Several years ago I was forced to read a history of North American Indians called The Inconvenient Indian by an American writer based in Canada called Thomas King who was marketed as indigenous. By the end I thought I Could Have Written That. So, I decided to look into King's credentials as an indigenous writer. He turned out to be a privileged Greek kid from California who had been told his deadbeat dad was of Cherokee descent. OK, but if he hung out with his Cherokee grandparents during the school holidays.... Nope, no evidence of that even. King has just admitted he has no Cherokee blood. He gave the impression this "revelation" followed a report from a family tree specialist he had commissioned. In fact, a US group that specialises in exposing Pretendians had called him up to answer some questions raised by their research. Now there is a big fuss here among the chattering classes. But I can't understand why. I'm a great believer in nurture being more important than nature. Was King supposed to have some deep rooted racial knowledge buried in his DNA that made him indigenous? That's surely pure racism. Turns out he was just a little Greek-American who decided he was an Indian. Good career move. A number of what I consider Professional Indians have said King's confession has not come as a surprise. So, why didn't they call him out? Put it this way, people in glass houses know they shouldn't throw stones.