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Cherokee Nation demands apology for tomahawk chops
Boston Herald ^ | September 26, 2012 | Chris Cassidy

Posted on 09/26/2012 10:24:33 AM PDT by billorites

A top Cherokee official demanded today that U.S. Sen. Scott Brown apologize for his campaign staff’s “uneducated, unenlightened and racist portrayal” of Native Americans in an online video shot at a campaign event in Dorchester over the weekend.

“The Cherokee Nation is disappointed in and denounces the disrespectful actions of staffers and supporters of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker said in a statement. “The conduct of these individuals goes far beyond what is appropriate and proper in political discourse. The use of stereotypical ‘war whoop chants’ and ‘tomahawk chops’ are offensive and downright racist. It is those types of actions that perpetuate negative stereotypes and continue to minimize and degrade all native peoples.”

At least one Brown campaign staffer and one GOP operative have been identified in the video, which was shot by the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

“A campaign that would allow and condone such offensive and racist behavior must be called to task for their actions,” Baker said.

Democrat Elizabeth Warren yesterday said she was “appalled” by the video and that if her staff members had done such a thing, there would be “serious consequences.”

Brown said yesterday morning he hadn’t yet seen the video but added that things like that had no place in the campaign. He added that the real insult to Native Americans was when Warren checked a box claiming minority status as a law professor despite not having any documentation to back up her claims of Cherokee ancestry.

The Brown campaign could not immediately be reached for comment.

Baker, the Cherokee chief, was also unavailable for an interview. But in the statement, he said he has an obligation to condemn acts that show disrespect to his people.

“The Cherokee Nation is a modern, productive society, and I am blessed to be their chief,” Baker said. “I will not be silent when individuals mock and insult our people and our great nation.”

The statement did not mention Warren or her Cherokee ancestry claims.

“We need individuals in the United States Senate who respect Native Americans and have an understanding of tribal issues,” Baker said. “For that reason, I call upon Sen. Brown to apologize for the offensive actions of his staff and their uneducated, unenlightened and racist portrayal of native peoples.”


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: apology; nativeamericans; ncaa
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To: billorites

My great great grandmother was scalped by the Commanches, leaving my great grandmother to be raised without a mother.

I don’t hold any grudge about it, that was the times.

Suck it up, NAs. If you can’t handle tomahawk chops and war whoops, go protest the Kansas City Chiefs and the Washington Racist Nicknames.


61 posted on 09/26/2012 11:50:04 AM PDT by SaxxonWoods (....The days are long, but the years are short.....)
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To: billorites

Dear Cherokee Nation:

You lost. Get over it.

— America


62 posted on 09/26/2012 11:52:14 AM PDT by IronJack (=)
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To: billorites

What’s the matter? Can’t take a joke? Which, in fact, is not directed at you anyway?


63 posted on 09/26/2012 11:55:27 AM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: billorites

Then quit selling rubber ones in your casino gift stores.


64 posted on 09/26/2012 11:59:38 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: NativeSon

They should be more offended by the federal government that installs ‘watch out for DWI drivers’ signs every 2 miles on roads through Indian reservations out west!! Just got through driving across the west through three states and every time I went through land grants or reservations the ‘report drunk driver’ signs were everywhere....then after you got through the indian areas..no signs about drunks. Isn’t that profiling by our federal government?? I guess Obama thinks that all Indians are drunken losers.


65 posted on 09/26/2012 12:04:44 PM PDT by penelopesire (TIME FOR A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR!)
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To: billorites

Guess these folks have never went to a Florida State University football game.


66 posted on 09/26/2012 12:09:42 PM PDT by fuente
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To: Melas

They aso do a great job of keeping their own down. Yes, they are on worthless land. Yes, there ancestors were herded there. Yes, it sucked.

Why are they so hostile to the ones that leave, then?

My father’s grandparents were kicked off the reservation for the crime of “acting white”. Their crime? My great grandfather had set up a business just outside the reservation and did business with white men. It’s probably the best thing my great great grandfather ever did for me.

A friend I met in the Army confided in me that she had to make the army work for her. First she had gotten past her eighteenth birthday without getting knocked up by one of the boys on the reservation. Then she had the gall to leave the reservation and join the Army, which took money away from the reservation. She told me that she could never return.


67 posted on 09/26/2012 12:21:14 PM PDT by Hawk1976 (It is better to die in on your feet than it is to live as on your knees.)
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To: penelopesire
so, you passed by the Great Navajo Nation did ya?

That is insulting, can't mention the race of crooks & thugs, can't protect our borders, must strip search little old ladies at the airport but still ok the beat down the A.I.

I get a kick out of the way we fawn over foreign countries that spy on us but we violate treaties with A.I. Nations.

