|
|
| About site: Ethnicity/The Americas/Indigenous/Native Americans/Issues and Activism/Blood Quantums and Indian Identity - Measuring Blood |
Return to Society also Society
|
| About site: http://www.native-languages.org/blood.htm |
Title: Ethnicity/The Americas/Indigenous/Native Americans/Issues and Activism/Blood Quantums and Indian Identity - Measuring Blood Page discussing native thoughts on blood quantums and their destructive effects on Native American Indian culture.
|
|
|
|
|
Indiana_Arbor_Day Includes information on Arbor Day programs, the history of the observance, celebration ideas for cities and towns, tree planting instructions and links to educational resources.
| San_Blas_Yoga_Retreats Accommodation, facilities, and price of the Yoga retreat on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
| Fischler,_Roy Includes personal information, photographs, and links.
| FDD_Blog Find opnions of several researchers from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
| Bourn Family history as compiled by Wes Klang. Features the descendants of Morton Bourn of Virginia, USA. Surnames include Bourn, Ashby, Boyce and Walk.
| Tours_for_Churches Dedicated to organising tours for groups travelling on a Christian pilgrimage from the UK, offers both standard and tailor-made tours. Destinations, news and offers.
|
|
| Alexa statistic for http://www.native-languages.org/blood.htm |
Please visit: http://www.native-languages.org/blood.htm
|
| Related sites for http://www.native-languages.org/blood.htm |
| Hackl,_Benjamin Includes personal information, Linux, projects, and links. | | Finesstri Application software for not-for-profit associations and jewish community centers. | | Service_Dogs_and_More An educational and informational site about assistance dogs. How to act around a service dog team. How to train your own dog. | | Ipp,_Andreas Personal information, physics, music, traveling and programming. Features the unique ball-menu. | | Gervais,_Tim_-_Shadow\'s_Back Includes author's college background, experiences, and perspectives on Canadian law. | | Oswald_Chambers__My_Utmost_for_His_Highest Daily devotions. | | A_Solution_to_the_U_S_-Mexico_Border_Problem "Here we have Mexican infiltrators (Oh! Do you prefer "migrants"?) pouring across into the United States in search of work and a better life. The American government is doing little to stem that tide. | | Disbrows Descendants of Nicholas Disbrow (1612-1683). | | Ron_Tribbett_Consulting Software for Public Access Cable Television including multi-channel program scheduling, management of facility resources, workshops and certification. | | Junie-Land Personal page by a Jewish Unificationist. Includes information on the movement and links. | | University_of_Toronto_-_Rules_and_Reasoning Brad Inwood discusses Stoic ethics, in a chapter of the book Topics in Stoicism. | | Sharia_Haunt ShariaHaunt.com offers information to facilitate the efforts of organizations and individuals to stop the implementation of Muslim Sharia laws in Canadian Muslim communities. | | FamilyLife_Japan [English, Japanese] Features marriage and parenting seminars, books, and resources for small-group recovery. A ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ in Japan. | | White_Magic_(Yahoo!_Groups) The Realm of White Magic's announcements to keep you up-to-date on new products and services as they become available. | | Title_IX_|_I_EXercise_My_Rights_|_Sexual_Harassment A public service, informational campaign designed to educate the public about Title IX. | | Ending_Violence_Against_Women Around the world at least one woman in every three has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Most often the abuser is a member of her own family. | | Arizona,_Flagstaff Includes event and contact information. | | Arutz_7_-_Israel_National_News_-_Opinion Listing of opinion articles with summaries and archive. | | Venezuela Permanent Mission of Venezuela to various international agencies in Switzerland, including the UN Office at Geneva. | | Jesus__Our_Great_God_and_Savior Articles discussing basic Christian truths: belief, baptism, prophecy, and the deity of Jesus. Includes a chart of messianic prophecies and testimonies. |
|
This is websites2007.org cache of m/ as retrieved on 2008.10.16 websites2007.org's cache is the snapshot that we took of the page as we crawled the web. The page may have changed since that time.
|
Measuring Blood: Blood Quantum, Mixed-Blood, and Indian Wannabe's
Index of American Indian languages
Index of American Indian cultures
What's new on our site today!
