I was going to say "you can't make it up." But actually, this lady really did make it up!
The co-founder of a queer Indigenous artists' collective in Wisconsin who has claimed to be Native American is being accused of being a white woman and has since stepped down from her community positions.
"BEING ACCUSED OF BEING A WHITE WOMAN."
🤣🤣🤣
I could just end the article right here. That is an actual sentence someone wrote.
Kay LeClaire, who also went by the name Nibiiwakamigkwe, also identifies as 'two-spirit,' which is a term many Indigenous people use to describe a non-binary gender identity.
LeClaire has allegedly been profiting from the identities of Indigenous peoples, according to hobbyist genealogist AdvancedSmite as reported by Madison365.
I don't know what times are coming to when a lily-white woman can't dye her hair, braid it with some turkey feathers, call herself Nibiiwakamigkwe, and make an honest living pretending to be an Indian. It's not right.
A Native American user named "AdvancedSmite" did some digging to uncover LeClaire's background.
AdvancedSmite then reportedly used online records and resources to find LeClaire's true lineage – German, Swedish and French Canadian, Madison365 reported, and reported their findings on the New Age Fraud Forum.
AdvancedSmite also provided information from their research that claims LeClaire, on their now-deleted Facebook account, LeClaire referred to themself as 'a 20-something white woman.'
Oh no, a 20-something white woman!!
(Also, as a side note: Notice how The Daily Mail used the pronoun "their" to refer to LeClaire?)
The artist formerly known as Nibiiwakamigkwe, meanwhile, issued an apology upon the discovery of her melanin deficit:
"I am sorry. ... Currently, this means that I am not using the Ojibwe name given to me and am removing myself from all community spaces, positions, projects, and grants and will not seek new ones. Any culturally related items I hold are being redistributed back in community, either to the original makers and gift-givers when possible or elsewhere as determined by community members. Thank you."
Oh, and you know what, I called her an "artist" but as she herself once argued, that word doesn't really encapsulate what she does:
"Artist" feels like the closest English translation for what I do, but Indigenous approaches to arts are much different! I can't go to an art supply store and pick up porcupine quills, smoked deer hide, moose hair or musky scales. Those must be sourced through connection with the land and community.
It's absolutely bonkers that we've created such a hatred of "whiteness" that white people (looking at you, Liz Warren) have to pretend to be part of an "oppressed" group in order to get ahead in life and quell their emotional turmoil.
