Reflections from the Ah­nish­i­nah­bæó^t­jib­way (We, the People)

A Philadelphia Daily News editorial reprinted in the Bemidji Pioneer reported that “Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman somehow managed to get into the United States a step ahead of Egyptian police who wanted to discuss various murders.  Within moments, he had a green card, which allows non-citizens to live, work, and flourish here.  Remarkable!  But our cops think the sheik had a lot to do with plots to blow up major American real estate, along with its inhabitants.  So the sheik was clapped in irons, where ‘insensitive’ guards treat him like a ‘common criminal.’  Hey, it’s a start.”

MORE ALIEN CRIMINALS: The people who made the decision to arrest the Sheik had ancestors who were also transported across the Atlantic as criminals, and settled here without any “green card” issued by the Aboriginal Indigenous Nations.  Their descendants continue to act like this is “their” land.  The virtuous law enforcement agents who arrested the Sheik are illegal aliens living on stolen land.  This Crusade-mentality Sheik-bashing is like the kettle calling the pot black.

When the European refugees and profiteers thought they could become “legitimate” they drafted up a Constitution, which made generous provision for the W.A.S.P.s, and provided very little for anybody else.  The Constitution mentions “Indians not taxed”—the alleged “Indians” were European subject people because of their French and Spanish patrilines.  The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of the Aboriginal Indigenous Nations which still own this land.  The illegal immigrants who formed the United States call themselves a “Judeo-Christian Nation,” as we are frequently reminded by the news media.  Before the Constitution was drafted, the Church leaders also held a meeting to discuss the vast amount of wealth and resources belonging to the Aboriginal Indigenous People of this Continent.  They decided to amend the Ten Commandments.  They put a rider on an obscure tithing bill, and deleted the word “not” from the Commandments.  The Commandment which Moses brought down from the Mountain as “Thou Shalt Not Steal” was amended to “Thou Shalt Steal.”  This is where the Divine Mandate of Manifest Destiny was born, and how the wealth of Aboriginal Indigenous Peoples’ land and resources was stolen to fund the Capitalist Industrial Revolution and underwrite the U.S. dollar.  This is why the imported European cultural baggage of violence and crime continue on this Continent to this day, because of Amended Judeo-Christian ethics.

MYTHOLOGICAL INDIANS:  “Indians” have always been subject people of the Euro-American Governments, so the U.S. Government had no problem creating the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  The Europeans do not have, and have never had, jurisdiction over the Aboriginal Indigenous People.  They could not legitimately create an apartheid “Bureau of Aboriginal Indigenous Affairs”—that’s why all of the hocus-pocus promoting their “Indians.”

On Friday, I got a telephone call from Indian Activist Clyde Bellecourt, who tried to tell me that I was descended from the Blakeley’s.  I told him that I am not related to them, that I have no connection with the Blakeley’s—and that I am only the second generation with the European name of Blake, which was given to my father’s half-sister in the Mission School, and then to my father and myself, to try to make us into “assimilated [European] Indians.”  He asked my why I was “joining the Whites in Indian-bashing.”  I told him that I am not a White man, and that I am not an “Indian” man—that “Indian” is a mythology of the Europeans and has absolutely nothing to do with the Anishinabe Ojibway nor any other Aboriginal Indigenous People.  How can “bashing” a non-existent mythology hurt anybody but liars?

Clyde said that he was Anishinabe of the Crane Clan.  I told him, “according to your genealogy, you are a French man, and you do not have a Dodem, which means that you are a Wanna-Be.”  He had no answer for this.  There is nothing wrong with being an honest Frenchman, but what about assuming a false identity for purposes of exploitation?  The people who promote “Indians” as the Aboriginal Indigenous People of this Continent, both in A.I.M. and in the B.I.A., become parasites trying to steal the Anishinabe Ojibway and other Aboriginal Indigenous Peoples’ identity, our land, and our resources.  Clyde complained about my writing that A.I.M. got funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  I said, “I can retract it, and re-write it”—that Clyde Bellecourt has no connection to the Heart of the Earth Survival School (which does receive Federal money).  Clyde said that he was “not involved” with the school, however he is involved with the O.I.C., which he told me he had used to “help a lot of people get jobs.”  O.I.C. is Federally funded.  However, I was not attacking either Heart of the Earth Survival School or O.I.C.  I was writing about some of the sell-out institutions which have been in Minneapolis for twenty to thirty years, and which have not accomplished anything in dealing with the fundamental problems in the Cities, although some of the “Indian leaders” have fatter wallets.  The problems are still there, and demonstrating against the “Redskins” may promote the mythology of “Indians,” but it neither solves community problems nor helps the Aboriginal Indigenous People.  Clyde did not call me to seriously discuss solving community problems; when I raised these issues, he reverted to Anglo-Saxon street language and hung up on me.

