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[sluissa]

It can get you benefits if you can prove you've got a significant portion of native heritage. Benefits enough that when I was going through school I was encouraged to research my genealogy as much as I could to see if I qualified for any Native American specific scholarships and stuff.  Turns out any heritage I might have is so tiny to not matter at all, but I just knew there was a potential family tie and when an advisor mentioned it in the list of "things you can get a scholarship for" I was like "hey, I heard a story once..." and she was basically suggesting I bother everyone on that side of the family to try to find any papers at all that could prove anything.

Now she was probably overreacting, after dealing with the typical "I wanna get a <sport> scholarship." students... but it definitely gave me the impression that having that background could have its advantages... an idea that never really diluted much until later when I met some people who did have current connections to a tribe and saw what it got them. (Come to find out, not much in adulthood, except for a guaranteed plot on reservation land to get buried in if they wanted it.)

Lots of people, however, like to look back at their family and say "I'm part this and that." There's nothing wrong with that, it's just the desire to know your family history, know where you came from. It can be used badly, just like any information, but the information is not bad to know.

[Dunamisdeos]

I guess to be relevant, it would be shitty to claim any ancestry that you aren't actually a part of.

[redwallzyl]

The problem is with the entire concept of race which should die because it is literally noting more then a broad categorization almost excursively liked to a few stereotyped traits. The whole thing is scientifically trash from a genetic stand point. What matters is culture specifically inculturation. That defines identity. You can be descended from whoever but that should have no effect on your identity beyond nifty trivia and interests in that culture unless you are actually of that culture in some way.

[Dunamisdeos]

The problem is with the entire concept of race which should die because it is literally noting more then a broad categorization almost excursively liked to a few stereotyped traits. The whole thing is scientifically trash from a genetic stand point. What matters is culture specifically inculturation. That defines identity. You can be descended from whoever but that should have no effect on your identity beyond nifty trivia and interests in that culture unless you are actually of that culture in some way.

100% agree in general.

However at present race is, in many places in the world, still an indicator of the culture you grew up in. The problem is with people associating themselves with their race instead of their culture, even if race = culture in certain areas of the world. In the US it's absurd, none of us should be defined by race alone.

[Max™]

I enjoyed learning about my ancestry for a few reasons, mostly assholish:

1. I started growing my hair out after learning about the native american parts of my family tree as it is thick and black and silky, I kept growing it out because I was informed it was against the dress code at school so it amused me to play their game with access to a different rulebook.

2. Were my mother part of a tribe that followed the trope of "name the child after the first thing(s) you see" I would be Distended Asshole in a Mirror, which is hilarious.

3. Outside of my Scottish it turns out I'm around three quarters Rambo which is goddamn amusing.

[Rolan7]

I always understood it as a thing that ignorant people do because they think it makes them seem interesting. I don't understand why they think that about fractions of Native American heritage. When I say I'm 1/8 Polish no one cares.

It also is, and used to be, a white Southern euphemism for having a Black ancestor, so as to avoid the stigma of being a product of miscegenation.

Just in case it wasn't awful enough.

It most certainly is not, at least that I've heard. Plenty of racists and otherwise in my very Southern family and I've never heard that anywhere. Sounds made up or exaggerated in the interest of sensationalism, frankly. Though to be generous, I guess it wouldn't be used that way in my family, which does have NA ancestors.

I think this is upsetting me because actual racists promoting racial purity are running amok. In that context, I'm proud to say I'm of even slightly mixed heritage. I won't let anyone shame me for that. I don't care if they're a conservative racist or a liberal one.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Besides, it's silly. Though what we think of as racial traits can get filtered out in as little as a generation, the chances of not having miscegenation in a Southern family's ancestry is basically zero.

People who have a problem with that don't say they're native instead, they just cover it up or more likely are never told because other ancestors of theirs covered it up. Gotta be a lot of shocked 23 & Me customers.

[Karnewarrior]

The problem is with the entire concept of race which should die because it is literally noting more then a broad categorization almost excursively liked to a few stereotyped traits. The whole thing is scientifically trash from a genetic stand point. What matters is culture specifically inculturation. That defines identity. You can be descended from whoever but that should have no effect on your identity beyond nifty trivia and interests in that culture unless you are actually of that culture in some way.

Well, race and subspecies align somewhat, so I wouldn't say it's scientifically trash. What's scientifically trash is attaching any kind of meaning to it outside of "oh hey that's an interesting superficial difference in melanin and bone structure. Maybe we can crack the genetic code for this and make dosh selling artificially good-looking babies!"

It's very much a case of people attaching race and culture where there should be no connection; The fact that your average black male can run 0.003 meters further than me in the same 12 seconds or so doesn't actually mean anything from a practical standpoint, and it's even dumber when you conflate average to mean "as an entire group, they all do this".

It really is just an interesting quirk of biology that makes us look different. Anything people actually care about is too complex for evolution to change that quickly, and anyone who thinks there's some massive genetic gulf between the races or really anything even approaching significant* difference in capability needs to pull their head out of their ass so we can finally wash the pants that have obviously been starving their brain of oxygen.

