" I'm Not Indian Enough" & "I'm Not Black Enough"

[CelticViking]

With his majestic headdress and fearsome warpaint, Ed Winddancer appears to be carrying on the proud traditions of his Native American ancestors - but according to a long-standing enemy, he is nothing but a fraud in feathers.
Winddancer, 55, traces his roots to the Nanticoke and Cherokee tribes, and often appears in full dress at heritage festivals to play the flute, regaling crowds with ancient stories. He sells CDs of his music through his MySpace page.
However his performances are now often accompanied by the presence of Sal Serbin, 48, who has taken to appearing at Winddancer's gigs holding up signs reading 'Liar' and 'Cultural Thief'.
Mr Serbin, from Sarasota, Florida, claims that not only is Winddancer a fraud - but his practices are downright dangerous.
He told the Herald-Tribune: 'Our ancestors fought and died to preserve and protect our culture, not for these people to wake up one day, put some feathers in their hair and decide to be Indian.
'It would dishonor my ancestors if I didn't get out there and do something.'
Mr Serbin, has Sioux lineage and says his grandfather fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. He said that Winddancer is not alone in his allegedly false claims to be Native American - which is against federal law
Mr Serbin had planned to attend the fourth annual Sarasota Indian Festival this weekend in Florida, which he believes is one of the true Native American gatherings.
The festival features Rick Bird and the Bird Choppers from Cherokee, North Carolina performing traditional drumming and dance along with craftsmen making authentic bead work, jewellery and sculptures. It is hosted by Rex Begaye, a full-blooded Navajo and Sarasota resident.
Mr Winddancer, who also lives in Florida, has not been invited to attend.
Mr Serbin, who is a fully fledged member of the Assiniboine Tribe was born on a reservation in Montana. He is married with three children and has lived in Florida for the past 13 years.
He is not only angered by Winddancer's allegedly false practices but worried that they may be placing people in danger. One ceremony called the Sun Dance, involves a bone being pierced through a person's chest and tied to a tree, with the individual moving around until the skin breaks from the bone.
He told the Herald-Tribune: 'People are dying from those. It just hasn't gotten a lot of publicity. There's some in Florida.'
Mr Serbin travels the state to try to prevent people who he believes to be fraudulent Native Americans from performing rituals.
The legitimacy of Ed Winddancer's heritage is debatable.
He was born Edward Arthur Pielert III in Maryland in 1956 and claims that his mother was of Nanticoke descent, his father of Cherokee.
He legally changed his name in 1992 and tours the country, performing his music and dancing at schools and festivals.
Mr Winddancer believes that Mr Serbin's vendetta against him is 'racist'.
He said: 'It's racism. What else would you call it? I'm not Indian enough for Sal? Then it's an issue of race.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...s-MySpace.html

A young Aborigine was ''shocked'' and ''humiliated'' to hear she might not look ''indigenous'' enough for a job promoting the Aboriginal employment initiative GenerationOne, founded by the mining entrepreneur Andrew Forrest.

Tarran Betterridge, 24, a Canberra university student, applied for the post through an ACT company, Epic Promotions, which had been asked to find five people of ''indigenous heritage'' to staff a stall at Westfield in Canberra handing out flyers for GenerationOne.

Ms Betterridge was interviewed for 20 minutes on October 20 and told she was ''perfect''.

However, the interviewer, Emanuela D'Annibale, said she first had to check with her client, an agency called Let's Launch, because of guidelines specifiying it wanted ''indigenous-looking'' people for the job. Ms D'Annibale then took Ms Betterridge's photo, but denies forwarding it.

Ms Betterridge's mother is white and her father is a Wiradjuri man from the Dubbo area.

When Ms Betterridge phoned the next day, Ms D'Annibale told her she was not needed as Let's Launch had already found enough casual employees.

Yesterday Ms D'Annibale confirmed working to guidelines that required at least some recruits to ''look'' indigenous.

Ms Betterridge was ''lovely'', she said, but ''if you're promoting Italian pasta, and you put Asians there, how's that going to look? Wouldn't you pick an Italian to promote the Italian pasta?''

