#59
The five months I spent in China in 2006, opened my eyes to a lot about human nature. In the department stores, I was shocked to find skin-lightening products on every cosmetic counter. The harm that the European has done to other cultures may be irreversible. ~ Diva JC
AFRICAN PRESENCE IN CHINA AND THE WORLD
The African role in early Asian civilization has been submerged and distorted for centuries. Asia's African roots are well summarized in "African Presence in Early Asia" by Ivan Van Sertima and Runoko Rashidi, and "African Presence in Early China" by James Brunson. The original oriental people were Black and many of them still are Black - in southern China and Asia. Read more. . .
There were Blacks in ancient China. The skeletal remains from southern China are predominately Negroid. The people practiced single burials which is an African ritual. In northern China the blacks founded many civilizations. The three major empires of China were the Xia Dynasty (c.2205-1766 B.C), Shang/ Yin Dynasty (c.1700-1050 B.C) and the Zhou Dynasty. Read more. . .
Links:
- http://www.blackherbals.com/african_roots_of_traditional_chinese_med.htm
- http://www.blackindians.com
- http://www.rosecity.net/cherokee/blackindians.html
- http://www.africanamericans.com/BlackIndians.htm
- http://www.blackindians.com/new_page_7.htm
- http://members.tripod.com/pointingbird/lostfeatherintl/id58.htm
- http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/2054
Tribe Votes on Freed Slaves' Membership
By MURRAY EVANS (Associated Press Writer)
March 3, 2007 5:27 PM EST
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. - Cherokee Nation citizenship was at stake Saturday
in an election to determine whether descendants of people the
Cherokee
once owned as slaves should be counted as members of the tribe.
An estimated 45,000 Cherokee were registered to vote in the
election,
with 30 polling places opened across northeastern Oklahoma. Polls
close at 7p.m.
The election resulted from a petition drive aimed at limiting
citizenship to descendants of "by blood" tribe members as
listed on
the federal Dawes Commission's rolls from more than 100 years ago.
That commission, set up by a Congress bent on breaking up Indians'
collective lands and parceling them out to tribal citizens, drew up
two rolls, one listing Cherokees by blood and the other listing
freedmen, a roll of blacks regardless of whether they had Indian
blood.
A "yes" vote on the amendment would remove descendants of
freed slaves
- estimated to be about 2,800 - from the tribe's membership. A
"no"
vote would allow them to remain tribal citizens.
Some opponents of the ballot question argued that attempts to remove
freedmen from the tribe were motivated by racism.
"I think there are some people associated with this (ballot
measure)
who continue with the falsehood that freedmen were forced upon the
tribe and do not have Indian ancestry," said Marilyn Vann,
president
of the Oklahoma City-based Descendants of Freedmen of Five Civilized
Tribes. "They make it sound like the tribe will be doomed if
these
people aren't cast out. They're taking away the rights of
people."
Tribal officials said the vote was a matter of self-determination.
"The importance of the vote today is that it gives the Cherokee
people
the opportunity to decide the citizenship of their nation,"
tribal
spokesman Mike Miller said. "There's rhetoric on both sides of
the
issue, but it's important that the Cherokee people themselves
decide."
The petition drive followed a March 2006 ruling by the Cherokee
Nation
Supreme Court that said an 1866 treaty assured freedmen descendants
of
tribal citizenship. Since then, more than 2,000 freedmen descendants
have enrolled as citizens of the tribe.
Court challenges by freedmen descendants seeking to stop the
election
were denied, but a federal judge left open the possibility that the
case could be refiled if Cherokees voted to lift their membership
rights.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
***********************************************
Response
from Dinizulu Gene Tinnie and Sam Anderson
Hey Joan, and Sam,
I
received this article just about simultaneously from both of you, and
thanks for sending it. Sam, you gave it the right subject title
when you labeled it as news "On the racism front" (along with
the other article on prisons), and Joan, you put in the reminder that
"common sense ain't common" by going back to the much too
sensible observation that ALL people originate from Africa, so this
Cherokee exclusion is pretty frivolous, to put it mildly.
