*ears perk up at Coast Salish mention* Well dang, I didn’t know this was close to home, I’m a settler on Qayqayt First Nation territory. I am seated 👀

Honestly, taking away all of the bullying and mean girl behavior. She could have used this self insert book to be transparent about her journey and experience with finding out about her supossed culture. Maybe she is NA or maybe she isn't, but at least that would have been a more sincere way of marketing your book.

I wouldn't know about these controversies without you, so please continue to make these videos for every single one of these authors with the audacity do stuff like this.

Hiyee Cindy!! So I'm Indigenous (Ojibwe) with a few Native Studies degrees-I love how complicated and document-heavy our fakery stories get! The issue of "Pretendians" has been a thing long enough that we've got watchdog type organizations and individuals. Do we feel great about these vigilantes? Not always. Some people view them as a necessary evil. It totally makes sense that TAAF would be a bad faith organization; it would make less sense if everyone in a self-appointed "gotcha" role was unproblematic. (Also why am I weirdly excited we got a fake Native author in 2024? Chat, is this what inclusion feels like?)

I gotta be truthful. Every time you said “Hawk”, my mind added “Tuah” at the end and I can’t take the love interest seriously.

additional counterpoint - in this (internet) world, if you fail even once, you are not forgiven. Which means that if a white writer tries to expand horizons, write more diverse, and gets it wrong, they are screwed. If they stay in their lane, they're screwed. It feels like a lose lose situation. But it's truly a touch grass issue because you see this mainly on the internet where people scream and are rewarded for it.

This comment section is so eye opening

This has happened so much that when I started watching I almost clicked off because I thought I’d already watched it until I saw the date 😭

Canadian here! We have a really controversial system here of genetic "status" for first nations people to determine if they are "indigenous enough"*. It lends a disturbing amount of legitimacy to shady organizations like this and their gross purity testing. You have to be above X percentage genetically first nations, forget family tree, tribal status, being raised in the culture, etc. *It makes sense for some government programs, but it still causes issues in giving legitimacy to a lot of (largely third party) purity testing. This is all further complicated because, to continue using Cherokee as an example, it's generally thought of as a national identity, but what about people who are genetically descended from Cherokee members but not culturally affiliated? What are they supposed to call themselves? Just broadly first nations? Not facetious, that is a genuine question, and it appears that the answer varies by nation. My mother didn't tell me that I was 1/4 West Asian until I was an adult, so I am deeply aware of just how privileged you can get by being white passing. Whether or not this lady was white passing or white and convinced she was white passing, it sounds like she unknowingly weaponized and abused that privilege.

20:40 calling a Native American character Skinner is like J.K.Rowling calling an asian character Cho Chang 😭

I also want to say that the gatekeeping of identity - and who can write who and what - is a very tricky subject that is not treated with proper nuance. People can, and do, write people who have a different identity and life experience from them, and do it well. They can draw from their imaginations and creativity. They can do research and even interview. They also might have friends, relatives, or knew people with that identity and life experience. They have witnessed - closely or distantly - the cracks in society, or an event or social issue, understand it, and are inspired to write it. If they have a story, they should be allowed to write it without fear. There's beta readers and sensitivity readers for supporting this, too. There are also people with the lived experience and identity who DON'T write it well - and people who have those experiences and lived identity who are then lambasted for not being/writing minority enough for the minority club. Some people have no desire to write about their identity and lived experience at all. I also want to note, when minorities write from a perspective that isn't theirs people don't seem to care? Or care if they misrepresent them? Especially if they write about "the majority." Gatekeeping intimidates writers and limits storytelling to a very narrow "acceptable" subjects. No, I will not 'stay in my lane.'

I can understand not being connected to your roots, but it looses me when you want to claim an identity to be special. I’m born and raised in the US to immigrant parents. My mom is Mexican and I’ve only been visited the extensive family there thrice during my youth. They’re essentially strangers to me, customs or traditions they may have are unknown to me. Yes I know my language, but I’ve never grown up in a Latin community since they hadn’t yet established a presence here at the time. All this to say. My grandfather has heavy Mayan roots. He passed in down in the form of names. As fascinating as I find it, I don’t know jack shit about it or claim it. I wouldn’t be able to ask either since my mother low key hates him. Regardless, I admire the tribes for being protective of their community. Good on them.

