MEDIA INDIGENA 304 (all-new episode!)

Drinking the Settler Kool-Aid / MI 304

ON THIS WEEK'S *ALL-NEW* INDIGENOUS ROUNDTABLE:

Another one bites the dust? Who is the real Mary-Ellen Turpel-Lafond? A question very much on the minds of Indigenous people in Canada these days, still digesting the exhaustive and explosive CBC News investigation into her public and private life—not least, her repeated claims to being a treaty Indian as a daughter of a Cree man from a northern First Nation in Manitoba. A man the CBC could only verify as the B.C.-born settler son of settler parents of Euro-American ancestry.

Just some of the troubling discrepancies documented by an exposé that’s thrown virtually everything about Turpel-Lafond’s life story into question. A narrative that, ‘til now, presented her rapid rise to influence as a remarkable journey against the odds. One the CBC seems to show goes largely against the facts.

Joining host/producer Rick Harp to take a deep dive into what’s apparently only one of many such scandals of late, MI roundtable regulars Kim TallBear (professor in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience and Society, and Candis Callison (Associate Professor in the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies and the Graduate School of Journalism at UBC).

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OTHER LINKS REFERENCED / CONSULTED THIS EPISODE:

• 'Why is claiming Indigenous identity when you don’t have evidence to support those claims harmful?' The Early Edition with Stephen Quinn CBC Radio

• 'Doubts Over Indigenous Identity in Academia Spark ‘Pretendian’ Claims' Canada Letter (New York Times) 15 Oct. 2022

• 'UBC backs Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond after report raises questions about her claims to Indigenous ancestry' Globe and Mail

• 'UBCIC Stands with Aki-Kwe, Dr. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond' UBCIC (Union of BC Indian Chiefs)

• 'Our identities have become one more thing for Canada to steal' (Eden Fineday) IndigiNews

• 'Tough Talker' (1995 Ottawa Citizen profile of Mary-Ellen Turpel) Windspeaker (reprinted: PDF version)

• Response re: "CBC report that raises questions on the validity of Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond’s assertions of being a Treaty First Nations Indigenous woman..." Indigenous Women's Collective (by way of @gleocbc)

• 'We must adopt policies that require proof of Indigenous status and end self-identification' (Natan Obed) CBC Opinion

• Tweet: "Why do defendians protect pretendians..." @JJSylvester04

• Tweet: "Imagine for a moment [that] the question of whether METL is Cree, Indigenous, or a Treaty Indian was before a judge..." @creeborn

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LISTEN NOW:

https://mediaindigena.libsyn.com/the-unravelling-story-of-mary-ellen-turpel-lafond-ep-304