Letter to the Editor of the Glacier Reporter by Robert C. Juneau 12-28-14

To The Editor:  

There is a story writter by Hans Christian Anderson called The Emperor's New Clothes that goes,"The trumpets blew and the great procession started.  People had come from far and near to get a good view of the Emperor in his new clothes.  But how surprised they were when they saw him.  At last one of the crowd said timidly,"The Emperor's new clothes are beautiful!" Then everyone started talking at once." So fashionable!" "Very smart!" "Divine!" they said, each of them anxious not to seem more foolish than the rest.  But one small boy laughed out loud and shouted,"Look!  The Emperor has no clothes on!" It is plain for everyone to see that Blood Quantum does not exist and should not be used by the Blackfeet as a Enrollment Criteria.  Blood Quantum is Immoral, Impractical, and Unjust.  Immoral because it denies the Blackfeet Descendants the right to be Enrolled which the Blackfeet Descendants consider their birthright since they are Blackfeet landowners.  Impractical because it will cause the Blackfeet to go extinct by the year 2080 and to lose all of their landbase.  Unjust because it denies the Blackfeet Descendants the right to vote in Tribal Elections and to run for Tribal Political Office.  There is also a Turkish Proverb that says,"A Fish rots from the head down," meaning when a organization or state fails, it is the leadership that is the root cause.  Although I think Immoral or Unjust Law could be added to that which I believe Blood Quantum to be.  The remedy for this situation is to have a Secretarial Vote and if the Secretarial Vote should fail to change this Unjust Blackfeet Law the Descendants can seek Federal Recognition as the Blackfeet Band of Descendants.  They can do this because they are already Federally recognized Treaty Indians' and own Blackfeet Trust Land.  The Secretarial Vote has to come first though which is why I am asking all of the Enrolled Blackfeet to sign a copy of the B.E.A.R (Blackfeet Enrollment Amendment Reform) Petition.  You can get a copy by contacting the Blackfeet Descendants Group on Facebook or B.E.A.R or by calling Deena McDonald at (406) 450-3645.  

Letter to the Editor of the Glacier Reporter by Robert C. Juneau

To the Editor: 
In a book called Without Conscience by Robert D. Hare, PhD Socialization is defined as,"Learning to behave according to the rules and regulations of society, called socialization, is a complex process. On a practical level it teaches children" how things are done." In the process, socialization- through parenting, schooling, social experiences, religious training, and so forth-helps to create a system of beliefs, attitudes, and personal standards that determine how we interact with the world around us. Socialization also contributes to the fromation of what most people call their conscience, the pesky inner voice that helps us to resist temptation and to feel guilty when we dont. Together, this inner voice and the internalized norms and rules of society act as an "inner policeman," regulating our behavior even in the absence of the many external controls, such as laws, our perceptions of what others expect of us, and real-life policemen. It's no overstatement to say that our internal controls make society work. Our collective amazement and fascination with the psychopath's utter disregard for rules suggests, by comparison, the power our "inner policemen" actually have over us. (75)" In our History as Blackfeet people we have adopted people with no Native American ancestry such as Bob Scriver, George Bird Grinnel, President Ronald Reagan, James Willard Schultz. Our tribe adopted people from other tribes without any thought as to how much Blackfeet blood they had. I believe our tribe should embrace and enroll the Blackfeet Descendant/Land Heirs by signing the BEAR Petition and allowing the issue to come to a vote. I also believe our Blackfeet Forefathers and Mothers believed the same thing and I offer this statement by Chief White Calf from the Minutes of the Negotiations of the 1895 Blackfeet Treaty as the proof. "These words that I have spoken are not my words only, but are the words of all that are here. They think as I do. Our mixed bloods are a part of ourselves. We have the same blood in our veins. The Great Spirit had divided the people up. You whites came across the great water; we always lived here; this is our land. I desire that the mixed bloods should be provided for, for they are a part of this people. We have a great many cattle and some horses, so we want to retain the grazing land for them to feed upon. That is the reason I am speaking to you. I am speaking for my people. I know it is the sentiment of them all that we deep the grazing lands. They have taken up locations all over the reservation. All the different tribes of Indians were of the same blood. The only difference was that they did not speak the same language. I told our Indians to come to this part. This is our land. There are many children now, going to school. There are miny mixed bloods in the room; there are many that have come here since the last treaty; there is no end to civilizing our children now. They are all going to school and receiving an education, and will not have a stop to it. Our little children are the ones that will get the benefit from these lands.