She would have liked to hire Ms Betterridge anyway because ''she was really nice, she had so much knowledge and background ... but the reason we needed at least one person who looked indigenous [was] so that it would be friendlier to indigenous people''.

''I wouldn't have picked her for Aboriginal at all ... to me she looked like an Aussie girl.'' She said Ms Betterridge hadn't been hired because the agency didn't need five people.

Ms Betterridge is ''shocked a company that wants to increase indigenous employment would question hiring a person because they do not meet the colour standard''.

The chief executive of GenerationOne, Tim Gartrell, expressed repugnance at the claims last night. He said he instructed those responsible to apologise, and would no longer use the recruiting contractor's services.

''The comment made by a recruiting contractor is completely inappropriate and doesn't reflect the views, practice or ethos of anyone in GenerationOne,'' he said.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-stan...enough-for-job

[CelticViking]

WASHINGTON (BNW) — Sen. Barack Obama will not be the democratic nomination for president. Not because Jesse Jackson called him too white, not even though big, fat funky Winfrey Oprah came in his support. He won’t be the nominee because the political system is rigged for only insiders in the Democratic Party.


The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Thursday that a South Carolina newspaper misinterpreted his comments when it reported he said Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is "acting like he's white."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to the press Tuesday in Jena, Louisiana.

The State, a South Carolina newspaper, reported Wednesday that Jackson's comments were made in the context of criticizing Obama and the other presidential candidates for not paying more attention to the recent racially charged incident involving the arrest of six black juveniles in Jena, Louisiana, on murder charges.

"There's an unfortunate misinterpretation," Jackson said. "The fact is, I endorse Barack without hesitation and support him today unequivocally."


HE is a media darling, a paparazzi target and a source of inspiration for millions of Democrats who dream of retaking the White House in 2008. But Senator Barack Obama, the charismatic African-American who is shaking up the presidential primary race, has not impressed some of America’s most powerful black activists.

Civil rights leaders who have dominated black politics for much of the past two decades have pointedly failed to embrace the 45-year-old Illinois senator who is considering a bid to become America’s first black president.

At a meeting of activists in New York last week, the Rev Jesse Jackson, the first black candidate to run for president, declined to endorse Obama. “Our focus right now is not on who’s running, because there are a number of allies running,” Jackson said.

The Rev Al Sharpton, the fiery New York preacher who joined the Democratic primary race in 2004, said he was considering another presidential run of his own. And Harry Belafonte, the calypso singer who became an influential civil rights activist, said America needed to be “careful” about Obama: “We don’t know what he’s truly about.”

The unexpected coolness between the old civil rights guard and the new Democratic hopeful has added an intriguing twist to the budding rivalry between Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton, who hopes to emulate her husband, former president Bill Clinton, in attracting support from black voters.

The importance of the black vote — and the still-potent influence of community leaders such as Jackson and Sharpton — was underlined last week when both Clinton and Obama appeared at different times in New York at a black business conference organised by Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition.

Clinton was applauded at a breakfast meeting for her attacks on President George W Bush’s economic policies of “tax breaks for the rich”. She added: “It is not rich Americans who have made this country great. It is hard-working Americans who have worked hard to lift themselves and their children up.”

Delayed by bad weather, Obama turned up in the evening to pay respectful homage to Jackson’s presidential bids in the 1980s. “I owe him a great debt,” Obama said. “I would not be here had it not been for 1984 . . . for 1988. If I’m on the cover of Ebony (an African-American magazine), it’s not because of me. It’s because a whole bunch of folks did the work to put me there.”

Yet Obama’s charm and eloquence have not wooed the old guard.

“They are basically jealous,” said a Democratic strategist who has not yet decided which candidate he intends to support. “They’ve been toiling in the trenches for decades, and along comes this son of a Kenyan farmer and suddenly he’s measuring the drapes in the Oval Office.”

Sharpton, 52, is widely considered to have no better chance of winning the Democratic nomination than in 2004, when he never amassed more than a few percentage points in the polls but still made a national impact with his barnstorming performances in the televised primary debates.

