More Churchill bashing...and I'm tired of it...
Unlike Ms. Rave who seems to have an ideological hard-on for Native folks (including those of substantive Euro-settler blood-quantum) who dislike being displaced and dishonoured by Whites and their Vichy Indian allies. Mr. Churchill (who has to my knowledge never claimed to be anything but what he has said he is, a mixed-race Indian), makes more of a point for Indian people than anything I have read or heard from Ms. Rave and I suspect that she and other like-minded intellectual charlatans will spend more time and effort going after folks like Mr. Churchill instead of calling the United States on its system of inhumanity to Indian people and others.
Churchill often has claimed to be an Indian without qualification. For instance, he trumpeted his honorary membership in the United Keetoowah Band as if that proved he was an enrolled tribal member.
About the only time he's identified himself as a mixed-race Indian is when circumstances forced him to. For instance, when the UKB said his honorary membership didn't make him an Indian.
And we have nothing except his word that he's even mixed-race. The best guess is that he's as white as I am.
Rave a "charlatan"?
I don't know about "other like-minded intellectual charlatans," but Rave write about Indian issues several times a week. She consistently takes a pro-Indian, anti-establishment position.
In contrast, she's written about Churchill only a couples times in recent years--i.e., whenever he was in the news. It's flat-out false to claim she's spent more time attacking Churchill than attacking anti-Indian policies.
Her articles are published in regional newspapers and made available through PECHANGA.net and Indianz.com. Which means that almost every concerned Indian and government official can read them.
What has Churchill done that compares to that? Published dubious articles in obscure academic journals? IIR may be impressed with this, but I'm not. Rave has much more reach and influence in Indian country than Churchill does.
For more on the subject, see Blogging About Churchill and Churchill the AIM Groupie.
i just answered the blog regarding "Only "Vichy Indians" criticize Churchill" with the following:
ReplyDeleteI just don't know where to began in answering the "The AngryIndian" who has taken such exception to Jodi Rave's opinion of Ward Churchill. The statements such as "Europeanized Sectors of Indian America"; "…like minded intellectual charlatans"; and the comparison of Ward Churchill to Sitting Bull" are only three statements that need to be responded too.
First of all I refuse to insult Mr. AngryIndian for the same reason I take exception to (his/her) insulting Jodi Rave. But I do want to point some things out that may allow for some intellectual dialogue to take place in regards to many of us who do not support the idea of non-Indians who claim to be Indian and then take advantage of what this allows them to do. The appropriation of anyone's culture or identity is wrong. If you are not what you say you are then be man enough to stand up and admit it when called on to prove it.
Being an American Indian is very important to many of us who have worked to preserve our tribal sovereignty and treaty rights for a life time. There was no payment to do this nor was there a time until just recently that being an Indian was seeing as OK. Just look at what is happening in Rapid City were just walking down a street can cause you injury if you’re a Lakota.
Jodi Rave does know what it was like to grow up Indian. She was raised on a reservation that experienced all of those so called oppressive, genocidal actions of the federal government to destroy a people. She comes from two tribes that had 90% and 75% of their members die as the result of small pox (the Mandan & Hidatsa). She is also a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe – her family was at the Little Big Horn and fought along side of Sitting Bull. Her great, great, great grandmother Good Elk Woman was a close relative of Sitting Bull.
She is not a "….like minded intellectual charlatan" who falsely claims to have special skill or expertise. Just because she holds to the rights of American Indian Tribes to say who their members are and that when an individual claims to be of Indian descent -- that they need to prove it to the rest of us who are recognized citizens of our nations. This is one of the most important areas of Indian Sovereignty – the right to say who is a citizen and who is not.
For those who claim it we must prove it. I have to do this as every other American Indian who wants their view point known at the local, national, or international level. We as Indian people will never back down from this important issue. Why because of our unique status as citizens of sovereign nations. It has nothing to do with blood quantum but the legal rights we have maintained through our treaties to claim this right.
I don't think "Angry Indian" you have followed Jodi's career long enough to see who she really is or you would not be so quick to call her down and refer to her as waving "…white handkerchief(s) to White society and their raciest and genocidal psychological infirmities to Mr. Churchill's honest and deconstructionist approach…" I have worked in Indian Country for all of my adult life dealing with the very issues you have mentioned from the prevention of diabetes, infant mortality, suicide, racism, attacks on sacred lands, loss of Indian lands, etc., etc. and not once in all this time have I ever met Mr. Churchill in the trenches of these battles.
I do know that Jodi has been there writing about the issues and pointing these out to White America as well as to Indian people who need to understand the issues. I was on Alcatraz, I met with the Black Panthers to bring peace between the Samoans and the Indians on 16th Street in San Francisco, and my family was at Wounded Knee and many others of the battles that have been fought. For you to question those of us who have been there and say we do not have the right to question Ward Churchill's appropriation of our identity then as my aunt Eunice would say "what battlefield have you fought on". Name it and we'll continue the dialogue but until then let Jodi do the job we support her to do.
Jodi Rave is a Lakota woman is so far from being a coward – by calling her that you have called all of the women in her family cowards and I for one refuse to be referred to in that manner. She comes from a family whose women are referred to as the "Brave Hearted Women" we were and still are willing to go into battle at anytime at anyplace and for the protection of our people.
If your not willing to support the so-called mainstream of the United States who do you support. When you speak in the very next sentence about clean water etc., Who do you think gets the clean water to the people but it’s the Tribal Governments that make sure our people are getting this delivered. I'm always leery of people who oppose tribal government – because they have little knowledge of Indian Country. I'm willing to find out who and what you are and carry on the dialogue. But please refrain from comparing Ward Churchill to the Lakota leader Sitting Bull. He is not and never will be.
Ah yes 'vichy' Indians; that's code for anyone who doesn't worship the ground that racist Russell Means treads on. (And I'm not just making the racist part up in addition to other comments Means claimed that Columbus was worse than Hitler, meaning that he believes Indians to be more important than Jews.)
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