68 posted on 09/26/2012 12:36:31 PM PDT by NativeSon ( Grease the floor with Crisco when I dance the Disco)
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To: NativeSon

I thought it was pretty insulting too!! Probably done with Obama stimulus funds....lol. I can hear some know it all lib bureaucrat right now.....’hey..we can make ‘report drunk driver’ signs and put them every two miles through Indian reservations’...shovel ready jobs.’

Pathetic!


69 posted on 09/26/2012 12:43:29 PM PDT by penelopesire (TIME FOR A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR!)
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To: billorites

“A campaign that would allow and condone such offensive and racist behavior must be called to task for their actions,” Baker said.”

Have they ever watched an Atlanta Braves baseball game?? Even Ted and Hanoi Jane do the tomahawk chop.


70 posted on 09/26/2012 12:44:10 PM PDT by Brooklyn Attitude (We won't stand for biased umps fixing a ball game but we allow a biased media to fix elections.)
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To: penelopesire

yeah well, you kinda get used to the insults, like being handled like property under the Dept of Interior and lumped in with the “criminally insane” for Health & Welfare.


71 posted on 09/26/2012 12:50:32 PM PDT by NativeSon ( Grease the floor with Crisco when I dance the Disco)
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To: Hawk1976

“Then she had the gall to leave the reservation and join the Army, which took money away from the reservation. She told me that she could never return.”

There are groups that get conquered/decimated and learn from their conquerers. They adapt and move on to prosper. An example is the British who were taken over by the Romans. If the Brits took the same attitude as Indians and groups with a perpetual victim mentality, they would still be living in huts and dying their faces blue.


72 posted on 09/26/2012 12:51:50 PM PDT by Brooklyn Attitude (We won't stand for biased umps fixing a ball game but we allow a biased media to fix elections.)
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To: rhoda_penmark
Well gee, consider how they GOT to Oklahoma in the first place (Trail of Tears)

Let's not forget that was at the behest of the first Democratic President, Andrew Jackson.

73 posted on 09/26/2012 1:17:25 PM PDT by eddie willers
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To: NativeSon

Lumped in with the criminally insane under health and welfare? Explain that please...not sure I understand??


74 posted on 09/26/2012 2:21:28 PM PDT by penelopesire (TIME FOR A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR!)
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To: mrsmel
I was thinking the other day about how different the world would be without the European enlightenment, the global evangelization of the Judeo-Christian ethos of individual freedom, responsibility, and redemption, the industrial, communication, and medical revolutions, etc. All of these made possible a human population of nearly seven billion souls, most of whom live for a lifespan and at a level of relative comfort which a thousand years ago was the sole province of kings and nobles. Yet "we" are daily castigated as the creators of everything that is wrong in the world.

If one wished to see real bare bones racist attitudes in a modern venue go to Japan or China. Slavery? Make a stop in the Sudan or Saudi Arabia. The subjection of the female half of the human family? Almost any place outside the Western Hemisphere, Europe, and a few scattered remnants of European colonization which are wise and lucky enough to still be Capitalist (Singapore and Hong Kong come to mind). Was the European conquest of Planet Earth imperfect, bloody, and were great crimes committed? Of course. But if it had not occurred I would argue that the world would be a very different and to a large extent far worse place to be living at this moment in time.

75 posted on 09/26/2012 2:58:25 PM PDT by katana (Just my opinions)
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To: billorites


They obviously have never seen an Atlanta Braves game....
76 posted on 09/26/2012 3:02:40 PM PDT by Emperor Palpatine ("On the ascent of Olympus, what's a botched bar or two?" -Artur Schnabel)
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To: stocksthatgoup

I’d add the Cleveland Indians, but they suck.


77 posted on 09/26/2012 3:07:04 PM PDT by Emperor Palpatine ("On the ascent of Olympus, what's a botched bar or two?" -Artur Schnabel)
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To: Melas

Too bad.

Sucks to be them, but they needed to just assimilate.

That’s the way its been throughout history.


78 posted on 09/26/2012 3:13:14 PM PDT by Emperor Palpatine ("On the ascent of Olympus, what's a botched bar or two?" -Artur Schnabel)
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To: rhoda_penmark


Quit whining and get over it already. They LOST.

Here, Jascha is playing "My Heart Bleeds For You".
79 posted on 09/26/2012 3:23:50 PM PDT by Emperor Palpatine ("On the ascent of Olympus, what's a botched bar or two?" -Artur Schnabel)
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To: penelopesire

I’ve lived on the Navajo Nation. The signs are very necessary. You absolutely need to know that you’re driving on roads that literally populated with drunks. It’s a horrible problem everywhere in the Navajo Nation.

It’s so bad that my wife looked up from delivering a baby to see the father drinking the hand sanitizer in the room.

Also, those signs were in place long before Obama, and they’ll be in place long after he’s gone.


80 posted on 09/26/2012 3:25:26 PM PDT by Melas (u)
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