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.”
I never saw a drunk driver the whole way. I understand that there are alcohol problems in the NA population but there are also crack problems in the black communities and meth problems in many white rural communities. Should we put signs up in those communities warning drivers of crack and meth users behind the wheel?
And if the problem is so bad...why only warn people while they are driving through the reservations? Surely the drunk Indians also drive on other roads around the areas as well. It just seemed ridiculous to me. I watch for drunk drivers all the time....I don’t need a sign to warn me. Just my opinion.
I understand what you're saying, but I don't think you're grasping the depth of the problem. We're talking about a population where 15% of all deaths are alcohol related, and most on the reservations providing support believe that it is heavily under reported.
And if the problem is so bad...why only warn people while they are driving through the reservations? Surely the drunk Indians also drive on other roads around the areas as well. It just seemed ridiculous to me. I watch for drunk drivers all the time....I don’t need a sign to warn me. Just my opinion.
Not necessarily. This isn't what most people think of when they think of a reservation. It's 25 times the size of Rhode Island, covering over 27,000 square miles.
There is very little reason for most to ever leave the reservation, and the round trip to a city off the reservation is usually 150 miles or more. The average native gets off the reservation about as often as I make it to Shreveport, which is a just a few times a year.
That is very sad. I can’t help but believe that if government was not doling out cash and trying to control these people all the time, that their societies would be much healthier. Most NA that I have met were successful, sober and not living on the reservation. The poverty that I saw while driving these back country reservation roads was heart breaking as well.
You can lay the poverty at the feet of the welfare system. While they never should have been there in the first place, they’ve been trapped by the welfare system in modern times.
Tribal law works against them in every way. Nobody owns property, it’s all communally held. For a white(ish) person like myself to live there, a native employer has to rent a domicile on your behalf, or you live in housing controlled by such an employer like Indian Health Services. No private property, no wealth.
Most young natives would like to leave, but leaving takes money they don’t have. They don’t have the means to travel to a city off the reservation and secure housing to search for a job. And leaving means giving up what little money they are receiving. Without a relative already living off the reservation, it’s almost impossible.
Most are literally trapped on the reservation.
“Let’s not forget that was at the behest of the first Democratic President, Andrew Jackson.”
No it wasn’t. Andrew Jackson was a liberal when it came to policies towards indians. Liberal in the old sense of the word. While he believed that if indians were going to maintain tribal governments and not assimilate into the United States should relocate to Oklahoma, he did not care to send every indian to Oklahoma.
The Cherokee in Georgia had adopted white man’s religion, white man farming methods, owned slaves, and educated their children in white man’s schools. That wasn’t enough for the democratic government in Georgia, who, like modern democrats, based everything on the color of skin.
The Cherokee in Georgia brought the case before the US Supreme Court and won an overturning of the Georgia State Law. Jackson may have stated that the Supreme Court lacked any ability to enforce it’s decision, however it is also likely that he realized that he would not be able to raise an army in the rest of the states willing to stop Georgia from disposessing the Cherokee. It was the political reality he had to deal with.
I have a branch of my family that are still on the reservations. I visited them for several weeks during the summer when I seventeen before I started college.
I won’t relate all of it here, if I hadn’t been a conservative before I went, I sure was when I got back.
Brave warriors begat lowly beggars in just a few generations.
Don't forget... the color of gold. Two years after it was discovered on Cherokee land, the "relocation" began.
My family's West Georgia homestead was land received by helping with the relocation. Some stayed in Oklahoma, and some came back.
I remembered seeing an old aerial photograph of the parcel used for surveying and you could clearly see a "line" delineated by trees and fields running through the property.
Turns out it was a disputed border between the Cherokees and the Creek.
My father said he used to find tons of arrowheads around there....I assume from skirmishes.
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