Margaret Noodin, Professor

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Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: advancedsmite on April 20, 2022, 07:02:22 pm

The name change petition was filed in Washtenaw County on 3/4/2013. A hearing occurred on 4/30/2013 when the petition to change from “Noori” to “Noodin” was granted by a Washtenaw County Court judge. The final judgement was issued on 5/3/2013. It is a public record and can be looked up at Washtenaw County Court – 22nd Circuit Court.

I’ve found an interview where Margaret addresses the name change. Margaret Noodin on Riprap: Anishinaabeg Studies
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH6Zt-UEhE4

Prior to where I began transcribing, Margaret says that she associates the wind with home. Transcription starts at 28:40.

For me, I for a long time have been called Giiwedinoodin in Anishinaabemowin and had recently had - you can see from the cover some of my other colleagues had changed their last names to kind of reclaim Anishinaabemowin. So, I recently did the same thing before doing more writing and had talked it over with my dad who thought it was just a fun idea and a way to express something different about the place.

Some other highlights from the interview:

6:00 This group of people - is really a number of authors - who we were lucky enough to grow-up sort-of during and study after AIM. Which you can argue all kinds of politics about the merits of and trials and challenges of the AIM movement but certainly our Civil Rights struggles in the 70s made it possible for us to study our language, to write about our language. The Native Languages Act in the mid-90s made it possible for this to even happen. I grew up in Minneapolis, so we saw this happen. I think a lot of us feel like we got a chance to do something our parents and definitely our grandparents couldn’t do.

18:10 There’s two things on that. I think one is its particularly divisive and difficult that the missionaries, truth be told, were a big part of it. So, the very Jesuits who on one hand were attempting to share an understanding of something profound and meaningful and based on love and such a part of well-being that when - that had an edge of like you say “language genocide” or “linguicide” or whatever people want to call it - was particularly bad. You know. So, if you’re gonna go to battle, go to battle on a battlefield knowing you go to battle - that’s one thing. But to go and worship and find out that instead you’re at battle I think that’s particularly hard. I think that the legacy that it also leaves us in terms of education is particularly difficult, so our very best speakers are often the least prepared to do things like maneuver into book contracts and figure out how to earn equality in the academy. So, it’s always balancing people that have a difficult, terrible experience in education and pulling them into that arena again. So, hopefully rebuild it a different way which is a challenge. We hope enough of our language stays with us that the next generation will not have the same problems. You know. We hopefully see it get better the next generation.

A few other potentially note-worthy moments that I didn’t transcribe:
21:25 - Discusses being Martin clan
23:00 - Talks about good versus bad elders

Did Margaret know her family lore was false? If so, when?
- I am incredibly skeptical that Margaret's parents and grandparents are responsible for her claims. Is there proof that Margaret is simply an innocent victim of grandparents that weren't truthful? At this point, I haven't found anything to suggest other family members have claimed Native American ancestry. Also, in my experience, Minnesota is NOT like the southern United States as it relates to family lore of Native American ancestors. There are many historical reasons why it hasn't been a common thing in the upper mid-west. I do think we will see false claims based on family lore become more common in future generations though. A few other fakes have blamed family lore when questioned about inconsistencies, but their family members have disagreed.
- In an earlier comment on this thread, Diana mentioned finding an account "Montplaisir" on Find a Grave that seemed like it could belong to Margaret. The Find a Grave account was started in 2013. Diana's post confirmed the validity of my suspicions about an Ancestry.com account "montplaisir" which was started October 17, 2007. The tree is private but was set to be visible in searches. If the account doesn't belong to Margaret, it would have to be a close relative - just like the Find a Grave account. It is very interesting that the Ancestry.com account was started in late-2007. At that time, a university in Michigan had a faculty member beset by rumors of fraudulent ancestry claims. It is unlikely that Margaret would not have known about the rumors. Coincidence? Maybe.

Regalia
Margaret danced, drummed, and sang at the George Floyd Memorial in 2020. I think more articles and news stories are out there. There are pictures on Twitter, as well.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2020/07/08/indigenous-people-show-support-black-lives-mattermilwaukee/5365952002/

MilkyWayKwe - Your feelings are valid. Seeing Margaret in regalia, her lying badly about family "Indian school" stories, seeing her use of the words "our" "we" and "us" while talking about Ojibwe history is upsetting.

Frauds in academia are a significant threat to the Ojibwe long-term. Their books will be used as an example of us 100 years from now. It doesn't matter whether someone lies intentionally or carelessly believes family lore. Both are red flags for someone's ability to uphold the academic integrity of an institution. Margaret's work gained credibility through her false claims to be Anishinaabe, Ojibwe, Minnesota Chippewa, Grand Portage, Mille Lacs, Metis, and Eastern Metis.