The Historian's goal

"The historians goal is not to collect "facts" about the past, but rather to acquire insight into the ideas and realities that shaped the lives of men and women of earlier societies. Some of the beliefs and institutions of the past may seem alien to us; others are all too familiar. But in either case, when we study the people of the past, what we are really learning about is the rich diversity of human experience. The study of history is the study of the beliefs and desires, practices and institutions, of human beings."
-A Pocket Guide To Writing In History by Mary Lynn Rampola
pg.1

"Color of Law"

"Color of Law" 
"The appearance or semblance, without the substance, of legal right. Misuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because wrongdoer is clothed with authority of state, is action taken under "color of state law." Acts "under color of any law" of a State include not only acts done by State officials within the limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of an official to be done "under color of any law", the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his official duties; that is to say, the unlawful acts must consist in an abuse or misuse of power which is possessed by the official only because he is an official; and the unlawful acts must be of such a nature or character, and be committed under such circumstances, that they would not have occurred but for the fact that the person committing them was an official then and there exercising his official powers outside the bounds of lawful authority."
"42 U.S.C.A. 1983."
-Black's Law Dictionary
pg.182

War Against The Weak Eugenics And America's Campaign To Create A Master Race by Edwin Black pg.xvi-xvii

"Eventually, America's eugenic movement spread to Germany as well, where it caught the fascination of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement. Under Hitler, eugenics careened beyond any American eugenicist's dream. National Socialism transduced America's quest for a "superior Nordic race" into Hitler's drive for an "Aryan master race." The Nazis were fond of saying "National Socialism is nothing but applied biology," and in 1934 the Richmond Times-Dispatch quoted a prominent American eugenicist as saying,"The Germans are beating us at our own game." Nazi eugenics quickly outpaced American eugenics in both velocity and ferocity. In the 1930s, Germany assumed the lead in the international movement. Hitler's eugenics was backed by brutal decrees, custom designed IBM data processing machines, eugenical courts, mass sterilization mills, concentration camps, and virulent biological anti-Semitism- all of which enjoyed the open approval of leading American eugenicists and their institutions. The cheering quieted, but only reluctantly, when the United States entered the war in December of 1941. Then, out of sight of the world Germany's eugenic warriors operated extermination centers. Eventually, Germany's eugenic madness led to the Holocaust, the destruction of the Gypsies, the rape of Poland and the decimation of all of Europe. But none of America's far reaching scientific racism would have risen above ignorant rants without the backing of corporate philanthropic largess."
-War Against The Weak Eugenics And America's Campaign To Create A Master Race by Edwin Black
pg.xvi-xvii

Letter to the Editor of the Glacier Reporter by Robert C. Juneau

To the Editor: 
I was reading Chapter IV Federal Indian Identification Policy A Usurpation of Indigenous Sovereignty in North America by M. Annette Jaimes in a book called The State of Native America edited by M. Annette Jaimes and on page 123-124 it says,"Contrary to virtually universal practice, the United States has opted to preempt unilaterally the rights of many North American indigenous nations to engage in this most fundamental level of internal decision making. Instead, in pursuit of the interests of their own state rather than those of the nations that are thereby affected, federal policymakers have increasingly imposed "Indian identification standards" of their own design. Typically centering upon a notion of "blood quantum"-not especially different in its conception from the eugenics code once adopted by nazi Germany in its effort to achieve "racial purity," or currently utilized by South Africa to segregate Blacks and "coloreds" this aspect of U.S. Policy has increasingly wrought havoc with the American Indian sense of nationhood (and often the individual sense of self) over the past century. The more than 370 formally ratified treaties entered into by the United States with various Indian nations represent the basic real estate documents by which the federal government now claims legal title to most of its land base. In exchange for the lands ceded by Indians, the United States committed itself to the permanent provision of a range of services to Indian populations (i.e., the citizens of the Indian nations with which the treaty agreements were reached), which would assist them in adjusting their economies and ways of life to their newly constricted territories." On page 4 of my father Bob Juneau's book The Sacred Buffalo Vision published on Amazon.com it says,"The Blackfeet Indians have one of the strongest treaties in the United States, having signed what the Congress of the United States defines as a "negotiated treaty" a "bought and paid for reservation"meaning that we paid for our reservation with land cessions to the United States. The Blackfeet Indians are a "distinct political class" set apart from and above the State of Montana. The Blackfeet Indians have a direct federal-tribal delivery system to receive treaty obligation funds appropriated by the Congress. Indian monies generated from individual Indian trust property are administered by the executive branch, through the Interior Department and Bureau of Indian Affairs." This means that for every Blackfeet Descendant that gets Enrolled the Blackfeet Tribe will get more Federal funding for each new member. They will also retain the tribal land base when the Descendants inherit the land from their parents. The way to accomplish this is for the Enrolled Blackfeet Members to sign the B.E.A.R Petition and allow the issue to come to a Secretarial Vote. You can find more information on the B.E.A.R Petition or obtain a copy of it on Facebook on the Blackfeet Descendants Group or B.E.A.R (Blackfeet Enrollment Amendment Reform) or by contacting Deena McDonald at (406)450-3645.