This
article seems to be me to be symptomatic of... what can it be called,
the 9/11 factor?, you know, the deal where the news media reports
"news" but there is so much more left out than what is put in
that you really have to wonder what the real story is, and if we will
ever really know. I was glad to see that they did make reference
to the very similar case with the Seminole Nation back in 2,000.
(Sam, you remember meeting
Whatever
happens legally and through the courts, it seems to me that there are
too many real issues that are not being brought to the forefront.
I am no expert on this part of history, but I have met members of these
Nations and activists who have been involved and historians who have
looked at the issues, so, while I can't pretend to know any answers I
can claim to know of a few of the questions that need to be brought up
and seem to be conveniently omitted. The first real problem in
this whole paradigm, it seems to me, is this notion of
"Freedmen," or, more precisely, the idea of Africans being
owned by "Indian" nations as "slaves." I am
sure that notion covers a broad range of possibilities and realities,
but the one that I have heard most consistently, and which makes the
most sense, was that freedom-seeking and freedom-seizing enslaved
Africans and Native peoples formed alliances which served both their
purposes. The Seminoles (Siminoli, derived from "cimarrones")
were the classic example; they were "a people, not a tribe,"
composed of individuals from many backgrounds. In the unfolding
drama of European interaction with the Native peoples it was convenient
for them to claim that the Africans were their "slaves," which
meant that the Africans were not up for grabs and could not be taken, as
they were supposedly "property" that was already spoken for.
There are no cases that I know of in which Native people operated
plantations or held Africans in a state of actual bondage or in
situations of unpaid forced labor. So, at best, this notion of
"Indian-owned slaves" was a pretext.
Of
course, leave it to the devious and divisive colonizing mind of the
European settler to ensure confusion by creating a legal status of
"Freedmen," i.e. former "slaves," which somehow
extended to include those who had been supposedly owned by Native
Nations (even though these are, technically, sovereign), so that people
who were organic and equal members of these Black-Red alliances were now
redefined as having a separate status among them. Add in a factor
of reparations, as it were, i.e. assistance and rights that the Native
peoples are entitled to under Federal law, and the stage is set for
"who is really a Native." All of this now takes on high
drama with the multi-billion-dollar gaming industry (of all things!)
entered into the mix as an enviable plum that might be better enjoyed if
there are fewer people to share the fruit.
This
gaming factor is a story in itself, of course, especially with its long
and deep connections to "organized crime" elements and the
like, which is yet another story. On the surface, it cannot be
denied that this income has done some "good." The number
of Native students who have been able to attend college, the ability of
Tribes to invest, the Bentleys and Rollses are indicators of success
which might be debated, but, on the other hand, the role that this
income has played in making the National Museum of the American Indian
in Washington (the most important building there, in my opinion) a
reality cannot be overlooked, for what it is and what it did, in the
time when it was done. On the other hand, there was a memorable
radio story on NPR about the Mohawk Nation in Upstate New York
considering the seductive gaming route as a solution to their many
struggles, and well-dressed representatives of other Nations that are
enjoying financial success were there to press the case. It seems
that the elders were almost on the brink of approving this when a young
woman stood up and shouted, "Listen to yourselves!," and
reminded the whole gathering of the wisdom of the Seven Generations
that every single person in the room had been raised with. (Every thing
we do, every word wee say, every breath we take affects the next Seven
Generations.) "How, Seven Generations from now, when our
people look back on us, will we explain to them our decision to accept
this (gaming)?" The whole audience came back to their senses,
as it were, and deferred any further discussion on the matter.
The
gaming industry has basically exacerbated the problems that had already
been planted within the nations by the European settlers' agenda.
