Saturday, March 10, 2007
Who and what is a 'Real Indian'?
Who and what is a 'Real Indian' ?
by Jim Craven/Omahkohkiaayo i'poyi
In his play "The White Plague", Sean O'Casey's main character notes: "Nothing is so passionate as a vested interest disguised as an intellectual conviction." Indeed that appears to me to be what's going on here. Here we have the "Vichy Indians" (in academia, BIA/DIA, corrupt BIA/DIA "Tribal Councils" and elsewhere) intent on more smearing of Ward Churchill, hiding their own treachery and academic sycophany, while trying to use a real issue--thefts of Indian Identity/Voice--to try to do it.
My mother used to quote Chief Lame Deer of the Lakota often who noted: "You can tell a real Red Indian by how he [or she] lives his [or her] life and not blood percentage." She used to say to all three of her children that:
... "blood-quantum, whatever it may mean or not really mean, comes from Creator; no one chooses his or her blood quantum, and thus it is a mere fact and not an accomplishment to be proud of or a sin to be ashamed of. But what one can "choose", and thus it is what someone is responsible for, is whether or not one walks 'The Red Road' and serves one's People
versus outright betraying them and/or not standing up in their defense."
And then my mother would look intensely, and my brother and sister can can also remember this vividly as she said all of this so many times to us, and she would say:
"Any Indian who does not keep the Sacred Sacred, any Indian who does not protect the children, any Indian who does not respect the Elders, any Indian who does any kind of corruption, ain't a real Indian no matter what his or her purported blood quantum; and he or she, like one of Custer's Scouts, is doing 'Custer Work' and aiding and abetting the extermination of what he or she DARES to call--and trade-on--his or her OWN BLOOD or OWN PEOPLE..." (she would add emphasis where I have)
Well let's see. Ward Churchill, whose research his detractors continually refuse to take on directly, has gone where few scholars, and certainly where none of his "Vichy Indian" detractors in academia and elsewhere have ever dared to go. He has not only exposed the genocidal conditions past and present that Indians (and many non-Indians as well) have had to endure and still have to endure, he has also exposed, in their own words and documents, the clear genocidal intentions, consciousness of guilt, cover-ups, double dealing etc of, and behind, the various governments, private interests, institutions, laws and agencies of those places where Indigenous Peoples are being exterminated. I find no evidence of Ward Churchill ever covering up, euphemizing, spinning, profiting from, rationalizing, parcing words, grant whoring, naked sycophancy or any other form of support for genocide and those agencies like the BIA/DIA and Acts like the Indian Act/Indian Reorganization Act set up to facilitate, legitimate and cover-up genocide against Indigenous Peoples. Seems to me that Ward Churchill meets the tests of the likes of Chief Lame Deer and Ohiyesa, or Dr. Charles Eastman ("The Soul of the Indian") as to who and what is a "Real Indian"?
Now some of these "Vichy Indians" of pampered academia, the BIA/DIA and various BIA/DIA Tribal/Band Councils, say that the only real test of who and what is a "Real Indian" is BIA/DIA registration or enrollment. So here we have the creations and toadies of occupiers, clearly intent on the assimilation and/or extermination of Indian nations as nations and Peoples as Peoples, called Tribal or Band Councils, (and this is not an indictment per se of everone who has been on a Tribal Council) often occupied and dominated by the most predatory, narcissistic, corrupt, ignorant and least regarded of the "Tribes or Bands they dominate, often the least like "Real Indians", and they are supposed to be the ones to certify who and what is a "Real Indian". And of course, surprise surpirse, they only regard as "Real Indians" those certified as such by themselves and the governmental entites for which they act as concubines. And sadly, those Indians so proud of being "BIA or DIA Enrolled", and regard that as some kind of legitimacy and validation for their own personal "identity", are like a French person in Nazi-occupied France saying "I am a real Frenchman, see here, I have a DFA (Department of French Affairs) card certifying my blood and loyalty issued by the Vichy Government under the authority granted it by the Bureau of French Affairs of the Government of the Third Reich."
