April 13, 2007

More attacks on Youngblood

'Apocalypto' Actor Under Fire About Heritage

The problem:The actor told the Times his biological mother is Comanche and his biological father is Yaqui, but he did not provide their names.

Other evidence suggests Youngblood is part African American and/or Hispanic. His biography on the Internet Movie Database states his mother is half African American and he changed his last name from "Gonzales." Youngblood said in the Times article that in the past he has used the name Gonzales, which is his stepfather's. Ironically, if Youngblood's roots are Mexican and/or Central American, the actor might be more closely related to the people of Jaguar Paw, the Mayan character he portrayed in Apocalypto.

So far, Youngblood is keeping the specifics of his genetics under wraps. He told the Times, "I am Comanche. I'm not going to go into names. My tribe knows it. That is all that needs to be said." Youngblood's representative declined to schedule an interview between the actor and Back Stage.
The solution?Reed and Yeagley agreed that Youngblood could put the whole situation to rest by proving his ancestry in a number of ways, the simplest of which would be to produce a letter from a Comanche official recognizing his lineage. Yeagley said he would be satisfied if the actor simply made public the names of his family members enrolled in the Comanche Nation.

Both also acknowledge that thousands of U.S. citizens claim to be Native American without officially belonging to a tribe. Reed said enrolling in one of the 562 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes can be an exhausting process, particularly because each tribe has its own enrollment criteria.

According to the Comanche Nation's website, there are more than 13,000 enrolled members. Reed said Youngblood must prove he is at least related by blood to one of them or face damaging his career. "When you become a public figure as an actor, then the public owns you, and you need to dispel these kinds of rumors and charges because it has a great impact on the rest of the Indians," he said. "It's no different than being a public figure and you say, 'I have a Harvard degree.' Well, show me your degree."

14 comments:

Rob said...

I don't criticize Native flaws and shortcomings because I'm jealous. For instance, I joined in the chorus of people criticizing Ward Churchill for failing to document his Indian ancestry. We didn't criticize him because we were jealous of his fame (or infamy). The same applies in this case.

Reed stated the problem with Youngblood's vagueness:

"If there's a controversy that goes on every time they hire an American Indian when the community comes out and says he's not an Indian...[casting directors] say, 'Look, we don't want to take the time or energy to deal with that.' They'd rather cast somebody else."

Whether you agree with this position or not, it's a plausible reason for raising the issue. Why don't you address the issue itself rather than trying to divine Reed's intent? I.e., rather than attacking him personally?

Ironically, you sound like you harbor the same resentment you attribute to them. Reed, Skyhawk, and Hanay Geiogamah keep getting writing or acting or consulting jobs in Hollywood while you're left reminiscing about your days on the set of Porky's 2. Boo-hoo.

Incidentally, the organization is called American Indians in Film and Television. The acronym would be AIFTV or AIIFATV, not NAIF, so there's no clever pun here.

Rob said...

If Geiogamah chooses to call himself "Hanay," that's his name by definition. If it helps, think of it as a nickname. We call President Clinton "Bill" rather than "William" because that's the name he's chosen to go by. Geiogamah's situation is the same thing.

I didn't say any of these people is trustworthy. I said they're getting jobs in Hollywood and you're not.

If you send me the text of those articles, I'll probably post them.

According to an e-mail I got from Reed, the acronym for his organization is AIFTV.

Unknown said...

Rudy, what's the number of your CDIB card?

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rob said...

I could call myself "Hanay" without knowing what it means, so your point is irrelevant. The only question is whether he's misrepresenting himself, and you haven't provided any evidence of that.

You abandoned your sideline because Saginaw Grant kept beating you out for roles, so now you're jealous of the success of Skyhawk, Reed, and Geiogamah. That's one theory, at least.

Re "Natives know who are Native and they also know who are not": Some Natives can actually articulate who's Native and who's not, and why. Too bad you can't.

writerfella said...

Writerfella here --
Go ahead, call yourself 'Hanay' and he himself will come looking for you, if only because you have the potential of taking away the opportunistic employment he has established as his own in the film and TV industry. But then again, who woul hire anyone named 'Hanay Schmidt'?
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'

L.GLADUE said...

Rudy "Gonzales" went on record stating that his "ancestors fought and died at Wounded Knee". This would make him Lakota as well. What Lakota tribe is he enrolled with?

Rudy really needs to think before he opens his mouth, he appears to be isolating himself from the Native community by repeatedly making erroneous statements about his "Indianness".

