Anti-Black Racism in Indian Country: Jim Crowfeather Lives • Article from http://www.indiancountrymedianetwork.com

Over the years I have visited and fellowshipped with a great number of tribes situated in the Eastern and Southern regions of the United States.

Through this experience I have noticed a telling reality that has long been silently acknowledged, but rarely publicly spoken about.

On one exceptional occasion thirty-five years ago, this silence was broken.

In 1978 Terry Anderson and Kirke Kickingbird (Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma) were hired by National Congress of American Indians, to research the federal recognition issue and present a paper on their findings to the National Conference on Federal Recognition which was being held in Nashville, Tennessee.

Their paper, “An Historical Perspective on the Issue of Federal Recognition and Non-recognition” closed with the statement, “The reasons that are usually presented to withhold recognition from tribes are:

1) that they are racially tainted with the blood of African tribes-men or

2) greed, for newly recognized tribes will share in the appropriations for services given to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

The names of justice, mercy, sanity, common sense, fiscal responsibility, and rationality can be presented just as easily on the side of those advocating recognition.”

Of 55 continuous, identifiable, cohesive Indian communities in the Eastern and Southern regions of the United States (of whom I have intimate knowledge of) were found that of the 29 federally-recognized entities, all but six have been listed in historical records as having mixed-white ancestry, as well as some of course being listed as of primarily Indian ancestry.

In the remaining six (all of who battled the BIA more so than the other 23), as well as 26 more that were not federally recognized, it was found that all had some perceived or real association in historical accounts to have some measure of mixed-black ancestry .

As the Bureau of Indian Affairs is run by whites, mixed-white Indians, and a smaller number of racially identifiable Indians , with few black employees or employees of mixed-black and Indian descent, it is clear that recognition is not about one’s racial proximity to Indian, but rather one’s racial distance from black.

This is entrenched racism and the most obvious double standard one can imagine rearing its head in the Indian political spectrum.

While tribes who are perceived or do have some black ancestry, as well as significant Indian ancestry, are being denied, tribes with large amounts of white ancestry and less significant Indian heritage have been acknowledged .

This correlates with many BIA records including those produced during the boarding school era.

In Professor K. Tsianina Lomawaima’s book They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School, it states,

“…Offspring of Indian and black parents certainly existed at the time, but the government was not interested in making a place for them in federal schools.

‘ Too dark ’ was the euphemism used in school records of suspect students. At the other end of the spectrum, employees favored lighter-skinned students… ”

Black admixture was meticulously followed , researched, and designated within the schools.

The Indian Division of Hampton Institute records reflect this in concise form and go so far as to mention if the Indian Hampton alumni married a black person later on in their adulthood.

The case of Hampton student Henry Thompson Brodette bares this out:

“Thompson, Henry Brodette: Shinnecock & Negro (NY) October 1900 until graduating in 1906. Also awarded a carpentry certificate in 1904. Golf course employee and stableman.”

These types of designations foreshadowed a generational battle the Shinnecock would engage in with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to gain federal recognition.

This war of rhetoric and words would force the Shinnecock, despite inhabiting one of the nation’s oldest Indian reservations (the other 8 oldest Indian reservations in the country currently being occupied by historic “non-federal” tribes), to sue the federal government and eventually force the hand of the BIA.

This action, coupled with nearly $30 million dollars in gaming backed financing to complete their federal recognition petition, would eventually overcome the constantly restocked quiver of lobbyists, government officials, and neighboring federal tribes who contested their petition.

The light at the end of their tunnel, which included multi-generational attendance at federal Indian boarding schools, would not come within sight until 2011.

In a similar scenario, the Massachusetts based Mashpee Wampanoag would not find relief until 2007.

Aside from Hampton, there was also disdain amongst Haskell and other boarding school administrations as mentioned in Voices from Haskell: Indian Students Between Two Worlds, 1884-1928 by Myriam Vuckovic:

“Marriage was desired and promoted by Haskell’s superintendents if the spousal choice of the girl met with the school’s approval.

Haskell clearly made a distinction between “ good marriages ” and “ bad marriages ,” the former referring to liaisons with self-supporting progressive Indian or white men, the latter to “camp Indians” or African Americans.”

This racial animosity has continued to the present day.

In 1995, Lee Fleming, Director of the Office of Federal Acknowledgment agreed with highly controversial statements at a genealogical conference in Alabama which was being sponsored by Samford University a year prior to his appointment to OFA (then BAR).

A conference attendee, Professor Don Rankin , stated in written form that the following conversation occurred during the course of the conference,

“Someone brought up the MOWA Choctaw and their attempt at federal recognition .

At this stage, several people had gathered around and were talking.

Ms. Brown responded in an even professional tone of voice that she felt that they would not be successful.

When asked why , she responded that they had ‘ black ancestors’ and in her opinion were not Indian.

Mr. Lee Fleming , who was at the time the Tribal Registrar for the Western Band of Cherokee and one of the lecturers, agreed with her.

I was shocked at their statements.”

Those other few who have been able to break through the process, including the Pequot in Connecticut, were able to leverage their white phenotype members as the public face of the tribe during their petitions only to be sharply criticized post-recognition when it was found that many of the Pequot tribal members were of mixed-black heritage .

