ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Radmilla Cody grew up in a Navajo world, butchering sheep, raising goats and speaking Dine.
Yet many in her tribe n and her family n never accepted her.
Her maternal uncle called her a black pig.
Neighborhood kids taunted her with names like “Zhinii Zhinii coco puff,” a Navajo slur for blacks.
Even when Cody was crowned Miss Navajo Nation, some complained she could not represent the country’s largest tribe.
Cody was born to a Navajo mother and a black father.
She grew up knowing her mother considered giving her up. But her grandmother filled those empty spaces with kindness, reminding the girl she was special and beautiful n like ancient canyon walls against a turquoise sky.
She wanted a place among the Navajo, and she learned to embrace her two cultures.
“I identify more with the Navajo side,” said Cody, now 29. “But I love the black side as well. That is who I am.”
Who she is n part Indian, part black n is at the heart of a growing debate about Indian identity.
A tribe’s right to determine its citizens, either through degrees of Indian blood or cultural and community ties, has always been a controversial subject. But in recent years, a political and legal battle has been brewing around Indians with black ancestry.
When Dartmouth College in New Hampshire hosted a conference on black and Indian relations five years ago, some participants nearly came to blows.
The Mashantucket Peqout tribe of Connecticut has faced scrutiny from Indians and non-Indians alike because some members look “too black” or “not Native enough.”
It’s a prejudice rooted in money n the Peqout tribe owns one the world’s most profitable tribal resort casinos n and in physical characteristics associated with blacks, said Judy Kertesz, a Harvard doctoral student of history.
“This touches at the very core of white America,” she said. “This is what enrages them. Only they have a right to black bodies and Indian land.”
The Pequots are often viewed by other tribes with suspicion because the tribe n which is newly recognized n is seen as having a “borrowed culture,” said Kertesz, a Lumbee with black ancestry.
And the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma n Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, Cherokee and Seminole n are under pressure for excluding would-be tribal members with black bloodlines.
James Brooks, president of the School of American Research in Santa Fe, N.M., was among a half-dozen scholars from across the country to participate in a seminar on black-Indian relations at the University of New Mexico in November.
“Everybody’s identity is constructed of stories,” Brooks said. “Those stories don’t rub without friction. We need to share those stories, but we need to recognize they won’t be harmonious.”
Racism or reluctance
The Seminole Tribe of Oklahoma made headlines in 2000 when it changed its constitution to expel about 2,000 black members.
Earlier changes, in 1989 and 1991, pitted the tribe against the so-called Freedmen, who had a 135-year connection to the Seminoles.
Freedmen is an historical term used to describe free blacks who lived in communities near the Seminole in Florida before the tribe’s forced move to Oklahoma around 1830.
When the tribe moved, the federal government sent the Freedmen with them.
In 1976, the government settled a $16 million land claim with the Seminole for treaty lands taken in Florida. By 1990, interest on the account had grown to $56 million.
The tribe later determined that descendents of people who lived on the Florida lands in 1823 would be entitled to settlement claims. But that excluded the Freedmen.
A single word can describe the tribe’s actions, said Daniel Littlefield, director of the Sequoyah Research Center at the University of Arkansas and a noted historian of the Seminoles: “racism.”
“If they’re going to exclude people because of African-American descendents, why don’t they exclude people who are of white descendants?”
But it’s not that simple, argued Susan Miller, an Arizona State University assistant professor of American Indian Studies. The Seminole perspective has been ignored in the public debate and by the mainstream press, she said.
The result: vilification of the Seminole and glorification of the Freedmen.
A New York Times editorial claimed “millions of black Americans are descended from black people who were either members of the tribes during slavery or adopted into them just after Emancipation.”
In reality, 2000 Census figures show only 182,000 blacks nationwide who claim a race combination that includes Indian.
When they were forcibly resettled in Oklahoma, Seminole tribal leaders were also forced to sign a treaty requiring the adoption of Freedmen. The tribe objected.
“The tribe’s resistance to taking in the Freedmen during the treaty negotiations in 1866 reflects a general avoidance of outsiders,” Miller said. “The dearth of whites in the tribe mirrors the resistance to admitting blacks. People who see things in terms of race are likely to see this as a general racism, but I see it as an indigenous reluctance to admit people who would tamper with the culture and traditions.”
The federal government further intervened in Seminole matters.
