TheHeretic
Posts: 19100
Joined: 3/25/2007
From: California, USA
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: tazzygirl
You do realize the Cherokee Nation recognizes 1/64th heritage, yes?
The particular tribes with low blood quantum restrictions require a direct ancestor listed on the Rolls, Tazzy. That's a rather important detail to leave out, don't you think?
This was discussed over a few pages, a few months ago.
What? No Elizabeth Warren thread?
I had this to say, over there.
quote:
Elizabeth Warren took that little bit of ancestry, great-great-great-grandma, and she used it, just because she could.
I came across something interesting today, it even mentions people at exactly the same connection Ms. Warren has.
quote:
Actually, the more I think about the non-Indians--or people with very, very tenuous Indian ancestry who know nothing about the culture--trying to be Indians, the more I think it's not so bad. I will admit, I can get very annoyed by wanna-be's. Especially, when I was younger they used to think I knew about drugs, and I could get them magic mushrooms or something. Now they just think I can get them a spirit guide. I guess that's progress. But anyway, my point is this: assimilation has devastated us. They took us and sent us to boarding schools as children to rob us of our languages. They made our religions illegal. They turned our culture into something for history class only. Now, some yuppie white girl finds out she had a Cherokee great-great-great-grandmother, or somebody says she did, and she wants to be a Cherokee. Well, why not? In the past, a lot of Indians had rituals where you could take the place of the dead. So if someone killed my son, maybe he could end our families' fighting by giving me one of his sons, to take the place of the one he killed. Maybe these "wannabes" have come to take the place of what we have lost. Why not accept them? Not make them citizens of our nations, perhaps, but let's take them in and teach them our ways and our languages and help them raise their children to be some of us. Maybe they do have a little bit of Indian blood and it's finding its way back to us. That's what I think. White people assimilated us. Why turn away those who want to assimilate back?
Now I happen to think this is a pretty good approach and attitude. My own 3/16 blood quantum doesn't matter a bit to me, but the 3/32 I pass along might very well become significant to the next generation. Perhaps they will choose to seek out and embrace the traditions, learn the language and participate in keeping it alive, explore the culture, learn the dances and stories. But they don't get to go after the goodies.
Is that what Elizabeth Warren did, though? Did she seek out the tribe and traditions? It isn't hard to do, in Oklahoma. Nope. Learn and live the ways and language? Nope. She says she checked the box in hopes that it would somehow, maybe a luncheon, come to her. And then, when the teacher had the gig at Harvard locked in, and Harvard had held her up as a symbol of their "diversity," did her lifelong connection to those wonderful cheekbones inspire her to give back to the ticked box heritage that sure as hell hadn't hurt on her rise? Hmmm... That's when she stopping ticking the box.
|
I am sorry if I caused a flap calling a user on the War... - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread