Comments On: A Theory of White Native Americans by Charles Mudede

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

elocin — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:36:06 -0700

Um, yeah. Sorry but you make no sense. You are simply looking at this with a different state of mind. It's called being of mixed blood or mixed. I am a "white Native" and if you are able to feel that you are a different race and or culture you just can relate to people like you no matter how much of the content of blood. Do you look at a wolf hybrid and say he is all Husky? No, you recognize the fact that he has wolfs blood, therefore he is recognized as part wolf. He will act like a wolf and look like a wolf no matter what the content. You can't deny what you are. You are either racist or jealous. You either have it or you don't. It is not a contest. Blissful ignorance right?
Posted by elocin

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

dirac — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 21:40:36 -0800

Yeah see where generalities get you, Charles?
Posted by dirac

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

youre wrong again — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:37:44 -0800

chuck needs to get out of the whacko far-left bubble more often
Posted by youre wrong again

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

To Sean Kinney — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:36:36 -0800

@26 As a (white) resident of 'Indian Country' who lives among many of the white people you are discussing, I respectfully disagree. A significant proportion of my white friends, peers, and colleagues think highly of the Native American members of our communities and respect their capabilities; my company would not be conducting business with tribal governments if we considered tribal citizens to be "lazy, unintelligent, shiftless,… and unqualified". It would be foolhardy (and challenging) to ignore the successes and competence of the Native Americans in this region.
Posted by To Sean Kinney

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

SpecialBrew — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:37:21 -0800

I don't think white Americans think "you weren't supposed to survive" even subconsciously, Charles. Most really don't think about it that hard, at most they might admit the nation was built on slaves' backs but then if their (white) ancestors came here after slavery they might even pooh-pooh that as "not their problem".

I do think, though, that a lot of white South Africans--Afrikaaners moreso than the British--felt like "weren't we supposed to be just another USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand?", A land where immigrants and settlers and farmers came and worked the land and eventually became the majority so much so that when you think "Canadian" or "Australian" you think WHITE. They (Afrikaaners) didn't necessarily view themselves as Colonial overlords like, say, the Belgians in the Congo but as great-grandchildren of pioneers who did the exact same thing as Australia, Canada, etc.
Posted by SpecialBrew

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

SpecialBrew — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:29:51 -0800

Actually, I think Louis Gates Jr was saying that it (at least used to be) just as much of a cliche for African-Americans to claim "Cherokee heritage" etc in that same quasi-nostalgic way to explain away high cheek bones, tawnier skin, etc back when it was more taboo to talk about slavery, rape, and miscegenation in your not-so-distant ancestors. IN 2013 people seem more curious and interested in slave history and the complicated reasons why African-Americans usually possess Caucasian ancestry. However circa 1930 it was a lot easier to answer a child's question about "why does Grandma have straight hair and grey eyes" with "we have Cherokee blood" than "Grandma's mother was raped by the white man who owned her". I think the "Cherokee blood" trope is just really American.
Posted by SpecialBrew

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

j2patter — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:00:23 -0800

Also Charles you're not seeing the forest for the trees here. I'm a white Canadian and most of my friends are white Canadians and all are very knowledgeable/proud of their heritage. Even though most are 3+ generation Canadian, because they have a German or Dutch last name they still identify with Germany or Holland, even though many have never been to these places. When settlers came to Canada they usually choose to settle in towns/villages with people from the same country of origin. So you have towns that have very big "German" populations, or towns with big Italian populations or Polish or Scandinavian. This along with a heritage that is very easy to trace for most white people makes it easy for white Canadians to be connected to their heritage.

Slavery in America has made that connection much harder for descendants of slaves. Not to say that Black Americans aren't as interested in their heritage as White Americans, but that slavery has made determining your heritage much much harder. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/f…

So if you're asking the question of why do white North Americans make a bigger deal of their (native) heritage than Black people, part of the answer should be because white people made it very easy for them to keep their heritage, and white slaver owners made it very hard for Black Slaves to keep their heritage.
Posted by j2patter

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

j2patter — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 22:28:33 -0800

Native Americans doing the Harlem Shake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vqo7Ek2t…

Thoughts Charles?