What's weird to me here is that (based on that one scene) it seems like she was basically writing about her own experience of denial. She didn't need to claim the identity to have authority about the subject matter because it actually happened to her. She was being an asshole for no reason.

Do want to say, someone can be a straight cis he/him male but still wear and enjoy "feminine-gendered" clothing or be flamboyant. If so, that's neither queerbaiting nor invalidating his identity... especially since this is not applied to queer umbrella cisgendered women in the same way. I genuinely believe that you don't have to be queer to express yourself in a GNC way is another form of sexism and erasure - and anti-queer, in a way, because it implies that a queer-identifying person MUST present in a certain way.

Chock Tuah?

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

My family on my dads side has, for over a century been convinced that we are descended from old russian nobility. Or something... as far as I'm aware, there is no concrete prove of that except for the fact that my family moved from the balkan area toward germany over the years. So all there is is speculation and he-said-she-said. As such i don't feel comfortable claiming even so much as basic russian ancestry. It's a fun little detail of my family history, that is the speculation that has spanned generations now but nothing more really. Leading with that would be so embarrassing to me, like i have no prove, i have no attachments to russian culture whatsoever- i don't even speak russian one bit. Who am i to make any claim to it. The embarrassment upon being proven wrong would kill me. Im fine with just being german, why is *just being one thing* not enough for some people ;-;

HOW DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING

Omg she wrote her self insert to get a native boyfriend and tells him calling out her cultural appropriation is actually racism Get her white ass

Coming into this two days late, but this topic is close to my heart, so I wanted to comment anyway. I am one of those white people with indigenous ancestry, but I am firmly white. The last person I know of in my family to experience racism due to the color of her skin was my grandmother's sister, but they received different genes from their parents and were both culturally white, and my grandmother herself very white looking. I am mostly sad that my family were not able to or did not feel like they could/ should access their heritage, as they claimed being, "black Dutch" instead. We also had an ancestor who most likely snuck away to be with family on a reservation for months at a time, and found records of our family name there, but not his. I'm sad that being considered white was necessary for them to navigate the world, and I think ancestry is very complicated. However, I'm descended from a very white looking woman (because she truly was white more than anything else) and if I have to identity my ancestry in casual conversation, I don't mention it. At this point, we are genetically and culturally white. My mother was very interested in our heritage and did take me down a different religious path that I can no longer claim as an educated adult trying not to continue to do harm. I just hold that part for myself in my private life. What I learned isn't even relevant to the tribe those ancestors probably came from, but we both knew we could not identify with our family's chosen religion, and it made more sense to me as a child and still does. All that to say, it's gross when someone uses family lore for social cred or profit. I have friends who give cred to me because they know about my family, and I sometimes wish I had not told them because my views have changed, and I don't want to be one of those white people. I can't imagine claiming this thin ancestry as my identity. I can't help how I was raised and don't wish to change that. I also don't want anyone to think I experienced life differently than I did because of the heritage I chose to highlight. We have to be careful not to get too into trying to exoticize ourselves because we think being white is boring. Well, it is. Deal with it. So many of us in the South do probably have indigenous ancestry sprinkled in there, but what part of our lineage had meaningful impact on us? That is more important to me. I don't understand people who present themselves as part of a community while standing outside it.

Honestly, the fast forwarded monologue was entertaining af😂.

So. The daughter in law on Yellowstone did it. She’s part Japanese. And white. Worse. She’s not a good actress.

As a white presenting Native American it frustrates me when stuff like this happens. I want to support other Native Americans but then stuff like this comes out and I'm just left feeling betrayed by another Pretendian. I am Shawnee, Seneca Cayuga, Choctaw and Cherokee so hearing she was also Choctaw and Cherokee made me ecstatic and then this whole mess came out. When she claimed unenrollment due to "bad record keeping" and "missing documents" that's what confirmed the fact she's not Native American to me. Unenrollment due to bad or lost documents is sadly a prolific issue in the Native American community (especially in smaller tribes) however it is far less of an issue in the Choctaw and Cherokee tribes due to their extensive written records.

