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true. It's difficult for people to remember DNA wasn't a thing until the 90's! Now, there are DNA tests available online inexpensively.
Buffy Sainte-Marie speaks out regarding questions of Cree ancestry, Oct 2023
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Nice to see some balance begin to surface from MSM as I don’t think the issue is entirely straightforward and one-sided.
torontosun.com
“Now in her 80s, Sainte-Marie announced her retirement earlier this year. What possible value can a documentary making judgments on her heritage have? She’s not a politician or an academic who may stand to advance their career through claims of Indigenous heritage…..
….“In her video, Sainte-Marie says: “I know who I am and who I love and who loves me.”
Whatever the convoluted details of Sainte-Marie’s heritage, she’s a treasured Canadian icon. Let’s not tear her down. Can we, for once, celebrate a great Canadian whose music we’ve been privileged to enjoy for decades?
She knows who she is. That should be enough…”
EDITORIAL: Buffy brought us joy so let’s leave it at that
It’s unclear what point the CBC program The Fifth Estate is trying to make about legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie.
“Now in her 80s, Sainte-Marie announced her retirement earlier this year. What possible value can a documentary making judgments on her heritage have? She’s not a politician or an academic who may stand to advance their career through claims of Indigenous heritage…..
….“In her video, Sainte-Marie says: “I know who I am and who I love and who loves me.”
Whatever the convoluted details of Sainte-Marie’s heritage, she’s a treasured Canadian icon. Let’s not tear her down. Can we, for once, celebrate a great Canadian whose music we’ve been privileged to enjoy for decades?
She knows who she is. That should be enough…”
EDITORIAL: Buffy brought us joy so let’s leave it at that
It’s unclear what point the CBC program The Fifth Estate is trying to make about legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie.
So where’s the byline?
Who wrote this nonsense?
Afraid to put their name to it?
Every taxpaying Canadian, over the last sixty years, has paid for this womans grifting.
It’s fraud, plain and simple.
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EDITORIAL: Buffy brought us joy so let’s leave it at that
It’s unclear what point the CBC program The Fifth Estate is trying to make about legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie.
So where’s the byline?
Who wrote this nonsense?
Afraid to put their name to it?
Every taxpaying Canadian, over the last sixty years, has paid for this woman’s grifting.
It’s fraud, plain and simple.
Fraud typically occurs when someone takes over another person’s identity. BSM did not impersonate another person which involves using that other person‘s name.
I‘ve never known that it’s a crime to embrace a different culture that is not a ‘birthright’. Not yet anyway.
That makes me wonder if it’s a free world after all or are we all confined by our genetics?
JMO
BBM. Very well said! I truly don't understand why such hatred is being directed at her. I read that many years ago her parents changed their last name to Sainte-Marie because of the hatred directed at Italian Americans.Nice to see some balance begin to surface from MSM as I don’t think the issue is entirely straightforward and one-sided.
EDITORIAL: Buffy brought us joy so let’s leave it at that
It’s unclear what point the CBC program The Fifth Estate is trying to make about legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie.
“Now in her 80s, Sainte-Marie announced her retirement earlier this year. What possible value can a documentary making judgments on her heritage have? She’s not a politician or an academic who may stand to advance their career through claims of Indigenous heritage…..
….“In her video, Sainte-Marie says: “I know who I am and who I love and who loves me.”
Whatever the convoluted details of Sainte-Marie’s heritage, she’s a treasured Canadian icon. Let’s not tear her down. Can we, for once, celebrate a great Canadian whose music we’ve been privileged to enjoy for decades?
She knows who she is. That should be enough…”
JMO
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I'm so annoyed at her. She was such a legend and I am not even sure she has Canadian citizenship, and if she does, how did she get it?EDITORIAL: Buffy brought us joy so let’s leave it at that
It’s unclear what point the CBC program The Fifth Estate is trying to make about legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie.
So where’s the byline?
Who wrote this nonsense?
Afraid to put their name to it?
Every taxpaying Canadian, over the last sixty years, has paid for this woman’s grifting.
It’s fraud, plain and simple.
I've never really followed her career and only found out she was American born this week. If she got her citizenship fraudulently, she needs to be stripped of every honour she was given as a Canadian citizen.
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I don’t understand either.
It’s doesn’t seem to be for the good of indigenous people to be telling them how they should feel. It’s as if BSM should be cast aside by them, deemed a disgrace and looked on with disgust, for standing up for their cause.
I don’t feel anyone has the right to make decisions for them.
JMO
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From a link posted upthread:
In the late 70s and early 80s, Sainte-Marie hired Cree lawyer Delia Opekokew to research her history “for the purposes of assessing her rights to Indian status and Canadian citizenship,” according to an affidavit signed by Opekokew and provided to APTN by Sainte-Marie’s publicist.
