Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Real Indians
“First Peoples need to continue to take back the power to name, specifically to reclaim, the right to determine Indian nation membership. If we do not, the oppressed have become the oppressors: By denying our relatives, we have turned on our own. As long as we do not cast aside the colonizer’s rules about blood quantum, phenotypical stereotypes, and other forms of racialized thinking with all of its issues of power, status, and prestige, both mixed bloods and full bloods will remain the “colonized other,” a demonstration of internalized oppression.
To reclaim Native definitions of identity, blood quantum must, first and foremost, be abolished as a culturally appropriate measure of whom legally and culturally constitutes a ‘real’ Indian. However, the true work lies in outing blood quantum for what it truly is, a colonially imposed apparatus of cultural destruction. By adhering to blood quantum requirements to determine enrollment and identify prestige, American Indians have internalized ‘Anglo norms’ and Western notions of ‘race.’
If traditional modes of enrollment, such as cultural affinity, kinship ties, and descent are not reclaimed and most importantly validated as ‘authentic’ modes of inclusion criterion, American Indians, as a distinct cultural group, will one day cease to exist."
--from Biometrics in Indian Country by Tiffany Waters
http://www.cwis.org/fwj/61/quantities_of_blood.htm
To reclaim Native definitions of identity, blood quantum must, first and foremost, be abolished as a culturally appropriate measure of whom legally and culturally constitutes a ‘real’ Indian. However, the true work lies in outing blood quantum for what it truly is, a colonially imposed apparatus of cultural destruction. By adhering to blood quantum requirements to determine enrollment and identify prestige, American Indians have internalized ‘Anglo norms’ and Western notions of ‘race.’
If traditional modes of enrollment, such as cultural affinity, kinship ties, and descent are not reclaimed and most importantly validated as ‘authentic’ modes of inclusion criterion, American Indians, as a distinct cultural group, will one day cease to exist."
--from Biometrics in Indian Country by Tiffany Waters
http://www.cwis.org/fwj/61/quantities_of_blood.htm