One BIA document quoted by Patricia Lemark reads:
"Set the blood quantum at one quarter, hold to it as a rigid definition of Indians, let intermarriage proceed, and Indians will eventually be defined out of existence. When that happens, the federal government will be finally freed from its persistent Indian problem."
Adolf Eichmann could have written that. And the Vichy Indians would have us accept that the very agencies set up to facilitate and cover-up genocide against Indigenous Peoples, and the very policies they set up to facilitate Indians being "defined" or exterminated "out of existence", are the very ones to be used to determine who and what is a "Real Indian". And further, they either have nothing to say about, in some cases are involved, in the clear corruption routinely going on in official BIA/DIA enrollments in the US and Canada with propertied whites being enrolled as "real Indians", while even "full-bloods", born and raised on the Rezes, without a clear one-quarter from a given Nation, are denied enrollment in order to limit the claims on shrinking pies of lands and resources. In fact, when you see some of the grants and papers that these academic types questioning Ward's background produce, when you have been to as many conferences with these sycophantic creatures (I was with a few at a conference in China) as I have, it comes as no surprise to me that they question Ward Churchill's background as they typically lack the preparation and intellect to take on, God forbid, the actual content of his highly distrubing--to their interests and those of their patrons--work.
Now the issue of theft, misappropriation of Indian "Identity" and "Voice", in academia and elsewhere is an important one on several levels. First of all, narrow, often superficial, identity politics, along with some of the narrow identity-based programs in academia, often push the notion that to be truly "qualified" in some identity-based academic program, one must necessarily be from the group on which specialized research is being conducted. The presumption is that merely "being" whatever (Native, African-American, LGBT etc) is not only a credential in and of itself to be in that narrow identity-based program, but a necessary one at that in order to be taken as "credible".; the notions and criteria of who and what is a "real" whatever, however, are "themselves often quite superificial and suspect.
We just had many Blackfoot, born and raised on Blackfoot Rezes, fluent in Blackfoot language, staunch practioners of traditional Blackfoot Spirituality, who have never betrayed Blackfoot People, notify DIA in Canada that they are not to be considered "DIA/Indian Act Indians", will not carry or recognize DIA ID cards and will not accept "Treaty 7 Money". Are they no longer "Real Blackfoot" while members of Blackfoot DIA/BIA Tribal Councils, under heavy investigation for apparent rampant corruption and collusion with genocide, are the "Real Blackfoot"?
But I would suggest that these academics questioning the authenticity and bona fides of others be also examined. Do what all Indians do: "Who is your grandmother?" What Rez do you identify with and why? Who knows you there? What have you done tangibly in service of what you call your People? When and by whom were you first identified as being from a given People? What is the name of your People in your language (you would be surprised how many supposed descendents of Cherokee princesses do not know what Tsalagi means)? Do you speak your People's language and if not why not? Are you trying to learn your Nation's language to help to preserve it and if not why not? Have you been painted and named and if so when, where and by whom? These are some of the questions I ask.
But if someone shows me a BIA/DIA card, and especially if they have never lived on a Rez or even seriously been on one, if they have no present contacts or tried to forge them on the Rezes of the Nations they claim as their own, and they are proud of having a BIA or DIA card and regard that as "evidence" of their "Indianness", that is the last person I will regard as a "Real Indian" anymore than I would regard as "Real French", a French person proud of beinng certified "Real French" by the Vichy Government of nazi-occupied France.
But this issue is too important to be left to those Vichy Indians, in academia, BIA/DIA, Tribal/Band Councils and elsewhere, whose own backgrounds, interests, work, alliances, allegiances, agenda and backroom machinations leave them far more suspect of not being "Real Indians" than Ward Churchill no matter what their phenotypes (do they "look" Indian) and purported "blood quantums" or "legends" of their own that they claim often without the "proof" they demand of others. Indeed I have run into respected Elders from Rezes and areas that some of those in academia in Canada and elsewhere in Native Studies programs say they are from, and either not one of the respected Elders knows them, or, they know OF them but have not seen them for a long time, or, often their opinions of them are not very high at all.
