#just wanted to provide insight and make sure Black natives aren't left out of this conversation again

[nataref]

Wanting to weigh in here as a light skinned native person (specifically Mi'kmaw) its really complicated..

On the one hand colorism is real! My light skin let me & my mother (& lots of other ndns) survive, by keeping our heritage secret. In my area this is almost a universal experience, due mainly to the enslavement of natives in the Atlantic provinces that my people are native to. So a lot of Mi'kmaq are light-skinned, even after reconnection in later generations, with Mi'kmaq people marrying each other rather than being forced into relationships with settlers (like my grandparents for ex).

But my darker skinned family couldn't do that. My moms sister is darker than her, more like my nan, & got clocked, & harassed for it. Really the issue here is that, stereotypes make it so ppl like me find it difficult to feel "native enough" because of how people racially profile natives as all looking one way. And stereotypes also make it that people like my auntie are actively harassed by settlers, without any means to protect themselves. Which is a awful, dangerous position to be in, even when you DO get accepted as being native enough.

But I think it's important that these issues also aren't exclusive to us, mixed Black natives deal with the same things, only exacerbated by a fuck ton because they have no access to the shelter of white privilege. They don't have that access the way I do- the access that is able to keep you safe, at the price of assimilation & insecurity. For mixed Black and dark skin natives, even if they do assimilate & reject their nativeness because of the way they are perceived physically - they're still going to experience racial discrimination.

Basically what I'm saying is: this issue is nuanced and to focus in on light skinned suffering in our community, while not *untrue*, does the underlying issue a disservice. Because yeah; the stereotypes suck, the assumptions suck, the fakeclaiming sucks, it makes assimilation more and more forceful in a way non natives don't ever think about.

But its not a light skin issue, its a racial stereotyping issue, and one that dark skin natives struggle with too, & often have very little - if any - protection from. I've repeatedly seen this phrase but using Black rather than white being thrown at fellow natives to harass them more than once, & the aggressiveness of it is just as if not more intense, & a lot of non native people don't seem to realize this is even happening.

Its incredibly important to highlight that when talking about this phenomenon of being fake-claimed. Native people can look like anything. We can be light, dark, brown, we can have monolids, we can not have them. The reality is that there are native people across the entire globe, & through years of colonialism, a lot of the community are mixed. Alot of us don't look like how we're "supposed to".

The lesson to take away is: no, you CAN'T tell who is and isn't native by looking at them. Ever. And if you're non native & think someone is lying, please do us all a favor and keep it to yourself - our community is perfectly capable of regulating ourselves without your intervention. Your insistence that we need you to harass random native people because they don't check all your boxes of what we are and aren't, is frankly, just an extension of colonial violence- Stop it.

And yes, I can tell when you think I'm lying & won't say it, I can feel how uncomfortable you get when you realize I'm not shying away from who I am regardless of how I look. But at least when you don't say that shit out loud we don't have another keeler situation. And yes, even though it does effect me, and other light skin natives, we absolutely have to acknowledge it is impacting *all* native people who don't perfectly fit the narrow stereotypes of what native people look like. That's all.

something that may shock you all is that repeatedly insisting a native person is white because of what you perceive to be them not looking native enough is not only racist but one of the oldest forms of racism against indigenous americans lol