Cracked Article on ‘Frauds Stealing Native American Culture’ Leaves Someone Out
An astounding omission.
Cracked.com used to be an entertaining humor site but in recent years has devolved into a place for social justice warriors to write listicles about feminism, racism, and cultural appropriation.
I used to be a daily reader but stopped visiting regularly after the election when the site devoted itself to progressive politics and at least one Trump bashing article per day.
When I saw their article titled “Busting The Frauds Who Are Stealing Native American Culture” I decided to read it just to see if they would mention Elizabeth Warren. Nope. Not a word.
Writer Robert Evans even makes a professor the focus of his article without a hint of irony:
The problem of hip white people appropriating Native culture actually goes a lot deeper than wearing headdresses at Coachella. Right now, Native religions and cultural practices are fighting off a vicious eradication campaign. And it’s not being waged by cross-burning racists, or weird hold-over fans of Andrew Jackson: it’s legions of New Age “seekers” who don’t recognize that their Etsy dreamcatcher is part of something sinister. Cracked sat down with Dr. Alton Carroll, a history professor who runs the site NewAgeFraud.org. He’s an actual Native American, and he’s dedicated much of his life to busting fake Natives. And he explained …
6. Native Americans View It As Battling Spiritual Genocide
The appropriation Dr. Carroll encounters today can get very strange. He told us about New Age groups “that claimed Native people were descended from dolphins. There’s people out there who claim Atlantis or Lemuria are part of Native tradition, it’s not.
Evans mentions “Iron Eyes” Cody,” the non-Native American actor who you may remember from this 1970’s ad:
Cody is described in this way (emphasis is mine):
He was one of the most influential Native Americans in Hollywood history: He advised some of the great directors of Hollywood’s golden age and insisted on historical accuracy in Native dress and rituals in the movies he worked on. He also wrote a book documenting the nearly lost art of Native hand signals:
But Cody Iron Eyes was about as Native American as a nice lasagna. He was an Italian-American fraud, and his book on Indian hand signals was a mix of a bunch of different Native traditions, tossed with his own special sauce of complete bullshit. Cody wasn’t the first or the last person to build his fame lying about Native Americans.
That could have been a perfect segue into talking about Elizabeth Warren’s career. Instead, the focus shifts to people who profit from teaching Cherokee sex magic.
The article wraps up with a section about a woman who claimed to be Native American but was exposed as a fraud. Once again, not Senator Warren:
“I wish we could report more success than we have had. Unfortunately all you can do is put out the information and hope people listen … probably the biggest recent success we can point to is a woman named Kiesha Crowther who claimed she was the returning prophet prophesized by hundreds of tribes, by not simply Americans but also people in Australia, New Zealand, indigenous people worldwide, that she was the returning red-haired prophet.”
I wouldn’t normally spend this much time dissecting an article from Cracked.com but the lack of any mention of Warren on this specific topic is remarkable.
The author either purposely left Warren out of the article or doesn’t believe she’s guilty of the progressive crime of cultural appropriation.
I’m not sure which is worse.
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Comments
You lasted longer than I did. I quit Cracked a while ago.
(I should elaborate. I left not because they had a bias, but because they committed the cardinal sin of a ‘humor site’ – they stopped being entertaining)
This is what happens every time the Left is able to take control of something.
So Cracked is really what their name says? Cracked?
Appropriating or even admiring another culture is a cardinal sin to the left. Yet I never hear Lefties cry about African Americans who claim they are descendants of the Egyptian pharaohs.
you mean to say that they are NOT !!!!!!!!
😉
In fairness, Egypt IS in Africa……
But anyone who is black is automatically “African-American”, even if they are Mexican or Haitian or…….
I always wonder why Theresa Heinz Kerry isn’t hailed as African-American.
Any American who was born on the African continent is “African American”. The African continent is the traditional home of both Caucasian and Negro races. The dominant race in the Eygpt, during the time of the Pharaohs was Caucasoid, not Negroid. Most of the negro population of Egypt, during that time, were slaves. Then we have the Arab peoples who lived along the Med, as well as southern European settlers of the region [many from Rome].
Every human is decendent from Africa so all Americans are African Americans. When you consider that this would eliminate racism and it’s twin evil affirmative action everyone should embrace their African heritage for the good of society.
Even if ancient Egyptians were black in color, did they relocate to West Africa where the majority of the slave trade occurred? I’ve got definitive proof of ancestors that came from England. That doesn’t mean I can happily claim to have blood from the Windsors or Tutors.
There is a world of different between Pocahontas and Cody Iron Eyes because he, from what I can see, actually did something for the benefit of the respect of Indian culture by demanding film directors respect the culture they were, I guess, ripping off for their own financial gain.
Pocahontas on the other hand, as far as I can tell, did absolutely nothing for the culture she appropriated for her own selfish ends. Even Rachel Dolzeal (sp??), even though she was a fake herself, actually believed in the betterment of the lives of the people who’s culture she was appropriating!
Stealing is stealing. How about people who never served lying about being war heroes? Can they also claim that they did it in tribute to those who actually WERE war heroes? Faking your ancestry for personal glory, political advantage, securing free cheese or financial gain is just another form of stolen valor. And the primary life Dolzeal intended to improve was her own.
You can’t be sometimes honest or partly pregnant. And you can’t lie, steal and cheat your way to virtue.
Stealing?! What exactly do “cultural appropriators” steal, and from whom? Whom does it harm, and how? Its’ not as if there was some other Indian who would have been hired for this role if Cody hadn’t taken it. Cody created his role; it didn’t exist before him, and wouldn’t have existed without him. So by what standard do you claim he did wrong?
Oh, this was the weeping “Indian” in those commercials in the 70’s! Wayne’s World did that one better than anyone!
Was that William Conrad narrating?
Any mention of our Mongolian-American history being expunged from Native American oral tradition by the Native Americans themselves? Why the self-loathing? Why disown that part of the legacy? We Mongolian-Americans are a proud people. Come back!
The problem of fakes pilfering Affirmative Action freebies from frauds is nowhere near the top of my list of things to worry about.
I gave up on Cracked a few years ago when they really let their liberal flag fly. I’m sure the Trump bashing is cranked up to 11.