The Sainte-Marie story raises an important question: Are “pretendian” investigations about entertainment or justice?ī eginning in 2016, when APTN revealed that celebrated and acclaimed Canadian author Joseph Boyden had fabricated his claims of Indigenous ancestry, investigations into the spurious claims of prominent Indigenous figures have appeared frequently in Canadian media. “I would have expected Fifth Estate to not treat it like tabloid television,” she said. On the CBC podcast Commotion, Anishinaabekwe artist ShoShona Kish expressed her surprise with the framing of the episode. Experts in the field have said time and again that failing to challenge false narratives is contrary to the principles of truth and reconciliation.” Each subsequent takedown has set its sights on a larger and more ambitious target, and in their heightened drama, they have acquired the salacious tone of a true crime podcast rather than a dispassionate investigation. In his editor’s blog, the CBC’s Brodie Fenlon described the high bar that the organization sets for such stories, writing, “Reporting on stories of false Indigeneity is very much in the public interest. The CBC’s decisions in this regard deserve scrutiny. It is the journalist’s duty to stand behind not only the stories they tell but how they have chosen to tell them. This process is dynamic, like a spotlight tracking the truth, illuminating selected details while leaving others in shadow. Journalists are not impartial transcribers of facts they choose what to include and what to omit. What the CBC decided to include in their investigation makes a case that is compelling what they left out is puzzling. Fifty Years of Halfbreed: How the Memoir Opened Up Indigenous Literature.Mary Simon Is Leading Indigenous Peoples to New Heights.Why Are More People Claiming Indigenous Ancestry?.“All I can say is that what I know to be true,” she said in her statement, “I know who I love, and I know who loves me. The day before the CBC published their investigation, she issued a statement, alluding to family secrets and hinting that she may have been born out of wedlock-“on the wrong side of the blanket.” She refuted the reporting. Her story of abduction and displacement, of reclamation and reconnection, echoed the events of the Sixties Scoop, in which some 20,000 Indigenous children were adopted out of their communities between the 1950s and 1980s. Perhaps most broadly impactful were her appearances on Sesame Street, beginning in 1975, in which she shared and celebrated Cree culture in front of North American audiences.īefore all that, in her early twenties, Sainte-Marie was adopted by Emile Piapot and Clara Starblanket Piapot and has called them her family ever since. She was the first Indigenous person to win an Academy Award, in 1983 she has received fourteen honorary doctorates, six Juno Awards, a Golden Globe, and a Governor General’s Award and she is an officer of the Order of Canada.
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