Now it has come to a point that gaming is defining who the Nations and
Tribes are (based on who all is entitled to the goodies). The
Pequots in Connecticut went through a very contentious time with this
(which I don't know was ever fully resolved). Their casino is one
of the most successful in the country, and said to be the
"nicest," but one of the conditions that went into the
building of it was the establishment of museum, which is also said to be
one of the best in the country, starting history with the Ice Age and
coming forward from there, and including the story of the Black Indians,
I am told. This is said to be very well done, but it is also
acknowledged that none of this happened without a very serious fight and
people absolutely refusing not to back down from their demands.
One
might think that this would have served as a model for other Nations to
follow. This is especially true since the whole notion of
"Nation" these days is completely turned on its head from what
might have been thought traditionally. There are second, third and
fourth generation "Englishmen" (and women), for example, who
are of African, Caribbean, Asian and Middle Eastern origin, but who know
no other country or language than that of England. Ditto for
Chinese Americans, Italian
If
all of these are side issues that have been left out of the story, there
is also a main issue that has been the most glaringly absent. It
came out into the open quite blatantly during the Pequot controversy,
and has been very much a part of the Seminole debates, and most surely
is part of this Cherokee situation today. That, of course, is the
factor of how many "White Indians" are involved. The
U.S. government instituted a system, I believe it is called the Dawes
Quotient, for determining who is really an "Indian" based on
the percentage of "blood" in one's ancestry. (The Nazi
system of determining who is a German or a Jew, with its different
"degrees" of "Mischling" and whether this or that
blood was maternal or paternal, or the South African Apartheid regime's
formulas for determining "coloredness" are just other examples
of the same psychosis at work.) Well, it seems that this system
has been able to be manipulated very well by those White folk who can
enjoy all the privileges of whiteness while at the same time, once
benefits become available to "Indians," can suddenly prove
themselves to be practically more Indian than the Indians themselves.
From
what we could hear of the debate in the Seminole Nation in Oklahoma, a
whole lot of the people who were shouting the loudest and fighting the
hardest for Black Seminoles to be excluded from the Nation looked like
folks that left you wondering what they were doing in the room at all,
much less claiming "Indian blood" and heritage. I
strongly suspect that this is very much the scenario that is playing out
among the Cherokee, all the more because this factor is not being
mentioned.
The
leopard doesn't change its spots. There are good-hearted
individuals, and some pretty bad-hearted ones too, in every group, and
only the most ignorant, insecure and intellectually lazy think that
whole groups of people can be good or bad, or held responsible for
history. Even so, however, it cannot be denied that there are many
in this country who are the spiritual descendants of Columbus.
They never came here to do any good (certainly not for the people here),
and their agenda of taking all they can by whatever means they can has
not changed. The new round of exploitation of the Native Nations,
through the combination of gaming revenues and newly made claims to
Indian Ancestry by these descendants is only the latest wrinkle in their
longstanding game and agenda.
At least, that's the way it looks from here.
Dinizulu
***************************************************************************
|
Thursday,
March 8, 2007 Racism and the Cherokee Nation
A member of the Black Chickasaw Freedmen's Association. By William Loren Katz
As President Bill Clinton and others arrived in Selma, Alabama, for the 42nd anniversary of the
"Bloody Sunday" march that prodded Congress to pass the
1965 Voting Rights Act, the Cherokee Nation chose a lower road. It
voted overwhelmingly for an amendment to their constitution that
revokes citizenship rights for 2,800 members because their
ancestors included people of African descent.
Marilyn Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five
Civilized Tribes, has long fought racism from both governmental
officials and indigenous figures. In this instance, she claims,
Cherokee leaders misled voters by insisting "freedmen don't
have Indian blood," "the freedmen were forced on the
tribe," "the freedmen do not have a treaty right to
citizenship," "the people have never voted on
citizenship provisions in the history of the tribe," and
"the amendment will create an all Indian tribe."
Cherokee voters were also influenced by the racist charge
"that the freedmen if not ejected, would use up all of the
tribal service monies.”
