Mouthful of a title. I thought of this a bit because of the thread about “passing”, but as opposed to “passing” for another race or hiding part of your heritage.
The phenomenon I can think of is common in Black nationalist groups like the 5 percenters and black hebrews. The street gang Black Stone Nation/Black Stone Rangers refer to each other as “Mo” which is short for “moabite”. Why they think that ALL black Americans descend from Moabites I don’t understand.
Then the black hebrews I can sort of, kind of understand…but there is a wide variety of ancestry in Black Americans from various African and European countries and Native American… just because someone is what we call “black” in America means that they are for sure a descendant of a lost tribe of Israel? It doesn’t make sense to me.
Is there a word for reading about a culture and just deciding you came from it?
As an adjective I’ve seen the word “faux” (Fr. “false”) used, as in “faux Indian” (for people like the actor “Iron Eyes” Cody and others claiming to be of Native American descent when they’re not).
I like how it suggests a corresponding terminology/concept in architecture, where, for instance, “faux Moorish” refers to buildings or features imitating traditional Islamic design but not actually constructed within that tradition.
I’d agree with Kimstu, but I think something stronger is called for. I think there’s ample precedent for “pretender”, as in “a pretender to the throne”. But an even better term might be “liar”.
I’d be interested in a similar, maybe a bit expanded term for people who read about stuff in distant history and decide it’s something that they should be personally offended about. E.g., hip young fashionably neo-pagan gals who decide to get up in arms about “The Burning Times” of the Middle Ages, or well-fed, well educated American born Chinese college students who decide to be angry about the treatment of Chinese coolies on the American railroads.
We need to be a bit careful about the term “pretender”, because it doesn’t necessarily mean that the pretender’s claims are fabricated or unjustified. Wiki notes that the term “pretender” is not intrinsically pejorative, although many people use it that way.
In itself, the word just means somebody who puts forth a (usually not generally recognized) claim to a certain status by right of descent.
For example, Reza Pahlavi (II) is the current pretender to the monarchy of Iran, which was overthrown during his father’s reign and succeeded by the current Islamic Republic of Iran. Pahlavi is technically a “pretender” to the title and position of Shah, but that doesn’t mean he’s lying about his birth or descent in any way. If he were, say, an Irishman named John Sullivan claiming to be the heir of the Iranian monarchy, then he’d be “faux-Pahlavi” and “faux-Iranian” (not to mention “liar”) in addition to being a pretender.
I’d suggest “recreational outrage over retroactive oppression”, or ROORO for short.
For the OP’s question, how about “Ethnicity of Convenience?” Similar to the concept of a “flag of convenience” where cruise ships register in Liberia or some obscure place like that, an Ethnicity of Convenience is one that you adopt because of political, religous, or other reasons.
I really really like this one. It fits better than “pretender” because I don’t think these people are pretending (in the negative connotation regular use of the word), I think that they have a philosophy that they work backwards to justify. I.E., we are descendants of slaves, but look at this noble group, we must’ve came from them and we need to work back to that level of distinguishment?
It seems like racialist groups are more prone to that with Nazi mythologizing the Aryans and various Black American Nationalist groups. Don’t Mormons also claim Native Americans are descended from Jewish settlers? They don’t claim that as their lineage, but it’s a claim that contradicts all that science tells us and is probably less likely than either the Black Hebrew or El Rukn claims. And I believe there is a Japanese Christian sect that believes that Jesus settled in Japan and started a family and was buried in Japan.
I’m still looking for an academic term so I can search properly to learn about the phenomenon, but if anyone has any other examples I would be very interested in more reading material.
[Quote=Wikipedia]
Jerry’s dentist, Dr. Tim Whatley (Bryan Cranston), has just finished the process of converting to Judaism, but is already making Jewish-themed jokes that make Jerry uncomfortable. Jerry goes so far as to say that he believes that Whatley only became Jewish “for the jokes”.
Tim hears about a dentist joke that Jerry told the priest. He takes extreme exception to it and, as a result, deliberately prolongs an uncomfortable procedure. After hearing Jerry’s complaints about Tim, Kramer calls Jerry an “anti-dentite”.
Mickey’s father (Robert Wagner), a dentist, stands up for Tim Whatley and chastises Jerry for antagonizing him: “Tim Whatley was one of my students, and if this wasn’t my son’s wedding day, I’d knock your teeth out, you anti-dentite bastard.”
[/QUOTE]