When asked about Obama’s likely candidacy, the preacher, renowned for outrageous self-publicising antics, shrugged: “Right now we’re hearing a lot of media razzle-dazzle. I’m not hearing a lot of meat, or a lot of content. I think when the meat hits the fire, we’ll find out if it’s just fat, or if there’s some real meat there.”

Belafonte, who returns to British cinema screens shortly with a small role in Bobby, the new Emilio Estevez film about the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, also cast doubt on Obama’s credentials as a legitimate candidate.

“He’s a young man in many ways to be admired,” Belafonte said. “Obviously very bright, speaks very well, cuts a handsome figure. But all of that is just the king’s clothes. Who’s the king?” There were contrasting views on the likely impact on Obama’s campaign of black competition or criticism. One analyst argued that a Sharpton candidacy would “put Obama on the spot” by forcing him to address awkward civil rights issues such as police brutality and racial profiling that he tends to steer clear of. One Democratic blogger argued that Sharpton was “just what the doctor ordered to keep Obama on the straight and narrow”.

Others suggested that Sharpton would help Clinton by dividing black primary voters. In one interview last week, Sharpton warned that Obama could not take the black vote for granted. A strategist pointed out, however, that Obama could emerge as a “model of reason, compared to that blowhard Al (Sharpton)”.


Jackson also reportedly said on Tuesday that Obama needs to be bolder in his stances if he wants to make inroads in South Carolina. Obama trails rival Sen. Hillary Clinton in South Carolina by 18 points, according to a recent LA Times/Bloomberg poll.

When informed the newspaper intends to stand by its reporting of the quote, Jackson said, "I have not in any way engaged into the degrees of blackness debate." Jackson added he continues to support Obama, whom he called brilliant.

Jackson, along with civil rights activists such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, organized a march Thursday in Jena, where thousands of protesters clogged the tiny town to show their indignation over what they consider unjust, unequal punishments meted out in two racially charged incidents.

Sharpton called Jena the beginning of the 21st century civil rights movement. "There's a Jena in every state," Jackson told the crowd in Jena on Thursday morning.

In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, Obama said his previous statements about the Jena case "were carefully thought out" with input from his national campaign chairman and Jackson's son, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Illinois.

"Outrage over an injustice like the Jena 6 isn't a matter of black and white. It's a matter of right and wrong," Obama said in the statement.

The elder Jackson, who ran for president twice in the 1980s, endorsed Obama's White House bid earlier in the year. Jackson won the South Carolina Democratic primary, where African American voters play an influential role, in both presidential bids.

"If I were a candidate, I'd be all over Jena," the prominent civil rights activist said Tuesday in Columbia, South Carolina, The State newspaper reported. "Jena is a defining moment, just like Selma was a defining moment."

Tensions had simmered at Jena High School and in the small town for the first three months of the 2006 school year after a black student asked the vice principal if he and some friends could sit under an oak tree where white students typically congregated.

Told by the vice principal they could sit wherever they pleased, the student and his pals sat under the sprawling branches of the shade tree in the campus courtyard.

The next day, students arrived at school to find three nooses hanging from those branches. According to The Town Talk newspaper in nearby Alexandria, the school's principal recommended expulsion for those involved in placing the nooses. Instead, the newspaper reported, a school district committee suspended three white students for three days, calling the incident a "prank."

On December 4, several students jumped a white classmate, Justin Barker, knocking him unconscious while stomping and kicking him. The charges against the six blacks — dubbed the "Jena 6" — resulted from that incident.

Obama formally released a statement on the case Friday evening after one of the charges against the teen was thrown out, saying, "I am pleased that the Louisiana state appeals court recognized that the aggravated battery charge brought in this case was inappropriate."

"I hope that today's decision will lead the prosecutor to reconsider the excessive charges brought against all the teenagers in this case," he added. "And I hope that the judicial process will move deliberately to ensure that all of the defendants will receive a fair trial and equal justice under the law."

He also said in a separate statement last week, "When nooses are being hung in high schools in the 21st century, it's a tragedy. It shows that we still have a lot of work to do as a nation to heal our racial tensions. This isn't just Jena's problem; it's America's problem."

CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said Obama is under special pressure because he is the only African-American running for president.