In 1906, it forced the tribe to allot reservation lands among tribal citizens. Under the Dawes Commission, the government also gave Seminole land to Freedmen. Two census rolls were created n one for Seminoles, one for Freedmen.
In 1930, the Seminole sought compensation for lands given to the Freedmen. The Freedmen, meanwhile, have argued the census rolls prove their entitlement to tribal benefits. Their fight to be recognized continues.
Moving ahead
Robert Collins, a University of California-Berkeley Native studies lecturer who is also black and Choctaw, is routinely asked: “You’re black and you’re Indian? How did that happen?”
It’s a question organizers of the recent symposium, including Jennifer Denetdale, an assistant professor of history at New Mexico, hoped to answer during “Crossings of Breath: Indigenous and Black Relations in North America.”
While white and black scholars have explored black-Indian relations, the one-day UNM conference brought the issue to the doorstep of Indians, who have typically remained on the sidelines of the discussion, Denetdale said.
Black-Indian identity issues aren’t likely to subside, especially as the nature of what it means to be Indian changes. The ultimate definition rests with a tribe’s sovereign right to determine its citizenship.
If anyone disagrees, tribes must waive sovereign immunity and consent to be sued.
“It’s a question of law, not of rights or truth but what words mean,” said Littlefield. “A lot of times, it’s who gets the last word.”
Cortez Williams, professor emeritus of New Mexico’s African American Studies Department, said the future of black-Indian relations should rest on issues of respect rather than focus on race.
“Man’s inhumanity to man is one of the greatest detriments to humanity,” Cortez said.
This is your home
Despite her struggles, Radmilla Cody earned the adoration of the Dine people after she was crowned Miss Navajo Nation in 1997.
She became one of the Southwest’s most visible black-Indian figures.
Controversy followed her reign, though, when she became involved in her then-boyfriend’s drug smuggling ring. In January 2003, the former Navajo queen was sentenced to 21 months in a federal prison near Phoenix.
“Her name and image became defined as the black sheep of the Navajo Nation,” said Celia Naylor, assistant professor of history at Dartmouth College.
People were saying: “See. We told you so.”
Again, Cody turned to the woman who kept her in one piece as a little girl. She looked to the grandmother who once said, “I’m going to take this little girl and raise her.”
Her grandmother made that choice when others were saying, “This child will not be accepted. This child is not one of us,” Cody said.
It was her grandmother who stood with open arms when the girl returned home from school, her face wet with tears. The elder would remind the girl she belonged in the Navajo world: “This land, these sheep, are your home.”
Now you know all hell breaks loose when money becomes involved.
The law considers you Native American as long as you can prove that you're 1/16th.
The difficulty arises from the process needed to prove this.
You have to provide documentation of linage to a documented Native American. So if you can't provide proof, you don't get your cut.
A lot of Afro-Americans Native American ancestors were mixed and were documented as "mulatto" on the census. Tribal governments don't recognize that.
They've even drafted a clause excluding DNA testing.
I'm totally in favor if this.
Come to Alabama and every other person black & white grandma was Cherokee. These people don't know jack about Cherokee culture and care nothing about preserving Cherokee heritage, but are quick to claim it if they can get something out of it.
These strict laws keep all the vultures out.
Posted: Wed 28 Dec 2005 10:06 Post subject: What would be lost without government-recognized tribes?
MivharMeni wrote:
A lot of Afro-Americans Native American ancestors were mixed and were documented as "mulatto" on the census. Tribal governments don't recognize that.
They've even drafted a clause excluding DNA testing.
I'm totally in favor if this.
Come to Alabama and every other person black & white grandma was Cherokee. These people don't know jack about Cherokee culture and care nothing about preserving Cherokee heritage, but are quick to claim it if they can get something out of it.
These strict laws keep all the vultures out.
I read of people trying to reconstitute historically disbanded Indian tribes. A few groups have succeeded in this. MivharMeni gives me a clue to why people would want to do this -- to make themselves again into a federally recognized Indian tribe that hadn't even existed for years.
But from the viewpoint of our government and America as a whole, what is right or beneficial -- either to us as a People, or even to individuals favored as "renewed" Indians -- in resuscitating a defunct Indian tribe? Of course, this question needs to ask for more justification than desired gaming casino wealth. If just this desiring wealth is enough, then we all should be Indians.