There are Cherokee genealogy groups that research around 20 claims a day for free. The hope is that education will minimize false claims of Cherokee identity. One of Margaret's posts in this forum sounded exactly like something you would read in one of the Cherokee genealogy groups. What is the difference between Margaret and the Cherokee genealogy group participants? The majority of the Cherokee genealogy group participants appear to have limited education. Margaret has a PhD with an extensive knowledge of the Ojibwe language, culture, and history (obviously, as evidence has shown, that knowledge is not based on lived experience). She knows/knew Ojibwe elders and participated in important cultural activities which she greatly emphasized to us. BUT - if Margaret knows that much about the Ojibwe shouldn't she know that it isn't okay to even claim descent based on family lore? Yes. Margaret should have known it was wrong, and I believe that Margaret knew exactly what she was doing and that it was wrong. She has contributed chapters to books that contain content on damage done by fakes, discussed it in interviews, and attended conferences where it’s a topic. Margaret attended the 2017 Native American Literature Symposium. Her name appears in the program 7 times. She is listed on page 1 as one of the independent scholars that organizes the event. Her name appears on page 8 right before the Statement on Ethnic Fraud which is on page 9.
https://nativelitsite.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/april-2017-print-program.pdf

The Native American Literature Symposium supports the Indigenous Professors Association Statement on Ethnic Fraud
“We the Indigenous Professors Association hereby establish and present our position on ethnic fraud and offer recommendations to ensure the accuracy of American Indian/Alaska Native identification in American colleges and universities. This statement is developed over concern about the racial exploitation of American Indians and Alaska Natives in American colleges and universities. We think it is necessary to establish our position on ethnic fraud because of documented incidents of abuse.
This statement is intended to assist universities in their efforts to develop culturally diverse campus communities. The implications of this statement are threefold: 1) to assist in the selection process that encourages diversity among students, staff, faculty, and administration; 2) to uphold the integrity of institutions and enhance their credibility with American Indian/Alaska Nations/Tribes; and 3) to recognize the importance of American Indian/Alaska Native Nations/Tribes in upholding their sovereign and legal right as nations to determine membership. The following prioritized recommendations are intended to affirm and ensure American Indian/ Alaska Native identity in the hiring process.
We are asking that colleges and universities 1) Require documentation of enrollment in a state or federally recognized nation/tribe with preference given to those who meet this criterion; 2) Establish a case-by-case review process for those unable to meet the first criterion; 3) Include American Indian/Alaska Native faculty in the selection process; 4) Require a statement from the applicant that demonstrates past and future commitment to American Indian/Alaska Native concerns; 5) Require higher education administrators to attend workshops on tribal sovereignty and meetings with local tribal officials; and 6) Advertise vacancies at all levels and on a broad scale and in tribal publications.

Margaret's cringeworthy need to possess our (Ojibwe) identity as her own (and to make sure everyone knows it) manifests in every interview and article. She talks about the need to guard against the world trying to silence and erase "us" below.
https://prerequisites.libsyn.com/gordon-henry-leanne-howe-margaret-noodin-kimberly-blaeser

Margaret Noodin: I think of those way before us who negotiated becoming citizens and participating in America in all the various complicated, difficult ways that we do that. Many of us here – I mean all of us are academics here and the way that you be in these worlds that sometimes still shut you down is interesting. I mean just recently I had a poem that I was not aware anyone would find or use and the New York Times published it and Naomi Shihab Nye had chosen it. Which is a huge honor and amazing. I mean just to think that Naomi would pick up something of mine and read it was incredible. But it was published only in English and it had been written in Anishinaabemowin and it sounds so much more beautiful in Anishinaabemowin. I was kind of embarrassed that the English was published that way because it felt like somehow now the poem got out in the world a little bit naked, a little bit half. I had made a sculpture, and someone cut the head off. You know? So, I think we really have to guard against the ways that the world around us will still try to silence us. And in trying to honor us erase part of who we are.

*During reconstruction of the original thread, advancedsmite was unable to upload PNG files of the original post. Received security error from NAFPS. "An Error Has Occurred! Your attachment has failed security checks and cannot be uploaded. Please consult the forum administrator." Please reference Sparks' post from 8/28/2022 on this thread which includes a full PDF version of the original thread.

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Title: Re: Margaret Noodin Ojibwe Professor
Post by: fairbanks on April 20, 2022, 09:11:52 pm

Quote from: educatedindian on April 19, 2022, 08:30:51 pm

If you think academics make a lot from publishing, that's strange. Almost all academic books sell less than a few hundred. Noodin did send an email saying she's giving away all remaining books so she won't make even that small couple hundred dollars in profit.

Did you read my post above? The CNO has a hard time finding Cherokee teachers for their schools. So much that they are willing to train non Cherokee, literally begging anyone willing.

Academia has worked pretty hard to decolonize itself, some places more successfully than others. About the only places with enough money to really make it a complex are the elite schools, Ivy League places, and the racism there can be pretty strong, like Harvard having open white supremacists on faculty.

