Madison Indigenous arts leader, activist revealed as white

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https://madison365.com/indigenous-arts-leader-activist-revealed-as-white/

 

Early in 2020, an Indigenous artist urged the owners of a new music venue in town to change its name. 

It was called The Winnebago, after the street on which it stands. Many Indigenous people and allies let the owners know that wasn’t the best name for a white-owned music venue. One of them was nibiiwakamigkwe, also known as Kay LeClaire, a founding member and co-owner of the ####### Indigenous artists’ collective giige, and budding leader of Madison’s Indigenous arts community.

It took several months, but the venue eventually relented and rebranded as The Burr Oak.

“I’m glad the owners have decided to no longer profit from the identities of Indigenous peoples,” LeClaire wrote in an editorial for Our Lives Wisconsin. “I’m glad the name is going, but I’m not happy the institutions that allowed it to be stolen in the first place remain. For over 500 years, Indigenous Peoples have not controlled our narratives and representations. Our exclusion has been built into inclusion for others.”

One problem with that narrative: LeClaire wasn’t Indigenous, and was, in fact, profiting from the identities of Indigenous peoples.

Since at least 2017, Kay LeClaire has claimed Métis, Oneida, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Cuban and Jewish heritage. Additionally, they identify as “two-spirit,” a term many Indigenous people use to describe a non-binary gender identity. In addition to becoming a member and co-owner of giige, LeClaire earned several artists’ stipends, a paid residency at the University of Wisconsin, a place on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force and many speaking gigs and art exhibitions, not to mention a platform and trust of a community – all based on an ethnic identity that appears to have been fully fabricated.

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These whackos get away with all kinds of this stuff.  I "identify" them as insane and worthy of being institutionalized.