The Surprising Reason Why the Native American Population Has Skyrocketed – Opinion

Here’s a fun one for you. According to U.S. Census 2020, Native American populations in America grew 86.5 per cent between 2010 and 2020.

Yes, that’s right. Eighty-six percent!

How is this possible? In a piece for The Conversation, Circe Sturm, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts wrote that this is a rate of growth that “demographers say is impossible to achieve without immigration.”

Well, it’s not likely that more Native Americans are entering the U.S. right? It has to have another explanation.

But, according to Sturm, this increase is occurring because “individuals who previously identified as white are now claiming to be Native American.”

She also explains that “[t]his growing movement has been captured by terms like ‘pretendian’ and ‘wannabe.’”

The author refers to this phenomenon by what she calls “racial shifting.”

Here are some Rachel Dolezal or Elizabeth Warren jokes.

But what is interesting is that the author points out that those choosing to identify as Native American are trying to move further from “whiteness.” The author says that in her 14 years of researching this issue and interviewing “dozens of race-shifters” for her book, “Becoming Indian,” she “learned that while some of these people have strong evidence of Native American ancestry, others do not.”

She went on:

Nearly 45 of those interviewed for this book believed that they were Indigenous and it meant something about them and their life. Only a tiny – but troubling – number makes blatantly fraudulent claims to advance their own interests.

He quotes historian Philip Deloria, who wrote that many white Americans adopted non-white identities in the 1950s and 60s. “White Americans, often with the encouragement of the counterculture and later New Age movements, began to seek new meanings in Indigenous cultures,” Sturm wrote. Sturm also observed the steady decline in Native American populations.

These shifts appear to be reflected in U.S. Census data. In the 1960s, Native American populations began to grow at an alarming rate. They grew from 55,000 to 9 million within 60 years. The Native American population was relatively stable before that.

According to the author, these individuals shifting from white to Native American do not view themselves as people who are pretending to be Indian, but “as long-unrecognized American Indians who have been forced by historical circumstances to ‘play white.’”

Some of these individuals contend their ancestors and families avoided anti-Indian government policies by “blending into white society.”

It is similar behavior to Creoles or other light-skinned Americans of color who were forced to pass as white in order to not be discriminated against. These race shifters seem to believe they come from ancestors who were forced by society to “play white” in order to be accepted by the dominant society. According to the author:

Racial shifters shared their memories of their white pasts with me. They often spoke about a sad time when they sought meaning and connection. It was only when they looked at their ancestral histories that they realized all the things they had lost as their families became white. As one woman from Missouri put it: “They forced us to be white, act white, live white, and that is a very, very degrading feeling.”

Sturm has stated that most people who claim to be Native American have very little or no proof to support their assertions. “The genealogical and historical details might not always be verifiable, but the emotions are real enough. It makes perfect sense that once race shifters link their melancholy to assimilation, they try to ease their sadness by rejecting whiteness and reclaiming an Indigenous status,” she explained.

The author attributed this ongoing trend to the growth of a certain perception of “whiteness” in American society. She pointed out that whiteness “has taken on increasingly negative connotations.”

One of Sturm’s interviewees with race shifters told her: “We had an emptiness inside of us, that we did not know who we were or what we were.”

These people also “associated whiteness with social isolation, unearned privilege and guilt over colonialism and slavery.”

The author also acknowledges “insecurity” among whites with their identity. She said:

There is a growing concern about being white in America today. Public debates on white fragility, affirmative actions and colorblind policies show this. Of course, there’s still much security in being white: White privilege is an ongoing reality of American life, and something most white people and white racial shifters take for granted.

She also explained that actual Native Americans see this as an invasion of their culture. Richard Allen, a former policy analyst with the Cherokee Nation told Sturm “Not only is that an insult, but it’s also an attack on our sovereignty as Cherokee people, as the Cherokee Nation.”

Some racial shifters even went so far as creating their own tribes, which are not recognized by the government. Sturm discovered 253 such groups “scattered across the U.S. that identify as some sort of Cherokee tribe.”

The author’s theory is that racial shifters are attempting to change their racial identity because they wish to escape from the negative connotations about “whiteness.” They seek to avoid being associated with something the far left has publicly demonized in the culture.

This could be true.

But I think it is worth speculating that much of this might be a desire to enter into what we call the “victimhood Olympics.” The bottom line is that being part of a group that has been historically oppressed carries with it a sort of cultural currency. You feel part of the struggle to achieve justice and equality. This gives you privileges within progressive circles.

If you consider how intersectionality theory has been applied by the far left on college campuses, and other places, it is clear why white people would want to choose an identity which they feel more comfortable with. The culture has heavily been influenced by the beliefs of the religion called wokeism. It won’t be shocking if we continue to see this phenomenon branch out into other races and cultures, as the left continues to vilify the idea of “whiteness” in the culture.