The design of the amendment, Vann points
out, is patently discriminatory. It removes membership from
descendants of enrolled African Cherokees whose documentation of
Indian ancestry was affirmed by the Dawes Commission more than a
century ago as well as those without documentation of Indian
ancestry. On the other hand it accepts Cherokee members with white
blood or even people whose ancestors are listed as "adopted
whites."
This development comes at a moment of
re-examination of African and Indian alliances that followed 1492.
Governor Nicolas de Ovando of Hispaniola arrived in the Americas
in 1502 with a Spanish armada that carried the first enslaved
Africans. Within a year, Ovando wrote to King Ferdinand that the
Africans "fled to the Indians and never could be
captured." To the fury of Europeans, Native Americans, the
first people enslaved in the New World, accepted African runaways. Indians saw no reason to face the
invasion alone.
In their maroon colonies beyond the
European settlements that dotted the coastlines of the
Americas, each group contributed invaluable skills. As victims of the
triangular trade, Africans brought their unique experience of
European intentions, weapons, and diplomacy. Native American
villages offered runaways a safe haven for families and a base for
operations, and allowed the two peoples to forge the first
"rainbow coalition.” So ubiquitous were maroon communities
that a French scholar called them "the gangrene of colonial
society." Seeing these alternative societies as a threat to
their hegemony, Europeans repeatedly deployed search and destroy
armies.
British colonial officials in what is now
the United States required Indian Nations to sign treaties promising the return of
Black runaways. (There is no record of any fugitives being
returned!) To keep Native American villages from becoming an
escape hatch, officials from Florida Canada offered Indians staggering rewards for runaways. And to that same
end, British traders introduced African slavery to the Five
Nations -- the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and
Seminoles. Once these Nations adopted European-style dress,
Christianity and African bondage, they were called "The Five
Civilized Tribes." In Florida permitted guerilla warfare, African Seminoles
played a commanding role in a resistance that at times tied up
half of the U.S. Army, held the U.S. military forces at bay from 1816 to 1858, took 1500
U.S. military lives, and cost Congress $30,000,000.
By Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831,
southern planters, frantic that leaks in their labor system would
have explosive consequences, joined with whites seeking valuable
Indian land, to demand removal of the Five Nations. President
Martin Van Buren had 7,000 U.S. troops drive 60,000 Indians, including black members, to distant
Oklahoma. Thousands perished on this “Trail of
Tears,” Cherokees of both lineages comforted one other.
Even before they reached Oklahoma African
bondage dominated the social, political and economic life of the
Five Nations, and created the class and racial divisions evident
today. A minority of Cherokees with white blood owned slaves,
claimed a superior status and rose to leadership. “Pure Indian
blood” Cherokees, the majority, became “inferior.” African
Cherokees, slave and free, were relegated to the lowest rung.
However in the 1850s Heinrich Mollhausen, a noted German artist,
visited the Indian Territory
and described a form of bondage unlike any southern plantation:
These slaves receive from the Indian masters
more Christian treatment than among the Christian whites. The
traveler may seek in vain for any other difference between master
and servant than such as nature had made in the physical
characteristics of the races; and the Negro is regarded as a
companion and helper, to whom thanks and kindness are due when he
exerts himself for the welfare of the household.
In 1860 Cherokees in
Oklahoma owned 2,511 slaves, and at the outset of the Civil War, Cherokee
leaders, pressured by pro-slavery Indian Agents and virtually
surrounded by Confederate armies, agreed to support the
Confederacy. However, Opothle Yahola, a Creek chief and pacifist,
was able to lead 7,600 people -- including half of the Seminole
Nation, Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and others, to
Union lines in Kansas. By April 1862 the young men of this
multicultural exodus had joined the Union Army and helped free
slaves in Missouri.
