Last Tuesday, nominally progressive online news vehicle The Huffington Post published a disappointing and misinformed article by Tim Giago, president of the South Dakota Unity Foundation as well as the founder and publisher emeritus of Indian Country Today. Elegantly outlining the many problematic practicalities related to false claims of indigenous heritage, Giago titularly asserts, "Claiming Indian heritage does not make it so," and subsequently leverages his analysis to ascribe moral differentiation to the two most notable Native impostors of the last decade: UC Boulder academic Ward Churchill and Massachusetts political aspirant Elizabeth Warren.
Considering the
history of the website for which he is writing, it is perhaps almost inevitable
that bewildering pivots of logic and significant factual errors would creep
into the manifesto. After all, Arianna Huffington's media powerhouse has
regularly promulgated the fiction that Elizabeth Warren's 1/32 blood quantum is
matter of incontrovertible truth. Although parroted by Mr. Giago, this
fabrication is no closer to substantiation than it was four months ago.
Similarly, the contention that Harvard Law's favorite staffer never gleaned
advantage from her spontaneous mid-life rediscovery of a passion for family
rumor continues to strain credulity and deflect attention from the more
alarming dimensions of the controversy.
However insidiously
self-serving Mr. Churchill's writings appear in the context of his extended
pantomime, it is undeniable that he has devoted his career and personal life to
amassing an encyclopedic knowledge regarding the history and evolution of the
indigenous community in the United States. In addition to penning or contributing
to fourteen books on related subjects, he has additionally participated as an
activist in the American Indian Movement of Colorado for over a quarter of a
century. By contrast, Professor Warren has responded on the campaign trail to
overtures from Natives with combative guardedness, if not transparent
antagonism.
Of course, unlike her
counterpart, Cambridge's most famous would-be Delaware-Cherokee has managed to
suppress any definitively damning paperwork that affirms she acquired tenure in
a "special opportunity position." But as I have previously asserted,
the chance to racially self-identify in explicitly professional circumstances
is an instrument of affirmative action aspirations. Institutions and employers
prompt questions of ethnicity in the idealistic spirit of accounting for the
unpalatable realities of an unbalanced societal playing field and assembling
the most intellectually nourishing environment possible. The sudden decision of
an established late-thirtysomething legal scholar to advertise unconfirmed
ancestry completely void of tribal association reflects a peculiar expression
of pride when contrasted against her prior lifelong practice of
self-determination as a Caucasian and her current disdain for Indian sentiments
that fail to bolster her play for power.
It is perplexing, to
say the least, that Mr. Giago excoriates a hyperbolically tragicomic pretender
with truncated influence like Churchill while exonerating a prominent aspirant
to legislative office whose dishonorable contempt for Native Americans persists
to this day. For someone who punctuates the distinction between blood and
legacy with a metaphorical exclamation point, he demonstrates little
appreciation for the extent to which conduct illuminates functional cultural
character. More disquietingly, the inaccuracies he has disseminated will
reverberate in the public discourse for the indeterminate future; one fallacy
breeds another. To borrow the formula invoked by the author: irresponsibly
perpetuating misconceptions do not make them sound, and myths cannot be so
easily transfigured into reality.
Educated at Dartmouth College and Columbia University, Cole DeLaune is a native of Oklahoma and Tennessee. He is a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma.
copyright 2012, Polly's Granddaughter - TCB
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What a shame to see someone of Giago's renowned stature sublimate the heritage of indigenous people in favor of politics and hoped-for future gain. Mankind best reaches his/her full potential in the presence of self-respect and unflagging regard for heritage.
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