…
However, as part of the affidavit, which is dated Oct. 25, 2023, Opekokew also provided a 1980 letter she wrote that advocated for Sainte-Marie to be given Canadian citizenship.
In the letter, she writes “Those people who have direct knowledge of the circumstances [of Buffy leaving Piapot for the US] are unavailable or for health reasons unable to provide us with the information.”
And to add…
I have nothing against a person embracing a different culture. I mainly play traditional Scottish, Irish and Cape Breton music. No need to pretend it’s my heritage. I love Métis music too. I embrace the music which is very different from appropriating the source heritage.
For each music award BSM won in the indigenous music category there were struggling musicians who lost. Success in niche music genres is difficult enough and competing against a liar is shameful IMO. She could have requested to be included in the general categories instead but then she might not have made the list.
JMO
In the late 70s and early 80s, Sainte-Marie hired Cree lawyer Delia Opekokew to research her history “for the purposes of assessing her rights to Indian status and Canadian citizenship,” according to an affidavit signed by Opekokew and provided to APTN by Sainte-Marie’s publicist.
…
However, as part of the affidavit, which is dated Oct. 25, 2023, Opekokew also provided a 1980 letter she wrote that advocated for Sainte-Marie to be given Canadian citizenship.
In the letter, she writes “Those people who have direct knowledge of the circumstances [of Buffy leaving Piapot for the US] are unavailable or for health reasons unable to provide us with the information.”
And to add…
I have nothing against a person embracing a different culture. I mainly play traditional Scottish, Irish and Cape Breton music. No need to pretend it’s my heritage. I love Métis music too. I embrace the music which is very different from appropriating the source heritage.
For each music award BSM won in the indigenous music category there were struggling musicians who lost. Success in niche music genres is difficult enough and competing against a liar is shameful IMO. She could have requested to be included in the general categories instead but then she might not have made the list.
JMO
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“In the letter, she writes “Those people who have direct knowledge of the circumstances [of Buffy leaving Piapot for the US] are unavailable or for health reasons unable to provide us with the information.”
One thing we don’t know is the circumstances by which BSM became connected to the Piapots, how did that happen? The question we’ll never know is if her adoptive parents deliberately lied to her.
I can imagine a scenario occurring — Buffy’s Piapot family sincerely believed she originated from their reserve and was brought back to them involving some indigenous spiritual force and thus convinced her accordingly she was one of them. As a young person, why would she want to dispute that if they gave her a sense of belonging for the first time in her life. Then as years passed, even if she had doubts, there comes a point of no turning back. Doing so, she’d risk appearing to discard her indigenous people and culture who had supported her for so long. There’s no happy ending, even now.
just my thoughts.
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It's untrue from beginning to end. She was not adopted. She had a happy family that provided her with privilege, post-secondary education, music education and opportunity. Her family set her up for success. She had a place where she belonged. She did not need a new family as a 23 year old adult.
What she did not have was Canadian citizenship, Indigenous ancestry, or anything else that put a feather in her cap. She had to make a career along side everyone else who was just like her, but she came up with a better idea. If she lied about her ancestry, pretended to be a talented, foreign, Indigenous woman, she would stand out ... and did she ever!
When her brother tried to set the record straight, she threatened to publicly accuse him of pedophilia and sexual abuse. That is an extraordinarily rotten assault against a sibling. But, once a liar, always a liar. Once a thief, always a thief.
This woman from Massachusetts with European British ancestry has stolen honours and awards from Indigenous artists for 60 years. That is generations of Indigenous people who could have had a better life, but they were passed by because of a fraud.
The only decent thing the woman can do is apologize and request that all of her Indigenous awards and honours be reassigned to those who are Indigenous.
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The best I understand is that the Piapot adoption is similar to other adoptions in that bloodlines aren’t necessarily an important part of the process. So from that point of view BSM can legally enjoy the same benefits as every other First Nations member. From the included link:
Ntawnis Piapot, speaking for the family, says the bombshell claim that Sainte-Marie has no Indigenous blood has no bearing on her belonging to the Cree family.
…
Piapot says Sainte-Marie connected with the Piapot First Nation after she met her grandfather at a powwow in Ontario.
…
“The adoption process, it took years — it took days and months and years of getting to know each other and trusting each other and going to ceremony and getting her Indian name (from my mushum) to finally look at her and be like, I acknowledge you as my daughter, you’re officially part of our family.”
…
As well, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People states, in Article 3, that “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination.” Self-determination means “the sovereign right and power of the Indigenous group to decide who belongs to them, without external interference.”
