#and i doubt many sesame street kins exists

[grumblengrowling]

I kinda wnana make a source call, buts its embarrassing :(

[chemnections]

over the past few days the real music scandal i have been paying attention to is from one of my favourite artists and it has genuinely felt like a devastating blow. 

when the cbc posted their investigation i read it hoping dearly this would be a simple hit piece that could be dismantled through fact checking, but the investigation was fair and thorough and the evidence put forward is solid beyond reasonable doubt. 

and it hurts. i’m hearing so many stories from indigenous people who feel like they’ve had the carpet ripped out under them, buffy was a role model and a hero to them. she was someone to rally behind. her appearance on sesame street was part of their childhood, positive representation and some of the first. she made such positive change to help indigenous peoples, real activism. 

but it was all built on a fundamental lie.  

i am posting this here because i think some insight can be gained in why liking artists for how unproblematic they are may not save you from hurt or be a good idea for basing your identity on. because out of everyone in the music industry, buffy used to be a shining star. an indigenous woman with a story of overcoming obstacles and discrimination in her career, survivor of the scoop and sa, meaningful activism and wonderful music - she was so highly regarded and honestly the pinnacle of what the young generation is looking for in an artist right now.

but when we look for a perfect person, we can never truly find them because perfect people do not exist. so when we find a person who has the image of being perfect, that’s all it is. image. or lies. maybe the flaws are small, maybe it’s all rot behind the mask.

because sainte marie, who was considered to be the best of the best, is a fraud. never indigenous. she is claimed as kin by a piapot family, but the relationship formed after she was already grifting as an indigenous artist, it was a kin relationship formed on false pretences. and this is not a criticism of that family, what terrible circumstances they find themselves in. 

she lied about her race and used the lie to propel her career and turn herself into an iconic figure. she got funding and opportunities intended for indigenous peoples. she hid her lies behind real issues that indigenous peoples who were taken away from their families in the sixties scoop deal with, disconnection and lost knowledge. she used it to create plausible deniability for the gaps in her ancestry claim.

there is now evidence that she threatened her brother, who had tried to expose her lies about her race, with a lawyer and threatened him with a manipulative lie that she would claim he sexually abused her, which silenced him all the way until his 2011 death. 

and as an italian american, she also faked being canadian, and took funding and opportunities away from canadian artists. (i don’t expect non-canadians to understand cancon in depth, the gov gives can artists money and opportunities because we can’t compete with the american music industry, and there is a history of american radio stations refusing to play canadian music and artists stuff like that - it’s a whole thing). she is a recipient of the order of canada which is the highest civilian award. i’m sure she is officially canadian now, but she would have became canadian through claiming to have been born in saskatchewan instead of massachusetts instead of applying like any other immigrant. 

and for some the truth will be too painful to accept so they will believe that the truth is the lie. and of course there is discourse on what makes someone indigenous, some believe kinship is enough but others base their rights on their ancestors - but i won’t get into that.

my main conclusion from all of this is like musicians for their music, and do not condemn real people for their flaws because it creates an environment for deceitful people to thrive.