But Obama is not of the same generation of black leaders, such as Jackson, who came out of the civil rights moment, Schneider said.

"I think that gives him a special position," Schneider said. "He is running on his appeal — to white voters as well as to African-American voters — as a uniter."

"He doesn't want to be a divider in this case," Schneider said.

Meanwhile, Obama's chief rivals for the Democratic nomination, Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, have also recently condemned the Jena case.

Clinton said the controversy surrounding the Jena 6 case is a "teachable moment for America."

"People need to understand that we cannot let this kind of inequality and injustice happen anywhere in America," the Democratic presidential hopeful told Sharpton when she called his nationally syndicated radio program Tuesday afternoon.

At last Saturday's NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner in Charleston, South Carolina, Clinton said, "There is no excuse for the way the legal system treated those young people. ... This case reminds us that the scales of justice are seriously out of balance when it comes to charging, sentencing, and punishing African-Americans."

http://blacknewsweekly.com/news411.html

He described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage

Obama has also written and talked about using alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

[CelticViking]

16 Feb 2006 – SOUTHERN AFRICA: Too white to be black - the challenge of albinism. Photo: Afif Sarhan/IRIN. John Makumbe has been fighting for the rights

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=58169

A woman who says she was bullied by workmates because she did not look Maori enough is now spelling out her heritage.
Mallory Selliman of Hamilton outlined her Maori connections to ONE News after winning $15,0000 compensation from a Maori trust for hurt, humiliation and distress.
Te Runanga O Kirikiriroa Trust (TROK) employed Selliman as a careers counsellor on February 4, 2008 but by November that year she had left.
After starting her job it became apparent that two staff members believed she should not have been appointed because she did not look Maori enough.
Selliman told the Employment Relations Authority that the atmosphere in the office was often tense and she began calling in sick so that she did not have to deal with the situation. This tension also led her two have two breakdowns.
After being given a warning for a separate incident Selliman made several written complaints saying she had been bullied.
TROK replied saying she had not made a formal complaint
The authority found Selliman had made several formal complaints and they were not investigated, and that the Trust wrongly suspended her when she missed a meeting.
Selliman says she is Maori and Te Ati Awa.
"Because I'm blonde and I'm fair skinned, I'm not Maori enough, and working for a Maori organisation they felt I should, I suppose, look more Maori," she said.
The Employment Relations Authority agreed the harassment was wrong and was handled badly by Selliman's employer.
"The Runanga were given an opportunity to support me as a young Maori staff member and they really failed in their responsibility there," said Selliman.
Mere Balzer of the Te Runanga O Kirikiriroa Trust said the Trust is disappointed in the outcome.
"We felt we had been a fair and reasonable employer," Balzer said.
"We actually admit there were some processes we could have done better. We don't see bullying as being an issue. We absolutely reject that.
"There was never any suggestion that Mallory was being bullied because she was too white for a Maori organisation or for a Maori."
Selliman said the harassment is sad.
"I see it as a really sad thing for Maori that Maori people are doing this to other Maori people," she said.
The Trust plans to appeal the decision.

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/empl...enough-3856845

[Mortimer]

Who cares mixed people tend to look better than blacks and native americans. Id choose a mestiza over an pure native american woman or an mullato over an pure african woman.

[CelticViking]

A blonde haired blue-eyed Wellingtonian Indian has caused turmoil in the beauty contest world by winning Miss IndiaNZ - and being accused of not being Indian enough.

The New Zealand Herald said Jacinta Lal, 21, was booed and has been the subject of complaints to organisers from Indian spectators who, she says, are no better than TV presenter Paul Henry.

Ms Lal, the daughter of an Indo Fijian and a New Zealander, won the central district Miss IndiaNZ contest in Wellington in April.

Complaints questioning Jacinta Lal's eligibility to be in the pageant had been received, Festival organiser Dharmesh Parikh said.

Ms Lal's supporters say they are unhappy at the response of the crowd.

"It was just appalling," said her boyfriend's mother, Serena Fiso.

"It was so disgraceful. We were just dumbfounded."