Jim Craven/Omahkohkiaayo i'poyi
Blackfoot Nation
by Jim Craven/Omahkohkiaayo i'poyi
In his play "The White Plague", Sean O'Casey's main character notes: "Nothing is so passionate as a vested interest disguised as an intellectual conviction." Indeed that appears to me to be what's going on here. Here we have the "Vichy Indians" (in academia, BIA/DIA, corrupt BIA/DIA "Tribal Councils" and elsewhere) intent on more smearing of Ward Churchill, hiding their own treachery and academic sycophany, while trying to use a real issue--thefts of Indian Identity/Voice--to try to do it.
My mother used to quote Chief Lame Deer of the Lakota often who noted: "You can tell a real Red Indian by how he [or she] lives his [or her] life and not blood percentage." She used to say to all three of her children that:
... "blood-quantum, whatever it may mean or not really mean, comes from Creator; no one chooses his or her blood quantum, and thus it is a mere fact and not an accomplishment to be proud of or a sin to be ashamed of. But what one can "choose", and thus it is what someone is responsible for, is whether or not one walks 'The Red Road' and serves one's People
versus outright betraying them and/or not standing up in their defense."
And then my mother would look intensely, and my brother and sister can can also remember this vividly as she said all of this so many times to us, and she would say:
"Any Indian who does not keep the Sacred Sacred, any Indian who does not protect the children, any Indian who does not respect the Elders, any Indian who does any kind of corruption, ain't a real Indian no matter what his or her purported blood quantum; and he or she, like one of Custer's Scouts, is doing 'Custer Work' and aiding and abetting the extermination of what he or she DARES to call--and trade-on--his or her OWN BLOOD or OWN PEOPLE..." (she would add emphasis where I have)
Well let's see. Ward Churchill, whose research his detractors continually refuse to take on directly, has gone where few scholars, and certainly where none of his "Vichy Indian" detractors in academia and elsewhere have ever dared to go. He has not only exposed the genocidal conditions past and present that Indians (and many non-Indians as well) have had to endure and still have to endure, he has also exposed, in their own words and documents, the clear genocidal intentions, consciousness of guilt, cover-ups, double dealing etc of, and behind, the various governments, private interests, institutions, laws and agencies of those places where Indigenous Peoples are being exterminated. I find no evidence of Ward Churchill ever covering up, euphemizing, spinning, profiting from, rationalizing, parcing words, grant whoring, naked sycophancy or any other form of support for genocide and those agencies like the BIA/DIA and Acts like the Indian Act/Indian Reorganization Act set up to facilitate, legitimate and cover-up genocide against Indigenous Peoples. Seems to me that Ward Churchill meets the tests of the likes of Chief Lame Deer and Ohiyesa, or Dr. Charles Eastman ("The Soul of the Indian") as to who and what is a "Real Indian"?
Now some of these "Vichy Indians" of pampered academia, the BIA/DIA and various BIA/DIA Tribal/Band Councils, say that the only real test of who and what is a "Real Indian" is BIA/DIA registration or enrollment. So here we have the creations and toadies of occupiers, clearly intent on the assimilation and/or extermination of Indian nations as nations and Peoples as Peoples, called Tribal or Band Councils, (and this is not an indictment per se of everone who has been on a Tribal Council) often occupied and dominated by the most predatory, narcissistic, corrupt, ignorant and least regarded of the "Tribes or Bands they dominate, often the least like "Real Indians", and they are supposed to be the ones to certify who and what is a "Real Indian". And of course, surprise surpirse, they only regard as "Real Indians" those certified as such by themselves and the governmental entites for which they act as concubines. And sadly, those Indians so proud of being "BIA or DIA Enrolled", and regard that as some kind of legitimacy and validation for their own personal "identity", are like a French person in Nazi-occupied France saying "I am a real Frenchman, see here, I have a DFA (Department of French Affairs) card certifying my blood and loyalty issued by the Vichy Government under the authority granted it by the Bureau of French Affairs of the Government of the Third Reich."
