Identity and Relativism

I wrote this in 2023, after the CBC story broke about Buffy Sainte-Marie. Because I didn’t want to get embroiled in the controversy - which clearly short-circuits my success as a writer! - and because I am just another white man with an opinion about a, um, “member of a visible minority” I decided not to publish it. I was going through my drafts and I found it and decided to publish it. Especially now that the federal government has acknowledged the facts by rescinding her Order of Canada.

Buffy Sainte-Marie, born Beverly Jean Santamaria, is a pretendian.

If you do not know what a pretendian is, it’s someone without indigenous ancestry who claims indigenous ancestry. Prior to this revelation, the most famous Canadian pretendian was arguably the novelist Joseph Boyden. (US Senator Elizabeth Warren has also been accused of being a pretendian.)

Buffy Sainte-Marie has claimed indigenous ancestry (of various types) for over 60 years. For me, growing up in Canada, she was one of the few visible indigenous people. I remember hearing about Dan George, but he died the year I was born. (I have seen multiple movies he was in.) I knew Tom Jackson’s face, from TV, but didn’t know his name. At some point I became aware of Graham Greene and, later, Adam Beach. But I was aware of Buffy Sainte-Marie at young age and she was more clearly “Indian” to me than some of these other people, in her dress.

I am am white, so I was born into the majority ethnic group in my country. I am male, so I was born into the gender that has long assumed majority status in human history, even when we haven’t outnumbered women. I am in no position to speak to what it’s like to be in a visible minority.

But I also believe in objective reality. And I believe that, when facts and subjective experience come into conflict, facts need to trump that subjective experience for us as a society, even if those facts are very painful.

Identity Politics

I think the rise of so-called “identity politics” has mostly been a good thing for society. For those of us who are white and male, it is extremely difficult to understand what it is like to live in North America and not be white, or not be male, or neither white nor male. As a result, even the most well-intentioned white males in positions of power will never be able to adequately address the needs of whose who are not part of the majority (or perceived majority, for gender).

It is necessary that oppressed minorities advocate for themselves and their cultures, both so that they can get access to the table and to educate those of us who are visibly in the majority so that we can attempt to understand what is like to live in the shoes of someone (accidentally or purposely) oppressed by the state or society at large.

So I believe in the need for identity politics, at least in its original form. (There are issues when identity politics speech and tactics are adopted by people in the majority, something that is happening a lot but which is not my topic today.)

And I believe intersectionality is real. I believe that indigenous people experience racism and I have no idea what that is like. I believe that women experience sexism and I (mostly) have no idea of what this is like. Moreover, I believe indigenous women experience some kind of unique form of racism and sexism that I will never be able to truly comprehend.

As part of this, I believe that the subjective experiences of oppressed minorities should be heard and valued. I think it’s extremely important for any multicultural society to admit the subjective experiences of its minorities as a part of the society’s collective idea of “truth” (for lack of a better word).

But there is a point at which those subjective experiences should no longer be admitted, and a good example of that is so-called “traditional medicine.”

Subjective Experience Vs. Fact

For whatever our flaws as a species, we have figured out a lot about the world, far more than any other species.

As we have grown, we have figured out far, far more than early humans. We understand the world better than at any other time in human history and we know more about the world than at any other time in human history.

We have this understanding primarily through science. Science is a flawed, imperfect process that, very slowly, reveals the truth of the world to us.

There are medical traditions throughout the world that predate science. Sometimes, science is able to confirm that a particular traditionally treatment has at least part of its purported effect. More often, it’s placebo or nothing at all. (I should note that placebo is complicated and there can be some value in treatments - traditional or otherwise - that have a positive psychological effect on the patient when there is no medical effect. However, that is nearly always in cases where the underlying medical issue is being treated successfully.)

There are those who believe that, in order to preserve cultural traditions, “traditional medicine” must be given the same status as actual, science-based medicine. Some people believe this because they erroneously believe that these practices are just as effective as actual medicine. But many believe that, in order to preserve traditional cultures, we must accept pre-scientific medical practices. That is both not true and flat out dangerous.

At some point, we as a society, have to decide that saving lives is more important than making some people feel respected and affirmed. (Ideally, we would be able to preserve the respect of those who put their faith in these practices and also save lives…) We should not, as a society, accept “medical” practices that do not actually help patients improve medically. (To be clear, this includes more recent woo as well as traditional woo. I am against all woo, no matter how old or new it is. But, again, I am for placebo as long as it does no harm or is accompanied by actual, effective medicine.) But there is often no clear line between what is effective and what isn’t so this is an ongoing process. But we need to be on the side of the evidence during that process. When it comes to saving peoples lives, we cannot be on the side of subjective feelings.