P.S. For how much you seem to care about some stupid actor playing a stupid part in a stupid film, it would be great if slog actually covered Native American events in Seattle...COUGH IDLE NO MORE COUGH (Seattle times covered it more then you did, all slog did was complain some stupid white guy was playing a native in some stupid movie).
Posted by j2patter

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

lauramae — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:42:37 -0800

I have to say that I read every response and I am surprised (in a good way) at the level of discourse on why people take Indian identity and why so many Americans are confused about why that is problematic. The reasons that motivate people are fascinating. The truth of it is in the post that talks about how one's enrollment in a tribe, or being a descendent of an enrolled tribal member is the truth of Native identity. Every tribe has the right to determine who it claims. No individual has the right to subvert tribal sovereignty on the issue. Tribes determine how they will define enrollment requirements. It is different for different tribes.

I think that there is a perception that American Indians and Alaskan Natives are "nearly extinct" because unless we are in regalia or doing something "indian-y" our identity doesn't really register with most Americans as being "Native American." And yes, it does have to do with the idea that "real Indians" stopped existing after Edward Curtis took pictures of Indians he dressed and posed in such ways to suggest being untouched by modernity.

The mindset of Curtis and every anthropologist and amateur anthropologist of that time was that the (singular) Native American was disappearing. Mad collecting of regalia, treasures, artwork, recording of songs, language ensue and populate museums all over the world as a result. For many reasons, Americans still believe that we all but went away. American history and colonization is deeply intertwined to the notion of manifest destiny. God willed the settlement of America. The possession of it and all of its people belong to colonizers, including traditions, art, and identity. It isn't a conscious decision, but its reality is present in all the people claiming a Cherokee princess ancestor, the indignant response to objections over sports team mascots, the dismissal of the relevance of treaty rights (with no consciousness that non-Natives have treaty rights too).

Posted by lauramae

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

skidmark — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:25:51 -0800

As absurd as Mudede's what white people are thinking hypothesis is, no white people mentioned any distant African forebears.
Posted by skidmark

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

DonServo — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:52:22 -0800

And having taken the bait, once again I'm left wondering if Charles Mudede is an Andy Kaufman-esque invention by one or or more of The Stranger's editorial staff...
Posted by DonServo

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

Sea Otter — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:25:14 -0800

What 43 said. I doubt any white person really thinks, even subconsciously, that black people were "supposed to" disappear into oblivion. I'm not even sure I can unpack why this is so wrong - It just seems ridiculous on the face of it. Also, I don't think people have such nuanced reasons for their racist attitudes. Racism is historically complicated but also on some level very primal: it boils down to not liking someone because they look/sound/act different from you. And to the extent that we're all a bit racist (although I try very damn hard not to be), I think my own reflexive racist attitudes boil down to
"this person is different from me" and not some kind of complicated socio-historical anxiety.

The point about Native Americans being romanticized seems pretty valid though. And it's definitely a form of racism, notwithstanding white people who proudly let drop that they're part Cherokee. I can only imagine that it must be incredibly frustrating to be a native person living in a society that treats you and your culture like a taxidermied museum animal.

Incidentally, here in Canada, where the native population is proportionately 3x as big as it is in the U.S., the racism toward native people seems to be more overt and less sublimated in the form of romanticization. Go figure.

Posted by Sea Otter

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

DonServo — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:23:43 -0800

Man, talk about your First World Problems.

(I know for a fact that I'm 1/16 to 1/8 Cherokee - great-grandma admitted to 1/2 but was almost certainly more than that. I say "admitted" advisedly: Indian was no better than Black in the late 1800s and well beyond.)