I have not read this book, so I cannot comment on the book itself, but I do have thoughts on this situation as a reconnecting indigenous person. (For context, I live in Canada, where we do not have the same tribal enrolment system as the US.) I am a mixed white and Algonquin person with a lower blood quantum than many of my relatives. That being said, there has never been a question in my family as to whether or not we were native at all, for the simple fact that we kept in touch with our family on the reserve. It is crazy to me that some people have to try really hard to find their one native ancestor from generations ago, because their family never kept in touch (or there was no ancestor to begin with). When I began my reconnecting journey, I was unsure whether or not it was appropriate to reconnect since I had been raised white and I don’t really look native at all, but it was my cousins, who are elders/knowledge keepers in their community who encouraged me to get involved with the indigenous groups in my area. Now that I have been reconnecting for over a year, I proudly call myself indigenous since I am a member of my community, I practice spiritual and cultural traditions AND I have indigenous ancestry. I am of the opinion that had I not reconnected at all, it would be inappropriate for me to claim to be indigenous since culture and community are more important than what percent native you are. I also find it really upsetting that this author is trying to portray her situation of trying to find an indigenous ancestor as some sort of family trauma. Many reconnecting indigenous people, myself included, have actually had struggles with feeling like an imposter and fitting in with their communities due to the disconnect we’ve endured not to mention the struggle of having to relearn something that should have been taught to you from the get-go. This is even worse for 60s scoop survivors and residential school survivors whose trauma is much greater than anything I and many people have ever endured. Also, I am immediately suspicious of a white presenting person claiming to be Cherokee, since for whatever reason, people who fake native ancestry always seem to claim to be Cherokee. People who do stuff like this also make it worse for people such as myself, who have genuine claims to the culture, but are now deemed suspect due to bad actors like this author, in the native space.

The crazy part to me is that I’m Blackfoot, from Maine. But I don’t just SAY THAT in my normal info, because I’m about 1/16 MAX, my grandpa and great grandpa were the ones with the college qualifying level. So to see someone just LIE about it, it’s insulting and crazy.

I got a good analogy for white people to get it. A lot of us white Americans have ancestors in tons of different countries because we’re all immigrants. take me for example, I’m Irish American, meaning I have ancestry from Ireland. In fact, my ancestry is so recent (great grandmother) that my family is still in contact across the Atlantic sea, and I’m just one gen out from getting Irish citizenship (that hurts after November 6th). But I am not Irish. I was born and raised in America, and in American culture, with white American ideals, and while there is even still a line of communication (which is more then most white Americans can say, and a lot more then “pretendians” can say), it’s no community (at least not for me because I’m a hermit who doesn’t like- oh gods the worst possible thing in this world- making a phone call to my extended family). I’m not Irish the same way we white Americans aren’t Spanish, Italian, English, Swedish, French, etc etc even if we have ancestors that belonged to those peoples. So please do not claim to be native if you weren’t raised, truly reconnected, or are actively a part of the indigenous community (not just blood related). It’s very dishonest to claim to be apart of a people when you dont’t really know them beyond a picture on a family tree.

At some point publishers need to bear some responsibility for this.

not cindy ranking the acotar books based on how much sex they have in it - i agree tho

Thank you YT algorithm for this gem. And thank you Cindy for making this in the first place.

Why does this keep happening💀😭

I live for fruits basket 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Are we getting everyone this year or 😭

The goon calender is crazy

What?? The conspiracies in this book are straight-up Q-anon material. Was not expecting that from booktok smut. Makes me pretty wary of the author. The way she wrote it makes it seem like she believes that stuff, especially the removed Jewish names and features.

Some tribes in Arizona don’t consider blood Natives to be part of the tribe if they did not grow up on the reservation which what can you do

I am a horrible person. You said “….her partner, two cats, and….” I heart “….her partner, Two Cats, and….” like her partner’s name is Two Cats. Fuck me🙈

As a writer trying to get published it is so frustrating to see over and over again these kinds of people get book deals. And i know this case is a mixed bag but damn, its basically trail mix with how complicated it is. A trend ive noticed in these stories is that everyone seems to be suffering and miserable and that misery is connected to the identity. No one is ever happy in these stories by these kinds of authors.

