The tribe violated their OWN laws. We should not be supporting them in their efforts to disenfranchise their own people. Stand up for the Freedmen, and stand up for civil rights in Indian Country.
Prince: We're imitating the enemy
Posted: May 16, 2008
by: Shannon Prince
Many intelligent American Indian thinkers have already pointed out why the freedmen have a legal right to remain in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
Cherokee judge Steve Russell has noted in his Indian Country Today column that the freedmen have the right, according to Article 9 of the treaty between the United States and the Cherokee Nation of 1866, to be citizens of the Cherokee Nation.
He has also reiterated the well-documented fact that many (and one might say nearly all) freedmen have Cherokee Indian blood that the racists who created the Dawes Rolls didn't note simply because of the pseudo-scientific belief that ''one drop'' of black blood negated all others - a fact that shows the nonsense of the claim that the removal of the freedmen from the Cherokee Nation is based on the desire to allow only those with Indian blood to be Indians.
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While these scholars have brilliantly argued that the removal of the freedmen from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma is illegal by the nation's own laws, I argue that beyond being illegal, the removal of the freedmen is also unethical. Those who support freedmen removal are irresponsible heirs of Cherokee history and have internalized colonial expressions of sovereignty.
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CHEROKEE FREEDMEN MEETING: 5/17/08
This is the chance for you to learn about what is happening with the Freedmen's case. Additionally, if Cherokee Nation tries to disrupt the proceedings, you can see it for yourself. Show your support! And, please ask Diane Watson to look into what the tribes in her own state are doing, such as: Pechanga, Picayune Rancheria, Enterprise, Redding.
The next Descendants of Freedmen Association meeting will be held Saturday May 17th at the Rudisill library in Tulsa Oklahoma, 1520 N. Hartford, beginning at 1pm.
The Freedmen Band of Cherokee nation will meet following the Descendants meeting. Both meetings are free and open to the general public. Attorney Jon Velie will attend and update meeting attendants on recent Washington DC events.
Please prepare to attend the Descendants of Freedmen Association conference Saturday June 7th 2008 conference between 10am and 4pm at the Oklahoma City Langston Campus, 4205 N Lincoln Blvd.
Confirmed speakers include Congresswoman Diane Watson, Professor Gary Zeller, Kentucky State Representative Reginald Meeks, Tribal Activist Brenda Golden, and Attorney Jon Velie.
More details are given at the Conference Website: http://www.freedmenconference.com/index.htmOur conference Chair MS Grayson can be reached at dof5ctac@yahoo.com
2 comments:
I am astounded by my northern American Indian sister's ignorance of the American Indian collective but also, her unethical argument, since I my self am a member of the Pokomam clan of the Mayan people in El Salvador, who suffered the same persecution at the hands of imperialist.
Upon examining her argument, I find it contradictory, since unethical in her sense of the word is based on Christianity's absolute dogma of equality, because her tribe by association has become more assimilated to Euro-American society. What is home? Can we belong to a place we have never been, or a place we know only through our dreams and imaginations? No, we cannot, the words of Dr Martin Luther King are elusive in the writings of Dr Vine Deloria Jr in that African Americans wanting to have equality is contradictory to having their own businesses, schools, and a lost identity, that can only be attained by practicing their own tribal beliefs and having their sacred places in a land far far away. It is the American Indian way to use English or Spanish to defy and gain access to their erroneous ways in order to correct them.
In American Indian tradition and spirituality, whether you are in the North or South part of the Americas, we are not the authoritative, but the flexible kind; that is, we do not hold truths to be absolute, because our people are shaped by our relationship with the spirits of our forefathers of the land, for as long as the rivers and the mountains have formed and because we have traversed the Americas with shared histories.
For the Cherokee people to return to the sacred fire is not an internalized colonial expression of sovereignty, but it is the duty of its members to negotiate as national bodies , not as nation- state nationalism which is dependent on the expulsion of blood relatives to increase political might, self-fulfilling prophesies (religious dogmas/Armageddon/end-of-world), military might and economic wealth which is attained through coercion.
Sometimes you have to hope for success with other tribes in order for your own to come to their senses. We need to stop this foolishness and let those members we kicked out back in the tribe.
The Cherokee need to follow the treaties they signed. Just because the white men didn't, doesn't mean they shouldn't.
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