[NYTr] Ward Churchill Slander & Who Is Susan Shown Harjo? Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:25:11 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Who is Susan Shown Harjo: sent by Tatsuo Kage via The Freedom Archives - Feb 14, 2005 New Slander Site on Ward Churchill by Jim Craven I was sent the url on the new slander-site on Ward Churchill. On that site, we have Ann Coulter, the Queen of the vitriolic ad hominem and attack dog for the ultra-right having, as usual, nothing to say about the content or scholarship of the person being attacked--Ward Churchill. Then we have Susan Shown Harjo purporting to pass on Ward Churchill's lineage and how "Caucasian" he "looks" (over 95% of "federally registered" Indians are mixed race) again with nothing to say about the content, arguments, implications or scholarship of Ward Churchill's work--and, by the way, since we are talking about lineage and connections, I have seen little actual scholarship that is tangible from Harjo; this could be because some of her work is apparently classified (one of my former students, whose father was a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army's "Civil Affairs" and does consulting work for the U.S. Department of Defense(DOD), gave me a list of D.O.D. " authentic Native consultants" to give "workshops" on "cultural sensitivity" when DOD is dealing with Natives--e.g. getting them to accept the Rezes being used as toxic waste dumps--and Susan Shown Harjo's name is prominently featured). Perhaps, just perhaps, Harjo has just acquired another "consulting gig" from the D.O.D. an historic and predent-day instrument for extermination of Indians. Chief Lame Deer of the Lakota once noted: "You can tell a real Red Indian by how he [or she] lives and not by his [or her] blood percentage." No one chooses their "blood quantum" (itself an illusion for anyone trained in basic biology) we choose only what it might mean to us and what to do with it. My mother used to say that "No one 'chooses' their blood; this comes from the Creator. Any Indian who does not keep the sacred sacred, any Indian who does not respect the worthy Elders, any Indian who does not protect the children, any Indian who does any kind of corruption, whatever their purported blood quantum, is doing "Custer Work" and they are aiding and abetting the extermination of what they DARE to call "their own" blood and People--their purported blood quantum is meaningless." I have seen no evidence of Ward Churchill having betrayed the cause of survival and prosperity of Native nations; I cannot say the same for the likes of Harjo and others who apparently trade on purported "blood quantums" and phenotypically "looking" like a "typical Indian" while they attack those whose scholarship they cannot critique to work for those clearly bent on exterminating/assimilating what is left of Native nations in the Americas and elsewhere. I know, on my Rez and others of the Blackfoot, supposed "full-bloods" who are corrupt sell-outs and whose supposed blood-quantums are worthless--and I know some "breeds" who are resolute and uncompromising Warriors for survival and prosperity of Indigenous nations and Peoples.. The U.S. and Canadian governments know how to play the blood-quantum game and how to use it: "Set the blood-quantum at one-quarter, hold to it as a rigid definition of Indians, let intermarriage proceed, and eventually Indians will be defined out of existence; when that happens, the Federal Government will be finally freed from its persistent Indian problem."(BIA document quoted by Patricia Lamark in "Legacy of Conquest.", p. 322). Those who play--and attack on the basis of--the blood-quantum "game"are aiding and abetting those bent on the extermination and forced assimilation of what is left of the Native nations; and they only show how empty and devoid of substance are their attacks, critiques and themselves. The bottom line? Ward Churchill has touched taboo subjects, from conceptual scopes and angles of analysis, using primary and other creative sources that few scholars or even tenured academics will touch in the cause of exposing the ongoing genocide against Indigenous Peoples and Nations. That is all I need to know about Ward Churchill. The rest, including how he may "look" or anything about any supposed "blood-quantum" I do not need to know and I do not care about. My definition of "Indianness" comes from Chief Lame Deer, my mother and from the nature and activities of other Indians who recognize a given person as one of them. In this sense, I regard Ward Churchill as an Indian while I do not regard the likes of Harjo as a real Indian--by virtue of what she says, does and for whom she apparently works or has worked. Jim Craven Blackfoot name: Omahkohkiaayo i'poyi Blackfoot Nation Professor of Economics, Chairman of Business Divsion, Clark College http://www.aradicalblackfoot.blogspot.com The Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 863-9977 www.freedomarchives.org * Search the NYTr Archives at: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org =================================================================