Does a double-minor make you major?

I hate to say it but this is the first thing that came to mind when I read this headline.

Exactly, that is why I worded the description the way I did. It is just about greed.

The poor "native-american" who has to make do with billions of dollars worth of special treatment from America for totally unjustified and misguided guilt

That's just absurd. Genetics is such a nebulous thing to base this on. Like me, my great-grandmother was Cherokee and I have very pale skin, brown hair and blue eyes. Just to look at me you'd never know, and I was not raised in the culture, yet according to these genetic standards I'm more Cherokee than the guy in the opening of the article. Wish I could get me some of that casino money. Jeez.

No, read it again.
The tribes have the right to arbitrarily decide who is an isn't cherokee. Okay, fine.

They agreed 140+ years ago that the group of slaves owned by them and eventually adopted into the tribe were Cherokee as would be their descendants. Now, to lessen the dilution of the easy money, they want to start changing the rules.

Its their dedgum party. Let them decide who to invite.
I'm Cherokee, though, so I'm biased (and subsequently, filthy RICH :D)

You know, I think half the "white" guys in the southwestern United States are part of some kind of tribe. I get mine from my mother's side; her father was full-blooded something out of Oklahoma and her mother was half-something out of Oklahoma. It's visible in my mother and a little in me and one of four brothers (the facial bone structure), but our skin is pale. Heck, I even have blonde (what's left that isn't gray) hair and blue eyes.

Next, the Cherokee nation will be ousting the paler-skinned Cherokees and even Mark Lindsay.

I clicked on the link and it said that it wasn't there, so I haven't read the article.

I'm a card-carring Cherokee and I even went to Haskell for a while and this makes me wish I weren't Cherokee. I'm not a Bible-believer, but I think it has some good stuff in it, and it says somewhere in there that the adopted son is more precious or whatever than the blood son, cause you choose for him to be in your family. That's what this makes me think of.

There are two issues to me--one is with the Cherokee "purge" and the other is the reinforcement of inaccurate stereotypes of American Indians.

I think it ironic Native American Casinos came about because Reagan's administration severely restricted social services to American Indian reservations--among the poorest of the poor in the United States. To keep social service programs that urban non-Natives have--for example, meals on wheels for elders, tribal governments suddenly had to come up with matching funds. Reservations, if you read federal records, are mostly "land no White Man would want," which meant virtually no resources to develop. The Dawes Allotment Act also ended up making economic development on reservations a nightmare because construction requires owners of the land "shares" to agree on a project. Indian Reservations aren't "owned" by American Indians--it's land held in reserve by the federal government. There are over 2,000 laws, rules, and regulations that only impact those of us who are American Indian, and not the rest of you. Casinos grew out of the "gray market" (as opposed to the black one because reservations are federal lands, rather than State property (just so, there were no state sales tax, exactly the situation with a PX on a military base), sales of alcohol, tobacco, and then the advent of gambling, allowed a new source of income. But the original motivation was to maintain education, health, and social services.

Focus is constantly on really outstanding success stories, for example Foxwood in the NE, but media never covers the many reservation casino attempts that have failed, or that many reservations have made a moral decision to not open up a casino in their territory. The level of poverty for American Indians is still on par with 3rd World Countries.

I am reminded of the children's story of the LIttle Red Hen--if there's money involved, it seems like many people want to claim their Native heritage, but if it's about helping the tribe deal with its poverty, these "wannabes" (the term often used in this context) are often silent...

This attitude has created a tremendously sad hostility between American Indians with "federal recognized status" and people who lack this status. Having a reality of so much being taken away, enrolled tribal members from many communities are overly wary of a new group of people coming in to take away what ever is left.

As has been pointed out, for those of us who aren't enrolled Cherokees, we don't get to vote on who is and who isn't Cherokee anymore than I get to vote on who has French Citizenship. I will say, those of us who are American Indian are aware it's not just the Cherokee who have a "secret" tribal membership of people with absolutely no Native DNA. But if you understand the concept of "Nation," this makes sense. Certainly England has citizens who have no degree of Anglo-Saxon blood.

And, as one of the lovely posters mentioned, adoption into the tribe is a common history for most American Indian groups, and indeed, for some of us, Adoption is considered one of the Seven Sacred Ceremonies. (and hey, yoornotme--my nephew graduated from Haskell last year, and his sister will graduate this year :) )

I moved to North America just a few months ago from Finland. To me someone who was born here, no matter where their ancestors lived, is equally native american. So why treat some differently?

I'm a native Finn, but if a Canadian or Unitedstatesian moves over to Finland and gets citizenship, they'd be treated equally to us natives. I didn't get tax breaks, special laws, special social assistance or special land just because my ancestors lived in those lands thousand years ago. I had the same rights as my neighbour whose grandparents moved to Finland 50 years ago, and the same rights as the guy across the town who moved to Finland from UK 6 years ago.

I think getting treated differently (than some) over here is unjust.


Every place on earth has a history of someone stealing someone elses land if you go back in history long enough. Finland has been under rule of Sweden and Russia, and there are lots of their ancestors around, owning property. There's lots of unjust actions in the past. Boo f*cking hoo. It's history, you live with it and don't pretend it gives you some special rights.