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Did You Know Littlefeather Had Schizoaffective Disorder? [1]

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Date: 2022-11-02

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I wrote a diary after reading this (see link) and deleted it. I deleted it because I took the author's word and took it for granted that the author of the article was unbiased. Surely, she isn't ignoring the fact that records from a colonizing country aren’t fair and accurate, when it comes to recording the heritage of a people they are trying to annihilate. So, I chose to trust, because the author was Navajo, and the facts were in context - I thought. I was wrong. For the controversial reporter Keeler, who’s been accused multiple times of conducting unethical and racially charged “witch hunts” to “out Pretendians,” the timing seemed awkward at best and arch at worst. I was angry, because I felt misled by the author and her editor, and that they published it so soon after her death. My deleted diary pointed out that Littlefeather was most likely indigenous, because her records do date back to having family in Mexico in the 1850s. This wasn’t accurate enough from Keeler — she slants it. Could their family have some distant drop of Indigenous blood from hundreds of years ago? It’s possible; many people of Mexican descent do. Cherokee Chief John Ross was “only” 1/32 Cherokee, that’s just a “drop,” but obviously irrelevant. Like I said, Keeler slants it. Then I found another fact saying that little feather was mentally ill. And that changes things. Littlefeather lived with a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, as she publicly disclosed shortly before she passed and as she had spoken in depth with me about. We can’t say what role, if any, her condition may have played in her apparently false appropriation of Native heritage. But according to the Mayo Clinic, one of the hallmarks of the disorder is delusional thinking characterized by “false fixed beliefs despite evidence to the contrary.” It’s one thing when people indulge their fantasies about their supposed Indian heritage to make them sound more interesting at cocktail parties or to convince actual Native people that they are one of them. But it’s quite another when there are lucrative movie deals, publishing contracts, high-paying teaching jobs, big grants and business deals at stake based on advancing an American Indian image. We can’t say what role, if any, her condition may have played in her apparently false appropriation of Native heritage. "If any." Bullshit. Did you know Littlefeather had schizoaffective disorder? That means she had both psychotic and mood symptoms, which means that she experienced so much pain that she had to create delusions in order to deal with them. One thing my wife deals with is psychosis. I watch her deal with it and it's very difficult sometimes. And my wife's family has downplayed it, blaming her for creating the delusions that hurt her. When the truth is, her delusions have come because her father sexually molested her when she was a young girl for 3 years. Her brother doesn't acknowledge it, and when she has accused her parents of it, they just play it off as her mental illness. Her mom would accuse her of pretending to be sick, when it was clearly a possible serious injury to the head.

Interesting how all the journalists just seem to take Littlefeather's sisters' word that their father was not abusive. But yet they have a "duty" to report on her being a pretend Indian, a fraud, a fake.

Interesting how the reports of her being in Playboy sound like slut — shaming, doesn't it?

“We never really knew her until the Oscar night,” Warjack said. “We thought that was really cool. That same year she did a spread in Playboy magazine. We knew no Native would do that. Especially during the 70s …The last thing we as Native women wanted anyone to think of us was as sex objects.”

If somebody is disabled and they're trying to survive and they can't work - should they just beg on the street or get naked on a horse? A disability unseen by appearance is still a disability. If she shit her pants often, would that be fair game too? So soon after she died? Oh I get the hidden message in it, women who allow themselves to be photographed naked are not credible, right?

Additionally, it must be narcissism (start at 9:49).

I'm offended by the fact all the so-called experts missed the context. She was mentally ill, and she couldn't help it. And she was mentally ill with highly probable Native American heritage, but likely not the exact one she was claiming.

(Bold mine)

All answers are complex because the category of mestizo/mestiza is actually a non-scientific term born of a racial caste system of exploitation, designed primarily not as a racial descriptor, but to deprive people of their full human rights. If it were simply a racial designation, in all likelihood, most Mexicans would be considered mestizo or Indigenous; in Canada, a metis or person of “mixed-blood” is considered a First Nations person. In Mexico, very few Mexicans are considered “white.”

Métis Peoples experience barriers to accessing both Indigenous-specific and mainstream services yet are often left out of discourses surrounding racism and service access. Racism and discrimination experienced by Métis people is rooted within a deep history of assimilative and racist colonial policies.

She got up and stood in front of a huge audience and said what needed to be said about the stereotypes of American Indians in the movies. She took her lumps for it. And she did it because of her superpowers, her mental illnesses . I want to see the evidence where all of her critics calling her a fraud have the guts to get up and do the same thing she did and have the same impact. They’re all the “real Indians” don’t ya know??? Hey, did you know Littlefeather had schizoaffective disorder? The experts don't know or don't give a shit.

