Proving One’s Race
It’s a shame that in the 21st century Native people are still the only race of people that have to prove who they are (see “Ethnic Fraud?” Jan. 25). I am what is called a Black Indian. It simply means that I am of African and Native American blood. No one questions my Black roots, and I’m sometimes called Dominican, Jamaican, Puerto Rican, etc. The sad thing is, most people have no idea what a Native American looks like. “Hollyweird” has people believing they look one way, to where Disney took the likeness of three different women to come up with their Pocahontas character.
— Beth Anna MoonRay Ferguson
New York
Jazeast Dance Enterprise/NorthEastern Native American Association
In the “Ethnic Fraud” article, it reads “Dr. Noley concludes that it’s a practical impossibility for universities to formally intervene in cases of ethnic fraud because it might be viewed as intolerance, a perception that institutions can ill afford to bear.” So, ethnic fraud is to be tolerated? What ever happened to teaching moral and ethical behavior to our students? And why would a college or university tolerate ethnic fraud? Fraud, ethnic or otherwise, is wrong.
— Sandra Carlson
Stratham, N.H.
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