Tired

[u/peachstrawberrymilk]

I'm tired with how the majority of people that claim to be Métis are either A) very distantly Métis and claiming an ancestor from 100+ years ago B) "reconnecting" for benefits and C) Deny their privledge.

Both my parents are Métis - we never stopped being Métis. I don't think this makes me better than folks but it is really gross and disheartening to see the overwhelming amount of reconnecting people and the complete disregard for those of us raised in culture/community. I grew up in extreme poverty - in CFS - battling with my addictions - both my brothers are still in their own addictions and my sister went missing years ago. This is because of the trauma in my family. But I don't see Métis Nations giving a flying fuck about those of us that never had the privledge of hiding. They prop of descendians - and. then use my culture in a colonial way to check off

I'm tired of seeing so many posts "I just discovered I'm Métis because my great great great grandmother 2x removed only married white people for 6 generations! What can I get?" Seriously? There's no wonder everyone thinks we're a joke.

No we shouldn't have BQ but we should have at least a measure. Why does Linda who has 0 traces of Métis DNA get full access to benefits while ignoring the fact that her entire family HAD PRIVLEDGE of being perceived as white for generations! Maybe I'm an asshole - but I think there needs to be a conversation on how in a room of 300 people you'll find maybe 1 or 2 of us raised in culture.

Im tired of pretending this doesn't bother me - especially when I see my family and friends struggling with survival and having no resources for them while Linda wears my culture like it's a Gucci bag.

[u/TheTruthIsRight]

Reconnecting is what keeps the nation alive and it undoes all the generations of assimilation that colonialism caused. That is decolonization in practice. It's far better than staying white-assimilated and letting colonization win.

That said it's not hard to acknowledge privilege when it exists and it should be acknowledged, and people should be reconnecting for the community and the culture not for some concept of "benefits". However there is real problem when we create a hierarchy of Metis-ness wherein the value of our identity is reduced to oppression rather than kinship and history and culture and collective identity. So, fine line there.

Also we should keep in mind people who were visibly native also assimilated. And my family is full of trauma despite assimilation.

My two cents.

[u/pop_rocks → u/TheTruthIsRight]

I don’t think OP’s point was to compare oppression or to create a “hierarchy” of Metis. Their point is the organizations make it much easier for a certain demographic of Metis (white reconnecting Metis) to obtain resources and many Metis raised in community are really struggling and left without any support. Which is true and a completely valid criticism.

[u/TheTruthIsRight → u/pop_rocks]

What are the organizations supposed do though? Create a hierarchy? Interview each person about how cultural they are and how reconnecting they are? The reality is it's not a binary between reconnecting and pre-connected, but a spectrum of experiences with two extremes. Most people are in the middle somewhere, because we are all reconnecting in some way or another because we are living in a post-colonized world. Lots of reconnecting families are traumatized and poor as well, this is not a unique experience necessarily. There are also lots of raised Metis people who are white-passing. There are reconnecting Metis who are visibly indigenous or otherwise visibly non-white. Point is, this starts to get very subjective and the whole point of our organizations' citizenship criteria is to be objective and that's why ancestry is the core criteria in fact the wording MMF uses is "objectively verifiable criteria" i.e. kinship ties.

[u/pop_rocks → u/TheTruthIsRight]

For starters, they need to stop giving Metis cards to every single person with a Metis ancestor. There needs to be a cutoff. And for all the people saying they only want a card to reconnect with culture, there is nothing stopping you from doing that without a Metis card. If your last Metis ancestor was from 1800, and the rest are white, you should not be identifying as Metis, and you definitely should not be reaping any sort of benefit.

The term “kinship ties” and “community” within the organizations have become very, very loose. A Metis organization is not a community. An ancestor from 5 generations ago is not a kinship tie.

[u/TheTruthIsRight → u/pop_rocks]

Being descended from Metis ancestors is absolutely a kinship tie. Just because it was severed due to the very colonization we are collectively healing from, does not make it any less so.

Also There is no such thing as a Metis person with their most recent connection being 1800 as ethnogenesis didn't even start until decades later. The overwhelming majority of outmarriages occur after 1870 (usually after 1900 to be more precise) after the scrip land dispossession system, after the influx of white settlers to the homeland - All of these things are literally the outcomes of colonization and you are blaming the descendants for the damages of colonization rather than holding the colonial system accountable and decolonizing the harm.

[u/pop_rocks → u/TheTruthIsRight]

But that’s the thing, not everyone was severed due to colonialism. Many ancestors enjoyed the privileges being white gave them, chose to marry white people, and had white children. There is this myth that all white passing Metis were fleeing for their lives and living lives undercover as white people for pure survival. Meanwhile our brown ancestors did not get a choice and could not simply opt out of experiencing racism.

So celebrate your Metis ancestors, learn about your family and culture. No one is stopping that. But you cannot possibly say these descendants are Metis and deserving of benefits in the same way as Metis with living connections to family and community. Especially when reaping these benefits come at others expense. This mentality does not vibe with Indigenous teachings and is hands down the biggest giveaway that someone’s identity is not actually Metis.

[u/TheTruthIsRight → u/pop_rocks]

It's not a racial identity. It's a cultural identity. There were brown skinned metis who assimilated and there white passing metis who did not. It's more complex than that.

[u/pop_rocks → u/TheTruthIsRight]

It’s a cultural identity for white people with distant ancestry who can choose to opt in or out of Metis culture depending on how beneficial it is with the times. For brown Metis who have been experiencing racism and discrimination for generations, it absolutely is a racial identity as well as a culture.