One BIA document quoted by Patricia Lemark reads:
"Set the blood quantum at one quarter, hold to it as a rigid definition of Indians, let intermarriage proceed, and Indians will eventually be defined out of existence. When that happens, the federal government will be finally freed from its persistent Indian problem."
Adolf Eichmann could have written that. And the Vichy Indians would have us accept that the very agencies set up to facilitate and cover-up genocide against Indigenous Peoples, and the very policies they set up to facilitate Indians being "defined" or exterminated "out of existence", are the very ones to be used to determine who and what is a "Real Indian". And further, they either have nothing to say about, in some cases are involved, in the clear corruption routinely going on in official BIA/DIA enrollments in the US and Canada with propertied whites being enrolled as "real Indians", while even "full-bloods", born and raised on the Rezes, without a clear one-quarter from a given Nation, are denied enrollment in order to limit the claims on shrinking pies of lands and resources. In fact, when you see some of the grants and papers that these academic types questioning Ward's background produce, when you have been to as many conferences with these sycophantic creatures (I was with a few at a conference in China) as I have, it comes as no surprise to me that they question Ward Churchill's background as they typically lack the preparation and intellect to take on, God forbid, the actual content of his highly distrubing--to their interests and those of their patrons--work.
Now the issue of theft, misappropriation of Indian "Identity" and "Voice", in academia and elsewhere is an important one on several levels. First of all, narrow, often superficial, identity politics, along with some of the narrow identity-based programs in academia, often push the notion that to be truly "qualified" in some identity-based academic program, one must necessarily be from the group on which specialized research is being conducted. The presumption is that merely "being" whatever (Native, African-American, LGBT etc) is not only a credential in and of itself to be in that narrow identity-based program, but a necessary one at that in order to be taken as "credible".; the notions and criteria of who and what is a "real" whatever, however, are "themselves often quite superificial and suspect.
We just had many Blackfoot, born and raised on Blackfoot Rezes, fluent in Blackfoot language, staunch practioners of traditional Blackfoot Spirituality, who have never betrayed Blackfoot People, notify DIA in Canada that they are not to be considered "DIA/Indian Act Indians", will not carry or recognize DIA ID cards and will not accept "Treaty 7 Money". Are they no longer "Real Blackfoot" while members of Blackfoot DIA/BIA Tribal Councils, under heavy investigation for apparent rampant corruption and collusion with genocide, are the "Real Blackfoot"?
But I would suggest that these academics questioning the authenticity and bona fides of others be also examined. Do what all Indians do: "Who is your grandmother?" What Rez do you identify with and why? Who knows you there? What have you done tangibly in service of what you call your People? When and by whom were you first identified as being from a given People? What is the name of your People in your language (you would be surprised how many supposed descendents of Cherokee princesses do not know what Tsalagi means)? Do you speak your People's language and if not why not? Are you trying to learn your Nation's language to help to preserve it and if not why not? Have you been painted and named and if so when, where and by whom? These are some of the questions I ask.
But if someone shows me a BIA/DIA card, and especially if they have never lived on a Rez or even seriously been on one, if they have no present contacts or tried to forge them on the Rezes of the Nations they claim as their own, and they are proud of having a BIA or DIA card and regard that as "evidence" of their "Indianness", that is the last person I will regard as a "Real Indian" anymore than I would regard as "Real French", a French person proud of beinng certified "Real French" by the Vichy Government of nazi-occupied France.
But this issue is too important to be left to those Vichy Indians, in academia, BIA/DIA, Tribal/Band Councils and elsewhere, whose own backgrounds, interests, work, alliances, allegiances, agenda and backroom machinations leave them far more suspect of not being "Real Indians" than Ward Churchill no matter what their phenotypes (do they "look" Indian) and purported "blood quantums" or "legends" of their own that they claim often without the "proof" they demand of others. Indeed I have run into respected Elders from Rezes and areas that some of those in academia in Canada and elsewhere in Native Studies programs say they are from, and either not one of the respected Elders knows them, or, they know OF them but have not seen them for a long time, or, often their opinions of them are not very high at all.
Jim Craven/Omahkohkiaayo i'poyi
Blackfoot Nation
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