And let us not even go down the path of the continued real and attempted expulsion of the Indian * Freedmen members of the Five Civilized Tribes .

It seems Jim Crow-feather is alive and well in Indian country.

Cedric Sunray (MOWA Choctaw) is a longtime educator and current student in the University of Oklahoma Indian Law Program.

For a list of the 55 tribes surveyed in the article or for other inquiries please contact him at helphaskell@hotmail.com.

(End of article by Cedric Sunray)

* INDIAN FREEDMEN CONTROVERSY FROM WIKIPEDIA :

“ The Cherokee Freedmen Controversy is an ongoing political and tribal dispute between the Cherokee Nation Oklahoma and descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen regarding the issue of tribal citizenship.

During the antebellum period, the Cherokee and other Southeast Native American nations known as the Five Civilized Tribes Indian Territory

In the early 1980s, the Cherokee Nation administration amended citizenship rules to require direct descent from an ancestor listed on the “ Cherokee By Blood ” section of the Dawes Rolls.

The change stripped descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen of citizenship and voting rights unless they satisfied this new criterion.

On March 7, 2006, the Cherokee Supreme Court ruled that the descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen were unconstitutionally kept from enrolling as citizens and were allowed to enroll in the Cherokee Nation.

Chad “Corntassel” Smith, then-Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, called for an emergency election to amend the constitution in response to the ruling.

After a petition was circulated, a special election held on March 3, 2007 resulted in a constitutional amendment that disenrolled the Cherokee Freedmen descendants.

This led to several legal proceedings in United States and Cherokee Nation courts in which the Freedmen descendants continued to press for their treaty rights and recognition as Cherokee Nation members.

The 2007 constitutional amendment was voided in Cherokee Nation district court on January 14, 2011, but was overturned by a 4-1 ruling in Cherokee Nation Supreme Court on August 22, 2011.

The ruling excluded the Cherokee Freedmen descendants from voting in the special run-off election for Principal Chief.

After the freezing of $33 million in funds by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a letter from the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in response to the ruling, an agreement was made in federal court between the Cherokee Nation, the Freedmen descendants and the US government.

This allowed the Freedmen descendants to vote in the special election.

Both sides filed complaints in federal court in Tulsa, Oklahoma in July 2012; the Cherokee say the 1866 treaty does not require them to give full citizenship to the Freedmen.

The Freedmen continue to seek full rights. The US Appeals Court upheld tribal sovereignty but said the cases had to be combined, because they involved the same parties.

It suggested that the 1866 treaty limited the right of the tribe to exclude Cherokee Freedmen descendants from citizenship and sent it back to the US District Court.

On May 5, 2014 in Washington, DC, oral arguments were made in the first hearing on the merits of the case. The US District Court has stated it will issue a ruling in 2016.”

(End of Wikipedia)

RACISM AMONG SOME MEMBERS OF NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES

Why are there so many Native American communities now, all across America who are denying the close relationship many of their ancestors had with people of African descent ?

They want to deny membership of their tribe to people who are mixed and have a strong appearance of African ancestry .

None of these tribes today have any problem accepting the Caucasian looking people who claim to have Native American ancestry .

Many tribal members have now been influenced by racism and the Hollywood depiction of Native Americans.

Usually Caucasian actors portraying Native Americans.

Many US Native Americans, now perceive themselves as looking more like Caucasians than the way their ancestors really looked.

They are not just racists against Native Americans with African ancestry; but many of these Northern American tribes even refuse to acknowledge the Native Americans from Mexico , Central America or South America as being members of their own racial group.

Many of the so-called illegal immigrants coming from those places, to the USA, are also Native Americans .

The Native Americans in the USA, weaken their position by not acknowledging the numerical superiority that they have.

They must embrace the members of their race; from the bottom of South America, all the way up to Alaska .

I believe that Native Americans (including the ones with mixed blood ) are still the largest racial group on this continent.

Native Americans in Peru

Sketch above was drawn by Frederic Remington of Buffalo soldier and Native American

Crispus Attucks one of the first to die for American independence from England ; was a mixed race Native American

Here is another famous American with Native American ancestry; Frederick Douglass

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Calling Caucasians “white people”, promotes racism. You are unknowingly promoting Caucasian supremacy, whenever you call Caucasians, ‘white’; and calling people of African descent ‘black.’ Also you are praising and glorifying Caucasians, whenever you call them ‘white’.

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READ THE AUTO – BIOGRAPHY OF MY FIRST 13 YEARS LIVING IN AMERICA , AFTER LEAVING JAMAICA

This is the story of one man’s journey to self-discovery.

Like so many others, Mujahid Abdullah learned behaviors and acquired beliefs of denigration about his culture, ethnicity, and physical appearance.

These beliefs came from his local surroundings as well as the wider society and would have a major effect on his entire life.

Within the pages of this book, not only do we see these effects, but we see how he was able to move beyond the messages that were so deeply ingrained from childhood.

This is an eye-opening story of cultural practices and family beliefs that others may keep hidden.

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