‘We claim her, end of story’: Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Piapot family hurt by allegations | Globalnews.ca
Indigenous icon Buffy Sainte-Marie's identity was brought into question by a CBC investigation, her Piapot family says the accusations are "ignorant, colonial -- and racist."
globalnews.ca
There’s much more at the link. The information regarding BSM’s birth certificate and biological parents weren’t known at the time the now deceased parents chose to adopt her. Currently the tribe has decided to stand firm by their decision so legally anyway it’s a done deal.
I personally have a problem with the moral implications since it appears that BSM at some point learned the truth but instead of explaining in the same way the tribe did she chose to continue the fabricated history.
By continuing a false narrative BSM ignored the impact on other indigenous people. Make no mistake she benefited greatly by letting the public believe she was a victim of the Scoops.
Could her music have held up on its own merit if she had been honest? We’ll never know. MOO
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She always knew that her parents were her birth parents, that she was not adopted. She knew where she was born and on which day she was born. She lied to the Indigenous couple that provided her with an honourary adoption in order to exploit them.The best I understand is that the Piapot adoption is similar to other adoptions in that bloodlines aren’t necessarily an important part of the process. So from that point of view BSM can legally enjoy the same benefits as every other First Nations member. From the included link:
Ntawnis Piapot, speaking for the family, says the bombshell claim that Sainte-Marie has no Indigenous blood has no bearing on her belonging to the Cree family.
…
Piapot says Sainte-Marie connected with the Piapot First Nation after she met her grandfather at a powwow in Ontario.
…
“The adoption process, it took years — it took days and months and years of getting to know each other and trusting each other and going to ceremony and getting her Indian name (from my mushum) to finally look at her and be like, I acknowledge you as my daughter, you’re officially part of our family.”
…
As well, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People states, in Article 3, that “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination.” Self-determination means “the sovereign right and power of the Indigenous group to decide who belongs to them, without external interference.”
‘We claim her, end of story’: Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Piapot family hurt by allegations | Globalnews.ca
Indigenous icon Buffy Sainte-Marie's identity was brought into question by a CBC investigation, her Piapot family says the accusations are "ignorant, colonial -- and racist."
There’s much more at the link. The information regarding BSM’s birth certificate and biological parents weren’t known at the time the now deceased parents chose to adopt her. Currently the tribe has decided to stand firm by their decision so legally anyway it’s a done deal.
I personally have a problem with the moral implications since it appears that BSM at some point learned the truth but instead of explaining in the same way the tribe did she chose to continue the fabricated history.
By continuing a false narrative BSM ignored the impact on other indigenous people. Make no mistake she benefited greatly by letting the public believe she was a victim of the Scoops.
Could her music have held up on its own merit if she had been honest? We’ll never know. MOO
Buffy Saint-Marie was just one of many, moderately talented folksingers on the Yorkville/NYC scene in the early 60s.
Her career really took off once she started ’going Native’.
She may well have wanted to help the FN (besides herself), be an activist etc but she could have done it all without pretending.
Repeating myself here but it’s important to know that her profile as an artist was greatly enhanced by the Native shtick.
I had seen her in person a few times, she was def. NOT a native girl.
Then out came the heavy, darker foundation and feathers. Disgraceful!
Her career really took off once she started ’going Native’.
She may well have wanted to help the FN (besides herself), be an activist etc but she could have done it all without pretending.
Repeating myself here but it’s important to know that her profile as an artist was greatly enhanced by the Native shtick.
I had seen her in person a few times, she was def. NOT a native girl.
Then out came the heavy, darker foundation and feathers. Disgraceful!
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Thank you for finding that. If she became a Canadian citizen and gained her Indigenous status without submitting her birth certificate from the US isn’t she in big trouble? She knowingly committed fraud because the CBC showed that she did submit them when she later married.
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I don't think that the Indigenous People of Canada, who identify people pretending to be Indigenous in order to exploit Indigenous people, has anything to do with Hitler using Jewish people as a scapegoat. A little perspective.
Indigenous people are protecting their rights and that needs to be respected.
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Buffy Sainte Marie always knew exactly who she was, where she was born, and who were her parents. At the age of 23, she tricked a couple from Saskatchewan into believing that she was related to them. She took advantage of them.
If she obtained a Canadian passport through dishonest means, such as pretending that she did not know when or where she was born, she should be stripped of everything related to Canada.
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bbm
Link for the Indigenous People of Canada asking for
please.
jmho ymmv lrr
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I’m got lost somewhere amidst allegations it was the indigenous who investigated BSM to prove she faked her heritage. I could‘ve sworn it started with a tip to CBC’s 5th estate, from who they’re not saying.
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