CHEROKEES REVOKE BLACK CITIZENSHIP

["There's nothing there but MacDonalds, Elvis, and plastic. "]


Dear readers from the Netherlands,


I have as yet not seen any mention of the Cherokee Nation's decision to expell black members of the tribe in any Dutch news-sources.

This is likely due to the fact that mentioning such things would require demolishing several holy cows of Dutch journalism, among others: the idea that only white-Americans can be bigots (unlike minorities and Europeans), the idea that American Indians have been entirely impoverished and marginalized if not exterminated by white violence, and the idea that the US is in no way a complex multi-ethnic patchwork (but is instead a simple society of undifferentiated consumers). Let's face it, the ANP and the media-whores who dominate your newspapers and tv are little more than yellow-journalism hacks with their own agenda - sort of a slimy Euro-intellectual version of Fox news or CNN.



Anyhow, here's a link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/opinion/08thu4.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

I include part of the article below. Please feel free to render comments, even if the subject is too impossibly dense or complex for the average barefoot Dutch speaker to understand.

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An Unjust Expulsion
Published: March 8, 2007


The Cherokee Nation’s decision to revoke the tribal citizenship of about 2,800 descendants of slaves once owned by the tribe is a moral low point in modern Cherokee history and places the tribe in violation of a 140-year-old federal treaty and several court decisions. The federal government must now step in to protect the rights of the freedmen, who could lose their tribal identities as well as access to medical, housing and other tribal benefits.

This bitter dispute dates to the treaties of 1866, when the Cherokee, Seminole and Creek agreed to admit their former slaves as tribal members in return for recognition as sovereign nations. The tribes fought black membership from the start — even though many of the former slaves were products of mixed black and Indian marriages.

The federal courts repeatedly upheld the treaties. But the federal government fanned the flames when a government commission set out in the 1890s to create an authoritative roll of tribal membership. Instead of placing everyone on a single roll, it made two lists. The so-called blood list contained nonblack Cherokees, listed with their percentage of Indian ancestry. The freedmen’s list included the names of any black members, even those with significant Cherokee ancestry.

The issue exploded in the 1980s when tribal authorities excluded the freedmen from voting on the grounds that they weren’t Cherokee by blood. The Cherokee version of the Supreme Court ruled last year that the law was unconstitutional.

[CUT]

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As I indicated earlier, this subject might just be too un-simple for the average cheese-snarfing bogweasel to bend their brain about. So your comments, if you leave any, should be mighty interesting.

Feel free to deny any and all parts of the complex reality that is the United States, and spout the usual simplistic predigestions about America and trailerparks.
Go on, wax lyrical. Nay, go ape, even.

Lots of love, dudes, lots of love.


---B.O.T.H.

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Note: for readers who are wondering what the heck I'm talking about and what bee is in my bonnet, I should mention that I correspond in Dutch with several people, and belong to a few mailing lists. Many Dutch speakers have completely goofy ideas about the United States, and more than a few have alternative realities that are very strange indeed.
Part of much Dutch reality is that America is smaller, simpler, and meaner than it actually is. Nothing in the world can shake their faith in that 'fact'.

It is a very irritating thing.

I am irritated.