The State of Native America edited by M. Annette Jaimes pg.123-124

"Contrary to virtually universal practice, the United States has opted to preempt unilaterally the rights of many North American indigenous nations to engage in this most fundamental level of internal decision making. Instead, in pursuit of the interests of their own state rather than those of the nations that are thereby affected, federal policy makers have increasingly imposed "Indian identification standards" of their own design. Typically centering upon a notion of "blood quantum"-not especially different in its conception from the eugenics code once adopted by nazi Germany in its effort to achieve "racial purity," or currently utilized by South Africa to segregate Blacks and "coloreds" this aspect of U.S. policy has increasingly wrought havoc with the American Indian sense of nationhood (and often the individual sense of self) over the past century.
-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.123-124

The State of Native America edited by M. Annette Jaimes pg.129-130

"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

Article Recommendations

Articles
American Indian Gaming Enterprises and Tribal Membership: Race, Exclusivity, and a Perilous Future by Mark Neath
2 U. chi. L. Sch. Roundtable 689 1995

Genealogy As Continuity: Explaining The Growing Tribal Preference For Descent Rules In Membership Governance In The United States 
by Kirsty Gover
33 Am. Indian L. Rev. 243 2008-2009
American Indian Law Review Vol. 33, No.1

DNA, Blood, and Racializing the Tribe by Kimberly Tallbear
Wizaco Sa Review, Vol.18, No.1 (Spring, 2003), pp.81-107

Full Blood, Mixed Blood, Generic, and Ersatz: The Problem of Indian Identity by William T. Hagan
Arizona and the West, Vol.27, No.4 (Winter, 1985), pp.309-326

Race And Manifest Destiny by Reginald Horsman pg.198

"Georgia had already rejected this solution, and in the cabinet in December 1825 Secretary of State Henry Clay candidly told Barbour why any plan for incorporating individual Indians within white society was not acceptable. Clay, who in his public statements often attacked the ruthlessness involved in American expansion, argued that "it was impossible to civilize Indians; that there never was a full-blooded Indian who took to civilization. It was not in their nature. He believed they were destined to extinction, and, although he would never use or countenance inhumanity towards them, he did not think them, as a race, worth preserving. He considered them as essentially inferior to the Anglo-Saxon race, which were now taking their place on this continent. They were not an improvable breed, and their disappearance from the human family will be no great loss to the world. In point of fact they were rapidly disappearing, and he did not believe that in fifty years from this time there would be any of them left." Over the next twenty years American scientists, supposedly on the basis of empirical evidence, resoundingly endorsed Clay's conclusions."
-Race And Manifest Destiny The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism by Reginald Horsman pg.198