Measuring Blood: The American Indian Blood Quantum
Question: What is a "blood quantum," and why do American Indians argue about it so much?
Well, the way the government defines whether someone is a "real" Indian or not is they
measure their blood. They have some arcane way of doing this by dividing the number of
generations since all your ancestors were pure-blood by the number of marriages with
people who aren't pure-blood. By their counting, I think I'm 7/8 Indian. Some of it is
Muskogee, but they don't care about that. They're just trying to see how close we are
or are not to white. We argue about this so much because nobody likes it. It's a really
bad way to define somebody's culture and almost everyone agrees on that, but everyone
can't agree on a better way, so there's a lot of complaining and it doesn't change.
Basically, there are four problems with this. One, it puts pressure on Indians not to
marry white people or their children will lose their heritage, and that bothers a lot of
people. Two, it means that if some of your ancestors aren't in the records, you can be
denied being an Indian. Three, it's wrong for outsiders to tell you if you can or can't
belong to an ethnic group. Nobody makes African-Americans prove their entire family line
and apply for some governmental Certificate of Degree of African Blood before they can
get a scholarship from the NAACP or put "Black-owned" on their business
if they want to. And four, most disturbingly: it guarantees the extinction of the American
Indian. By this standard, white is the default, and everyone is approaching whiteness.
Someone who is 1/8 Indian is considered white, and that is the end of their Indianness--
they are white and their children will be white, forever. On the other hand, I am 1/8
white, but that doesn't mean that's the end of whiteness in my line. It keeps sitting there,
just as it has since the 19th century when my white ancestors entered my family. Eventually
one of my descendants will marry a white person again and hah! We will be 1/4 white. A person
can get more white, but not more Indian. Do you see what I mean? Every generation, there are
fewer people this system thinks are full-bloods, and all the blood quantums get smaller.
For my part, I think a mixed-blood Indian is just an Indian. Before white people came here,
the tribes all mixed around a lot, and it didn't make anyone's culture disappear. You just
belonged where your mother belonged, or, maybe some tribes did it where your father
belonged. They didn't have to prove who they were. I'd personally like to see it that way
again. But there's a problem with that, and it's resources. Indian tribes don't have a lot
of resources now. There is hardly enough money for programs for the people we have. If we
let in anybody who wanted to come? It would be very difficult practically. And it would
be impossible to get federal money if we couldn't prove anything about blood, and few tribes
are wealthy enough to get by without that. And, too, there are complaints from Indians that
too much intermarriage and 'passing' and leaving the tribe is making us lose our culture.
Certainly it is making us lose our languages. So a lot of people don't want a solution that
would encourage more of that. That is why there's disagreement on this issue. Personally,
I would rather see five non-Indians get Indian status than one Indian be denied it. Not all
Indians agree with that, but it's what I think. The white politicians, of course, want just
the opposite.
Actually, the more I think about the non-Indians--or people with very, very tenuous Indian
ancestry who know nothing about the culture--trying to be Indians, the more I think it's
not so bad. I will admit, I can get very annoyed by wanna-be's. Especially, when I was
younger they used to think I knew about drugs, and I could get them magic mushrooms or
something. Now they just think I can get them a spirit guide. I guess that's progress. But
anyway, my point is this: assimilation has devastated us. They took us and sent us to
boarding schools as children to rob us of our languages. They made our religions illegal.
They turned our culture into something for history class only. Now, some yuppie white girl
finds out she had a Cherokee great-great-great-grandmother, or somebody says she did, and
she wants to be a Cherokee. Well, why not? In the past, a lot of Indians had rituals
where you could take the place of the dead. So if someone killed my son, maybe he could
end our families' fighting by giving me one of his sons, to take the place of the one he
killed. Maybe these "wannabes" have come to take the place of what we have lost. Why not
accept them? Not make them citizens of our nations, perhaps, but let's take them in and
teach them our ways and our languages and help them raise their children to be some of us.
