NAFPS Forum

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Diana,

From your original post I understood that you hoped to get a better understanding of plastic shamans.

The reason I'm posting this, his experience mirrors a lot of the frauds we investigate and write about.     . . .   
I truly believe most of these frauds are emotional cripples with undiagnosed psychosis. Which is why I am going to read this book to get a better handle on these people we report about.

With "people that want to be famous, or world saviours, or Masters, or The-One-Who-Knows-It-All" I mean the people that give themselves names that sound good, taught workshops on world changes on December 21st of 2012, reiki masters, and such.

I read the book till page 93. Then I decided, that it would not help me to understand new-agers. If it helps you, that is fine.

Now that I think of it, I see a parallel between the confrontation with a psychotic person on the one hand, and the confrontation with a new age leader on the other hand.
With a psychotic person, it takes strength and faith and clarity, to simply look and to allow that person to be who he is. It takes a strength to open up a bit to that person.
With a new age leader, it takes strength and faith and clarity, to not allow that person to come in to you, to keep standing on your own feet.

So, the psychotic has fantasies and delusions that you do not want.
The seduction of the new age leader is that he has fantasies and delusions that you do want. - Well, not you Diana, but those who follow them.

Does this sound like gobbledygook?

I had a confrontation with Robin Youngblood a year ago. I told her, that giving hope was only part of life, and you cannot pray and only invite hope. (That is one-sided, in my view. But that is not the point.) We were sitting in a circle, but now she walked up to me and said something like: "I am sorry if I did not express myself clearly - I was speaking about trust, not hope." I felt that as an attempt to overpower me. Two friends that I spoke later on the phone were impressed by her act - they saw it as an apology. So at the same time that she came to me to tame me, she seduced others. By the same act. Quite a feature. (Of course my view might be wrong, but that is how I see it.)
I tell this as an illustration, to make clear the difference between the fear-giving madness of the psychotic person an de hope-giving delusion of the new age leader.

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Beware of Ethnic Imposters

Donna Ennis


http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/09/15/beware-ethnic-imposters


Many of us are familiar with people of color trying to “pass” as white people perhaps to indulge in some White Privilege that they have heard so much about or maybe because being a person of color was a death sentence. Whatever the reason ethnic imposters have been around for hundreds of years.

During slavery times a light-skinned African American was envied because of one’s ability to move about the country more freely. During the Holocaust many Jewish people whom had Aryan features had their lives spared as they were able to study Christianity and “pass” as a non-Jew. My own mother, and her siblings, although Native in appearance, were able to “pass” as white people simply by lowering their blood quantum and practicing dominant culture ways of living.

Although much has been written about “passing” as a white person there are also instances of people moving in the other direction, away from whiteness. A reasonable person would need to ask themselves why a privileged person would want to experience the oppression of an ethnic identity. The answer lies in their ability to re enter the world they have left only temporarily.

Asa Earl Carter used the pseudonym, Forrest Carter to write the novel The Education of Little Tree purportedly about his experience being raised by his Cherokee grandparents in the 1920’s. The book was published in 1976 and was later revealed to be a literary hoax and Asa Earl Carter was revealed as a White supremacist and a member of the KKK in Alabama.

In the 1930’s, Archie Bellamy, assumed the Native American identity of Grey Owl, to carry on a conservation message. It is said that his work saved the Canadian beaver from extinction. His British origins, his subsequent migration to Canada and his career move from trapper to conservationist were discovered upon his death.

In 1948, Ray Sprigle, a journalist disguised himself as an African American man and wrote a series of articles entitled I was a Negro in the South for 30 Days.

Black Like Me is a book written by the journalist John Howard Griffin and published in 1961. In the book he describes his experience traveling throughout the racially segregated south of the 50’s and passing as an African American man.

For decades, Iron Eyes Cody, portrayed Native Americans on film and on television, claiming to be of Cree-Cherokee heritage. Even after it was revealed that he was an Italian immigrant named Espira DiCorti he continued the ruse until his death.

Ethnic imposters have evolved over the years and it is no longer politically correct for a White person to impersonate an African American person. However it does seem to go unchallenged and accepted for a White person to impersonate a Native American. New Age “spiritual” Native Americans, shamanism, and cultural appropriation are just a few examples of modern ethnic imposters. There is an obvious monetary gain for those that exploit Native culture in this way.

There is another, more sinister, type of imposter. In many communities ethnic imposters are often mentally ill people who have borderline personality traits that adopt values, habits and attitudes of the Native people that they spend time with. There may or may not be a monetary value in this practice but there is something else to be gained by these ethnic imposters. These individuals have a significant and persistent unstable self-image or sense of self and present as righteous avengers of past mistreatment. Nobody has been more mistreated then Native Americans (in the individuals thinking) and so these individuals take on the persona, often change their name to something Native sounding and reinvent themselves. Soon the individuals are assuming leadership roles in the political or activist realm which takes away from legitimate Native voices which are often ignored or silenced by the media.

Traditionally Native American people don’t challenge others’ claim to be Native as it is thought to be harmless but it is important that ethnic imposters be challenged on cultural appropriation on all levels because culture is the only thing remaining after colonization has stripped everything else away.

Donna Ennis is employed in the Behavioral Health Program and is a Tribal Elder at Fond du Lac Reservation. She is on the Board of Directors for the Minnesota Board of Social Work. She is also on the Approved Continuing Education Committee for the Association of Social Work Boards.


Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/09/15/beware-ethnic-imposters