All Indians were made U.S. citizens in the first half of the 20th-Century. They had been citizens of their nations or tribes in earlier years. Before universal Indian citizenship, this different nationality of Indians was a reason for their federal recognition as tribes. Also, there was/is a history of treaties recognizing Indian tribal sovereignty by the U.S. Government.
It is not clear to me why semi-sovereign Indian tribes, or their collective reservations, are needed anymore now that all Indians are U.S. citizens? If the Indians had defeated all "paleface white" settlers (& African "black" ones) in the early 20th-Century would their total victory have taken materially any different form than their winning full U.S. citizenship? Doesn't their winning citizenship-access to all of the U.S.A. constitute unconditional victory from a reasonable contemporary Indian's viewpoint? Do we need to waste time on unreasonable Indian fantasies of genocide, or ethnic cleansing for "palefaces," which no Indian I know of ever dreamt of (excepting maybe the hateful David Yeagley)?
In post-Jim Crow America is Indian reservation life and federal recognition (wardship) of tribes still necessary protection of either Indians or settlers from each others warpath-ways? That reasoning still made bit of sense back when I was growing up, given the level of overt, unblushing Jim Crow racism in certain parts of the American southwest then. But do Indians need their reservation-segregation today in order to protect them, or anyone else from racism?
I have heard groping for rationalizations for the multicultural segregation which today's feudalistic Indian reservations are. There is the claim that Indian culture, its hunter-gatherer, communal way of life, needs to have all that protection. Miraculously, this culturally precious, fragile lifestyle too dear to lose is unharmed by garish Indian gaming casinos on the reservation! There is the claim the Indian religions are so worshipful of large tracts of real estate and ore-bearing mountains (& Nature) that the reservations can never be quite big enough. Our culture-warring society spurts hernias separating church from state over token displays; except when it comes to federally establishing strange, land-covetous Indian religions.
Our American traditions ring with the justice of appeasing Indians (with trinkets and beads, relatively) for the atrocious historical injustices our "white" ancestors did to their "red" ancestors. Isn't this spirit of reparations primarily the rationale for our government coddling Indian reservation nonsense today? However, my problem with historical Indian reparations is my same problem with historical Negro reparations. It is my problem with the fact all of the parties to the historical crime -- its perpetrators, its victims -- they're all long dead. What grounds our liability today, or those claims against it, which all arose a generation or more before we existed? Therefore, don't "reparations" claims depend on a concept of immutable "races," which some (racists?) argue survive down the generations? And so, how much of our relict Indian reservation culture looms over America today as a reparations-hungry racialist ghost, nursing its ghoulish claim on a pound of flesh from future children whose parents aren't even conceived? What of all the racial "mixing" which now blurs the racial "difference," so key to ascertaining who belongs to the "debtor" and who the spectral "creditor" "races"?
What is the worst that could possibly happen if U.S. government(s) stopped recognizing any Indian tribes at all for any purpose whatsoever?
George
"Cody's Black features have prompted controversy. One letter in particular that was published in the Navajo Nation's newspaper, the Navajo Times, from a member of the tribe lashed out at the judges' choice of Cody as Miss Navajo.
"Miss Cody's appearance and physical characteristics are clearly black, and are thus representative of another race of people," the letter said.
It was also written in the letter that tribal members of mixed race are a threat to the future of the tribe. The letter continued, "Miss Cody is a very pretty black lady and this is the aspect of her life she needs to focus on, and to be proud of."
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Wed 28 Dec 2005 13:24 Post subject: MISS ANOTHER RACE
Hi,
That's pretty curious to see a Black Miss Germany. With all the racial equality of these time those "another races" candidates seem just a bad joke to most people. They don't fit the "stereotype" or, at least, the aspect of the historical people those misses pretend to represent.
So, it is not extrange that Navajo complain their miss don't represent them.
By the way, don't cry loud when we, Latin Americans, selected our misses between the Germanic looking woman that are quite common in South America
Posted: Wed 28 Dec 2005 21:44 Post subject: Indian ancestry
According to the BIA, achieving recognition as an "American Indian" depends upon meeting the membership requirements of a federally recognized tribe - not meeting a general arbitrary "Blood quantum."
I also note that Ms. Cody of the Navahos appeared to be generally accepted by the tribe. Too much press was given to the bigot who openly endorsed the racist tradition that her African ancestry made her too inferior to claim an Indian identity.
