How dare the Federal Government! I’m not a Native American but this is disturbing. Every identification card issued by the Department of the Interior to Native Americans has a number, a measurement, a percentage that tells how much Indian blood each individual has. There is no such thing as Indian blood!
The blood in their bodies is no different from anyone else’s blood! It is all transferable. White people can get a blood transfusion from an Indian and Indians can get blood from a white person. For the Department of the Interior to say there is something in their blood that makes them different is wrong! It is a harmful form of stereotyping and, coming from the government, it is a degrading measurement.
In fact, if you are a member of one of the hundreds of Indian tribes and nations that have not made a treaty with the federal government, they will not even acknowledge you as Indian. Please understand that I only use the term “Indian” so that this disgrace can be explained. I clarify this because labeling a group of people with a single term, such as “Indian,” can be a form of hurtful stereotyping as well.
As I said, if you don’t have a federally issued card saying you carry a certain percentage of federally recognized Indian blood, the government does not consider you an Indian. So what happens to those who aren’t federally recognized? Are they still Indians? Of course they are. They don’t care what the government says and you shouldn’t either.
There are over 50 definitions for the word “Indian” and each one was created by institutions. According to the federal government’s definition, Indians are people who must be members of one of the federally recognized tribes or nations. Since only 39 tribes and nations have signed treaties with the government, they only recognize 39 out of the hundreds that actually exist. And, full-blood or not, it’s the exact same blood that runs through all of our veins.
*Special Thanks to Bob Fields.