Genetics and “Truth”

Genetics is one area in which we much better understand the world than we used, even a century ago.

But we are still a ways away from full knowledge of human genes. I personally have no idea how long it will take before humans understand all genetic interactions. And I’m personally skeptical if we will ever sort out the nature-vs-nurture argument to everyone’s satisfaction.

At least commercially, we are still very far off from understanding much about our genes. I like to tell people an anecdote about a friend’s doggy DNA test that claimed that his dog was 0% German Shepherd while his dog absolutely looks like a German Shepherd. To me, it does a good job of encapsulating both our lack of knowledge of how genes operate and interact but also how our intuitions can contradict our knowledge of how genes operate and interact.

Before we knew about genes, the ways we figured out whether or not someone was part of a particular community were entirely observational: we used skin colour, body type, bone structure, hair and eye colour, height and other physical characteristics to determine this. And also we saw whether or not that person was accepted into that community, because sometimes the physical characteristics didn’t seem to match. (Albinos exist. Also, I went to school with a man who looks mixed but is very much “white” by ancestry and based on photos of his immediate relatives.)

Ancestry was also used but it was just as ambiguous as the other ways of determining community membership. It depended entirely on whether or not an ancestor was also deemed a part of that community.

Determining who belongs in a community can now be done approximately using genetic testing but I’m not sure we should do this. To me, it feels like there is a very dangerous slippery slope in using genes to figure out how much of one ethnicity any one person is. I can see this information being horribly abused by the powerful if it serves their interests.

What genetic research has revealed is that we are all far more closely related than we thought. This revelation should undermine racism but has not yet done so. (People either deny the truth or they claim that these tiny differences are material.) And it hasn’t undermined any beliefs about ethnicity and culture simply because culture is entirely different thing than genes. (Though the two are obviously related.)

Genetics maybe don’t reveal the whole truth of the person like some people might have hoped.

Identity and “Truth”

But there are still ways of determining whether or not someone is who they say they are, and from the group they claim membership in.

• Beverly Jean Santamaria was born in Massachusetts to Italian-American and American parents.

• Her birth certificate was recorded in such a way that it is impossible she was adopted as she claimed (there is also genetic evidence from her son and sister that show they are biologically related to each other)

• She made no claims to indigenous ancestry until she was in her 20s

• Her uncle made public claims that she was not indigenous when she began to make these claims about her ancestry, over 60 years ago

• A decade later her brother made similar statements

• Her brother claimed she threatened him to keep quiet (though she also claims he abused her)

• Sainte-Marie has used her Massachusetts birth certificate to get married.

I don’t follow pretendian cases very often, because they usually involve people I am not familiar with. But I doubt that, in most of these cases, the evidence is this clear and this overwhelming on one side of the case. If this evidence was about someone who hadn’t spent the last 60 years pretending she was indigenous, it would be accepted as proof of her European heritage without a fight.

(As an aside: My personal experience with Italian-Canadians is that people with even a single grandparent of Italian ancestry are super eager to claim they are Italian so I can’t help but find her heritage fascinating in this regard.)

Doubt

Of course, it’s possible that the CBC and I are totally wrong. It’s possible there was an affair, for example, and Saint-Marie’s mother told very few people, including only the child affected.

It’s possible but it isn’t remotely likely, in part because of how often Sainte-Marie’s story has changed over the years, but also because of the claim she made about being adopted.

One of the things I think people find really uncomfortable is coming to terms with how we can’t actually be 100% certain of most things. Even those things that we think we are 100% certain of, if subjected to enough scrutiny we will likely see we are not 100% certain.

Pick a cherished belief of yours and see if you are 100% sure of its veracity. If you are, can you explain why?

I am an atheist but I say I’m an agnostic because I cannot be 100% sure that the abrahamic god doesn’t exist. I am as sure about this as I am about anything I believe, but I am not truly 100% sure. (I am very close to 100%, though.)

This is a big problem with anything that is publicly litigated because everyone wants 100% certainty.

