I’ve never read anything by the Canadian-American author Thomas King, but I was interested in the recent news that King admitted his Native American ancestry (purportedly from a Cherokee father he’d never known) had been proven false by geneological research. The reaction to the story was swift and predictable. In the Toronto Globe and Mail, columnist Tanya Talaga declared, “Until Mr. King can prove that he is Indigenous, or a member of another First Nations community via his paternal side, his work cannot be understood as being told from the perspective of an Indian, but of an ally, and it must be read through that lens.” Her verdict: “His books should not be added to courses on Indigenous literature and history; unless he proves otherwise, his work must move to the Canadian literature section.” Jordan Abel, a Native professor in Alberta, added, “I don’t think we need to hold on to King’s books the way we had before.” Along with similar revelations over prominent figures like singer Buffy Sainte-Marie and novelist Joseph Boyden, the “Pretendian” controversy over Thomas King reveals as much about politics and ideas as it does about the outed individuals themselves.

Today, the Aboriginal lineage claimed by professional artists and academics is subject to the kind of biological policing associated with the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany, the Apartheid system of South Africa, and the racist standards of the Jim Crow American South. The difference is that the police are not white supremacists hunting down anybody whose suspect bloodline might “taint” the dominant group (even if they’re otherwise fitting in to it unnoticed), but the Native community itself, hunting down anyone whose suspect bloodline might dilute the specialness of an exclusive minority (even if they’re otherwise celebrated as representatives of Native achievement). Until the scandals broke, the likes of Buffy Sainte-Marie, Joseph Boyden, and Thomas King were upheld as vital voices in the public conversation, bringing necessary Aboriginal perspectives to contemporary issues; King’s titles included The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America, the published lecture The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative, and the Aboriginal-themed novels DreadfulWater, Indians On Vacation, Cold Skies, and Green Grass, Running Water. Whatever merits the works may have, though, suddenly they can’t be shelved in the “First Nations” section of the book store.

But the insistence on racial purity that disqualifies King and others from speaking for Native people inadvertently exposes the vagueness of ethnic identity on which everyone from the AFN (Assembly of First Nations) and the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) to the KKK have fixated. There are many, many people in the western hemisphere whose genetics might include African, European, and Native American DNA, and not all of them are sure of the exact mixture. In the past, the most bigoted WASPs might have been horrified to learn they had “a touch of the tar brush” in their background, whereas today, the most self-righteous Aboriginal advocates might be equally dismayed to discover they have no Aboriginal ancestry to invoke. Critics have said that King, Boyden, and Sainte-Marie were intentionally exploiting a heritage they knew to be fictional for personal gain, but their careers suggest they are in fact sincerely sympathetic to Native concerns and honestly relate to Native culture. Prior to the investigations into their backgrounds, plenty of 100% Native people were probably proud to believe such famous writers or musicians were one of their own. “Thomas King is an author I revered,” mourned Tanya Talaga. “I met him at the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, and told him I admired his work.” One might ask her, Why? Because the works were good, or because admiring them was good for the cause?

What’s odd about these affairs, too, is that they contradict the progressive orthodoxy which holds that, for example, a person born male can “identify” as female, and everyone’s obliged to accept them as such, no questions asked. For most of his life, it seems, Thomas King really did think he was part Native, really did attempt to understand and describe the Native experience, and his writings really were accepted as the authentic expression of a Native talent. But apparently none of that counts, now that the hard evidence denies King’s Native background. What if the same rules were applied to transgender people, or to hiring or admissions processes that encourage prospects to tick the “minority” box for extra points? How closely should we inspect anyone’s private sense of themselves, and how strictly or generously should we accommodate it?

A disproportionate number of the indigent and addicted men and women I see in the downtown of my Canadian city are Aboriginal. Somehow, I doubt that the outrage over Thomas King and other so-called Pretendians will translate into tangible good for them – indeed, there’s now one less example of a healthy and accomplished Aboriginal who might inspire them to turn their lives around, and one less catalogue of texts which might be read as compassionate insider accounts of Aboriginal life. But no matter: in the Opinion columns, the awards committees, and the book stores, the Pretendian police will be satisfied to boast that they always get their man.