Posted by DonServo

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

DRF — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:33:22 -0800

What the what?! Wrong on this one, Mr. Mudede. Nothing along the lines of "you were never supposed to survive; you were supposed to die so we could make you into a romantic legend" crosses or has ever crossed my mind when I see a black person. I'd be surprised if that were even common enough for the word "some."
Posted by DRF

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

undead ayn rand — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:33:58 -0800

@41: "it's respectful to assume that people are telling the truth"

It's unnecessary. History gets whitewashed beyond reason, there's no need to be polite about someone's claiming false ancestry.
Posted by undead ayn rand

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

MsBoyer — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:03:34 -0800

It's true that many white Americans claim Native ancestry -- possibly an attempt to dilute or mitigate white guilt.

Yet many actual descendants of Native Americans don't know the details of their own family or ancestral culture -- because of anti-Native racism, their ancestors passed or disappeared into white culture. To lose one's familial and cultural history happens to many target groups, on account of ethnicity, class, religion, etc. Much loss, silence, and grief accumulates around those missing pieces of our history.

If someone claims Native ancestry but is not clear on the details, that can be a signal that their family members were silent about that part of their history. I don't know the story about the well-known folks mentioned here, but it's respectful to assume that people are telling the truth about their family history as far as they know it.

In American culture, few of us know the details of our family's stories. Much has been lost, concealed, given up. Our ancestors did what they had to do to survive; that's why we are here.
Posted by MsBoyer

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

undead ayn rand — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:46:32 -0800

If anybody's interested in this subject I recommend Going Native or Going Naive?: White Shamanism and the Neo-Noble Savage - http://www.amazon.com/Going-Native-Naive…

It's a good read on claiming false identity to "buy in" to the culture.

Posted by undead ayn rand

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

keshmeshi — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:06:59 -0800

Because Native Americans are romanticized while black Americans are not. Is it really that hard to figure out?

Anyway, any white person who can't trace back their ancestry and name a specific individual in their family tree who was Native American, they should just shut the fuck up about it. My great-grandfather liked to claim that we were descended from Peter the Great. That doesn't make it true.
Posted by keshmeshi

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

Sandiai — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:06:55 -0800

Few black Americans have Native American ancestors. From Henry Louis Gates Jr on that PBS special:

African-American guests are often surprised at how much European blood they carry and their lack of significant Native American ancestry. "It's the biggest myth in African-American genealogy: 'My great grandmother was a Cherokee princess,' " he says, adding, "The average slave and the average Native American didn't even see each other, which makes it very hard to mate."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424…
Posted by Sandiai

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

Matt from Denver — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:45:40 -0800

@ 33, regarding your third and fourth points, keep in mind that ignorance allows the multitudes the latitude to romanticize and make believe just about anything.

In Seattle, there's a vegan restaurant called the Chaco Canyon Cafe. Rooted in the old hippie notion that Chaco Canyon was an ideal place were everyone once lived in harmony. In truth, it was a center of power with haves and have nots, and there is plenty of evidence that cannibalism took place there. Has this led the Chaco Canyon Cafe to change it's name? Nope.
Posted by Matt from Denver

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

Katherine.Throckmorton@gmail.com — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 12:59:10 -0800

I agree that claiming Native American ancestry is much less problematic for white Americans than claiming African ancestry is, but I think that it also has to do with the way that those ancestors enter the family. In the case of Native American ancestry,its typically the result of a single Native American person marrying, or entering into a consensual relationship with, a single white person. In the case of African ancestry, its typically the result of a very light complected person of mixed white and African ancestry choosing to 'pass' as white. And odds are very, very good that the reason why that ancestor was able to pass was because of a series of rapes and coercive relationships that happened over several generations. So to claim African ancestry is to affirm an identity that your ancestor chose to reject, and to also claim kinship not just with the oppressed, but with the oppressor.
Posted by Katherine.Throckmorton@gmail.com

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

sharonArnold — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 12:52:24 -0800

I'm probably guilty of being hyperbolic about the whole paperwork thing. But it is interesting, what acceptance into a tribe can mean and where it qualifies or doesn't - tribe versus government? Here is a link telling me how to do it:

http://www.bia.gov/idc/groups/public/doc…

Anyway. Johnny Depp or no, I have a lot of questions about the Lone Ranger movie itself. Not sure if it makes sense, if it's offensive, or what. I will probably not see it at all.

