Reflections
from the Ahnishinahbæótjibway (We, the People)
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Staffwriter
Gary Blair’s article in the October 28 Ojibwe
News was headlined, “Indian Chamber of Commerce faces dilemma: Who
is an
Indian?” In his article, Blair observed
that “many of the Indian chamber members ... are only Indian when
they’re at
chamber meetings.” The Minnesota
American Indian Chamber of Commerce is confronted with the same dilemma
as the
U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs—that, because of the genocide, there
aren’t
enough Aboriginal Indigenous people to act as Indians, but the Bureau
has been
solving this problem since the early 1800’s by creating their own
Indians from
the ranks of their patrilineally European “minority” people. Blood runs thicker than water, and not only
are they resurrecting dead Indians as absentee voters, they are also
using
their paternally White relatives to resurrect entire Bands of Indians. I suppose that the day will come when they
will “discover” that whole Tribes of Indians formerly thought to be
“extinct”
can be unilaterally resurrected by re-enactment, using European subject
people
as Acting Indians. Rather than
inefficiently re-defining one person at a time (and trying to validate
“Indian
Princess” genealogies), the Indian Chamber of Commerce should go to the
U.S.
Department of the Interior, where you can get a voucher issued for a
whole new
Band of Indians, or a used blood-quantum Indian, or a blue-eyed
full-blooded
BIA Indian. The BIA’s Acting
Superintendent can unilaterally create any number and many kinds of
Acting
Indians—why not Rent-an-Indian, like some minority businesses do.
HAIR-SPLITTING: In his
book, “Race Relations,” Professor Brewton Berry asks the question, “Who
is an
Indian.” He writes, “there are Indians
(the writer has seen them on the Cherokee Reservation in North
Carolina) who
have blue eyes, fair skin, and blond hair.”
In explaining Indian identity, Berry cites legal definitions of
“Indian”
and “Negro,” observing that in the State of Virginia, some people are
forced
into a dualistic identity, “Virginia regards [these people] as Indians
as long
as they remain on a reservation. Should
they move [off the Reservation], however, they are regarded as colored
[meaning
Black or mixed-race Negro].” Translated
into plain English, what he means is that on all of the 535 Indian
Reservations, as long as the Indians are living on the Rez, they can
beat their
pow-wow drums and wear their Federally-licensed feathers.
When they leave the Reservation, they are
re-defined by the White man into yet another “ethnic” racial category,
which
reflects their real identity as Mediterraneans mongrelized by the
violent and
rapacious Classical Empires of Western Civilization.
The State of Minnesota’s racist definitions such as “Jackpine
Nigger” and “burnt stump” are the reason Reservation Indians have
problems with
racism in little towns like Bemidji.
They have been forced into a chameleon dual identity, and the
Good White
Christians are “color-blind” in their usual, peculiar and self-centered
way,
favoring “diversity” as long as everybody else is just like they are,
and under
the White man’s centralized control.
GIT ‘EM UP, SCOUT: According
to the news, a woman was arrested in the metropolitan skyways for
wearing her
traditional Muslim dress. The charges
were “concealing her identity in a public place,” but the Christians
scored in
forcing their right-wing values on another group of people in this land
of
“religious tolerance.” There have been
comments from members of the public about making citizens’ arrests of
people
who are wearing ski masks, although nobody has mentioned lipstick,
beards, dark
glasses, and wigs—or “falsies,” “Annie-fannies,” American passports and
Indian
sovereignty. (I’m not going to say
anything about Polident, Preparation H, eyeglasses, and walking with a
cane.) There are others who run around
unimpeded (cheered by the masses) in masks and long capes, like Batman
and
Robin. There is also another “heroic”
character, the Lone Ranger who carried two handguns (six-shooters). He is the embodiment of Manifest Destiny,
was widely known as the Masked Man, and was never arrested. His side-kick, Tonto, who was categorically
identified by the BIA as a “dumb pagan,” didn’t dare wear a mask (for
fear of
Rodney King police protection). I don’t
know on what reservation Tonto was enrolled—he never flashed his
enrollment
card or talked about his blood quantum, like some of the BIA’s Great
Wanna-Be
Chiefs.
TERM LIMITS: One of the
issues in this mid-term election across the U.S. has been “term
limits,”
although no mainstream candidate, incumbent or aspiring, has fully
endorsed
their own “term limit” (political suicide).
To return to meaningful government, there should also be “term
limits”
on political hacks, party bosses, and lobbyists. They
need “term limits” on the old worn-out issues that have been
waved like red flags in front of the electorate for the last half
century, like
abortion, gun control, crime, patriotism and “family values.” If you don’t want to solve the problems, why
bring them up? Could it be these are
bread-and-butter issues for those in political power, and the endless
rhetoric
on empty issues puts money in the incumbents’ pockets.
The two political party-system has never
intended to act on these filibustering, gridlock issues—which are yet
another
strategy of social engineering to keep the “unwashed masses,” peasants
and
peons from rubbing elbows with the political elite.
While we’re on the subject of “term limits,” there should be
irrevocable “sunset clauses” on every piece of legislation which
creates a
subsidy for corporations and wealthy individuals—although the
self-righteous
finger-pointers never talk about the upper-class, all of whom are
engorging
themselves on Welfare (they wouldn’t be on this land if they had to
depend on
their own resources). If the U.S.
Government is going to “subsidize,” why not give a subsidy to those
earning the
sub-poverty minimum wage, and transform the minimum wage into a
middle-class
“living wage” for the people whose labor is the foundation of the
Euro-American
economy. A “living wage” should also be
paid to illegal nannies, migrant farm workers, and sweatshop “aliens.”
DÉJA-VU: One of the
aspiring Senatorial candidates, Rod Grams, summoned Moses, a.k.a.
Charlie
Heston, down from Hollywood Mountain to accompany him on the political
stump
circuit. Heston finally revealed the
Thirteenth Commandment: “It’s time to return to the ways of those wise
old dead
white guys who started all this.” Hey,
Charlie, if you’re going to return to these dead ways, you should get
your real
identity and go back to your ancestral homeland where all these dead
white guys
and their traditions originated—the Aboriginal people didn’t invite
you, or
your God, to live here, or to practice bigotry. The
Religious Reich of the Third Right backed democratically
elected Reich-wingers, the “dead white guys” Adolf Hitler and his
deputy Herman
Goering. Is this the kind of government
your God is in favor of, Charlie?
Speaking
of dead White wise guys, why not resurrect
right-wing Methodist minister Colonel Chevington, who took the sword of
God
into his hands in service of the U.S. Army, and led the Sand Creek
massacre,
killing every man, woman, and child who was non-violently living at
Sand
Creek. Although most of these people
were not Ahnishinahbæótjibway, these
were my Aboriginal relatives that your Minister of God slaughtered. The Aboriginal Indigenous people of this
Continent never massacred the White immigrants, Charlie—either on this
Continent or in Europe. For those
Whites who were killed (either by Army Scouts in Indian costume, or by
the U.S.
Cavalry), a monument should be erected in their memory.
Like the Vietnam Memorial, every one of
their names should be engraved in stone for posterity—although it’s a
very
short list if you don’t count the ones killed in the movies or in
inflammatory
nineteenth-century “reports” concocted to mold White public opinion in
favor of
annihilating Aboriginal people and the subsequent grand land theft.
My
telephone number is (218) 679-2382 and my mailing address
is P.O. Box 484, Bemidji, MN 56601.
Wub-e-ke-niew
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