The "Pretendian" Long Con (ENCORE)
Unladylike
Unladylike Media
4.8 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2024
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when someone who built their career on being Indigenous turns out to be ... a white lady? Award-winning writer and reporter Michelle Cyca shares how she came face to face with Indigenous identity fraud, why academia and the arts have a 'Pretendian' problem and what these scams means for Indigenous rights and sovereignty.
**This episode originally aired on January 31, 2023**
Read Michelle's MacLean's cover story, The Curious Case of Gina Adams: A "Pretendian" Investigation
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And ladies, just a quick programming note, this episode originally aired a year ago in January |
| 0:05.9 | 2023. |
| 0:08.0 | Since then, our guest and journalist Michelle Cisa won a National Magazine Award for her incredible reporting on the |
| 0:15.4 | central story you're about to hear. Additional cases of alleged |
| 0:20.0 | indigenous identity fraud have also come to light, including more recently the |
| 0:25.2 | Oscar-winning singer-songwriter Buffy St. Marie. Okay, here's the episode. |
| 0:32.0 | It's not just a kooky scammer story. |
| 0:36.0 | No, it's very serious. It's very scary. |
| 0:40.0 | And I am kind of alarmed for what the future holds if, you know, we get to a point where real indigenous people are outnumbered by people who are living out this like Pocahontas fantasy role play. The numbers are alarming. I'm Lady Life. |
| 1:04.0 | A lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like a lady like Lady Like, I'm Kristen. |
| 1:15.0 | I've had a love. |
| 1:23.3 | This is Un Lady Like. I'm Kristen. And here's a little pop quiz for y'all. |
| 1:25.6 | What do the following people have in common? |
| 1:30.1 | You ready? |
| 1:32.2 | Andrea Smith, Michelle Latimer. Amy Wolf. Liz Hoover. Mary Ellen |
| 1:37.6 | Terpeel Lafond. Sashine Littlefeather. Carrie Barasa, Kayclare, Cheyanturians, Gina Adams. |
| 1:45.0 | Still guessing? |
| 1:48.0 | Canadian and ladies, you might have already figured this one out. |
| 1:54.0 | What those 10 people have in common is that they are all from |
| 1:59.0 | different realms of academia and the arts who have been outed in recent years for indigenous identity fraud, known |
| 2:06.9 | as Pretendianism. |
| 2:09.6 | These are folks who built their influence, funding, and careers off of what turned out to be fabricated |
... |
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