"What has occurred is that the limitation of federal resources allocated to meeting U.S. obligations to American Indians has become so severe that Indians themselves have increasingly begun to enforce the race codes excluding the genetically marginalized from both identification as Indian citizens and consequent entitlements. In theory, such a posture leaves greater per capita shares for all remaining "bona fide" Indians. But, as American Indian Movement activist Russell Means has Pointed out:
The situation is absurd. Our treaties say nothing about your having to be such-and-such a degree of blood in order to be covered...when the federal government made its guarantees to our nations in exchange for our land, it committed to provide certain services to us as we defined ourselves. As nations, and as a people. This seems to have been forgotten. Now we have Indian people who spend most of their time trying to prevent other Indian people from being recognized as such, just so that a few more crumbs-crumbs from the federal table-may be available to them, personally. I dont have to tell you that this isn't the Indian way of doing things. The Indian way would be to get together and demand what is coming to each and every one of us, instead of trying to cancel each other out. We are acting like colonized peoples, like subject peoples..."
-The State of Native America edited by M. Annette Jaimes
Chapter IV Federal Indian Identification Policy A Usurpation of Indigenous Sovereignty in North America by M. Annette Jaimes
pg.129-130
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