A public university that's built a relationship wth local communities for half a century, like my old school ASU, isn't colonial. There's dozens of NDN faculty. And one like my school where there literally is no budget anymore to allow a prof to make copies of the syllabus isn't a complex.

Much of this thread has long been a debate not about Noodin, but about unnamed others we really should start threads on. There has yet to be anyone showing she ever got a job, grant, or anything else from her claim except her choosing to believe, against all evidence now, the family story of being a descendant.

I never wrote nor do I think that academics make a lot publishing. It's not about the amount of money being made. It's about the principle, which is why it sounds like she's doing the right thing ending whatever profit she's making.

I did read your post about the Cherokee language teachers need. Not sure how helpful that is in this specific situation. Again, my issue isn't so much with whether or not non-natives teach native languages. I do feel it is an issue when non-natives are teaching and present as native and then get outed and caught up in the way Noodin has here. Should she continue teaching right now in such an elevated position as she was? I don't know about that.. Just because language teachers are needed in general, doesn't mean they get a pass in my opinion.

As far as the academic complex goes. I consider all colleges to be a part of that - not just the Ivy League. I agree that there have been some great strides made to decolonize within the academy, but it seems a lot of those changes aren't that deep. Just like any colonial institution that's been talking about decolonizing or diversifying etc. Just having more native faculty or a relationship with local community doesn't seem to be enough in my book. I don't see enough land based education efforts. If you have a native teacher that's essentially forced to teach within the structure of the system then I think there's a lot more work to do.

Finally when it comes to evidence that she ever got a job, grant, or anything else from her previously held identity, I highly doubt anyone could prove any of that here. Doesn't mean it didn't happen in one way shape or form though. I think that would be something she can take accountability for. It might help in making amends in a good way. Her positionality statement really did read like a settler move to innocence honestly in my admittedly bias mind.

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Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: educatedindian on April 22, 2022, 03:13:21 pm

Quote from: MilkyWayKwe on April 20, 2022, 02:27:17 am

I would like her to share how many grants she applied for over the years as Anishinaabe. How many students worked with her thinking she was Anishinaabe? Has she asked? How many gigs has she got with people thinking she was Anishinaabe? Has she asked? In her previous to last Electa bio, she opened by stepping into the fray of identity fraud and race-shifting (which I found to be manipulative and indicative of her intelligence as a PhD familiar with broader academic discourses) but not once has she said how her failures to do her genealogical work, or hire someone, and instead float around on a slip of a story has been harmful.

This was answered before. Neither she nor anyone else was ever awarded grants or jobs based on race, nation, or ethnicity. Been illegal since the 70s. She got her job and grants based on speaking the language.

I agree she should have done her genealogy long ago. Over here in Virginia, there are a lot of whites with family stories thanks to Pocahontas myths. My experience is that even when given evidence the stories aren't true, some refuse to believe them. One semester, I offered students the choice to do an essay after taking a DNA test. In one case, even negative test results weren't enough to change their minds. But as a professor she should know better.

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Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: kaeqcekam on April 22, 2022, 07:52:25 pm

Posoh. I am not going to refer to the subject of this discussion but the surname she chose because she thought it would be ‘fun’. I will refer to her as Margaret. There seems to be some sort of disconnect regarding her position in the academy and her lies. While Margaret’s lies may not have been how she initially accessed her place in academia, her lies gained her access to speakers and community that she would not have gained so quickly had she been honest. How do I know?

Christine K. Lemley gained access to my community through John H. Teller, a highly respected member of my Nation. It took a long time for John to agree to mentor Christine and even longer for the Menominee community to feel comfortable around her let alone accept her. Christine first visited our rez when John was teaching the language in our high school. He began to introduce her to tribal members, and he taught her the proper way to conduct herself before even requesting to interact. It took her six years to build up a good rapport. Her time with my people was entirely based on what she could give back, not what she could take. She didn’t create a false identity; she didn’t run around in regalia or crate a drum group. She did not center herself, she centered the Menominee. My community was hard on her, but she stuck it out and remained accountable to the tribe every step of the way. She is now a Professor at NAU Flagstaff and we love and miss her. That is how one should immerse themselves in order to help a Peoples to reclaim their language. You don’t need to lie, you don’t need to be the great white hope either. You just need to get to know the People in a good and honest way even though it can take a considerable amount of time.

Margaret did not do this. She makes it quite clear that she rushed in with her blood myth, which she refuses to let go of. While she may be a good professor, she is not a good anishinaabekwe. She’s either told people she is Ojibwe or willingly allowed them to come to that conclusion without correction. In doing this she has misled her students and hurt the elders she has worked with. In misleading her students, maybe she is not such a good professor. They clearly did not get the experience they thought they had. I feel sorry for them, especially the ones coming to her defense. How many of her students, with similar blood myths, did she encourage to lie, though maybe not in so many words? Is that part of her academic legacy? How do Margaret’s long standing lies align with WSUM’s code of conduct? Are there penalties?

