America, according to the left, is inveterately white supremacist. In fact, the nation formerly known as the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave is so systemically racist, we’re told, that only a good long marination in Marxism can restore some semblance of justice to our benighted land, which of course we stole from the Native Americans anyway.
In white supremacist America today, white people have so very much privilege that they’re getting caught again and again trying to pass as non-white. The latest is Andrea Smith, a Native American professor at the University of California, Riverside, who turns out not to be Native American at all, but (oh horror! Oh shame!) white.
The story of another oppressed person of color turning out to be a hated white oppressor is so big that it crossed the Atlantic. The superstar Marxist agitator Angela Davis once called Smith “one of the greatest indigenous feminist intellectuals of our time,” but oh, how the oppressed have fallen. The Times of London reported Tuesday that Smith “has agreed to resign from the university “after complaints from colleagues” over her “fraudulently claiming to be of Native American heritage.” Now why would someone who enjoys all the benefits of white privilege squander them and voluntarily turn in her white card? It’s a mystery!
Up until this controversy, cigar-store Indian Smith had been “an ethnic studies expert” at Riverside, but according to The Times, she “had been dogged by allegations of lying about having Cherokee ancestry.” Not only did she lie about being Cherokee, but she became a self-appointed guardian of racial integrity: back in 1991, Smith had the unmitigated chutzpah to accuse “white women of wanting to ‘become Indian’ so they can ‘escape responsibility and accountability for white racism.’”
UC Riverside officials announced that Smith had resigned, but her resignation looks to be almost as fake as her Cherokee heritage: “She will step down in August next year and will be able to keep teaching until her retirement.” What’s more, “she will not be subjected to an investigation, will keep her retirement benefits and will retain the title of professor emeritus.” As if that weren’t enough, “the university will cover up to $5,000 of her legal fees related to the complaint.” This is what resigning in disgrace looks like if you’re a leftist; if Smith had been discovered to be a secret patriot, Riverside officials would certainly have been much harsher.
According to the agreement she made with the university, Smith “agrees to not make any affirmative claims of Native American heritage in connection with her university work for the duration of her university employment.” Even that, however, is hedged: “However, if asked about her heritage in connection with her university work, Professor Smith is permitted to disclose her opinion on her Native American heritage.”
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Smith hasn’t said anything about the latest imbroglio, but when she was under fire back in 2015 on suspicion of faking her heritage, she shot back: “I have always been, and will always be Cherokee. I have consistently identified myself based on what I knew to be true.” Of course she did.
Andrea Smith joins many others: Elizabeth Warren; Heather Rae; Shaun King; Hilaria Baldwin; Linda Sarsour; and Rachel Dolezal. There are also many others who are less prominent, such as the white Jewish professor Jessica Krug, who passed as black for years, and Miguel De La Torre, a white professor of social ethics and “Latinx studies” at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colo., who preaches that white people must “crucify their whiteness”). They’ve all deduced that in this country, which is allegedly dogged by white supremacy, the path to social distinction, fame, and fortune goes through being a “person of color.”
All these fake brown people running around show the hollowness of the left’s narrative like nothing else does. White people are not the ones who enjoy privilege these days; the privilege is all with “people of color,” and that’s the simple answer to the question of why so many white people are pretending to be non-white these days. It’s the flip side of the Jim Crow era, when many black Americans tried to pass as white; they were doing so because that was an easy way to bypass discrimination and enjoy actual privilege. The situation is exactly the same today: want to bypass discrimination and enjoy actual privilege? Burn your white card, claim “person of color” status, never break cover, and hope you don’t get caught.
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