SLAPP Lawsuit vs. Native Journalist

Hi,

My name is Jacqueline Keeler. I'm a citizen of the Navajo Nation, Kinyaa'áanii Towering House clan, and was born for the Yankton Sioux Tribe. I am also a journalist seeking to verify the stated Tribal claims of professionals in various fields who have built their careers on American Indian identity –– so-called alleged "Pretendians" who profiteer or build personal clout from a supposed personal Native experience. The vast majority claim descent, and only a handful claim tribal enrollment or specify blood quantum. Descent is the name of the game now for the commodification of tribal identity. An alleged Pretendian has claimed immediate descent from three tribes, with very colorful and vivid family stories. However, when we sought to verify these claims in her tree, we found no Native connection. All records indicate her ancestors were White Americans. We worked for a couple of years on investigating her claims before the Fake Indian Blog published a series of blog pieces detailing the lack of evidence in the alleged ethnic fraudster's family tree for her stories.

The Tribal Alliance Against Fraud, a Cherokee nonprofit run by a Cherokee Nation citizen on Eastern Band Cherokee territory, is also being threatened in the same lawsuit for questioning her claims to their national identity.

However, defamation requires proof that an individual knowingly lied about someone to harm their reputation or career. We have seen no evidence documenting the alleged ethnic fraudster's claims, and she has not presented any to us. Hence, my response to the law firm that emailed me yesterday:

Dear {redacted},

We would need to see her genealogy –– because without proof of the American Indian ancestry she claims, what exactly would be the legal basis for her case of defamation?

After viewing her documented proof of her claims to [tribal] ancestry, we'd be happy to retract the claims. Please guide us in this matter.

Truly,

Jacqueline Keeler

If this goes to court, we will seek legal counsel, and any support you can provide to help would be much appreciated. Suppose this alleged Pretendian truly has no proof she has any Native ancestry. In that case, this threat amounts to harassment of American Indian citizens (everyone named is enrolled in a federally-recognized tribe) by a White American woman.

In fact, most of the bulleted claims against me are inaccurate. I never contacted the various festivals, and when I emailed Powell's Bookstore, it was about something other than an event featuring her. I never threatened protests, but I was contacting the famed Portland bookstore about a Native American Heritage Month blog {redacted} penned. I told them what we had found: the lack of documented Native ancestry in her tree. I did tweet our findings to her publisher and agent. They subsequently blocked all Native people who did so.

I was the journalist that in October 2022, revealed in the San Francisco Chronicle that Sacheen Littlefeather had no White Mountain Apache ancestry, as she claimed when she refused the Oscar for Marlon Brando in The Godfather in 1973.

Other articles I have written on the subject of Pretendianism and a selection of interviews/presentations:

On Sacheen Littlefeather Pretendians and what it means - San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 26, 2022

Unsettling Genealogies Conference PSEUDO INDIANS I N LITERATURE - Michigan State University, April 19, 2022

Exposing false Native heritage - Native America Calling, February 10, 2021

Pretendians and what to do with people who falsely say they’re Indigenous - InFocus APTN, Jan 28, 2021

The Center Will Not Hold Ethnic mimicry in the arts: colonialism’s final frontier - El Palacio Magazine, Winter 2018

Elizabeth Warren connected DNA and Native American heritage. Here's why that's destructive - NBC News, October 17, 2018

The Real Problem With Susan Taffe Reed and Fake Indian Tribes - The Daily Beast, April 13, 2017

And this sort of case has been prosecuted by an alleged Pretendian before a professor. And he lost because he couldn't prove to the court that he was American Indian. The judge found that no discrimination based on that identity could have occurred.

Any support would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all for reading this and my other articles. I will publish more articles soon, and the findings from investigating the tribal claims of those on the Alleged Pretendians list. My journalism is shining a light on rampant fraud that has gotten little comprehensive coverage and almost no data-driven research. Hopefully, my work will help with both stopping fraud and documenting it.

You can also support me at my Patreon account: patreon.com/jfkeeler. Ahéhee' and wopida.