Maybe they do have a little bit of Indian blood and it's finding its way back to us. That's
what I think. White people assimilated us. Why turn away those who want to assimilate back?
Orrin.
Websites on Native American blood issues:
There's a lot of Internet material on Indian blood quantum and mixedblood issues, here are some representative ones
illustrating the problems our communities are facing with native identity today: Indians being disenfranchised
or oppressed by blood certificate requirements that are too strict, deceitful non-Indians exploiting requirements that are too lax,
mixed-blood people caught in the middle. A really good solution isn't going to come until our nations are empowered
enough to make these kinds of decisions ourselves without having to answer to the federal government about it, in my opinion,
but that doesn't seem likely to happen under a system that keeps splintering away more of us with every passing year. Catch-22.
 Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood:
Here's the legalese from the BIA about how Indian identity is officially certifiedby the government.
A Relic Of Racism And Termination:
Article on the problematic history of the degree-of-blood test.
Blood Quantum Petition:
Online petition to the BIA calling for an end to blood certificates.
The Crucible of American Indian Identity:
Discussion of sovereignty and mixed-blood issues, with a detailed critiqueof blood quantum rules.
Blood Quantum Questionnaire:
Compiled responses from Native American respondents on the problems posedby various Indian citizenship strategies.
Why Blood Quantum Matters, and Why It Shouldn't:
Article by a mixed-blood Cherokee on the fallacy of equatingblood purity with cultural authenticity.
Denying Assistance to Mixed Bloods Perpetuates Genocide:
Article on the problems faced by urban mixed-race Indians.
Wannabees and Cultural Appropriation:
Links to several sites about cultural theft and exploitation and how this hurtsIndian communities.
Metis:
Canada has approached this issue by offering a separate aboriginal status to people of both native and non-nativeancestry, known as the Métis. Here is our collection of links about these mixed-race Canadian people.
Books on Native American blood issues:
Here are a few interesting books on the topic of American Indian blood quantum and other mixed-blood issues:
The Dispossessed:
Fascinating book about Native American cultural genocide and the struggle with mixed-race identity.
Real Indians: Identity and the Survival of Native America:
An interesting exploration of Indian racial identity andcultural encroachment.
Genocide of the Mind:
Terrific collection of essays by native authors on the erosion of Indian tribal identity includingsome valuable insights into mixed parentage and assimilation.
Playing Indian:
Lakota author Philip Deloria weighs in on issues of cultural and religious appropriation and the"Indian wannabe" phenomenon.
Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution:
Book discussing the difficult history of Indian mixed-blood issues.
Real Indians and Others:
A Canadian Metis author explores the history and culture of urban mixed-blood Indians.
Africans and Native Americans:
Book on the history and culture of mixed-race black Indians.
Black Indians: An American Story:
Video documentary on the lives of mixed-blood African-American/Native Americans.
Additional Reading
Native American genealogy
Native American ancestor identification
Native American religion
Native American legend
Back to Orrin's homepage
Back to the index of Indian tribes
Language of the day: Cheyenne
Native Americans
Native American names
Native homes
Beaded jewelry
Tribal Tattoo art
Would you like to help support our organization's work with endangered American Indian languages?
or buy some books through this link:
Native Languages of the Americas website © 1998-2008  Contacts and FAQ page
geovisit(); |
|
| |
Page | discussing | native | thoughts | on | blood | quantums | and | their | destructive | effects | on | Native | American | Indian | culture. |
|
http://www.native-languages.org/blood.htm
Measuring Blood 2008 October
dvd rental
dvd
Page discussing native thoughts on blood quantums and their destructive effects on Native American Indian culture.
Rules
|
© 2008 Internet Explorer 5+ or Netscape 6+
|
|
Recommended Sites: 1.
Arts -
Business -
Computers -
Games -
Health -
Home -
Kids and Teens -
News -
Recreation -
Reference -
Regional -
Science -
Shopping -
Society -
Sports -
World
Miss Gallery
- Top Anime Hentai
- DVD rental by mail
- Debt - Mortgages - Problem Mortgage - Modded Xbox - Bad Credit Loan
|