*In this case I say significant to mean "In any case actually a deciding factor". The differences that do exist here are far too small to make any kind of difference, unless you're running a really fucking intense pizza foot delivery competition using only the most generic people physically possible.

tl;dr: making judgments based on race is like filing the roads smooth to let your horse go faster.

[Trekkin]

I always understood it as a thing that ignorant people do because they think it makes them seem interesting. I don't understand why they think that about fractions of Native American heritage. When I say I'm 1/8 Polish no one cares.

It also is, and used to be, a white Southern euphemism for having a Black ancestor, so as to avoid the stigma of being a product of miscegenation.

Just in case it wasn't awful enough.

It most certainly is not, at least that I've heard. Plenty of racists and otherwise in my very Southern family and I've never heard that anywhere. Sounds made up or exaggerated in the interest of sensationalism, frankly. Though to be generous, I guess it wouldn't be used that way in my family, which does have NA ancestors.

I think this is upsetting me because actual racists promoting racial purity are running amok. In that context, I'm proud to say I'm of even slightly mixed heritage. I won't let anyone shame me for that. I don't care if they're a conservative racist or a liberal one.

Hey, maybe my fantastically racist Southern grandparents and aunts had different euphemisms from yours; about the only universal one I know is "bless your heart" anyway.

Nobody's trying to shame you for anything. I'm just pointing out that part why so many more people falsely claim Native ancestry and cite vague family lore is this kind of thing, founded on the silly belief that miscegenation is bad and the even sillier belief that Black ancestry is somehow worse in their eyes than any other ethnicity, so if they can't get away with calling themselves pure lily white, they claim their nonwhite ancestors were Native. Yes, some people genuinely have Native American ancestors. You claim to; thanks for sharing. Others just want free stuff or to seem exotic or spiritual, which is stupid. Others genuinely believe they do, even though they don't, in part because it used to be more acceptable to be part-Native than part-Black in circles where that kind of thing mattered, and somewhere along the line people took the euphemism and/or coverup literally. How prevalent that was and still is, I don't know.

[sluissa]

Pretending native ancestry instead of black was most definitely a thing a few generations back. It gets even more complicated when you consider many tribes had black slaves themselves, intermarried with blacks, adopted blacks as citizens of various nations and then later got all finicky about ensuring "blood lines" were the deciding factor when division of money became a big issue and thus cut out a lot of the mixed and adopted citizens out of the list of members.

[Rolan7]

Ah, guess I was just lucky then (avoiding the euphemism).  Or maybe it's less popular in NC...  Doesn't matter.  Thanks for the explanations!

[nenjin]

My experiences with this was around 15 to 20 years ago. My native heritage comes from south of the border 3 generations back, and whenever it'd come up (because I would get a lot of "so where are your people from" questions growing up) a lot of people would be like "Oh yeah my family has a little <nation> in our family tree..." It was always a positive thing, a little something to be proud of (or go crazy with as a couple people I've seen....) I'm not like an active, card carrying supporter of local tribes in my area or anything. But it always kind of annoyed me as the only semi-brown kid in class a lot of the time that everyone wanted a piece of that pie. (While also using it as a weapon when it was convenient.) Native American themed stuff commercially tends to get on my nerves as well. Although I guess I shouldn't blame young'ins who want to identify with some part of Native American heritage. Between the South and the Midwest, growing up school fed everyone a steady diet of Native American education. Especially in the Midwest.

[PTTG??]

Thank god Trump went up there and stood up for the rights of all first nation people by insulting a political opponent then.  Must have just been an accident that he signed off on stealing more land for an unneeded oil pipeline
and held a press conference for Navajo code talkers in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson and tried to shrink Bear's Ears. [/s]

Update: actually he is shrinking the monument, not just trying.

Trump is actually worse than Umbrage and will be until the day he's run down by centaurs. How does that manchild avoid all cosequence?

[EnigmaticHat]

Claiming to be part Native American is a common “annoying white people” thing.  You’re 0% Native American unless you’re part of a tribe.

Er...  Some of my ancestors were Native American regardless of your feelings on the matter.  People overemphasizing their racial ancestry can be annoying, but it's hardly just a "white people" thing.

I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes.  If someone has a genuine connection to a tribe then they and that tribe can figure out for themselves what it means to be native american.  Its complicated and I have no personal stake in that argument.  But its not just an ethnicity, its a nationality* and a lifestyle.

*well, several nationalities and they're not particularly autonomous, but you know what I mean

[Max™]

Thank god Trump went up there and stood up for the rights of all first nation people by insulting a political opponent then.  Must have just been an accident that he signed off on stealing more land for an unneeded oil pipeline
and held a press conference for Navajo code talkers in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson and tried to shrink Bear's Ears. [/s]

Update: actually he is shrinking the monument, not just trying.

Trump is actually worse than Umbrage and will be until the day he's run down by centaurs. How does that manchild avoid all cosequence?

Because people think he's as rich as he claims he is, and there is a weird bit of brainfuckery rampant in the states which makes people think they're temporarily down-on-their-luck-but-totally-going-to-turn-it-around-into-being-rich-again, so then you combine the two and get "when I'm rich I am totally going to be the biggest asshole and get away with it just like that big orange heap of offal does" apparently?