I think that it should also be considered in light of a larger identity debate
in Indian Country. One that is inevitable, necessary and hopefully
constructive in the end. At one end -- the "public sphere" there are the
political implications. David Wilkins, in an article appearing in AKWE:KON
Journal (Fall 1992) examined the issue of internal tribal political
fragmentation from the perspective of a much needed debate about identity. He
suggests that the debate should be acknowledged and openly engaged, including
in the political process. On the last note, he recommends a consociational
model an the antedote to fragmentation.
At the other end -- the "private sphere" there are the various fracases in
which an individual's public work is discredited because of his or her attempt
to come to grips with Indian identity issues that can only partly be resolved
on the basis of genetics. I hope this is not offensive to anyone -- I have
been having this discussion with a friends from Northern Cheyenne where blood
quantum is again a politicized issue. The other side of the Ward Churchill
problem is: Does the fact that the genetic pool endowed someone with fairly
dark skin tone and dark brown or black hair mean that this individual will have
insights into "Indianness" that are more valid than someone whose gene pool
washed out differently? We are talking about a population of people who have
been subjected to the longest sustained policy of ethnocide -- the deliberate
attempt to destroy a cultural and ethnic basis of identity -- by the most
powerful nation-state on the planet. We all know the history,boarding schools,
relocations, moral degradation in all public and private spheres. There are
few spaces in which Indian identity has survived with minimal damage from these
policies and private behaviors. (Pre-boarding school elders?)
So maybe one reason the AIM fracas has attracted so much attention is the
intense need to open up this debate which is bubbling just beneath the surface
of all indigenous discourses. Maybe NAT-Chat is the place to open this up, but
I do not subscribe to NAT-chat (barely have time for Native-l...) and I am not
an indigenous person. My interest is in the human rights (moral) issue of the
right of people to exist in relation to their own path of cultural evolution,
and I have studied this in relation to US Indian policy and the present global
political activism of indigenous peoples.