As to the academy, it past time to decolonize. I do understand that academics has diversified but that does not mean it has decolonized. Hiring Native people and tossing in a land acknowledgement is not decolonization. We should be able to have control of our departments. We should absolutely be the ones deciding on curriculum and content. No matter how experienced a non-Native academic may think they are, they cannot and will not have our lived experience, that is not something that can be translated, or book learned or picked up after spending some time on the rez. Students are done a disservice when they do not learn about our experiences from us. There needs to be legislation change as a part of the reconciliation process so that we have capitol control over Indigenous Knowledge, our stories and our history. Decolonizing the academy means respecting the self determination and sovereignty of Indigenous communities. It means enough with the colonialism and imperialism associated with higher education.

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Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: Defend the Sacred on April 22, 2022, 07:58:03 pm

Thank you for making these vital points, kaeqcekam, and welcome.

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Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: WINative on April 22, 2022, 09:15:09 pm

This was posted yesterday on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/OsherLifelongLearningInstituteAtUMich/

*Upcoming*
Thursday Morning Lecture Series: Native Americans of the Great Lakes Region: Lessons of the Land in Indigenous Languages
of the Great Lakes
When: Thursday, 4/28/2022 from 10:00 - 11:30am EST
Fee: $10.00
Speaker: Margaret Noodin, PhD
This talk will introduce the indigenous view of Great Lakes history through indigenous languages that have been spoken for
millennia in the region. These languages have shaped the ways that speakers experience and express their place in nature,
their spiritual beliefs, and their relationships to other human and non-human beings. The loss of traditional languages through
intentional erasure and forced assimilation has had profound impacts on individual identities and indigenous cultures.
Professor Noodin, who is of Anishinaabe descent, is an American poet and Professor of English and American Indian Studies at
the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee where she also serves as Associate Dean of Humanities. She is the director of the
Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education and is the editor of objiwe.net. Professor Noodin is the author of two
collections of bilingual poetry in Anishinaabemowin and English. She received an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English
and Linguistics from the University of Minnesota. At the University of Michigan she served as Director of Comprehensive
Studies. With her daughters, both U of Michigan students, she belongs to a women’s hand drum group which sings in
Anishinaabemowin.
To register, first sign into the OLLI website with your email and password and then head to the Course Catalog.*
Please reach out to the OLLI-UM office if you have any questions or require assistance, 734-998-9351 or olli.info@umich.edu

*Emoji removed by advancedsmite during reconstruction of thread due to html issue. See attached PNG file for reference.

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Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: kaeqcekam on April 23, 2022, 12:27:20 am

Quote from: educatedindian on April 15, 2022, 12:05:59 am

You've been part of NAFPS for years and you realize who we usually go after. She's not a cult leader, didn't abuse anyone, didn't spread falsehoods about Native traditions. There's zero evidence of harming anyone. Just the opposite, her being forced to step down harms Ojibwes by taking away a language teacher.

She abused a lot of people, how can you not see that? She lied to her students, she lied to elders, she lied to communities, she taught drum making - supposedly by permission from unmentioned elders who were under the assumption that she was Native, she has taken up space in the media that could have gone to actual Natives, she is teaching students with blood myths to lie by example, she led ceremony at a George Floyd memorial, she has a drum group that performs. All of this is abusive and harmful. It's settler colonial bullshit and if you can't see it there is an issue.

She hasn't stepped down to the best of my knowledge. I asked a friend who attends UWM and it's business as usual.

You're certainly right that it's far better to have someone who grew up speaking the language teaching it instead of someone who learned it as an adult. But that's just not possible for more than a few NDN tribes in the US or Canada.

While this is true for many tribes it is not true for all. For those who are white and teaching NDN languages it is imperative that they are honest about who they are. Leave the blood myth Indian princess crap at home, it does not belong in the academy.

I'm writing this paragraph for any outsiders reading this since I know you know it all too well. Boarding schools came damn close to killing Native languages, reduced the speakers to sometimes a few dozen people out of thousands. Even the larger groups like Dineh and Cherokee struggle to hold onto the language. Non Natives often teaching the language is going to be a reality for the near future, for the same reasons the Spanish teachers in Iowa high schools probably won't be Latinos.

You're not quite accurate about the Cherokee. There are, as I am sure you know, three bands. UKB has a fluency rate of 60%. EBCI's Kituwah Preservation and Education Program is made up entirely of Native people.

Noodin is someone who took the family stories of ancestry at face value without checking them. This is something she shouldn't have done, but there was no intent to harm and no benefit to her.

There may have been no intent to harm be she did harm as I outlined above. It most certainly did benefit, she gained access to ceremony, led ceremony, had access to community activities, she has a drum group, she jingle dances. Many of these things she would not have had access to if she had been honest.

Calling herself Ojibwe several times so far that we know of instead of "I believe myself to be a descendant" was wrong. But it wasn't systematic, and likely came from her thinking at that moment, "I'm part of the community, and I believe what my family said." She has apologized here and can and should correct her mistakes.

