to spoil it for you, but you really should ask your mum about that.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Regarding the new case: how did she get away with it for so long? She obviously doesn't look like she has any recent African ancestry at all. Does confirm the notion that one of academia's functions is to contain verbally persuasive cranks and prevent them messing up more important work.

You daft cunt.

 

[SpackleFrog]

On the plus side, just like to say that i think it's great that the majority reaction of Urban to this has been to launch into a discussion about how none of us know who our ancestors are and it's pretty weird if you do, and what the fuck does it matter anyway. Instead of a load of fucking bollocks about how dare she and obviously people would know etc. You've all just reminded me of why I'm here

 

[spanglechick]

‘Nuka Zeus’ believes he’s the first trans-racial man.



A bit about Nuka:





Originally I thought he was on a wind up but apparently he’s not

Edit: one thing that occurred to me is that it must be very tiring if you constantly have to put on that fake accent.

That’s not how accents work though. If you actively want to speak with a different accent and you do so every day it doesn’t take Long (a few months, tops) for the vast majority f people to find the acquired accent comes naturally.

 

[zahir]

A pioneer of this kind of nonsense.

GREY OWL THE MAGNIFICENT FRAUD | Maclean's | AUGUST 1 1951

Archie Belaney, a little English kid with a head full of dreams about Indians and animals, became the fabulous Grey Owl of the Canadian north woods. He lived as an Indian, “married” four times and wrote the books that gave a million boys like Archie stirring dreams of their own

archive.macleans.ca

 

[bimble]

There’s something always fascinating about people who are full time imposters (not just con people but live their whole lives pretending to be someone they’ve invented or wish they were instead). Can’t remember the name of it now but I had a good little book with the biographies of several famous imposters. There’s always i think both something to be gained by it for them and something they’re running away from.

 

[Jay Park]

Every time I see the title of this thread I am almost as astounded as when I happen to remember that Donald Trump is the President of the United States

 

[Doodler]

On the plus side, just like to say that i think it's great that the majority reaction of Urban to this has been to launch into a discussion about how none of us know who our ancestors are and it's pretty weird if you do, and what the fuck does it matter anyway. Instead of a load of fucking bollocks about how dare she and obviously people would know etc. You've all just reminded me of why I'm here

 

[campanula]

ffs, I don't even know who my dad is, let alone numerous generations in the past. Not uncommon, is it?

 

[Clair De Lune]

ffs, I don't even know who my dad is, let alone numerous generations in the past. Not uncommon, is it?

Nope, not at all. I didn't find out my dad wasn't my biological dad till I was a teenager (and I wasn't told, I found out and confronted them)
It totally fucked my head up for a bit, but more so that everyone lied to me, felt like I couldn't trust the ground I walked on for a bit, let alone people. They said they did it because it would have been too confusing for me to hear the truth but tbh I think it was more of a cultural, shame avoiding tactic for them.

I have zero interest in searching my family tree, or indeed dna testing.. perhaps partly because of this lie I was told, partly because the great grandparents I met were horrendously abusive, but mainly because as I see it, us humans are all family and I don't identify with my ancestors any more than yours.

 

[brogdale]

Actually my sister and I both separately came to the conclusion that my mum’s family aren’t far removed from North Kent gypsy heritage. Our mum reckons not, but I’d be interested to see if it’s true. (Tbh it’s mostly because my grandparents were first cousins, and my granddad used a fair bit of gypsy dialect)...

Same here spanglechick ; my parents are 3rd cousins (whatever that means?) from the same village and my old man's always going on about horse related stuff and how many of the women 'ancestors' on his side knew the ways of the country...but they weren't witches as such....

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Nope, not at all. I didn't find out my dad wasn't my biological dad till I was a teenager (and I wasn't told, I found out and confronted them)
It totally fucked my head up for a bit, but more so that everyone lied to me, felt like I couldn't trust the ground I walked on for a bit, let alone people. They said they did it because it would have been too confusing for me to hear the truth but tbh I think it was more of a cultural, shame avoiding tactic for them.

I have zero interest in searching my family tree, or indeed dna testing.. perhaps partly because of this lie I was told, partly because the great grandparents I met were horrendously abusive, but mainly because as I see it, us humans are all family and I don't identify with my ancestors any more than yours.

Tbh I think this kind of thing is more likely to colour our feelings and sense of connection to distant ancestors than anything else. I only knew one grandparent. She was a very unpleasant person. One other grandparent who died before I was born sounds like he was a total cunt. It almost becomes a position of faith or belief that their cuntitude has nothing to do with me. I know I am not anything like that. I have my own set of faults of course but they are mine. And I have no desire to delve deeper.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Nope, not at all. I didn't find out my dad wasn't my biological dad till I was a teenager (and I wasn't told, I found out and confronted them)
It totally fucked my head up for a bit, but more so that everyone lied to me, felt like I couldn't trust the ground I walked on for a bit, let alone people. They said they did it because it would have been too confusing for me to hear the truth but tbh I think it was more of a cultural, shame avoiding tactic for them.

I have zero interest in searching my family tree, or indeed dna testing.. perhaps partly because of this lie I was told, partly because the great grandparents I met were horrendously abusive, but mainly because as I see it, us humans are all family and I don't identify with my ancestors any more than yours.

Snap! Weird innit?

 

[NoXion]

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at all curious about my ancestors, but I'm not interested enough to put any real effort into finding out. All I know is that my Mum's family is from Kent and my Dad's is from Scotland.

 

[Clair De Lune]

 

[kebabking]

View attachment 229324

My G-G-grandparents ran out of imagination after two boys names, so they used one of them again. Two brothers out of three called Sydney. Both alive and in the house at the same time....

 

[fishfinger]

My G-G-grandparents ran out of imagination after two boys names, so they used one of them again. Two brothers out of three called Sydney. Both alive and in the house at the same time....

George Foreman has 5 sons, all named George.

 

[spanglechick]

My G-G-grandparents ran out of imagination after two boys names, so they used one of them again. Two brothers out of three called Sydney. Both alive and in the house at the same time....

That’s pretty rotten. Poor Sidneys.

 

[campanula]

Nope, not at all. I didn't find out my dad wasn't my biological dad till I was a teenager (and I wasn't told, I found out and confronted them)
It totally fucked my head up for a bit, but more so that everyone lied to me, felt like I couldn't trust the ground I walked on for a bit, let alone people. They said they did it because it would have been too confusing for me to hear the truth but tbh I think it was more of a cultural, shame avoiding tactic for them.

I have zero interest in searching my family tree, or indeed dna testing.. perhaps partly because of this lie I was told, partly because the great grandparents I met were horrendously abusive, but mainly because as I see it, us humans are all family and I don't identify with my ancestors any more than yours.

Exactly so, CdL. I was struggling to articulate just why the whole ancestor heritage stuff filled me with some dismay...and I think the dishonesty and evasion which characterised much of my young life, was central to my distrust and even cynicism about the whole family project/cultural identity theme. By the time I was old enough to be more demanding or suspicious,, everyone had either fallen out beyond hope or carked it.
Oddly, I also had horrible grandparents who, as soon as my mum died, were keen to remind me, not only my outsider status within the family, but even dark hints about 'touch of the tar brush and even some sort of dodgy race traitor.(grandparents on my mum's side)... I am infinitely more comfortable seeing myself as an 'east anglian' -possibly because I had some choice in the matter of identity.