We had a post up on the Cherokee Freedmen and it's really had the comments coming hot and heavy. For those of you that still need to hear from both sides, I urge you to read the post below, Descendents of Cherokee Black Slaves or click this LINK. PLEASE, get involved in the discussion and let your congressperson know there will be hearing.
Stand up for JUSTICE.
TO CONTINUE THE BLOOD QUANTUM QUESTION BY ALLEN LEE
ReplyDeleteThe way I see it, If the blood quantum where so important as to be a member in a Tribe there would'nt be a person left in the tribe, such as Pechanga and so many others. Yet the Pechanga Chairman refused to accept the finding of John Johnson, a noted scholar, who stated that the Hunter Descendants where at least 90% Pechanga.
In the FREEDMEN case I see the same lies and distortion being perpetraded by the Cherokee Tribe Leader Chad Smith.
Yes, I know, some people say that it is not exactly the same, that every case is different.
NO IT IS'NT REALLY ALL THAT MUCH DIFFERENT.
They are kicking people out of these tribes for political reasons and for monetary gains.
Some are black, white, brown, but all are intertwined with indian families and culture and a long standing history and some actually
have indian ancestry going back
many, many years.
The B.S. and the lies from the corrupt tribes is exactly that.
I agree with you "stand your ground." I do appreciate the genetic results as a response to the hypocracy and challenges that come from these dis-enrolling tribes, but under no circumstance should such requirements exist for any recognized citizen of any nation, including Native Nations. The genetic and racial blood ruses are a worse crime than the motivation from which those crimes originated, being greed and power corruption.
ReplyDeleteTribes do not possess autonomous sovereignty, they are quasi-sovereigns under federal jurisdiction, like states and U.S. territories, and as long as that condition exists, the U.S. is ultimately responsible for any right violations committed by tribes against it citizens. The federal position that it is an internal matter and they can do nothing about it isn't true. They interfere all the time, lest there be no Indian Child Welfare Act or major crimes tribal members in federal prisons. If the U.S. chooses not to interfere in membership disputes, so be it, but I do think the U.S should be held 100% accountable for aiding and abetting the corruption and the racial and genetic qualifiers to retain tribal citizenship. The U.S. is violatimg one of it prime government to government tenets with relations to Indian tribes, and that is to engage in relations with tribes in "legal" rather than "racial" terms. Instead of asking them to help, the other approach is to hold the U.S. accountable. Hence we have Cobell v Kempthorne and Vann v Kempthorne. Those are cases holding the federal government responsible, not tribes, for action or failure to act, as is required by federal jurisdiction.
Bob Foreman and Sophia Madariaga should have never been subject to such human rights abuse. The U.S possesses the jurisdiction to address it and as of yet, refuses to. They are basically financing rogue governmets and that needs to stop.
If the corrupt want to continue to be corrupt, let them do it on their own dime.
Corrections to the first comment.
ReplyDeletePaulina Hunter was found to be 100%
Pechanga Indian by Dr. John Johnson
it was Mark Macarro the Pechanga Chairman who stated to the NBC Reporter this idiotic statement that "she was at least 90% Pechanga Indian"
That's more than Butch Murphy, the
Masiel Crime Family and Chairman
Mark Macarro put together.
All of them are FRAUDS.
Blood quantums find there origins in European colonialist in a way to preserve their racial caste system:
ReplyDelete"NATIVE INTELLIGENCE
A Column By Jack D. Forbes
Native American Studies
University of California, Davis
Blood Quantum: A Relic Of Racism And Termination
Many Native People have gotten so used to the idea of "blood quantum" (degree of "blood") that sometimes the origin of this racist concept is forgotten. It's use started in 1705 when the colony of Virginia adopted a series of laws which denied civil rights to any "negro, mulatto, or Indian" and which defined the above terms by stating that "the child of an Indian, and the child, grandchild, or great grandchild of a negro shall be deemed accounted, held, and taken to be a mulatto." Thus both a person of American race and a person of half-American race (a "half-blood" in other words) were treated as legally inferior persons.
Colony after colony and state after state followed Virginia's example in using blood quantum as a way of determining who could have the privileges accorded to white persons. For example, Alabama's code stated that "all negroes, mulattoes, Indians and all persons of mixed blood, to the third generation inclusive, though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person, whether bond or free; shall be taken, and deemed incapable in law, to be witnesses.... except for or against each other." North Carolina possessed a code which prohibited marriages between white persons and "an Indian, Negro , Mustee, or Mulatto.... or any person of Mixed Blood to the Third Generation." Such laws meant that a part-Indian of one-eighth American ancestry and seven-eighth European ancestry would not have acquired sufficient European "blood" to be accorded the legal privileges of whiteness."
http://www.weyanoke.org/jdf-BloodQuantum.html
No other political bodies under federal jurisdiction are encouraged, permitted, or condoned for granting or preserving citizenship based on race or genetics. Only in Indian country is this practice ignored or excused as a sovereign right. Considereing the origins of Blood Quantum every person in and outside of Indian Country should ask why?
As for an ancestor who may not have meet residency requirements, again, irrelevant. Once a citizen is duly recognized by a nation, they can not go back and re-visit the status of an ancestor and remove citizenship. My slave ancestors had no rights but that does not disqualify me because of corrective laws. Illegal immigrants who gained permanant legal status and an opportunity to get U.S. citizenship under a Reagan era Immigration Reform and Control Act can not have there citizenship removed and be deported because Barack Obama decides the previous administration made a mistake.
A side note from the "Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986":
"...(h) ANTI-DISCRIMINATION PROVISION. -- (1)(A) For the purpose of applying the prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of age under the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, "42 USC 3001 note" on the basis of handicap under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, "29 USC 794" on the basis of sex under title IX, "20 USC 1681" of the Education Amendments of 1972, or on the basis of race, color, or national origin under title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "42 USC 2000d" programs and activities funded in whole or in part with funds made available under this section are considered to be programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance.
(B) No person shall on the ground of sex or religion be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under, any program or activity funded in whole or in part with funds made available under this section."
https://www.oig.lsc.gov/legis/irca86.htm
..."(A) IN GENERAL. -- Except as provided in subparagraph (B), the Attorney General may waive any other provision of section 212(a) in the case of individual aliens for humanitarian purposes, to assure family unity, or when it is otherwise in the public interest.
https://www.oig.lsc.gov/legis/irca86.htm
The American Indians have learned many things from the European colonialist besides Blood quantums. They have learned greed and the love of money. They have learned the art of double speak, and lying is now a part of every day life. They seem to be embracing these new European ideas, and seem to think that they are a part of Indian life. The love of money has replaced the love of the Tribe.
ReplyDeleteIf I seem bitter, it is because I am (I didn't used to be as many who know me will testify). It seems that bitterness is also becoming way of the American Indian. First the Europeans took away our land and tried to erase out identity. Now this banner has been taken up by the corrupt members of various tribes.
While in the Pechanga tribe a member of the Hunter family tried to get his minor children enrolled.
ReplyDeleteA member of the enrollment committee said that a person has to be 18 to be enrolled, which isn't true.
By the time this tribal member's children had turned 18 the moratorium against new adult members was in place.
The tribal member went to the tribal council to complain that the enrollment committee member had lied and Chairman Mark Macarro's response was, "why don't you take out a petition to make it illegal to lie?"
Was Macarro being sarcastic or was he stating the truth about the politics of Pechanga that it is common place that officials lie?
CORRUPT MARK MACARRO
ReplyDeleteWAS DOING THREE THINGS, LYING AND BEING SARCASTIC, ADD CORRUPT TO IT.