She has called herself Ojibwe and Anishinaabe. She has linked herself to specific communities. She has claimed decendancy not that she believes herself to be a descendant. She has made it factual when it is not. Her apology was full of white tears and self-aggrandizement. She still will not let go of the fantasy that she is in fact an Ojibwe descendant when it has been proven she is not.

It also has to be a hard experience for her to go through. All her life she believed herself to be a descendant and made it her career to learn the language fluently, doing a lot of good because she also thought she was getting in touch with her roots. And she can and should take pride in the good she's done, just has to relearn to think of herself as an ally and community friend.

Well this sounds like coddling. How do you know she believed this all her life? Is that what she told you? Allies do not do what she has done, she has a lot of work to do to make amends for her deceptions. While she may have given to the greater Anishinaabe community with her work in language she needs to make amends directly with the people she deceived, particularly with mentors, elders and community leaders that are still living. She need to own, verbally and in writing, that at best she is not Native, not Ojibwe, not Metis, nor is she a descendant - that she was simply going by stories she had been told by previous generations for whatever reason. She needs to discontinue any familial connections because they simply aren't there.

WIN, you know what we do when someone we criticized and investigated tries to change and do right, or was found not to be harmful. Noodin is both of these.

She doesn't appear to have changed. She's still claiming to be a descendant with no proof. I don't think she's changed because after her diatribe she went and jingle danced.

The right thing to do is wait for her to contact the several websites where she falsely called herself Ojibwe instead of "I claim to be a descendant." Once the sites have corrections up, this thread should be moved to Archives and marked No Longer a Matter of Concern.

This is your site and of course you can do what ever you please but I feel that you would be doing the Ojibwe community as well as other communities she immerses herself in a huge disservice. People need to be aware and be wary of her conduct, even if it's previous. I have a difficult time believing she will let go of her charade. Perhaps she will become more involved with the Irish community. They need to know her propensity for lying as well.

You won. She had to step down, and changes what she said. Happy ending? Not for the shock to her sense of self, and the loss of a needed teacher.

She has not stepped down to my knowledge. I don't believe she will on her own. There is no happy ending for anyone because of the damage she has done and the distrust she has caused. The shock to her sense of self could have easily been prevented if she had done the work before making the claims. Margaret is not the be all end all of language experts, she can be replaced, hopefully with somebody with ethics and morals.

[Advanced Smite]

Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: kaeqcekam on April 24, 2022, 12:05:01 am

Somebody came to me this morning telling me that Margaret has made claims in the past that her family has members that are or were Mide. I had never heard this before though I am, I suppose, an outsider to her 'circles' so I put on my Google cap and began researching. I was not finding anything so I began to assume that this was gossip.

Then I came across this https://aadl.org/node/370469* https://web.archive.org/web/20211218172153/https://aadl.org/node/370469* I did not have the stomach to watch it so I went through the transcripts. There's a whole lot of interesting information, some of which has been posted but a lot that has been missed. She mistakenly dates NARFA to 1974 when it was 1978, she also claims that it was illegal to publish our language until 1991. The Native American Languages Act did not make publishing our languages legal, it already was. The Act was 'To assist Native Americans in assuring the survival and continuing vitality of their languages' and provided grants to do so. She should know this information. Was she being intentionally deceptive of does she really not know? If she really doesn't know these basic things then she's a pretty sorry Director of the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education. Then I found this

"MEG NOORI: Well, that's kind of like what I was saying, I mean, personally my feeling is it's not my field, it's not my place to talk -- there are many, many people who would say -- my teachings were that you don't just go out and assume people -- like I would not presume to give all you guys communion right now. I would not presume you were of a similar religion or that you wanted that: same thing with Mide stories. We were taught that to share those stories -- you would not do that, unless it was the right place and the right time. I personally think that you need to acknowledge their existence, so I'm probably in between. When I was very little, I would have been told, "don't even say that word, your uncle is going to get arrested," you know. But I think, now, I like to be able to say that that does exist; it's real and it's there. People practice it totally different ways; there's ways of doing it here; there's ways in Wisconsin, ways in Minnesota. So it's something we try to be very, very careful about and very respectful toward. I don't know if that's a good enough answer, but that's my answer."

I guess she really did claim that she had a relative was Mide. That's some pretty heavy bullshitting right there. She says she was told this when she was little so either her relatives were lying to her or she made this up to better fit in to the community. I believe the latter since she has no clue where he non yet existent relatives even came from. Out of all of her stories, this one, though only made in passing, bothers me the most. it elevated her to her audience. How many others did she pass this story on to elevate herself to? Has she used her blood myth to join a lodge I wonder? If so she is going to have a lot to answer for, maybe not now, but she will.

