As a mixed-race person, with significant Cherokee ancestry, the fact that this has come up for a vote makes me absolutely furious with the current leadership of the Cherokee nation.
When are people going to learn that people like me cannot, and will not, be cut into halves or quarters, that we cannot be defined solely by some particular aspect of our physical appearance, that some portion of our ancestry cannot simply be erased just for the sake of convenience? I will always be German. I will always be English. I will always be Cherokee.
The freedmen will always be both black and Cherokee.
When your culture is in danger of dying out, the LAST THING you should do is allow superficial divisions of this sort to further fragment the scattered remains of your society.
Unfortunately, since I am not a registered member of the nation, I can't participate in this vote.
4 comments:
I am against any group that seeks to perpetuate racism - any group of ANY minority. It's why I never sought any sort of special registration or inclusion.
My family are documented and listed (Dawes Miller, etc) Cherokee and Blackfeet and our family tree shows many ancestors lost on the Trail. Very recent generations (great-great) were 100%. While I am all for protecting Indigenous American culture, I disagree with the racist motivation. Oppressed people oppressing people!
That's exactly the reason I haven't gone through the effort of registering, even though I am sure I could dig up all the evidence needed from the Dawes Rolls &c.
Why do I need a piece of paper to tell me who I am?
The link to the MSN article is expired or broken. I can only sort of suppose what the vote is for based off your explanation of how it affects you. Segregation is segregation regardless of who is originating the mandates.
Here is a link to google's news feed about the vote.
Basically, the Cherokee Nation wants to vote to disqualify any descendant of the freed black slaves (that had been owned by Cherokee) from being counted as a Cherokee. The news articles will explain it better than I can.
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