Insert Racist, Politically Incorrect Joke HERE

Tuesday, October 4, 2011
So I was listening to NPR's Tell Me More a couple of weeks ago, and a story came on regarding the recent scandal surrounding the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and their treatment of their so-called "Freedmen." The guest was Professor Tiya Miles, a 2011 MacArthur Fellow and expert on the Cherokee Freedmen.

It seems that during the Civil War the Cherokee National Council who supported the Union decided to abolish slavery along with the United States. After the Civil War was over, and in accordance with a treaty made with the United States government in 1866, the Cherokee granted the Cherokee Freedmen full citizenship in the Cherokee Nation, with voting rights and equal sharing in annuities and land settlements. Those who left would become United States citizens, under its constitutional amendments following the Civil War. Good for everyone, right?

Wrong.

The Freedmen and their descendants were Cherokee citizens until the early 1980's, when the Cherokee Nation amended membership rules to require direct descent from an ancestor listed in the "Cherokee By Blood" section of the Dawes Rolls. This effectively stripped the Freedmen and their descendants of citizenship, since the Dawes Rolls were heavily biased against the Freedmen and not very accurate to begin with.

Naturally the Freedmen didn't appreciate this much, and challenged the decision in both the Cherokee Supreme Court and United States Federal Court - and in 2006 the Cherokee Supreme Court ruled that the Freedmen were unconstitutionally kept from enrolling as citizens. So a wrong was righted, and everyone went home happy, right?

Wrong.

The Nation then amended their Constitution in an effort to strip Freedmen of their status.

As near as I can tell, the issue is still up in the air, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has frozen $33 million in funding while they review the legal issues, and the Cherokee Nation has a huge black eye for being sanctimonious, racist tools.

I'm not a Native American. I have no insight into the internal politics of the Cherokee Nation, nor do I have any opinion on their desire to preserve their culture. But stripping members of your community of their status - members that have been included for almost 150 years - because they can't pass a blood test? Because even though they've been raised in your community their whole lives they can't pass a racial purity test? Really? Really? THAT's the legacy you want to leave for your community, your children? THAT's what you want other communities to know you for?

Nice job, there. Cherokee Nation. Really stellar behavior.

4 comments:

Warner said...

This didn't start until income from the casinos began to be serious, I'm told.

And if the freedmen status is in their founding treaty, US court may well rule that superceeds their constitution.

Nathan said...

More or less reiterating what Warner said, I don't think this is as much racist as it is mercenary. I haven't followed it, but there's been a fairly vicious internal political war going on in that tribe for the last decade or so and right now it centers on how many mouths get to split the lucrative pot they've fallen into.

It doesn't make any of it smell any better, thought.

Janiece said...

I don't disagree, and Nathan's absolutely correct - it stinks to high heaven.

Juan Federico said...

As I understand the issue from listening to local radio, it has a LOT to do with monies and, the way the Cherokee Nation handles it's supreme court. Currently, the Nation leaves it up to the elected chief to fill the posts in their SCOTCN ,which can be his or her friends, there is a group of citizens that want to change the law to make the supreme court judges elected officials and subject to the voting body rather than to the chief and his immediate council. There are enough Freedmen to swing the vote in that direction which makes the good ole boys kinda nervous. It started getting weirder from there so I tuned it out...