CAN WE RECONCILE ROLLS, RELATIONS AND IDENTITY?

Can We Reconcile Rolls, Relations and Identity?

Indian Country Today

Story Published: Aug 30, 2009

(Story Updated: Aug 28, 2009 )

Before the 1970s, tribal rolls were controlled and determined by BIA policy, but since then tribes have won the power and freedom to determine tribal enrollment requirements. Nevertheless, many tribes continue with legacy membership requirements from the days when the BIA made and administered the tribal rolls.

The ability to construct and administer tribal rolls is a significant product of the present-day self-determination policy. Determining membership is a fundamental political right and cultural responsibility of any nation. Increasingly, tribal governments are turning their attention to membership issues for a variety of reasons. Gaming tribes have scrutinized their tribal rolls and procedures. Other tribes are managing long-standing debates about who qualifies as a tribal member and who does not. Many Indian nations are rethinking constitutional governments and in the process, developing and recording rules of membership.

Determining membership is a
fundamental political right and
cultural responsibility of any nation.

Creating membership requirements is a great responsibility and for some nations, the exercise has become highly politicized. The possibility of determining tribal membership offers a fundamental opportunity to exercise sovereignty, but at the same time presents councils with the often difficult task of deciding how to define its citizenry. Some governments have very clear, ancient rules. For example, many Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) nations still use a matrilineal clan system, whereby a person reckons descent and citizenship through the clan of their mother.

Many tribal nations, however, have members who do not know their kinship or clan groups, or their groups are no longer operable or recognized. Further, many tribal governments have adopted bylaws or Indian Reorganization Act constitutions which define citizenship or membership rules according to non-Native constructs, usually without reference to any traditional criteria. This is at least one complicating factor in modern membership disputes.

Embedded within traditional determinations of membership is a moral community, often characterized by shared ceremonial relations. Membership in the traditional way was a kinship, a moral and sacred set of relations to kin, other clans, the nation, other nations, as well as the natural world.

Most contemporary tribal governments do not use traditional ways to determine tribal membership, although in many communities the continuity of sacred kin groups defines the social and political processes of the community, and are often at direct odds with secular constitutional governments. The words citizen and member do not encompass the moral and kinship structures that continue to inform many Indian communities. Neither citizen nor membership – English words – consider kin group identities, or embrace the worldview of tribal nations. Constructing tribal governments, constitutions and membership rules no longer need be restricted by the legacy of BIA administered membership rules, or even restricted to the secular and individualistic terms of citizen or membership.

Tribal nations should be more conscious of tribal traditions, traditional membership rules, and the social and political power that is represented within community kinship groups and their connections to sacred teachings. We now have a great opportunity to reconsider issues of citizenship, membership and tribal community, and we are free to renew reservations and governments in ways that take into account our own unique cultural histories and kinship relations.

Securing traditional identity and community in contemporary membership and political institutions is a creative and challenging path. By constructing governments, constitutions and tribal rolls that reflect the social and political power of ongoing community relations, we will be more soundly prepared to face the future as tribal nations.

RETHINKING THE ROLE OF GANGS

Rethinking the Role of Gangs
July 8, 2009 by CLTL



John Hagedorn is Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Illinois-Chicago. His most recent book is A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Culture.

We read every day about the arrest of gang members or statements by police that some bust “crippled” the local gang. Zero tolerance policies in schools and communities have as a goal the complete elimination of gangs. In several Central American countries, a policy of “mano dura” or the iron fist, aims to smash gangs.

But despite these policies, filled jails, and one police campaign after another, gangs haven’t gone away. In fact, a quick glance at press reports from around the world finds gangs everywhere. What’s up with this? Do the failure of “hard line” policies mean that we should ignore gangs or treat them nicely and they will go away? What should we do?

Here’s what I think: Gangs aren’t going away no matter what we do. In other words, no matter if we crack down or lighten up, gangs are with us to stay. Let’s examine first why I’d say something outrageous like this and then think about what it means for what we should do.

There are six billion people in the world today and half are under the age of 24. More than a billion are between 18-24, prime gang age. In a world that has 1.2 billion people living on less than a dollar a day, the UN’s standard for extreme poverty, there are a lot of poor, and understandably angry, young people. The sad truth is the 21st century is not so much a century of hope but one of shattered dreams. It’s not that individually, you or your friend can’t make it — hard work, determination, and getting a few breaks can give even the most “down and outs” a way up and out. But looking at the big picture, for the one billion plus people living in extreme poverty, the good life will remain out of reach for this lifetime, at least.

That’s really where gangs come in. Gangs are destructive and violent, alienated and armed young men and sometimes women. But they are also rebels in the face of a world that is even more violent, unforgiving, and cold. Unfortunately the response gangs most often choose is one that only makes things worse.


