Friday, February 11, 2005

Indian Country on Churchill FEATURED ARTICLES - Churchill's Identity Revealed in Wake of Nazi Comment, Indian Country Today (ICT) Editors Report - Why Native identity Matters: A Cautionary Tale, by Suzan Shown Harjo, ICT - The Churchill episode: Two unfortunate currents , Editors Report / Indian Country Today / February 10, 2005 QUOTE OF THE DAY "That bona fide Indian tribes are not given more respect by Colorado University, and by the media in general when they state that the professor is not in fact what he professes to be, reminds us of the paternalistic approach so many times directed at tribal authorities throughout history."" - - Indian Country Today Editorial (from today's Rhino's Bottom Line) KNOW YOUR HISTORY - February 11th, 2005 1861 -- US House unanimously passes a resolution guaranteeing noninterference with slavery in any state. 1890 -- US opens 11 million acres of Sioux land to white settlers. 1978 -- "The Longest Walk" begins; hundreds of Native Americans walk from Alacatraz, in San Francisco to Washington D.C. to halt the attempted abrogation of all Indian treaties by the US Congress. 1987 -- US President and future right wing saint Ronnie Reagan tells the Tower Commission he did not approve arms sales to Iran (a lie). 1990 -- South Africa: Political prisoner & future President Nelson Mandela released, after 27 years in prison, by the US-supported apartheid government of South Africa for the crime of "high treason." RHINO SEZ: If you haven't heard about Colorado professor Ward Churchill's current dilemma, you must not have been watching the tri letter broadcasters lately nor reading much internet fare. Today's blog offers not just a quick summary of the situation, but an analysis of Professor Churchill you won't be getting from either O'Reilly or Alternet. The Rhino gives you Indian Country Today's perspective. (o/)(o/)(o/) Churchill's identity revealed in wake of Nazi comment Editors Report / Indian Country Today / February 03, 2005 A public speaking engagement at an Eastern college has turned hotly controversial for Ward Churchill, a professor and until last week the chairman of Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Churchill, a self-professed American Indian, is a prolific and highly polemical writer on Indian issues. Shortly after the murderous attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 in New York, Washington, D.C. and over Pennsylvania, Professor Churchill widely circulated an article in which he compared the victims of those attacks to Nazi functionary Adolf Eichmann, and to all appearances called their horrific deaths a ''befitting ... penalty'' for the ''little Eichmanns' ... participation.'' This week the Boulder professor's public representation of the 9/11 victims became the focal point of a serious broadside. New York's Governor George Pataki chastised Hamilton College for inviting a ''bigoted terrorist supporter'' to ''a forum.'' Hundreds of 9/11 survivors have similarly protested to Hamilton College for hosting such a person, and the furor has already forced Churchill to give up his department chair, as he wrote to his superiors: ''The present political climate has rendered me a liability in terms of representing either my department, the college, or the university.'' The university will allow Churchill to keep his teaching position, which is tenured but not safe from a frontal campaign such as Churchill is likely to continue to face. The focus of calls now is for Churchill to resign or be fired from his tenured position. ' The case of a professor or any other American exercising the right of free speech is always important to us. We support that fundamental right more than any other and believe that even the extreme views of others (which sometimes become mainstream) must be defended against any force that would silence our First Amendment rights as citizens and as free human beings. The nature of Churchill's decidedly offensive remarks, however, forces us to critique in general the injurious approach to scholarship and basic human decency. We defend the right to broadcast and publish, but propose it is reprehensible to excoriate innocent human beings who have suffered great loss by rubbing salt in deep wounds simply to prove a political point and simply to strike (one more time) a political posture on behalf of the far left and under the guise of American Indian sentiment... MORE: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410293 (o/)(o/)(o/) Harjo: Why Native identity matters: A cautionary tale by: Suzan Shown Harjo / Indian Country Today / February 10, 2005 I met Ward Churchill 15 years ago, before he gained his present infamous reputation. My friend, a college professor, said this Cherokee-Creek guy wanted to meet me. I expected to meet an earnest young student who would relate to me as Creek (I'm Hodulgee Muscogee on Dad's side and enrolled Cheyenne on Mom's). Instead, there was Churchill. Caucasian in appearance and in his mid-40s, he was wearing dark glasses and going for the look of an Indian activist circa 1970. I asked him who his Creek people were and other questions we ask in order to find the proper way of relating. Churchill behaved oddly and did not respond (it's unusual to find Indians so deficient in social skills). Churchill now refers to that as an ''interrogation,'' which tells me he still does not know how to be with us. Most Native people want to know each other's nation, clan, society, family, Native name - who are you to me and how should I address you? It's an enormously respectful way that we introduce ourselves and establish kinship. It wasn't much of an encounter, but it was enough to tell me that he was not culturally Muscogee or Cherokee and had not been around many of our people. The next time I heard his name was from Native artists at the Santa Fe Indian Market. Churchill was peddling a scandal sheet,.. MORE: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410335 (o/)(o/)(o/) 10:02:23 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - The Churchill episode: Two unfortunate currents The Churchill episode: Two unfortunate currents Editors Report / Indian Country Today / February 10, 2005 Controversial professor Ward Churchill, whose objectionable opinions on the fate of some 3,000 innocent souls have cost him the chair of a university department and who has been vilified by the range of usual right-wing pundits, is now in danger of losing his tenured job at the University of Colorado. The right-wing pundits are, as everyone should know, attack dogs whose primary job is always to pile all possible pressure on Democrats and left-of-center thinkers whenever they exhibit foot-in-mouth expressions that can trigger emotional responses. Expectedly, they have found in the Colorado professor‚s repugnant remarks an easy straw man with which to condemn all manner of American freedoms.... ...There is, however, a second issue at play in the Churchill controversy which for many people constitutes a grave matter; one that, in fact, deserves the respect of those involved and must be considered essential to the whole story. That is the issue of Churchill‚s self-developed history of how and why he should be considered an American Indian and thus be further legitimized as a spokesman for Native peoples in the views he spouts. To seemingly manufacture an identity, bargain for it as an individual and then pose from such a dubious base within a university the most vocal and radical of positions on behalf of North American Indians, gives the appearance of impropriety and perhaps even professional deception. This is also a matter for the university to decide... ...That bona fide Indian tribes are not given more respect by Colorado University, and by the media in general when they state that the professor is not in fact what he professes to be, reminds us of the paternalistic approach so many times directed at tribal authorities throughout history. Why is there such confusion around the context of honesty in stating one's background and one's roots and origins "genealogical, geographic and cultural" as defined by birth and bloodline realities and as described by family, clan, community and nation? These definitions, in fact, are quite discernable in Indian country and in the Native Americas. Indian tribal opinion in these cases deserves much more respect and consideration, by universities and governmental institutions in particular... READ IT ALL AT: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410338 (o/)(o/)(o/) Rhino's Blog is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. Feedback & requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. (rhino@kifaru.com) See The Latest Greatest Political Cartoons While You Read Rhino's Blog AT : http://www.rhinosblog.info Rhino's Other Web Sites: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (Indigenous Assistance & Intercultural Dialog) http://www.kifaru.com (Native American Relations Video Documentaries) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 8:51:59 AM    comment

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