Letter to the Editor of the Glacier Reporter by Robert C. Juneau

To the Editor: 
I was reading an article recently in Indian Country Today entitled The Ugliness of Indian-on-Indian Racism from February 13, 2014 written by Dina Gilio-Whitaker who is a Freelance Writer and research associate at the Center for World Indigenous Studies in Olympia, Washington. In the article she says,"The use of the term breed is of course predicated not on Native concepts of identity and belonging through kinship and relatedness but on settler colonialism's construct of blood quantum. It is no small irony that is the same racist logic of the Social Darwinists of the nineteenth century who equated higher Indian blood quantum with evolutionary inferiority, an ideology that justified the genocidal practices of the U.S. government and led to the massive land theft and assimilationist policies of the Dawes era. Colonialism's legacy on Indian people is manifest in a multitude of ways on the political, institutional, and personal levels. The psychological ramifications are legion as evidenced by a well established body of literature on postcolonial psychology and intergenerational posttraumatic stress disorder. Among the effects are internalized oppression characterized on the individual level by self-hatred, often surfacing as violence within the oppressed group. Violence is closely associated with mental illness. Another way of linking these concepts is to say that colonialism is responsible for the bulk of what shows up as mental illness in Indian Country. But violence can take other forms not limited to physical acts. Racism is a form of psychological violence when perpetrated by anyone. When Indians exhibit intra-cultural racism it is an exercise of internalized oppression, i.e. self-hatred, outwardly directed. It is the manifestation of a colonized mind." The Blackfeet need to get rid of Blood Quantum as an Enrollment Criteria. It is immoral because it denies the vote and the right to run for office to the Blackfeet Descendants. It is impractical because it divides the tribe and will cause it to go extinct by the year 2080. The way to avoid this is for the Enrolled Blackfeet Tribal Members who have not already done so to sign the Blackfeet Enrollment Amendment Reform (B.E.A.R) Petition and let the tribe vote on the issue. There is a webpage on Facebook called Blackfeet Descendants Group where members of B.E.A.R can be contacted for a copy of the petition. In closing Dina says in her article,"Colonization is a mental prison that draws no boundaries based on bloodquantum. Full or mixed blood, we have all been affected. The common ground we share is the history of our families having been ripped apart, our languages stolen and our cultures violently disrupted. When we judge each other based on our genetics all we do is keep ourselves trapped in a prison of someone else's making. And what is that if not a form of insanity?"

The Ugliness of Indian-on-Indian Racism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker Indian Country Today 2-13-14

"Colonization is a mental prison that draws no boundaries based on blood quantum. Full or Mixed blood, we have all been affected. The common ground we share is the history of our families having been ripped apart, our languages stolen and our cultures violently disrupted. When we judge each other based on our genetics all we do is keep ourselves trapped in a prison of someone else's making. And what is that if not a form of insanity?" 
-The Ugliness of Indian-on-Indian Racism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker 
Indian Country Today 
2-13-14

The Ugliness of Indian-on-Indian Racism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker Indian Country Today 2-13-14

"Colonialism's legacy on Indian people is manifest in a multitude of ways on the political, institutional, and personal levels. The psychological ramifications are legion as evidenced by a well established body of literature on postcolonial psychology and intergenerational posttraumatic stress disorder. Among the effects are internalized oppression characterized on the individual level by self-hatred, often surfacing as violence within the oppressed group. Violence is closely associated with mental illness. Another way of linking these concepts is to say that colonialism is responsible for the bulk of what shows up as mental illness in Indian Country. But violence can take other forms not limited to physical acts. Racism is a form of psychological violence when perpetuated by anyone. When Indians exhibit intra-cultural racism it is an exercise of internalized oppression, i.e. self-hatred, outwardly directed. It is the manifestation of a colonized mind."
-The Ugliness of Indian-on-Indian Racism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker
Indian Country Today
2-13-14

The Ugliness of Indian-on-Indian Racism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker Indian Country Today 2-13-14

"The use of the term breed is of course predicated not on Native concepts of identity and belonging through kinship and relatedness but on settler colonialism's construct of blood quantum. It is no small irony that is the same racist logic of the Social Darwinists of the nineteenth century who equated higher Indian blood quantum with evolutionary inferiority, an ideology that justified the genocidal practices of the U.S. government and led to the massive land theft and assimilationist policies of the Dawes era. 
-The Ugliness of Indian-on-Indian Racism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker 
Indian Country Today 
2-13-14

The Ugliness of Indian-on-Indian Racism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker

"It is a particular form of Indian-on-Indian racism, or what we might call intra-cultural racism. It is based on the concept of authenticity, a peculiar racial logic which presupposes that a person's genetic makeup alone deems who is "real" as an indigenous person, regardless of their lived experience, family history, upbringing, or markers of cultural competence. To be called a breed is to be condescended to by someone ostensibly more authentic, implying that you as a breed are "less than," you are racially-possibly culturally- incompetent, and your identity claims are dubious. You are altogether genetically inferior." 
-The Ugliness of Indian-on-Indian Racism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker 
Indian Country Today 
2-13-14