But not always, and this is the key to understanding how we should deal with gangs. When you look at US history as well as take a global look at the different kinds of gangs growing up in ghettoes, barrios, townships, and favelas, we find examples of gangs that have “changed their colors” and have become pro-community. That’s what the Latin Kings in Madrid, Spain have done, following a path set by their namesakes in New York City in the 1990s. The gang I have been researching, the Conservative Vice Lords in the 1960s started legitimate businesses, cleaned up their community, and created jobs in Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood.


John Hagedorn
The common denominator in most of these stories of transformation are social movements. When they take hold, like the US civil rights movement in the 1960s, gangs can gravitate away from crime and violence. In other words, gangs and gang members can change if we pull them with us into movements of resistance and rebellion against racism, poverty, and police abuse.

No, that’s not easy. Drugs, violence, and the street life can be seductive as well as lethal. The police can be counted on for brutality and abuse. But gang members, like all of us, are not just one thing: they are not frozen forever into criminality or a violent life-style. Like us, they are sons or daughters of mothers and fathers; maybe they are religious, perhaps Muslims or Catholics; sports fans or athletes; musicians or avid listeners to hip hop or other beats. The secret to working with gangs is to encourage identities of resistance not identities that glory in violence, bigotry, or greed.

So while gangs, like poverty and racism, aren’t going away soon, they can change. I doubt any movement for real change will succeed unless those on the bottom of society — the more than one billion living in desperate poverty — join the struggle. And that includes their gangs.

MIXED BLOOD NATIVES-THE SILENCE OF INDIAN COUNTRY

MIXED BLOOD NATIVES-THE SILENCE OF INDIAN COUNTRY
BY MIKE(ALI)RACCOON EYES KINNEY



As was discussed in 'Mixed Blood Natives-The Silence of Indian Country' (Part-1),
Quanah Parker as a mixed blood Native made the decision to leave one culture and enter into another culture.

The story of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminloe has a similar theme as well. The Cherokee culture was steeped deeply into the great Meso-American pyramid temple cities as early as 800 A.D. When the Olmecs, Toltecs, Mayans and Aztecs were moving from North to into the South deep into Mexico and Central America, they quickly absorbed and embraced building their own great pyramid temple spiritual cities they had observed and seen in the great Cherokee cities of the Southeast.

Cherokee intermarriage to both the Mexican and Central Americans would become the norm for the next 300 years. The mixed blood Cherokees would hold a high place of honor within the Meso-American world of Mexico and Central America. For the mixed blood Cherokee of the time were the priests, prophets, engineers and administrators, who were the elite of running the new spiritual pyramid temple cities of both Mexico and Central America. Without the mixed blood Cherokees, the great pyramid temple cities in Mexico and Central America would cease to run, much less function.

The Cherokee started having intergenerational marriage and 'sexual relationships with the Europeans in the early 1700's. Many Cherokee bands and families were quick to see the economic benefits of having trade, land and business dealings with Europeans. In a sense this could be viewed as a classic Cherokee version of the 'hang around the fort Indians'. However this story was not true for the majority of mixed blood Cherokee people of that time!

For the the upper class elite of mixed blood Cherokee of the late 1700s and early 1800s, it was not uncommon for them to have extensive plantations, a lavish life-style that would have not been uncommon in London or Paris and a sizable work force of African slaves. Many well to do mixed blood Cherokee were highly educated in New York, Washington D.C. or even London.

The preference of mixed blood Cherokee men of the time were to marry European or other mixed blood Cherokee women. Their children and grandchildren would follow suit. The new generation of light-skinned mixed blood bourgeoisie Cherokee would wash their hands of and renounce the traditional ways of Cherokee culture and Spirituality.

However, there was another side to the mixed blood Cherokee people, that has been neglected and treated with silence. The story is that of the traditional mixed blood Cherokee that retained their cultural and Spiritual identities.

The traditional mixed blood Cherokee lived along the side of their full blood cousins in the pre-1830's in large rural wilderness areas that were isolated communities of families and bands in vast tracks of land through out the greater Southeast of the U.S.

Even during the days of post Contact, while the Europeans were eco-raping the land, extensive outreach by the missionaries to convert out People by force and the Federals in league with newly established State of Georgia authorities were to use brutal and ruthless tactics to remove remove the Real People from our lands with the discovery of gold, both mixed and full blood Cherokee people still retained an amazing amount of sovereignty and autonomy because they knew both spiritually and culturally they were the Creator's original Holy People.

The Indian Killer Jackson enforced the new Indian Removal Act at the heart land of our Great Cherokee Nation in the mid and late 1830s. Bluecoat soldiers started first with the Cherokee in the new policy or ethnic cleansing, relocation and the reservation system. So began 'Our Trail of Our Tears. where 20,000 Cherokee were relocated to Indian Territory. No one was spared! Not full or mixed bloods or even the bourgeoisie Cherokee were spared from Jackson's vision of hell to kill our People!

