Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
2) A person who genuinely cared about indigenous people and perhaps once believed she was one. Then reacted poorly to the discovery she wasn't, going too far to avoid embarrassment.
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Setting aside the specifics of this case it's too bad that inter-cultural appreciation has become a bit of a minefield. There is nothing wrong with a white person earnestly loving African American culture per se.
I don't think it actually is cultural membership or genetic background that creates the toxic environment, it's the social status and privilege. Typically status for a few chosen people, although Indian status and band membership cause wider dynamics. Nobody cares if a random person fakes being Italian in Canada because there is no consequence.
The JT approach of doing things like picking cabinet members based on group membership, aside from adding constraints and making it harder to find specialists (while dooming bad picks to subpar performance in some cases), will tend to create a toxic environment where people have to focus on and police race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, etc. In that world there's an incentive to find group memberships and strip competitors of group memberships. I don't think he is racist but I wonder if he has a weird relationship to this stuff as a very privileged person who engaged in what at the time was some cringey behaviour.