Ms Lal said she had heard people saying that "I wasn't Indian-looking enough to win the pageant".

"But despite those small-minded people that made those comments, there were many Indians who encouraged me to enter the pageant.

"So just because some narrow-minded people make a comment like that we can't assume that all Indians think the same way.

"There is no difference between what Paul Henry is saying and what those select few Indians were saying.

"They are all wrong and should not say things like that ..."

Auckland Indian Association present Harshad Patel said that after the Paul Henry controversy, it was disappointing to hear people had booed Ms Lal.

"They shouldn't be doing that by looking at her hair or whatever - she's Indian. She's got Indian blood, so she should qualify. They should find out the facts. They should be more open-minded."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4226...-Indian-enough

[CelticViking]

Rihanna
On being bullied at school for being too 'white': “I was a little confused as a kid because I grew up with my mum, and my mum is black. So I was cultured in a very ‘black’ way. But when I go to school, I’m getting called ‘white’. They would look at me and would curse me out. I didn’t understand. I just knew I saw people of all different shades and I was light. Now I’m in a much bigger world.”

http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/18536420.html

HALLE Berry considers her daughter to be “black”.
The Oscar-winning actress — who has a white mother and an African American father — doesn’t want to put any labels on Nahla but considers her child’s heritage to be African American, even though her father, French Canadian model Gabriel Aubry, is Caucasian.
“I’m not going to put a label on it,” she said. “I had to decide for myself and that’s what she’s going to have to decide — how she identifies herself in the world.
“And I think, largely, that will be based on how the world identifies her. That’s how I identified myself. But I feel like she’s black.
“I feel like she’s black. I’m black and I’m her mother and I believe in the one-drop theory.”
The one drop theory refers to the controversial US racial classification system which states that anyone with even “one drop” of black heritage should be classified as black.
However, the 44-year-old actress admitted it was difficult for her to identify with just one race when she was growing up because of her parents’ mixed heritage.
“I identify as a black woman, but I’ve always had to embrace my mother and the white side of who I am, too,” she said.
“By choosing, I’ve often [wondered], ‘Well, would that make her feel like I’m invalidating her by choosing to identify more with the black side of myself?’ ”
Halle also insists her high-profile relationships with several non-black men — including Gabriel, who she is locked in a bitter custody battle with, and French actor Olivier Martinez – have not diminished her affiliation with black Americans.
“I’m very connected to my community and I want black people to know that I haven’t abandoned them because I’ve had a child with a man outside of my race and I’m dating someone now outside of my race who is Spanish and French,” she said.
“I have never been more clear about who I am as a black woman. The people I have dated sort of hold up a mirror to me and help me realize more of who I really am

http://www.showbizspy.com/article/22...-is-black.html

A recent cover of woman&home, a local magazine published by Caxton, has set tongues wagging by featuring a picture of a "white-looking" Halle Berry.

Cosmopolitan editor, Vanessa Raphaely, took to her blog as her alias, Hurricane Vanessa, to ask: "Photoshop pale fail for Halle Berry?" reports News24.

Raphaely continued: "Even though it is not one of our stable I am quietly something of a fan of woman&home. While it is not for me, (Shoot me if I ever become this ... er ... nice. Please!) I think it gets its blend of cosiness and encouragement absolutely right for its audience, who, I have always presumed is the middle-aged plus, nice white lady demographic."

"You know, the lovely ones who bake cakes for church fetes and who are really decent wives, friends and sisters. I like them, they're good eggs, I just don't want to be them. And I'm not sure Halle Berry wants to be one of them either," she added.

Woman&home's art director, Christelle Matheus, denies the accusation.

Matheus said that neither the magazine, nor Great Stock, the agency from which the pictures were bought, manipulated the colour of Berry's skin.

She said Berry's skin colour was light because the pictures were shot in daylight.

"It was not touched, not by us and not by them," she said.

The Oscar-winning actress, who has a white mother and a black father, has said in previously published reports that she regards herself as a black person.

Berry said: "I don't see a white woman. I see a black woman, even though my mother is white. Knowing that has made my life easier, I think."

http://entertainmentafrica.mobi/movi...erry-too-white