In 2016, Donald Trump started mocking Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) calling her “Pocahontas” for her claim that she has Native American roots. As if the using the name Pocahontas to mock her or any Native American isn’t racist enough this story recently morphed into all sorts of racist mental gymnastics.
For months the media labored over whether there were “official documents” proving Warrens claims, as if government documents are Gods truth, and she couldn’t be have Indigenous roots if there was no government documentation.
Recently Senator Warren took a DNA test that proved that she in fact did have at least one Native American ancestor estimated between 6 to 10 generations ago. She released the results and Americans on both the right and the left who are completely misinformed on the issue doubled down on the mockery.
Warrens own racism and white privilege aside, discounting her heritage over percentages is wrong and plays right into the federal governments hands when it comes to extending treaty rights to Indigenous people.
During the same Presidential campaign a video clip from a 1993 congressional hearing where Donald Trump accuses the Mafia of exploiting Native American Tribes in order to obtain gaming licenses for Casinos went viral.
Trump bickers with California Democratic Representative George Miller about the FBI’s selective enforcement of regulation of Tribal casinos and taxation.
It is clear that Atlantic City mogul Donald Trump is looking to squelch competition to his casinos, but is he wrong to point out that “white” money in collusion with government exploits the poverty of Tribal Nations? Poverty that was engineered by those same financial and government interests to begin with?
Donald Trump the penultimate crony capitalist understand exactly how to manipulate the government system. He has made a career and fortune of buying political favors, influencing legislation and using other government programs like eminent domain for his own profit.
Here he sits calling out the Mafia for taking advantage of poor Tribes, using them to obtain licenses and of course keeping the lions share of the profits. Donald Trump is a hypocrite, but he isn’t wrong on this issue; but I digress.
A more important issue is revealed in Rep. Millers responses to Donald Trump when he claims the mobsters “dont look like Indians to me.” The media has edited the video to pull out this quote to make it sound like Trump is being his usual racist self, but if you watch the hearing in context it’s clear Trump is referring to the “white” money men behind the specific Casinos which are the topic of discussion.
Rep. Miller responds “Thank God that’s not the test of whether or not people have rights or not in this country, whether they pass your look test.”
The fact is, that is exactly how the Federal government decides which Indigenous Americans get rights in the country.
Enter the concept of “Blood quantum.” A person's blood quantum is defined as the percentage of their ancestors, out of their total ancestors, who are documented as full-blood Native Americans. For instance, a person who has one parent who is a full-blood Native American, and one who has no Native ancestry, has a blood quantum of 1/2. This is the process that the federal government uses to determine whether they consider you a Native American or not.
The Federal Government issues a Certificate of Indian Blood to authenticate Native American heritage. This is how they decide whether an individual deserves to be extended the “rights” that other Native American Tribes have been extended through treaties. (Rights that are natural and therefore governments have zero legitimate authority to grant.)
Blood Quantum is a contrived, unscientific and downright immoral way to fake a measurement of the authenticity of ones heritage. There are some real insidious social engineering consequences to this practice. Firstly it discourages Indigenous Americans from intermarrying with non indigenous people, could this have been part of its purpose? Another problem with this is if records have been lost, or your ancestors aren’t in the records you can be denied your heritage.
The most offensive aspect is that the invading, colonizing entity has zero moral or scientific authority to determine who belongs to what ethnic group. This is white supremacy at its core, defaulting those who are white with rights, and those who aren’t must prove their lack of whiteness to receive the consolation prize of “privileges” granted by treaties (that are sure to be violated anyway.)
Blood Quantum seeks to eliminate indigenous bloodlines by declaring them more and more white over time. According the the U.S. Federal Government you can become more white over time, but you cant become more Indigenous.
If Donald Trump has been good for one thing, it has been his inadvertent exposition of the vile hypocrisy of the State that has been accepted for granted even by white liberal Americans.