*Strikethrough added by advancedsmite during reconstruction of the thread to indicate a broken link. The page was archived via the Wayback Machine on 12/18/2021. Link to archived page added by advancedsmite. The "Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads Event: Margaret Noori Discusses Native Americans of Michigan - The Three Fires Confederacy" discussion from 2/18/2006 contains a significant amount of statements from Margaret Noori Noodin proven to be untrue. It has been saved offline as an additional precaution. See attached PNG file to reference original thread.

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Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: MilkyWayKwe on April 24, 2022, 02:53:57 am

advancedsmite: Thank-you for posting that video where MN talks about her name change. After seeing MN now in a new light, this video was extraordinarily hard to watch. Her claiming of Anishinaabe history, pain, struggle (re: AIM, language loss, Christianity, etc.) wicks to the core. I have similar struggles with her use of 'us', 'ours', 'we'. The way she fluctuates between 'they' (distancing/othering) and 'us' (claiming a togetherness) in this video and others is bizarre.

At 9:03 MN shares some curious ideas about Anishinaabe language and identity; her non-verbals are interesting: "I think [the language is] central to people knowing who they are and feeling that they can connect with each other and with history and even create a space for themselves. *pauses. coughs* Um, I guess I think that the language is a way to create identity, to continue a narrative that can do things other languages can't do." She sees the language as a way to create identity, to continue a narrative–that “other” languages can’t do? Anishinaabe language can do this in ways that other languages cannot? Other languages, like what? Colonizing languages like English? Diasporic/immigrant languages like Irish? It seems to me that this is a very telling interview. MN suggests why she’s so attracted to the language: it can create an identity and continue a narrative that her own ancestral languages cannot do.

About her name change---this to me is so blatantly outrageous, in ethics, logic, and process. She says, her colleagues "on the cover" (of Centering Anishinaabeg Studies) changed their last name, so "I recently did the same thing." Actually, 1) Sinclair, Stark, and Doerfler are not Anishinaabe last names in terms of Anishinaabe language; she is making a sloppy conflation and incorrect statement; 2) how does MN know if/how/when they 'changed' any part of their name and what business does she have to think she can do what other Anishinaabe do with their names?; 3) these scholars are all Anishinaabe creating life for Anishinaabe; they are not confused or discontent white settler women who want to be someone they are not, they are not creating an Anishinaabe identity and contributing to the creation of a discipline in Anishinaabeg Studies based on the wisp of a family story and 4) you can be sure the editors of the book that include their Anishinaabe names have their story for how they were given those names and that they have their responsibilities that they have to carry out for their names. I wonder what these Anishinaabeg scholars would think about MN leveraging the fact that they have Anishinaabe names to legitimize her changing her last name? Do they even know? Did she talk to them about it? Linked to this last point, MN goes on to say (using her faulty logic), that because her colleagues who edited the book changed their last names to include Anishinaabe names, she thought she would too and so talked to her dad about it. I mean no disrespect to MN's dad because, as we see with other pretendians they bring their families into their fake-world-making in ways that I think we are just starting to hear more about, but, who's her dad and why does he have a say about her using an Anishinaabe word for her last name? He isn't Anishinaabe.
What does he know about the ethical requirements of the situation and the implications of being unethical? What does he care? What stake does he have in it?

She says, based on conversation with her dad, it was decided it would be "fun". I'm of like-mind with kaeqcekam on this--it's another pretty gross reason to change your name to an Anishinaabe word. Sadly, through her actions, logics, and processes around her name change, MN “inspires” the idea of patenting our language so non-Anishinaabeg can't use it to create false identities. Imagine being the person whose actions inspire such a twisted idea, necessity. Nice legacy.

educatedindian Thank-you for taking the time to repeat yourself. I did read this before and disagree with you but felt it more
diplomatic and kind to set about showing my disagreement in a different way. Let me be more blunt: I'm not going to argue with you because it seems MN reads these posts and I do wonder what she gets out of watching us do all this labour and witnessing the tensions here and there, over her. I wonder if she likes it. I am also not going to try to convince you of anything here as you seem to be a) invested in protecting MN or b) have a highly particularized understanding of this situation, or the situation. But, I do have a few questions and things for you to consider if you so choose:

How do you know the terms of MN's hiring? Can you share the job posting? Do you know what the interview questions were? What the backroom discussions were? What students said about her interview (presuming they were involved somehow) and what their understanding was about who she is? Do you know if she identified herself as Anishinaabe in any of her application or interview process and if so, why she did that? How do you know what the hiring committee wanted but didn't put out into the world to be documented (not suggesting anything unethical here on the part of a committee--it's just that bias is a thing and is often hidden and not articulated AND power operates in committees in unstated ways)? What appealed to them and the people involved in the hire? Do you know what bias informed their choices? Please--we all know there's the 'legit' human resources process and then there's what people really want and the ways power and bias circulates to get that.