The defeat of the Confederacy allowed U.S. officials to scrap its Indian treaties. Whites who had forced
African slavery on Indians now demanded Indians accept
Lincoln's "new birth of freedom." The Seminoles, who had long
treated their African members as allies rather than slaves,
embraced equality. Cherokees followed. African Cherokees soon ran
barbershops, blacksmith shops, general stores and restaurants or
became ferryboat operators, cotton-gin managers, teachers and
postmasters. O.S. Fox, editor of the Cherokee Afro-American
was enthusiastic:
The opportunities for our people in that
country far surpassed any of the kind possessed by our people in
the U.S. . . . It is nonsense for any Afro-American to emigrate to
Africa or anywhere else if he can make a living in the
Indian Territory.
In 1879 African Cherokees,
petitioning for full equality, based their appeal on a shared
history:
The Cherokee nation is our country;
there we were born and reared; there are our homes made by the
sweat or our brows; there are our wives and children, whom we love
as dearly as though we were born with red, instead of black skins.
There we intend to live and defend our natural rights, as
guaranteed by the treaties and laws of the
United States, by every legitimate and lawful means.
How ironic and sad that people of
African Cherokee lineage still have to fight for natural rights
being denied them by the New World's first victims of virulent
bigotry, imported by the European invaders.
__________________________________________________
William Loren Katz is the
author of BLACK INDIANS: A HIDDEN HERITAGE and forty other books,
and has been associated with NYU for 35 years. His website is: www.WILLIAMLKATZ.com |
How exactly did the Africans and the Chinese mix to produce the Red Indian and were there Blacks in China as well?
Different tribes have different rules about what constitutes American Indian. The Cherokee Nation, for example, allows you to join if you can document that you are at least 1/16 Cherokee. Source and discussion
Cherokees Pull Memberships of Freed
Slaves By Sean Murphy OKLAHOMA CITY (3/4/07) - The
Cherokee Nation vote this weekend to revoke the citizenship of the
descendants of people the Cherokee once owned as slaves was a blow to
people who have relied on tribal benefits. . . .Marilyn Vann, president of the
Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes, said the election
results undoubtedly will be challenged.
"We will pursue the legal remedies that are available to us to stop
people from not only losing their voting rights, but to receiving
medical care and other services to which they are entitled under
law," Vann said Sunday.
"This is a fight for justice to stop these crimes against
humanity."
Cherokee Nation spokesman Mike Miller said Sunday that election results
will not be finalized until after a protest period that extends through
March 12. Services currently being received by freedmen descendants will
not immediately be suspended, he said. More.
. . _________________ BLACK
PRIDE
LATIN AMERICA NEEDS ITS OWN CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT SAYS THE WORLD-FAMOUS RAPPER
By TEGO CALDERON
Tego says skin color's still a major issue for Latinos.
February 15, 2007 -- Just this morning, I was listening to radio host
Luisito Vigeroux talking about a movie project that I am working on
which co-stars Mayra Santos Febres and he was saying, "Her? She's
starring in it?"
Questioning her Black beauty.
I remember, too, when Celia Cruz died, a newscaster, thinking she was
being smart, said Celia Cruz wasn't black, she was Cuban. She was pretty
even though she's black.
As if there is something wrong with being black, like the two things
can't exist simultaneously and be a majestic thing. There is ignorance
and stupidity in Puerto Rico and Latin America when it comes to
blackness.
In Puerto Rico, Spike Lee's "Malcolm X" was only shown in one
theater and unlike all the other movies shown here, there were no
subtitles. It's as if they don't want the masses to learn.
But it's not just here - in Puerto Rico - where I experience racism.
When I lived in Miami, I was often treated like a second class Boricua.
I felt like I was in the middle - Latino kids did not embrace me and
African American kids were confused because here I was a black boy who
spoke Spanish. But after a while, I felt more embraced by black
Americans - as a brother who happens to speak Spanish - than other
Latino kids did.
Because I am well known, sometimes I forget the racist ways of the
world. But then I travel to places where no one knows Tego Calderón I
am reminded.
