Reflections on Vancouver, British Columbia and other topics, related or not
Who’s appropriating whom?
Identity theft takes on new meaning
in the competition for special status
Greg Klein | April 6, 2021
Underneath that exterior of an especially self-important
white woman lies even more prestigious DNA—or so
CBC star Michelle Latimer claimed.
The pretendian problem seems to have started with young lower-class white men in trouble with the law. Maybe these characters did have some trace of native ancestry, but some of them really milked their 1/128th status by holding feather to heart while appearing before a judge or parole board. Other early contenders included businessmen—not just white-looking guys in suits, but white-looking guys in suits who look like they’re genetically engineered to wear suits—angling for Metis grants and tax exemptions. But many of the most recent non-native snouts in the reconciliation trough have been those of middle class white women.
Apparently dissatisfied with their already large share of special status and entitlement, a few prominent pretendians have been outed by outraged abos. The controversy pits The Genocided against The Glass-Ceilinged.
And while some of the latter category might still harbour other delusions, The Genocided now hold theoretical top place in Canada’s special interests hierarchy. (In practice, the Quebecois still reign supreme.) But could some of the accusers be living in glass longhouses? Look, for example, at this photo of Kim Senklip Harvey, a Vancouver theatre and TV director who’s a member of two native bands.
Might this blonde-ish facade with a settler girl’s
self-righteous bearing and prima donna pout,
who works with post-Stone Age technology,
be appropriating Karenesque privilege?
Harvey criticized Cheyanne Turions, one of the most recently outed ethnic dysphoria profiteers. The SFU Galleries curator scooped $103,000 in money from UTWHNSITM (Uncategorized Taxpayers Who Have No Say In These Matters) intended for Persons Experiencing Genocide. But Harvey sounds like the pot calling the kettle insufficiently black.
Another critic of pretendians, Daniel Heath Justice claims to be Cherokee. No matter that the Cherokee aren’t indigenous to Canada, this American sure as hell doesn’t look like anything other than a really smug Unracialized Queer Settler.
The Yank says he’s Cherokee so UBC pays this Complacently
Colonialist-Looking Foreigner to teach indigenous stuff.
But how long would he last on a typical Canadian reserve?
In the case of Alek Minassian, ethnic appropriation has been done on his behalf by a third party. While finding him guilty of killing 10 people in his 2018 Toronto driving rampage, Judge Anne Molloy insisted on referring to Minassian as “John Doe.” She expressed hope “that his name would no longer be published by anyone else either.” Her stated rationale was to prevent him from enjoying notoriety.
But was that the real reason? Canada’s annual Montreal Massacre celebration—and it is a celebration, of the moral superiority of everyone who’s not white Anglo male—avoids naming Marc Lépine (né Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi) or mentioning that the mass-murdering misogynist’s cultural and ethnic lineage came half from the Religion of Peace and half from what Justine calls Canada’s “better people.”
Alek Minassian and Marc Lépine/Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi:
Hide their names to appropriate the identity of average Canadian men.
So maybe Molloy thinks “Alek Minassian” looks and sounds too foreign. If so, that’s another switch in his identity. He slaughtered and maimed all those people on behalf of the LWCGL (Losers Who Can’t Get Laid) community. Then during the trial he tried to claim other special status, much to the outrage of Autistic-Canadians.
Of course Minassian’s real name complicates matters in a way that “John Doe” doesn’t. It reveals his trans-Caucasian heritage. In this sense “trans” refers to geography, but couldn’t it also apply to gender or ethnicity? And if so, in what direction? These are vital questions for a society obsessed with group identity and at the very least might justify a new trial.
Sadly, Molloy’s identity-meddling doesn’t help. And, for all the dishonesty of her decision, she could have renamed Minassian “Jane Doe.”
Maybe no one in federal politics, not even Turdeau I, Mulroney or the Bloc, has espoused Quebec favouritism as blatantly as our current PM. That trait, along with a monarchical moniker, explains Justine’s unfailing popularity with the master race of Canada’s entitlementocracy.
But what about his bloodline? With a three-quarter Quebecois father and 100% North Shore ditz mother, Justine’s laine’s not so pure. Still, this five-eighths cochon anglais serves his adopted identity well.
Poseur in a portrait, diva on a divan and celebrity in a selfie:
Turd II can rightly claim full-blooded status as a shallow egomaniac.
In each case arrogance forms part of their national image, and rightly so. More dubiously, so does rock god supremacy. The latter claim results from the U.S. and UK appropriating Canadian music.
Two-thirds of the world’s greatest rock guitar players are Canadian:
50% of Jimi Hendrix, 50% of Eric Clapton and 100% of Jeff Healey.
Sure, there’s about 18 or so million other guitar gods, but if they’re playing rock they’re no good. Probably the most prominent exception is a person of neither the Yank, Limey nor Canucklehead persuasion. Santana’s a Beaner (presumably Settler-Hispanic but possibly part Indigeno-Mex) who incorporates the “tinges of Spanish” called for by Jelly Roll Morton, who BTW claimed he invented jazz but denied any African-American ancestry. “All my folks came directly from the shores of France,” insisted Morton (né Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe).
Have Persons Experiencing African-Americanness been
appropriating the music d’un Colon français-louisiane?
Identity-bending really gets warped with Mother for Dinner, a recent novel by Shalom Auslander. Seventh, the name of the Character of Protagonism, becomes an Undifferentiatedly-Dysphoric-Pretend-Anything in desperation to cover up his real heritage.
Black? he’d said to Jada, a Pro-Choice-Liberal-Democratic-Baptist-African-American-Dominatrix. Of course I’m black.
Jewish? he’d said to Leah, a Pro-War-Orthodox-Neoconservative-Zionist-Jewish-American-Nymphomaniac. I’m as Jewish as they come.
Persian? he’d said to Yazmin, a Bisexual-Communist-Dyslexic-Persian-American. Don’t I look Persian?
But by being labelled satire, this book appropriates another genre. MFD is JAJAN (Just Another Jewish-American Novel), designed to sell books by hijacking not just another category but another culture—that of Cannibal-Americans.
Auslander does, however, clear up some misconceptions about the Community of Cannibalian Coexistence. They don’t cook and eat just anyone, let alone kidnap unco-operative culinary concoctions.
As one of the novel’s Persons of Fictional Existence would say,
Lawrence Anderson allegedly is a cannibal, not Cannibal.
Anderson probably self-identifies as African-American.
No, perverse as it may sound—and this is certainly no reflection on PPCP (Practices Previously Considered Perverse)—true Cannibalism takes place between consenting adults. Well, maybe not always adults. And maybe they’re not capable of consent either, considering that they’re not eaten alive.
But they’re family. And that’s how Can-Ams celebrate “the central rite of their unique cultural heritage.” They eat their dead relatives. What kind of intolerant society wouldn’t tolerate that?
But satire? The characters, dialogue, themes, even symbolism are as Hebraic-Lower 48 as Portnoy’s Disorder of Strongly Felt Ethical, Altruistic and Wanking Impulses, albeit even more depraved.
Give the Bestseller-Striving Semite credit, though, his Publication of Perversity does have Features of Redemption. Consider, for example, this first encounter between Seventh and a Non-Gender-Dysmorphic Un-de-heterosexualized Unattached Female of a Desirable Nature.
What are you? he asked, awaiting the usual deluge of identifiers.
What am I? she asked. Or who am I?
Let’s start with what, he said.
I’m a human, asshole. How about you?
Not surprisingly, especially in times like these, Seventh immediately becomes smitten.