Rudy looks Mexican to me.

Rob said...

Russ, are you also upset because Marion Morrison called himself "John Wayne" to sound more manly and American? Do you ignore his chosen name and refer to him only by his given name? Why not, since his situation is similar to Geiogamah's?

Rob said...

There are several possibilities regarding Youngblood. He's enrolled in a tribe but hasn't proved it yet. He's not enrolled but has (blood) relatives who were or are tribal members and can document it. He has ancestors somewhere in the past who he believes were Indians, but he can't identify them. (This would make him analogous to the typical Latino.) Or he has no Indian ancestors.

In the first two cases, I think most people would agree he's an Indian. In the third case things get sticky, and you have to sift through the claims of people like Ward Churchill and Robert Beltran. Only the fourth case is relatively clearcut (although I add the perennial caveat that a tribe could enroll a non-Indian if it wanted to).

Youngblood is causing himself grief whenever he doesn't give a clear answer on the subject, just as Churchill did. If I were them, I'd answer the questions and thus end the controversy. Indians whose backgrounds are mixed don't lose credibility if they're upfront about it.

The_Editrix said...

As a White European, who more or less stumbled over this case, am more than once lost here.

The quoted Mark Reed, chairman and national representative for American Indians in Film and Television said: "When you become a public figure as an actor, then the public owns you, and you need to dispel these kinds of rumors and charges because it has a great impact on the rest of the Indians.”

That is beyond my grasp. So anybody who has access to a computer and the Internet like Yeagley can come and shed doubt on any public figure's ancestry and WITH CREDIBILITY, for that, just because the target of his bile is a "public figure"?

Just who is this Yeagley? He has a doctorate in musicology and a B.A. in divinity and runs the website badeagle.com. The website (Site Meter data as of April 12) clocks up an average daily visitor count of 317. The Google link-count for his blog yields 111 hits, for the entire site 1010 hits. The Technorati rank of the blog Badeagle Journal is, as I am writing this, 136,683.

(For example, this blog is rating as number 169,743 at Technorati and clocks up 393 Google link-hits.)

The only kudos (however controversial) this self-appointed pundit can boast is the fact that he gets published at FrontPage, but even they, who are not squeamish and have previously published gems by Yeagley like "These days the white woman is expected to humble herself before the darkie", have refused to publish at least some of his writings. (Links can be provided.)

I may be wrong, but I think that the blatant, shameless racism of the controversy Yeagley has introduced, without authority and with even less provocation, save the fact that he doesn't like Youngblood's looks (and, we can safely assume, the fact that such a controversy gets him some attention) does a disservice to everybody involved.

One more thing: Would it make Rudy Youngblood any less Indian if he had (to use Yeagley's terminology) "Negro" blood? Does Indian blood only mix with White blood? (I am not American. My question is genuine, not polemic.) Isn't the whole pondering on Youngblood's "Negro" ancestry racist? This is neither rhetoric nor polemic. I am asking seriously.

writerfella said...

Writerfella here --
No, no, that last blogger got it all wrong. Yeagley didn't act because he doesn't like Rudy Youngblood's looks. He acted because Comanche is the identity Yeagley selected to claim for himself and then along comes someone who just might be more important in such an identity than he! By casting aspersions on that other person's identity, Yeagley deflects attention away from the controversy surrounding his own identity and so he can relax somewhat. It is a tempest in a stewpot...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'

Rob said...

Let's not demonize Yeagley too much. Whether he's an Indian and a scholar or not, he sometimes raises legitimate questions. For instance, are casinos hurting Indians in general even while they help some Indians? In my critiques of him, I usually shred his arguments more than the underlying questions.

Re "Would it make Rudy Youngblood any less Indian if he had (to use Yeagley's terminology) 'Negro' blood?" No. If Yeagley is saying Youngblood has too much "black blood" to make him an Indian, he's an idiot.

writerfella said...

Writerfellahere --
writerfella sees the principle you operate from, Rob. "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day." But Yeagley NEVER does anything that does not benefit him personally. If he did, then there might be an argument that he raises an occasional 'legitimate' question. BUT -- given his record, is that really and truly likely? Ask yourself...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'

Rob said...

I was going to use the obvious "stopped clock" analogy myself, but I resisted.

We could label everything we do "self-serving," so that's no distinction. For instance, was Mother Teresa genuinely interested in helping people, or was she just trying to ensure her place in heaven?

I'll stick with my claim that Yeagley sometimes asks legitimate questions.