The Colonizer And the Colonized by Albert Memmi pg.12

"If he is in trouble with the law, the police and even justice will be more lenient toward him. If he needs assistance from the government, it will not be difficult; red tape will be cut; a window will be reserved for him where there is a shorter line so he will have a shorter wait. Does he need a job? Must he take an examination for it? Jobs and positions will be reserved for him in advance; the tests will be given in his language, disqualifying difficulties for the colonized. Can he be so blind or so blinded that he can never see that, given equal material circumstances, economic class or capabilities, he always receives preferred treatment? How could he help looking back from time to time to see all the colonized, sometimes former schoolmates or colleagues, whom he has so greatly outpaced? Lastly, should he ask for or have need of anything, he need only show his face to be prejudged favorably by those in the colony who count. He enjoys the preference and respect of the colonized themselves, who grant him more than those who are the best of their own people; who, for example, have more faith in his word than in that of their own population."
-The Colonizer And the Colonized by Albert Memmi
pg.12

Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King pg.82

I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham Police department. It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice."
-Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr.
pg.82

Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King pg.83

"One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest." 
-Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King 
pg.83

Letter to the Editor of the Glacier Reporter by Robert C. Juneau

To the Editor: 
I was reading a book recently called Montana Before History 11,000 years of 
Hunter Gatherers in the Rockies and Plains by University of Montana Anthropology Professor Douglas H. MacDonald and on page 155 it says," Ethnographic, linguistic, and archaeological data support Blackfeet presence in northwestern Montana for at least 2,000 years. Blackfeet origin stories point to an eastern origin within the last 2,000 years, and the Blackfeet language is similar to Algonquian dialects found in the northern Midwest. Archaeological sites may indicate even longer-term residence in northwest Montana and nearby areas, possibly extending back 3,000 years or more. For example, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Southern Alberta shows a sequence of occupations beginning in the Archaic period and continuing well into the Late Prehistoric period. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that the earliest Archaic occupations are associated with some other tribe, such as the ancestral Salish or Kootenai, and that the Blackfeet arrived during the Late Prehistoric period." The Blackfeet have a rich and ancient History on the ground where they currently reside which dates back to the rise of the Roman Empire. The myth about our History and culture is that it is static and unchanging. I learned in the Anthropology classes that I took at the University of Montana that all cultures are dynamic and always changing in order to survive. The Blackfeet began hunting Buffalo in large groups on foot and using dogs with travois to transport their shelter and belongings. Then the horse arrived in America and the Blackfeet adopted both the horse and the rifle for hunting, self-defense, and warfare. They studied their environment discovering new plants for medicine and using the stars for navigation at night. Then when the Blackfeet could no longer live off hunting the Buffalo they had to adapt again to life under a dominant Anglo-American culture by becoming Farmers and Ranchers. Becoming so good at Ranching Businessmen came all the way from Chicago, Illinois to buy the Blackfeets' beef. Very few indigenous peoples in the History of the world have accomplished that kind of a transition from a Native culture to survival and adaptation in the face of a different economy and culture. The Blackfeet Language has also changed to include things that did not exist prior to the beginning of the Reservation like radio and television. The Blackfeet have always adopted the best technology and ways of living while retaining a core culture so why not adopt a Enrollment Criteria that works the best for all of the people? A Enrollment Criteria that will include all of the Blackfeet Descendants and provide a means for tribal members to marry whoever they want Native or Non-Native and still be able to get their children enrolled. Blood Quantum does not exist and will not work for our people as a Enrollment Criteria. I believe signing the B.E.A.R petition is the way to do this and I encourage all Blackfeet Enrolled Members to sign it. There is a Blackfeet Enrollment Amendment Reform (B.E.A.R) page on Facebook for those who need to contact us.

Martin Luther King At Santa Rita

"Expediency asks the question is it Politic? Vanity asks the question is it Popular but Conscience asks the question is it right and there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, not politic, not popular but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right and that is where I stand today and that is where I hope you will continue to stand so that we can speed up the day when Justice will roll down like waters all over the world and righteousness like a mighty stream."
-Martin Luther King At Santa Rita
Produced by Colin Edwards
Recorded: Santa Rita, California, 14 Jan. 1968.
(23 min.) BB1460 Pacifica Radio Archives.
Description: King's speech at a demonstration supporting anti-war activists imprisoned at the Santa Rita rehabilitation center.