You state, "Neither she nor anyone else was ever awarded grants or jobs based on race, nation, or ethnicity. Been illegal since the 70s. She got her job and grants based on speaking the language." With respect, your understanding of how social capital and cultural currency operate to generate income, economic opportunity, and wealth is reductionist and black and white. Have you seen her online presence? Do you really think this presence is solely due to her ability to speak the language or that WHO she is (purports to be) is a non-variable in her currency? Do you really think that how people think her to be--that being Anishinaabe or even Anishinaabe kwe--doesn't impact their invitations, offers, and seeking her out? Do you really think Indigenous students, Elders, academics, community people, etc. are giving a white lady who speaks our language this much currency? Do you understand the particular kind of currency she has, presenting as an Anishinaabe woman who has a PhD, specializing in the language and how this translates into economic opportunity? Do you really think she's getting this much presence, circulation, opportunity and influence to shape ideas of Anishinaabe peoples and life as a language speaker detached from identity? Please. To get some understanding, why don't you do her work for her and ask TED Talks if they thought she was Anishinaabe when they invited her/agreed for her to speak? Or Jim Schaefer from RipRap in her discussion of her chapter in the Anishinaabeg Studies text she refers to? Or, UC Berkeley when they invited her to do a Distinguished Guest Lecture in 2019 or Beth Piatote, when she introduced her? Why not then ask UC Berkeley how much she was paid to give the lecture? Why not ask MN how such a talk--distinguished lecturer at a Top 10 university in the US or a wee interview in a little bookstore--props up her CV as both acclaimed academic AND “humble community person” when she's evaluated for salary, advancement, awards, or grants? Why not go and find out from all the students she works with if they chose her because they thought she was Anishinaabe or knew she’s not Anishinaabe and didn’t care and then ask MN how student supervision or mentoring props up her CV and then ask how this propping up of her CV advances her economically? Why not ask how many scholars have asked her to be an external examiner of graduate student work thinking she was Anishinaabe and ask MN how that has propped up her CV. I can't even get into the authority she has had to shape Anishinaabe worlds in her work with students or the dependencies she may have nurtured with community people through honoraria all the while thinking she's Anishinaabe. I'm posting a link identifying the currency that comes with giving a TED talk. I hope it helps disrupt the reductionist ways you argue against the fact that MN has benefited economically from her construction of an Anishinaabe identity. I'm also posting her TedTalk, the UC Berkeley lecture, and reposting the RipRap talk that advancedsmite posted.

Academic positions are sites of power. MN knows this and even speaks to an example of this, I think, in the RipRap talk.

WINative, thank-you for the post about MN's upcoming talk and how she is identified there. So wild that this is happening.

I'm inclined to post the photo of her at a powwow last weekend (with identities of others present covered) but it's so visceral to see her dressed in Anishinaabe regalia while she knows this robust exchange is happening and, more importantly, while she knows she's not Anishinaabe. It's hard. For me, the image of her with Elders who are also dressed in their regalia, bastardizes the meaning and integrity of the material cultural life and meaning-making Anishinaabeg have so powerfully embarked on --- amidst on-going genocide. I feel mostly worried for the younger generation and our kids---how can our cultural ways have integrity if a pretendian is allowed to continue to walk in the world wearing our markers of identity and culture? How do we expect our kids to take our ways seriously if someone like MN is allowed to continue to don regalia? This person seems to have no limits.

I appreciate all the work being done here.

Links:

1)Do Ted Talk Speakers Get Paid?: https://www.topworklife.com/do-ted-talk-speakers-get-paid
2) RipRap Interview (repost): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH6Zt-UEhE4&t=640s
3) UC Berkeley Distinguished Guest Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eqEPl9gu80
4)TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddyFh1Rdho4&t=136s*https://www.vexplode.com/en/tedx/minowakiing-the-good-land-margaret-noodin-tedxuwmilwaukee/* https://web.archive.org/web/20220907182418/https://www.vexplode.com/en/tedx/minowakiing-the-good-land-margaret-noodin-tedxuwmilwaukee/*

*Strikethrough added by advancedsmite during reconstruction of the thread to indicate an issue with the link. Sometime after 4/24/2022, TEDxUWMilwaukee made the video "Minowakiing: The Good Land | Margaret Noodin | TEDxUWMilwaukee"  private. A transcript of Margaret Noodin's TED Talk was found on another site and the link has been added above. The page was archived via the Wayback Machine on 9/7/2022. The archived link has been added above, as well. It has been saved offline as an additional precaution. See attached PNG file to reference original thread.

[Advanced Smite]

Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: kaeqcekam on April 24, 2022, 12:47:17 pm

MilkyWayKwe, wawaenon for your post. You said so many thing I wanted to articulate but couldn't.

[Advanced Smite]

Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: Defend the Sacred on April 24, 2022, 08:57:29 pm

I also thank you MilkyWayKwe, and kaeqcekam, for taking the time to go into Margaret's fraud and harm in detail. It not only makes abundantly clear what she has done, but it provides an example for the harm done by those in similar positions. Thank you both. And thank you for the labor put in by others in this thread, as well, like Diana and Smart Mule, who did the genealogy Margaret probably already knew, but ran them in circles, with false promises and white tears, wasting their time and energy in vain efforts to manipulate us.