However, large pockets of both mixed and full blood Cherokee families and bands did manage to escape and offer a sizable resistance coming from Cherokee country. My own family, the Raccoon Eyes were one such family. My Great, great, great, Grandmother- Polly Raccoon Eyes was born in 1714 in Rowan County, North Carolina, she was a full blood woman of the Eastern Band. When Polly was 12 years of age she was a domestic to the Newsome family. In the year 1726, Polly and the Newsome family walked some 400 miles from North Carolina to our family village in Southeast Kentucky.

They would eventually settle in the high hills and river country at a location called Sooky's Creek. Sooky's Creek was our old historical family village and it had old burial mounds of our Cherokee ancestors dating back so 4,000 years. It was the homeland of the Raccoon Eyes band. Elder Newsome a white Englishman would leave his wife and family to join Polly as his common law wife. From the time she was 18 years of age and older, Polly would bear some 12 sons and daughter in their union.

It was here that the mixed blood lineage of the Raccoon Eyes family would begin at our family village at Sooky's Creek. It was here where the Raccoon Eyes family would fight a successful guerilla war against Jackson's Bluecoat Indian killers.
The mixed blood Cherokee were killing high numbers of Bluecoat soldiers in Southeast Kentucky. However bullets were running low for the long rifles, hunger and starvation were abundant and the hard brutal winters were taking it's toll on the children, women and Elders in the campaign against the Bluecoats and their allies.

The mixed and full blood elders and ancestors had to make the decision to surrender and turn themselves in so they could survive as a People! They were forced to take missionary surname, embrace a alien Deity and the most hideous of act all... to have forced sexual relations with the white conquerors. The ultimate goal and reason our Cherokee men and women did this for was to keep lightening and lightening our skin color until we could 'pass for white'. It was the only way as the Real Cherokee People could survive and not become victims of more ethnic cleansing.

Until a generation of fair-skinned, Blue-eyed Cherokee was created! It was the most painful and heart-breaking decisions that our Elders made at the time! BUT WHAT ELSE COULD THEY HAVE DONE?? But we have fulfilled their dream to be alive and celebrate our survival as a People.

I honor and give thanks to my Elder's decisions to let the Raccoon Eyes family to continue to live and exist! And their are hundreds of thousands of we mixed blood Cherokee people alive today to tell our stories and celebrate that we the REAL PEOPLE are still here! We are just as a part of the history of Indian Country as any other Native people! I always celebrate Native folks who look like us.

Like Quanah Parker who chose to leave his Father's world and live among his Mother's world, I chose some 35 years ago to leave my Mother's mainstream world and enter into my Father's world of being who and what I truly am.....a Native Man!
Cousins, I tell it was the best decision I ever made. To reclaim my Culture, my Spirituality and most importantly my....life!

We can no longer afford as mixed blood People of Turtle Island to sit in silence and ignorance of the reality of who we are as true Native People! We can no longer sit back and attack ourselves, beat ourselves up and pound ourselves for crimes we have NEVER committed. It now time to view we mixed blood Native People, with good self-esteem, good self-worth and good self value. For this was the Creator's plan!
Remember all WE Native People are the Creator's Holy People!

Wado and A-ho my Brothers and Sisters,

Mike(Ali)Raccoon Eyes Kinney

TEACHING THE VALUES OF PEACE TO THE NATIVE AMERICA AND THE WORLD

TEACHING THE VALUES OF PEACE

By: Mike (Ali) Raccoon Eyes Kinney






As a Cherokee Native American Activist and a former member of the Richmond California Violence Prevention Movement, I have seen close to 515 homicides in the City of Richmond from 2001 to the present.

The declaration of a 'war on violence' by the Richmond city government was not the panacea, instead it failed miserably.

I have often stated in town hall meetings and on television, the best way to win the 'war on violence' in Richmond is to 'TEACH THE VALUES OF PEACE'.

In the killing fields of Richmond, most of the victims of homicides are youth or young adults. Teaching the values of peace begins with our youth and young adults. From a Native perspective, winning the war on violence begins in the home with a strong, spiritual belief and value system.

We believe that Creator made all generations, past, present and those of the future, holy people. This is what our Elders teach us from the time we are born.

Our families and Elders teach our young people that they must tear away the images and stereotypes that mainstream society has placed upon them as Native peoples.

Violence and killing is not traditional in Native culture, it is a learned behavior from mainstream society.

We teach our youths not to attack, punish or beat themselves up for crimes that they have never committed in regards to racism. Our Elders and families teach our young people to have good self-esteem, self-worth and self-value, for as the original holy people this was Creators plan.

Native people know that it is both family and community responsibility to teach the values of peace to our young people.

We teach our young people honesty and accountability concerning violence. It begins with accepting responsibility for self and acknowledging any past use of violence.

Admitting any wrongdoing, communicating openly and truthfully to renounce the use of violence in the future places our youth on the right path. We place a heavy emphasis that all life is sacred.

The final lesson in teaching the values of peace is quite simple. It is helping young people understand their relationship to others and all things in Creation.

Be responsible for your role, act with compassion and respect, and remember ALL LIFE IS SACRED. Native culture is prevention!

Mike (Ali) Raccoon Eyes Kinney