“INDIAN LEADERSHIP”: In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, grassroots organizations were springing up around the Cities—alcohol programs, health programs, education programs—which were attempting to address the problems in the communities, with the support of Johnson’s War on Poverty [that War was lost with heavy casualties—there needs to be a Monument in Washington, D.C. commemorating those lost and missing in action in the War on Poverty].  One organization asked me to address the Lutheran Synod, of which Paul Boe was Executive Director at that time, and present a proposal.  A meeting was arranged, and when we presented the proposal, Dr. Paul Boe flatly refused to even look at the proposal.  He said, “Clyde Bellecourt is the leader in the Indian Community, and you have to get his approval.”  We asked him, how did Clyde Bellecourt become the leader in the community?  The Lutherans had unilaterally appointed him, “democratically” voted on him in their Executive sessions, and paid him to become the “Indian Leader” for the whole community.  This colonial strategy of choosing the “leaders” of redefined “subject people” has been going on since the Europeans got here.  It’s the same way with the White man’s “Tribal Governments”—and with the White man’s Duly Recognized Indian Chiefs.  Zebulon Pike was the first official United States emissary to this area.  On February 16, 1806, he spoke to the people assembled at Leech Lake (who did not understand English at the time).  He said, “Your father [meaning ‘The Great White Father’] is going to appoint [White ‘Indian’] Chiefs of his own to reside amongst you ...”  That’s why the “Indian” was created by various United States statutes, and why the U.S. decides, however ambiguously, who is “Indian” and who is not.  The “Chiefs” who signed the “Indian Treaties” had absolutely nothing to do with Traditional Anishinabe Ojibway leadership, and as a matter of fact these “Treaty Chiefs” were White European “Indians.”

The “leaders” appointed by the European invaders in all of the communities they try to subjugate are not people who will make positive changes in the communities—and they are not Aboriginal Indigenous people, either.  European institutions use their appointed leaders to maintain apartheid conditions that benefit the élite.  That’s why the problems which were documented thirty years ago are still here, even though the opportunity to improve conditions existed.  The values of these “Indian leaders” are the same as those of their White employers.  For example, encouraging the abuse of drugs and alcohol to disenfranchise “subject” people is an old Indo-European hierarchial strategy.

I could tell you that I’m a “Chippewa Indian,” but I’d be lying to myself, and I’d be lying to you.  There is no such thing as a “Chippewa Indian” or a “Sioux Indian.”  We have documentation to prove that the “Indians” were, and still are, being used by the W.A.S.P.s to commit, and hide, genocide against the Aboriginal Indigenous People.  What about complicity in hiding genocide, Clyde?  The same question applies to the White man’s “Indian Tribal Councils,” who are also guilty under the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.  Anybody who runs around with an “Indian” identity is helping the immigrant Europeans commit genocide against the Aboriginal Indigenous People, and helping hide this evil from the rest of the world.  “Indian” is an European apartheid mythology—there have never been any “Indians” here.  We, the Anishinabe Ojibway have a right to exist in our own land, without the U.S. Government’s fake “Indians” parading around in the media, trying to steal our identity.

In this column, I try to address issues and institutions, rather than personalities—but if some individual bears responsibility for creating or maintaining problems, I may mention their name.  I didn’t want to do any rabble-rousing, and I’ll let certain other writers do the P.R. work drawing public attention to racist institutions like A.I.M., the B.I.A. and their I.R.A. “Indian Tribal Councils,” and their White-anointed “leadership.”

My telephone number is (218) 679-2382 and my mailing address is P.O. Box 484, Bemidji, MN 56601.