(55 seconds)

Batman, “he’s a paranoid schizophrenic, the kind of mind the Joker attracts. What do you expect to learn from him?... If anyone saw this, everything would be undone...”

Jacqueline Keeler is no Batman. More like an Indian Scout.

For many Indians it was an important form of interaction with White American culture and their first major encounter with the Whites' way of thinking and doing things.[2]

Turnaround is fair play for calling a mentally ill person a “fraud.” To be fair to Keeler, which this is more than Littlefeather got, Keeler states:

x I sent this critique to both the NYT and WaPo. pic.twitter.com/bifzNSbNfw — Jacqueline Keeler (@jfkeeler) November 1, 2022

She basically states that identifying as Indigenous in the US, because tribal citizens of the “lower 48” are subject to laws citizens of Canada or Mexico are not, makes anyone claiming Indigenous anything in the “lower 48” a fraud, fake, and not entitled to any recognition as such. Well, Mayans were subject to “US law and federal policy” — weren’t they?

The conviction of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide against Mayan villagers in the 1980s has a special meaning for Americans who idolize Ronald Reagan. It means that their hero was an accessory to one of the most grievous crimes that can be committed against humanity.

(Bold mine)

While serving as a missionary and teaching Indigenous children in the western highlands of Guatemala, Sister Ortiz was abducted, gang-raped and tortured by a Guatemalan security force. Her story became even more explosive when she said that someone she believed to be an American had acted in concert with her abductors.

Indigenous women have still been being forcefully sterilized, that’s “federal policy” right?

Decades later in 2020, this practice of forcibly sterilizing minority women is still taking place. However, these forced sterilizations are now being done by ICE authorities.

When I did my 2nd DNA test and joined the Metis Nation of the US with connection to the Metis in Canada, in which I shared here before, I learned I did not have enough American Indian DNA to be US Cherokee Admixed (#281). The main reason I am Native American is from Brazilian/Amazonian (#83 & #84).

Here’s what it said.

As can be seen, U.S. Cherokee Admixed (n=62) does not appear as a match in your Top 50 World Populations. It was ranked at position #281. Your closest Native American populations are Brazilian - Amazonian (n = 100) and Brazilian - Amazon (n = 100) at # 83 and

And a previous, more general test showed I am 1/6. I also had enough specific Caucasian to join the Metis Nation of the US. I had to send them documentation, including my original adoption papers from a closed adoption. It was near impossible to get. Curious how people criticize DNA tests but exclude the fact some tribes use it to disenroll members, or to enroll members. For instance, Tribe moves to implement DNA testing for new applicants to Cherokee rolls. Wow, you either respect their right to do it that way, or you don’t.

So according to Keeler, I am not Native American or Indigenous, nor the Mayans, nor anyone in a Prison Camp at the border who are nontribal citizens of the “lower 48.” We’re not subject to laws as a tribal citizen. We shouldn’t be recognized. So for argument’s sake, if any of the below had been in the US, they would not be subject to US federal Indian policy.

Brazil investigates alleged slaughter of Amazonian tribespeople by gold miners This article is more than 5 years old Eight to 10 members of a remote indigenous group were allegedly killed by men working for illegal prospectors in Javari Valley

They could not have gotten government benefits and would not have suffered the genocidal policies of this country. No shit Sherlock. The last member of a tribe in Brazil has died, pulling Indigenous rights into focus The last member of a besieged Indigenous tribe in Brazil has died, apparently of natural causes. Activists are holding up his legacy as a symbol of both the genocide and resilience of his people, calling for his land to be preserved as a reminder of both. - snip — The rest of his tribe was likely massacred in attacks by gunmen hired by colonists and ranchers dating back to the 1970s, according to Survival International, a London-based human rights organization that advocates for Indigenous and uncontacted people. But they would still be Indigenous, wouldn’t they?

Littlefeather was mentally ill, and the colonial thinking around ignoring that with not bringing out this unslanted:

(Bold mine)

A few interesting facts about the “deep” lineage of Mexicans, going back on paternal and maternal lines over thousands of years using mtDNA and yDNA tests: 85-90% of Mexicans have maternal lineage (mitochondrial DNA) showing Native American roots

Needs to burn.

Author is a member of the Metis Nation of the United States

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/2/2131999/-Did-You-Know-Littlefeather-Had-Schizoaffective-Disorder

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