For instance, when I travel first class, the stewardess will say,
"Sir, this is first class," and ask to see ticket. I take my
time, put my bags in the overhead, sit, and gingerly give them my
ticket, smiling at them. I try not to get stressed anymore, let them
stress themselves.
And the thing is that many white Puerto Ricans and Latinos don't get it.
They are immune to the subtle ways in which we are demeaned,
disrespected. They have white privilege. And I've heard it said that we
are on the defensive about race.
Those things happen and it's not because of color, Tego, but because of
how you look, how you walk, what you wear, what credit card you have.
Then, they spend a couple of days with me, sort of walk in my shoes, and
say "Damn negro, you are right."
When I check into hotels and use my American Express they call the
credit card company in front of me saying the machine is broken. This
happens a lot in U.S. cities but it's not because there is more racism
there, it's because they don't know me. When I'm in Latin America, I am
known, so it's different. That is not to say that there is less racism.
The reality for blacks in Latin America is severe, in Colombia,
Venezuela, Peru, Honduras ...
Puerto Rican (and Latin American) blacks are confused because we grow up
side by side with non-blacks and we are lulled into believing that
things are the same. But we are treated differently.
My parents always celebrated our history. My dad always pointed things
out to me. He even left the PIP (Pro-Independence Party) because he
always said that los negros and our struggle was never acknowledged.
Maelo (Ismael Rivera) and Tite Curet did their part in educating and
calling out the issues. Today, I do my part but I attack the subject of
racism directly.
It makes me so happy to see Don Omar call himself el negro and La Sister
celebrate her blackness. Now it's in fashion to be black and to be from
Loiza. And that is awesome, it makes me so happy. Even if they don't
give me credit for starting the pride movement, I know what I did to get
it out there.
Young black Latinos have to learn their story. We also need to start our
own media, and forums and universities. We are treated like second class
citizens. They tell blacks in Latin America that we are better off than
U.S. blacks or Africans and that we have it better here, but it's a
false sense of being. Because here, it's worse.
We are definitely treated like second class citizens and we are not part
of the government or institutions. Take for instance, Jamaica - whites
control a Black country.
They have raised us to be ashamed of our blackness. It's in the language
too. Take the word denigrate - denigrar - which is to be less than a
negro.
In Puerto Rico you get used it and don't see it everyday. It takes a
visitor to point out that all the dark skin sisters and brothers are in
the service industry.
It's hard in Puerto Rico. There was this Spaniard woman in the elevator
of the building where I lived who asked me if I lived there. And poor
thing - not only is there one black brother living in the penthouse, but
also in the other, lives Tito Trinidad. It gets interesting when we both
have our tribes over.
Black Latinos are not respected in Latin America and we will have to get
it by defending our rights, much like African Americans struggled in the
U.S.
It's hard to find information about our people and history but just like
kids research the newest Nintendo game or CD they have to take interest
in their story. Be hungry for it.
We need to educate people close to us. I do it one person at a time when
language is used and I am offended by it. Sometimes you educate with
tenderness, as in the case of my wife, who is not black.
She's learned a lot and is offended when she sees injustices. She gets
it. Our children are mixed, but they understand that they are black and
what that means. My wife has taught her parents, and siblings, and they,
in turn, educate the nephews and nieces. That is how everyone learns.
This is not about rejecting whiteness rather; it's about learning to
love our blackness - to love ourselves. We have to say basta ya, it's
enough, and find a way to love our blackness. They have confused us -
and taught us to hate each other - to self-hate and create divisions on
shades and features.
Remember that during slavery, they took the light blacks to work the
home, and left the dark ones to work the fields. There is a lot residue
of self-hatred.
And each of us has to put a grain in the sand to make it into a movement
where we get respect, where we can celebrate our blackness without
shame.
It will be difficult but not impossible.
As told to Sandra Guzman
Social Activism is not a hobby: it's a Lifestyle lasting a Lifetime
http://blackeducator.blogspot.com