Jimmie Durham did this.
“‘Some collide, some escape’: This was the title of a 2005 exhibition of works by Jimmie Durham that was held in a former cow barn belonging to Berlin’s Humboldt-Universität. The barn had been a site of agricultural research in the days of socialism.…Durham opened … with a vegetarian performance – he ate a flower – and, in the university cow barn, revealed his artistic cosmos. On display were an old toothbrush among rotten apples, medical instruments adorned with feathers, egg shells, bones, pelts and a good deal more.”
Durham’s also got a lot in common with Elizabeth Warren, Ward Churchill, Jamake Highwater, Diane Fisher & Andrea Smith (whoever they are) and Cher, who all claim Cherokee ancestry with no proof whatsoever, possibly because that’s the only Native American tribe they’ve heard of. In truth, they’re all members of of the two largest modern Indian nations, the Newager and the Wanabi.
To pursue, obtain and accept special perks and creds based upon something that might or might not have happened to your personal ancestors is specious at best, but to invent your genealogy in order to take advantage of those arguably racist programs and boons is not only unethical but fraudulent.
I despise liars more than thieves.
BTW, I am an Afro-Elbonian-Azteca-Swede-Erie-Scots-Mongolian-Slav-Inuit-Baboso-Haole-American. Bring it, chuchas.
[Image from here, top caption from here. Related posts here and here.]