[url]Indian Ancestry - Establishing Your American Indian Ancestry
Some people want to become enrolled members of a federally recognized tribe. Others want to verify a family tradition (belief, fact or fiction, passed from generation to generation) that they descended from an American Indian, either in their distant or near past. While others might want just to learn more about from whom and where they came.
When establishing descent from an Indian tribe for membership and enrollment purposes, the individual must provide genealogical documentation. The documentation must prove that the individual lineally descends from an ancestor who was a member of the federally recognized tribe from which the individual claims descent.
When people believe they may be of American Indian ancestry, they immediately write or telephone the nearest Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) office for information.
Many people think that the BIA retrieves genealogical information from a massive national Indian registry or comprehensive computer database. This is not true. Most BIA offices, particularly the central (headquarters, Washington, DC) and area (field) offices do not keep individual Indian records and the BIA does not maintain a national registry. The BIA does not conduct genealogical research for the public. [/url]
Posted: Wed 28 Dec 2005 22:10 Post subject: Radmilla Cody
It's interesting that someone so invested in her Navaho culture got mixed up with a black boyfriend engaged in criminal activity. Miss Cody says she was in an abusive relationship. I've heard of so many cases of mixed-race women abused by black men who know how to push the buttons of insecurity and guilt over racial privilege.
Posted: Wed 28 Dec 2005 22:53 Post subject: Re: Radmilla Cody
Powell wrote:
It's interesting that someone so invested in her Navaho culture got mixed up with a black boyfriend engaged in criminal activity. Miss Cody says she was in an abusive relationship. I've heard of so many cases of mixed-race women abused by black men who know how to push the buttons of insecurity and guilt over racial privilege.
Posted: Thu 29 Dec 2005 08:49 Post subject: Re: Radmilla Cody, Miss Navaho
Salsassin wrote:
Powell wrote:
It's interesting that someone so invested in her Navaho culture got mixed up with a black boyfriend engaged in criminal activity. Miss Cody says she was in an abusive relationship. I've heard of so many cases of mixed-race women abused by black men who know how to push the buttons of insecurity and guilt over racial privilege.
You always have to make it about black men don't you? ...
I read Ms. Powell remarking, instead, about "mixed-race" women -- so many cases of their insecurity and guilt over racial privilege. Their involvement in relationships with "black" boyfriends engaged in criminal activity turns up often enough to seem a part of these women's' self-hurting identity issues. For all I know the tendency of "black"-identified women of all hues to restrict their romantic interest to "black" men may help corrupt "their men," by presenting them opportunities for this sort of "button pushing" abuse.
This theory is not original with me:
The "black" women outnumber "black" men about 10%. The "black" men are twice as likely to date/marry-out, further reducing "black" women's number of partners. The "mixed-race" women are notoriously preferred by the 90% of endogamous "black" men. The result is, "black"-identified "mixed-race" women find themselves intently scrutinized by their "black" peers of both sexes. "Black" men, by contrast, feel little pressure to appear gentlemanly (or not "push" the insecurity & guilt "buttons"), or even refrain from engaging in criminal activity. In this sense "black" women have a hand in corrupting "black" men, by overdoing racial endogamy (96%). If A.D. Powell elaborated I think she might focus her criticism on the "mixed-race" women in this matter. They fail to lead the darker women out of the "black" endogamy feedback loop, which "mixed-race" women could easily do merely by exercising their beckoning identity-choice options.
As part of this criticism, A.D. might conclude that the identity insecurity issues "mixed-race" women indulge in impact the "black" community, not only themselves. They likely contribute to causing "colorism" -- the asymmetry by which the "black race" has "white blacks," but the "white race" has no "black whites." Consequently, the lightness of "black"-identified "mixed-race" women impacts dark-skinned "black" women in their own identity.
On the main topic of this thread, we plainly see the corruption of the "different races" notion with Indians exhibiting Jim Crow-like racism in the eugenics of "refining" their racial identity (by "some-drop rule"; their "purity" long gone). If this racial "blood"-consciousness was bad for "whites," clearly is bad for Indians, then how come it is not also bad for "blacks"?
George
Nice try, but if the stats I saw posted are accurate then biracial women date both sides of the line:
72% of biracial women by Black fathers---marry White men
84% of biracial women by White fathers---marry Black men
I am aware of the Black male female disparity, it still doesn't change the fact that certain members of this board seem to perpetually paint people of black ethnicity in a negative light. I would love to see one post from these people that has actually ben positive about black people.