If your great great great great great great grandfather was native that doesn’t makes you indigenous😭. She’s just a white person that’s stealing spaces from natives as USUAL. People give her too much grace

Lol, hi, this is my private youtube account and putting aside the bad karma I'm gonna catch for this comment, I'd like to say that I knew Colby personally through the online writing community. In my opinion, and the opinion of my close peers, she was a drama/attention-seeker and constantly tried to police others on THEIR representation of non-white characters as being intrinsically racist despite her clearly being a white girl raised white, living white, and wouldn't have known real microaggression discrimination firsthand. From what I understood, she had several books that had died in the query trenches before If I Stopped Hating You (changed to If I Stopped Haunting You after she got her book deal), and agents only took an interest in her work once she claimed a minority identity. Hence why, in my opinion, she made that her entire identity, because she realized that was her ticket into publishing. In my experience, Colby is a mean girl ringleader bully and honestly I hate that so many have been hurt by this reveal but I'm not surprised in the slightest and I'm glad she got called out. Deserved.

I didnt think id hear about this person again. I remember when they were first found out

My issue with this is that I dont think it's right to tell people who they are or aren't based of being registered with the government. Not every state even has federally recognized tribes ffs. There are thousands of indigenous people who have never been enrolled in any tribe but they are just as indigenous as those who the government is aware of. Also, there are some tribes, like the Cherokee, who base lineage off of 1 parent. For the Cherokee, it's based on your mother's enrollment. Dad is full blooded but Mom is Irish? No enrollment for you, sorry. There are also families who are mixed and hid themselves to protect themselves from discrimination. These organizations are just protecting the white idea of blood quantum.

This got me thinking about how the Right of Return for the state of Israel includes ANY jewish person, including converts. AFAIK it also applies to non-practicing people with provable jewish ancestry. Whether it applies to non jewish relatives or spouses seems to be less clear. It's a little bit murky. There are also other avenues to citizenship (naturalization,) so it's not the only way to be registered as a citizen. I also should further clarify that 'Jewish' covers a wide range of ethnicity/race, cultures/ideologies, and levels of practice. It's highly diverse. There are also many non-Jewish citizens and they are not barred from public office - there are even Israeli Arabs/Druze in the Knesset, making policy decisions, though they are a minority and are understandably not fans of Netanyahu. (The current number is 10, one of them is Sunni Muslim and has served fgor 10 years.) I think the main thing is that they are not required (but also not barred) from the military service. It's not mandatory for them, but they can serve. I know Israel is a touchy subject right now, but it's a repeated and regular rabbit hole for me and I've seen some discourse comparing it to a rez. From what I understand and the experiences of people that I know, that comparison is, if not 1-1 accurate, is a good way to put the complicated issues there into a context.

Lovely video :) Very fair-minded, but even if she did have *one* ancestor with native blood, that person seemed to have rejected his ancestry to join the colonists because everyone in her family after that is white. So she's got so little blood it might as well not be there and no connection at all to the native communities she's trying to lay claim to. And while my ancestries come from entirely different continents to America, I just find it offensive that she so easily and loudly claims a POC ancestry when my brother and I suffered epic amounts of bullying because of our ethnicity. She's grabbing it as a selling point - my brother and I would happily be all white because our lives would have been 100x easier. People like her make me sick.

at this rate we'll have every race and ethnicity (fake) represented

omg I had bookmarked some of their books to read

The fact that identifying yourself as "white" is a badge of shame is so disappointing. No one should feel _shame_ for being white. Nor should it be considered the "default race" and therefore be unspoken. If you are white, own it. 🤷🏼‍♂ It's so obvious that white authors feel the need to pretend because they think it'll help them be noticed. Own your identity. It's okay.

Topics like this seem to bring out a lot of gatekeeping.

okay the shirt ur wearing in the ad is doing sooooo much for u. if i saw u on the street I'd be like "yeah"

I WAS JOKING WHEN I SAID I WANTED AN AUTHOR TO FAKE MY RACE.

I am shocked this exists.