People think Oswald didn’t kill Kennedy because there are “holes” in the official story but there’s actually way, way more evidence that he did kill Kennedy than in the vast majority of homicide cases. Most people are convicted of murder with far less evidence. (It’s actually kind of scary how easily it is to convict someone of murder if the police, prosecution and jury are motivated enough. These people may be 100% certain but are so often wrong.) I can’t be certain Oswald killed Kennedy but I have basically no doubt about it even though I am not 100% certain. I don’t need to be 100% certain: the probability is that Oswald shot Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository. The probabilities that something else happened are really, really low. (I know this because I have read way too many books about this and watched too many documentaries. Almost all of them argued that Oswald didn’t kill Kennedy, or had help, by the way.)

It is okay that we don’t have 100% certainty about basically everything. But we all need to do a better job of accepting that. It often feels like even the tiniest bit of doubt leads a huge number of people to believe insane things about the world. (Such as that vaccines are more dangerous than beneficial.)

But doubt is just part of life. It’s something we have to live with. We shouldn’t be 100% certain about most things and most of us truly aren’t if we’re honest with ourselves. We need to accept that our best guess based on the evidence at hand is often good enough. If evidence comes along to change our minds, we should change our minds. (That is even harder to admitting you’re not 100% certain about something.)

Buffy Sainte-Marie

Buffy Sainte-Marie is not indigenous. I do not know this for 100% certainty but I know it as much as I can know any fact about another person who I have never met and will never meet.

But she has done many positive things for members of various indigenous communities. And even though this news has come out, many indigenous people have been quick to confirm her membership in their communities. Some have denied the evidence whereas others have said the evidence doesn’t matter, as she has been accepted into the community.

I think that this decision about her membership, is up to the Piapot Nation. But I do wonder if it’s influenced by 60 years of her lying about her ancestry. If she was 30 and making similar claims, or if the internet had existed when her uncle and brother publicly exposed her claims, would they be inclined to feel similarly? She has cosplayed for so long, it’s likely extremely hard for people to accept she’s been lying the whole time.

The stories we tell about ourselves are usually harmless. Even if they are lies. For most non-public figures, they can only be harmful if they somehow harm our immediate friends and family.

We have a family story - I don’t know where it came from - that we are United Empire Loyalists, who came to Canada immediately after the American War of Independence, and settled in a place that is now Owen Sound. I’ve repeated this to many people. But if I was a big enough of a public figure, I would have repeated this enough that someone in the media would fact check it and it’s probably not true.

We have another family story - this time it comes from a family coat of arms - that we are descended from German or Teutonic aristocracy. (This is the other side of the family.) Unlike the UEL story, I once tried to fact check this and I could not find any information about it. So I like to tell myself the coat of arms is fake - that somewhere back in time there was a fraudster. But if I was a big enough public figure, I would have repeated this enough that someone in the media would fact check it and find out that either a) we’re not descended from aristocracy but it’s less exciting than my version of a con artist creating a fake coat of arms or b) we are descended from the lowest levels of German/Teutonic aristocracy.

In either case, I would have been lying about my ancestry. But both of these stories are not harmful because I’m not famous but, especially, because I am not claiming membership in some special group that may deserve or already have some kind of special legal status.

It’s different for public figures even when the stories don’t involve claims that involve special legal status. But it’s far more different with people claiming indigenous status - which is a legal claim and arguably a kind of moral claim. Sometimes I am sympathetic to pretendians. I think they have these family stories that they believed because they were told them as children by someone in their family they trusted. (Or by their entire family, how could they not believe them?) But that’s not what happened with Buffy Saint-Marie, is it?

Still, I believe that if the Piapot Nation want to tell the story to themselves that Buffy Saint-Marie is a valued member, I guess that’s their right. I can’t really object to that. I do think it’s also correct for people who are not members of the Piapot Nation to point out that she’s a liar, that she’s made up her heritage and that she is actually Italian American. I also think it’s fair to claim that it’s very likely she made use of these lies to further her career in a country that was prime to celebrate a token indigenous singer-songwriter. It’s also fair to claim that, by taking on this fake heritage she may have accidentally pushed out someone else of similar talent due to our society’s rather unfortunate habit of being willing to celebrate only a single, token figure from a particular oppressed minority. (It’s both possible for it to be unfair that Saint-Marie potentially stole the spotlight from someone else and also think it’s extremely unfair that the music industry figured it could only have one indigenous woman singer-songwriter.)

You can find more of my feelings about identity politics and the issue of subjectivity here.