I would love to see one post from these people that has actually ben positive about black people.
I would love to see one post from anyone here that has actually been positive about White people. Just kidding. I do not expect this to be a cheerleading forum for any ethnicity. The purpose of this forum (Improving U.S. Society) is not to gush approvingly over what is right with America, but to discuss how to fix what is wrong. If you are more comfortable with kudos of African American role models worthy of emulation, rather than with the need for change, you might want to stick to Tyrone's "Popular People" forum.
There are many internet fora out there specifically intended to praise Whites and vilify Blacks, and vice-versa. This is not one of them--either way.
I would love to see one post from these people that has actually ben positive about black people.
I would love to see one post from anyone here that has actually been positive about White people. Just kidding. I do not expect this to be a cheerleading forum for any ethnicity. The purpose of this forum (Improving U.S. Society) is not to gush approvingly over what is right with America, but to discuss how to fix what is wrong. If you are more comfortable with kudos of African American role models worthy of emulation, rather than with the need for change, you might want to stick to Tyrone's "Popular People" forum.
There are many internet fora out there specifically intended to praise Whites and vilify Blacks, and vice-versa. This is not one of them--either way.
OK. Going by your postulations, The same amount of zealousness should be placed on White populations in your atrtempts to find the negativity. Naw there is a difference between looking for problems in a culture and playing the vilification game.
Posted: Fri 30 Dec 2005 17:06 Post subject: To Winkel
Could it be the mixie women such as Beyonce, Faith Evans, Kimora Lee Simmons, Halle Berry blocking dating/marital chanes of black women such as Fantasia, Missy Elliott, and Angie Stone?
There is a difference between looking for problems in a culture and playing the vilification game.
It is in the eye of the beholder. The basic raison d'etre of this website is to discuss the bizarre U.S. color line. Some aspects of the U.S. color line are fun and interesting and reveal how creative talented people can be under adversity. But, quite frankly, other aspects are pathologically self-destructive. When consequences of the pathology are pointed out, some readers erroneously see criticism of the sickness itself (the sickness of splitting people into two groups) as a criticism of one group or the other. To me, this shows just how insidiously the infection has spread.
There is a difference between looking for problems in a culture and playing the vilification game.
It is in the eye of the beholder. The basic raison d'etre of this website is to discuss the bizarre U.S. color line. Some aspects of the U.S. color line are fun and interesting and reveal how creative talented people can be under adversity. But, quite frankly, other aspects are pathologically self-destructive. When consequences of the pathology are pointed out, some readers erroneously see criticism of the sickness itself (the sickness of splitting people into two groups) as a criticism of one group or the other. To me, this shows just how insidiously the infection has spread.
Her claim that Black men take advantage of mixed women's psychological traumas is hardly one drop rule.
Her claim that Black men take advantage of mixed women's psychological traumas is hardly one drop rule.
Oh. Sorry. I thought that you were talking about the website in general or the "Improving U.S. Society Forum" in particular.
If you are talking specifically about AD, I agree that she usually targets blacker-than-thou zealots and humanities liberals and seldom if ever unsheaths her pen against conservatives of any complexion. But, given her support of Bob Herbert's latest column (and Herbert is Black), I suspect that hers is more of a liberal/conservative thing than a Black/White thing. In any event, AD can speak for herself, so I shall now butt out.
Posted: Sat 31 Dec 2005 06:50 Post subject: Is our forum biased here against "blacks"?
Salsassin wrote:
Nice try, but if the stats I saw posted are accurate then biracial women date both sides of the line:
72% of biracial women by Black fathers---marry White men
84% of biracial women by White fathers---marry Black men
If Salsassin will re-read Ms. Powell he will see that she did not chastise only biracial Mulattas (female progeny of black & white IR interracial parents). The Mulattas marrying "black" men must be nearly half, as IR "black" mothers approach half the count of IR "black" fathers (28% + 84%). Moreover, Ms. Powell argues that there are no light-skinned "black" Americans, anyway. Readers of Powell should remember this, and realize that she clearly was describing "mixed-race" women who identify "black." Isn't that what she said?
Salsassin wrote:
I am aware of the Black male female disparity, it still doesn't change the fact that certain members of this board seem to perpetually paint people of black ethnicity in a negative light. I would love to see one post from these people that has actually ben [sic] positive about black people.