On the day this all heated up, I had come to this thread specifically to move her to Frauds. I was shocked and confused that we did not have an immediate, clear consensus to do so. Even though there was very little support for her, what has been said in "support" of her has been very disturbing to me. You both have my gratitude for addressing it.

The upside of this thread staying in "Research Needed" for this long is that the continued dialogue has resulted in these clear examples. Margaret (I also will not use her self-chosen appellation) has told multiple members here that she will stop her claims and presentations. She clearly has not stopped. Her fraud has only continued and grown since she made those false promises.

[Advanced Smite]

Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: kaeqcekam on April 24, 2022, 10:57:20 pm

I looked several times and perhaps I missed it. Margaret did the voice over in the trailer for the movie Antlers. At a time when we are trying so hard to Indigenize Hollywood and are actually making breakthroughs, Margaret took up space that could have gone to an actual Native person. Graham Greene and Lisa Cromarty were the only Native people with a presence in the film Greene's presence was heavily cut and Cromarty narrates.

The movie Antlers, produced by Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro and directed by Scott Cooper is based on a screenplay he wrote with Nick Antosca and C. Henry Chaisson retelling Antosca’s short story “The Quiet Boy” which is a true Wiindigo tale warning against greed, corruption and destruction. In the film, a teacher says: “What is Storytelling? Storytelling started with our indigenous people.” Cooper and Del Toro worked to respectively connect their Wiindigo story to stories that have been told on this continent as long as anyone can remember. Grace L. Dillon was the primary consultant for the film and she contacted Margaret Noodin when the movie needed a voice of warning. As many of us work to revitalize languages that grew weak during colonization, attempted assimilation and the era of boarding schools, it is wonderful to know Antlers contains accurate Ojibwe. Our languages are growing stronger.

The final trailer for the film includes Margaret’s voice speaking Ojibwe. Here are the haunting words of warning:

Wenaakonigejig owiisagenimigoowaad wiindigoon.
The nations have been made to suffer by those who walk with greed in their hearts.

Nishiwanaajitoonid akiwan gaye nibiiwan miinawaa nishwanaaji’aanid asiniiyan, begazojin, bemoodejin, bemisejin, bemosejin.
They have destroyed the land and waters; they have destroyed the stones, swimmers, the crawlers, the ones who fly and the ones who walk.

Maazikamikwe godagendaagozid mii gikendang aabdeg wii-izhichigaadeg.
Mother Earth is in danger and knows what must be done.

She got the role through her friend Grace L. Dillon who was a consultant on the film. Dillon 'gave them permission' to use the 'w' in the films storyline. Not going to write the word, sorry.

“What's important to me is that I was given permission by people who most know about the wendigo — and who covet it, and who understand it far better than I do — to tell this story,” he adds.

The production employed Grace L. Dillon, a professor in the Indigenous Nations Studies Program at Portland State University, as its Native American advisor, and the film’s vision of the creature largely stemmed from Dillon’s expertise. “That was important to me because it means so much to their culture,” says Cooper.

Dillon also claims Anishinabe descent but I don't know what her story is.
https://ojibwe.net/the-native-voice-in-the-movie-antlers/ *
https://web.archive.org/web/20211011112706/https://ojibwe.net/the-native-voice-in-the-movie-antlers/
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/antlers-ending-explainedscott-cooper-interview?msclkid=bc5e9e82c41711ecba94925383a3abd2**
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/antlers-ending-explained-scott-cooper-interview


*Strikethrough added by advancedsmite during reconstruction of the thread. Added Internet Archive link to minimize risk of broken links in the future.
**Strikethrough added by advancedsmite during reconstruction of the thread to indicate a broken link. Link updated.

[Advanced Smite]

Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: debbieredbear on April 25, 2022, 09:05:39 pm

Grace Dillon now has her own thread.

[Advanced Smite]

Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: MilkyWayKwe on May 05, 2022, 03:34:23 am

The website called "Humans and Nature" has a copyright of 2022, indicating it's an updated and/or active website.

Margaret Gives-Herself-An-Anishinaabe-Last-Name-For-Fun has a bio on it whereby she "identifies as American, Anishinaabe, Irish, and Metis."

https://humansandnature.org/margaret-noodin/*
https://web.archive.org/web/20211028120606/https://www.humansandnature.org/margaret-noodin

*Strikethrough added by advancedsmite during reconstruction of the thread. Added Internet Archive link to minimize risk of broken links in the future.

[Advanced Smite]

Title: Re: Margaret Noodin, Professor
Post by: cellophane on May 06, 2022, 12:38:44 am

The source code for the "Humans and Nature" website shows it was last modified Feb. 10, 2022.