Posted on 04/09/2005 1:27:58 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Through their activism, they got TV stations to stop showing reruns of "The Lone Ranger" because of the way Tonto was depicted (by Jay Silverheels, an American Indian actor). If Indians had their way, the Cleveland and Atlanta baseball teams and the Washington NFL team would follow the lead of hundreds of high schools and colleges that were browbeaten into adopting non-Indian mascots. Indians don't even like being called Indians, preferring Native American to avoid, as they put it, "the dehumanizing stereotype of the bloodthirsty savage."
(But they don't seem to mind their stereotype as scalpers of patrons to their casinos.)
Like other race-hustlers, however, the outrage of hypersensitive Indian activists tends to be selective. Every June in Montana, Indians participate in the "celebration" of the anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a scripted account based on the notes of Crow Tribal Historian Joe Medicine Crow. Donning traditional Indian clothing and headdresses, they whoop it up in a "colorful pageant" that "is fabulous fun for the whole family," reports custerslaststand.org.
Indians also haven't made a huge stink over University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, the wacky white man masquerading as an Indian who is becoming a leading voice of Indian activism.
And then there was the made-for-TV news conference last month featuring tribal leaders, academics and rank-and-file Indians who criticized President Bush for his silence after nine members of the Red Lake tribe in Minnesota were killed by a crazed 16-year-old March 21. Their disgruntlement is best understood in the context of victimization, and the way they expressed it left serious questions about the sincerity of their objections to stereotyping:
"From all over the world, we are getting letters of condolence," said Clyde Bellecourt, a Chippewa Indian and founder and national director of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis, "but the so-called Great White Father in Washington hasn't said or done a thing."
Great White Father? What, no offer to smoke-um peace pipe? Maybe it's time for Indians to put aside their pretensions and bury the hatchet-job.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
They'll exploit that one when they want to keep more of their casino money and get more land to build the more casinos.
Sorry, they are "Native Americans" only in the same sense that I am, and all four of my grandparents were Jews who emigrated from Russia/eastern Europe around 1900 (legally, I might add).
If they don't want to be called "Indians," they'll just have to settle for "aboriginees" or "aboriginal Americans." These terms have the advantage of being technically accurate, and do not contribute to the insulting and reprehensible PC agenda-driven idea that the rest of us born and bred here during the past two centuries do not have any native American cultural heritage of our own.
I hope all anti-PC Americans will refuse to use the term "native American" from now on, and correct those who erroneously use that egregious designation to refer to aboriginal Americans.
Babe Ruth, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys (not to mention Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allen Poe, John Steinbeck, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and General George S. Patton) are all as much a part of native American culture as Geronimo and Sitting Bull ever were. More, if you ask me.
Huzzah! I always say I'm a native American. I was born in Morristown, New Jersey, minutes away from Washington's revolutionary headquarters. What else has a guy got to do to be native American?
One of the best takes I've ever seen on the subject is at http://www.issues-views.com/index.php/sect/1007/article/1099.
I refer all FRepers to the 3/28 issue of National Review
and the article by John J. Miller, "Honest Injun?"
"The incidence of fake Indians is almost epidemic".
Miller describes how an enormous number of people (remember
Churchill?) are claiming some Native American status.
The whole phenomenon has become a national joke.
The Lone Ranger is on every weekday here in New Orleans.
Do you know the Morristown area well? I can tell you a
few recollections I have.
Creepy.
I grew up in Morristown (went to high school at MHS). Good times.
I know it pretty well, yeah. The hollow. The AMC theaters. Western Ave. The train station, the old August Moon, etc.
Don´t tell the Indians.
It brings back some good memories. Years ago, when I lived
in the Garden State (originally from that "other" state,
South Jersey) my dad was one of the VP's at Allied Chemical
(now Allied Signals) and I was doing graduate work at FDU
(Florham-Madison campus). I was intrigued by how much
history was immediately at hand. I remember years ago when
I read Ward's "War of the Revolution" that he said the darkest point of the Revolution was Washington's second
winter at Morristown. And there I was! I remember on some
snowy, bitter cold days when I struggled to go from one
point to another on that vast campus I could identify
(I know there's really no comparison!) with those troops!
One of the great things about N.J. is that there is so much
that is REALLY old and historic. I remember when I had
services at the church in Perth Amboy - the church went
back to 1697 and there were cannon balls still wedged in
the original foundation from the battle for New York
Harbor. And people here in FLA think anything "new" is
post World War II!!! If they only knew!
Right! And if those fakers really shook the family tree
hard enough they would probably be REALLY shocked at
what falls out!
Not only that but our disastrous PC educational system
has romanticized the savages. The correct (and false)
party line is to portray them as an innocent people in
close communion with nature who were ravaged and corrupted
by the evil whites from Europe who wantonly massacred
them. There have been many reputable historians who have
debunked this mythology -- but if you want a recent
synopsis of their warlike nature, savagery, and -- yes!--
even cannibalism of these indiginous tribes -- read
McGowan's "Coloring the News".
. I don't claim to be 1/16 Cherokee. In fact I'm 1/4 Choctaw and 1/4 Delaware. (See my profile).
Most Indians I know prefer the term Indian. When speaking with other Indians, we refer to an individual buy his tribe. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen an Indian roll his eyes when some P/C whiteye uses the term Native American.
These "Native American" groups don't give a d@mn about the Indian community, all they do is forward the socialist/Demonseptic cause of using race politics to Balkanize and weaken America and get more people to become subservient to Big Goovermint.
A true Indian Advocacy group would oppose the Demoncr@ps because they are enslaving Indians with government welfare, in the same way that the blacks are kept on liberal plantations. "Native American" groups are nothing more than another race pimp arm of the DNC along with "African-American", "Hispanic-American" and all the other hyphenated Americans advocacy group.
Rule of thumb, if a group claims to represent X, more often than not what they really represent is the Demonseptic party and their socialist hordes. Race politics is the exploitation of culture and ethnicities to forward the destruction of America.
Quite so -- I was thinking it was only here in CA that they call themselves Indians, for example in their own ads at election time for "Indian Gaming Casinos".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.