Salsassin complains we disparage "blacks"; we don't condemn "whites" enough. However, as Frank explained we are not an admiration society.
fwsweet wrote:
The purpose of this forum (Improving U.S. Society) is not to gush approvingly over what is right with America, but to discuss how to fix what is wrong. If you are more comfortable with kudos of African American role models worthy of emulation, rather than with the need for change, you might want to stick to Tyrone's "Popular People" forum.
[Again, in a subsequent post:]
The basic raison d'etre of this website is to discuss the bizarre U.S. color line.
A year or two ago a "white" lawyer named John repeatedly posted similar allegations; we were biased against "blacks" and insufficiently critical of "whites." However, as Frank indicated we question, criticize America's demographic self-crease along an endogamous "color line"; thereby cleaving us into a pseudo-scientific caste system defined on non-vital inherited racial features, also on "blood" ancestry and "rules" of "race"-identity attribution by "blood purity," hypodescent, or even the ODR.
I am sure our appearance of bias only reflects the asymmetrical reality. Forty years ago "white" racists abounded and they were the clear enemy of racial desegregation then hoped by many to be the way, through integration, at last to Negro assimilation in the Mainstream. "White" racists of that ilk have all but disappeared. The handful still living or expostulating "bell curve" theories of classificatory "difference" are shunned and marginalized. Whole university Black Studies Departments across the land "combat racism" to the point of depending on regularly finding such "evidence."
If Salsassin can present credible evidence that "white" intentional action causes "black" hostility to education, underachievement, gang violence & drug & other criminality, and incarceration (or homicide), low self-esteem, endogamy, misogyny, unwed/teen pregnancy, "colorism," the hypodescent/ODR, and the many other self-destructive, self-deprecatory, if not "black" self-hating behaviors, then I would be very interested to know about it.
I think the obstacle to "black" group-equality is something else -- something in the control of "blacks" themselves. I have seen no evidence that the "white racism evidence" turned up by Black Studies Departments at colleges and universities can by any stretch cause the "black" (racial) inequality (difference) referenced in the preceding paragraph. I would think that if "white" racism causes Afro-American inequality then Asian-Americans should present similar suffering, the same problems. They do not. (I doubt the Asians share our "blood races" obsession. They perceive ethnicity.) I think "black leaders," and to a lesser extent their "white" liberal apologists, do or should have insight into the simple principal that proselytizing racial "difference" is fundamentally antithetical to equality. To me this principle is plain. It is why I criticize "black leaders" and their soul-patrol "dropper" supporters (regardless of "color") promoting "races"-differentiating politics.
George
Posted: Sat 31 Dec 2005 08:38 Post subject: Re: To Winkel
srb71 wrote:
Could it be the mixie women such as Beyonce, Faith Evans, Kimora Lee Simmons, Halle Berry blocking dating/marital chan[c]es of black women such as Fantasia, Missy Elliott, and Angie Stone?
Stephanie
I think Stephanie's thought is correct.
I actually see no reason for very dark "black" women to caste themselves the "colored" resource of "black" men. Without the caste-mentality of perceiving a world cleaved in "different races," there is no reason for anyone to feel endogamy-corralled by their skin complexion this way. In principal, therefore, "black" women should not be "blocked" in their dating/marriage chances the way Stephanie suggested.
From a practical point of view, though, "mixie" women such a these Stephanie named do stand in the way. They are positioned in our color-struck society to enjoy choices -- choices of "colors" of dates and also of racial identities for themselves. Their not exercising ready choices blocks a path which will take longer for the darker women to follow. Moreover, I theorize the "nearer white" beauties injure "black" women in a subtle, psychological way -- injure them in their identity by stealing their "blackness"-- walk off with their "black" label. (And sometimes steal their men, too.)
Unraveling of "the races" -- deconstructing them as America's endogamous caste system -- naturally ought to start with "mixies" of clear multiracial ambivalence (i.e., realizing choices). The "black" community's obsession with "blood races," hypodescent, the ODR, and their abhorrence of "passing" seems to be causing the logjam. But is someone actively trying to make the logjam, to keep the way blocked? Who? Why? Anyway, I believe the logjam can be easily kicked apart, if only people will do a little straight thinking -- and get off the dime.
George
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These people don't know jack about Cherokee culture and care nothing about preserving Cherokee heritage, but are quick to claim it if they can get something out of it.