Also Johnny Depp or no, I appreciate the questions raised in the blog post by Natanya Ann Pulley about Native American-ness.
Posted by sharonArnold

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

elissa — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 12:41:22 -0800

"Native American" is not an entirely racial distinction. To be Native American is to have a unique political relationship with the United States based on treaties and the trust responsibility, especially when an individual is enrolled in a tribe, regardless of blood quantum. The notion of "how much" Indian a person might be has no basis in pre-contact societies and was imposed on Native cultures after the time of contact. Blood quantum laws were first used in early Virginia to limit the rights of Native peoples. Tribes have not traditionally had any reason to determine a member's degree of ancestry. To constantly return to "blood," a faulty metaphor, as the determining factor in a person's Indian identity, is to buy into extermination policy, because blood quantum will only diminish.
Posted by elissa

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

sharonArnold — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 12:32:56 -0800

First of all, I resent the implication that all Whiteness is the same. It isn't. People with pale skin come from a multitude of cultures all over the world, and they aren't universally the same; just as people with darker skin enjoy diversity of culture and experience.

Second of all, I resent the implication that Native Americans have disappeared. They haven't. The fact that anyone would suggest they have is a sharp indicator of how easy it is to sweep this particularly painful American issue under the rug, because it is actually harder to talk about in racial politics than Black or Hispanic racial issues, thank you commenter number 25 for pointing out those differences. Native American people are here. They don't always look like Native American people. That is to say, they don't look like what people think Native American people should look like. That says something too, doesn't it?

Third of all, there is nothing romantic about Native American history. No more romantic than the history of cowboys, Vikings, Moors, Picts, or Romans. History is rife with murder and conquest, and genocide. But Americans don't like to talk about genocide. It's unseemly.

Fourth of all, speaking of unromantic, did you know the only way to be legitimately Native American is to have paperwork? You know who else needs paperwork to be legitimate? Dog breeds. Is that romantic?

Lastly, I resent the implication that white people are not allowed to claim a race other than a generic "white". It is a subversively, quietly, racist perspective that even white people succumb to because we are afraid of claiming any ethnicity, for fear of denying we have benefited from white privilege. We are afraid that by saying we have anything in our blood other than what you see on the surface we are racist and ignorant of our place in the world, as though we are trying to claim something we have never experienced; as though we are taking ownership of ethnicity, too. You know what? You're right. I have only lived as a white girl in this world. I haven't had to endure direct racism or roadblocks. I see them there, and I watch others endure and surpass them or fling themselves against them and I know that I can never related to what that feels like. But it doesn't feel good to have to be quiet about something you can't see about me, because I will be vilified for even talking about it. To be dismissed on the basis of some predisposed attitude that white people only want the good parts about carrying the brown parts. Well consider for a minute that we have weighed it out, before nailing us to the stake.

(Guess who doesn't have a pedigr-- er I mean paperwork? Me. What tribe do I claim? An unromantic sea-side one in Southeastern Canada, Mi'kmaq. Have I tried getting a hold of them? No, I'm too nervous about this attitude in the article. Maybe some day I'll get over it.)
Posted by sharonArnold

Re: A Theory of White Native Americans

Some Old Nobodaddy Logged In — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:58:19 -0800

Charles reminds me of the secretary in The Lathe of Heaven. In a world w/o racism, he'd disappear, because the division of race is central to his being.

The romanticism behind NA's is simply a connection to the past. African-Americans are no different than whites in that we all showed up around the same time & we're from somewhere else. Immigrants, essentially. The fact that some came willingly and some were kidnapped makes no difference. We have no connection to the place. What mark did our great-great-great-grandparents make? Some were still in Europe. If they were here, the farms they worked or the buildings they toiled in are long gone.
Posted by Some Old Nobodaddy Logged In