The Drum Major Instinct A Speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

…If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s your new definition of greatness. And this morning, the thing that I like about it . . . by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great. Because 
everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of
grace. A soul generated by love. And you can be that servant…
-‘The Drum Major Instinct’ (excerpt) !
A Speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta
February 4, 1968
http://www.plymouthchurch.org/news/MLK_DrumMajorInstinct.pdf

Montana Before History 11,000 Years of Hunter-Gatherers in the Rockies and Plains by Douglas H. MacDonald pg.155

Ethnographic, linguistic, and archaeological data support Blackfeet presence in northwestern Montana for at least 2,000 years. Blackfeet origin stories point to an eastern origin within the last 2,000 years, and the Blackfeet language is similar to Algonquian dialects found in the northern Midwest. Archaeological sites may indicate even longer-term residence in northwest Montana and nearby areas, possibly extending back 3,000 years or more. For example, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in southern Alberta shows a sequence of occupations beginning in the Archaic period and continuing well into the Late Prehistoric period. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that the earliest Archaic occupations are associated with some other tribe, such as the ancestral Salish or Kootenai, and that the Blackfeet arrived during the Late Prehistoric period.
-Montana Before History 11,000 Years of Hunter-Gatherers in the Rockies and Plains by Douglas H. MacDonald
pg.155

Letter to the Editor of the Glacier Reporter by Robert C. Juneau

To The Editor: 
I was reading a article entitled Whiteness As Property published in the Harvard Law Review and on page 1721-1722 it says,"Although the Indians were the first occupants and possessors of the land of the New World, their racial and cultural otherness allowed this fact to be reinterpreted and ultimately erased as abasis for asserting rights in land. Because the land had been left in its natural state, untilled and unmarked by human hands, it was "waste" and, therefore, the appropriate object of settlement and appropriation.
Thus, the possession maintained by the Indians was not "true" possession and could safely be ignored. This interpretation of the rule of first possession effectively rendered the rights of first possessors contingent on the race of the possessor. Only particular forms of possession those that were characteristic of white settlement-would be recognized and legitimated. Indian forms of possession were perceived to be too ambiguous and unclear. The Blood Quantum issue relates to this because without Tribal
recognition Blackfeet Descendant land will be vulnerable to taxation by the State of Montana. The State of Montana has already taken half a million acres of Blackfeet land and Mineral Rights. If the
State of Montana legally takes land from a Blackfeet Descendant the Blackfeet Tribe can never get it back. The Blackfeet Tribe could lose possibly up to another quarter of it's landbase. If you study the History of the United States debt has always been a effective means for State governments to
get tribal lands. If the Blackfeet Descendants were enrolled the land would be safe under Federal recognition and in Tribal Trust. The tribe would get more money in State Compacts on things like taxes on gas, alcohol, and tobacco. Right now the tribe gets nothing for Descendants because only Enrolled Members are counted in agreements. The Blackfeet would get more money for Treaty Obligation Funds which would mean more money for all Federal programs serving the Blackfeet on the Reservation. The choice is simple enroll the Blackfeet Descendants and get more money and land ensuring the survival of the tribe long into the future. Or keep going with Blood Quantum and lose all of our land, members, and go extinct. The answer to this problem is for the Blackfeet Enrolled Members to sign
the B.E.A.R. Petition and let the issue come to a Secretarial Vote.

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1762

Although the law's determination of any "fact," including that of group identity, is not infinitely flexible, its studied ignorance of the issue of racial group identity insures wrong results by assuming a pseudo-objective posture that does not permit it to hear the complex dialogue concerning the identity question, particularly as it pertains to historically dominated groups. Instead, the law holds to the basic premise that definition from above can be fair to those below, that beneficiaries of racially conferred privilege have the right to establish norms for those who have historically been oppressed pursuant to those norms, and that race is not historically contingent. Although the substance of race definitions has changed, what persists is the expectation of white-controlled institutions in the continued right to determine meaning-the reified privilege of power-that reconstitutes the property interest in whiteness in contemporary form.
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris
Harvard Law Review, volume 106, June 1993, Number 8, pg.1762

Human Genetics Concepts and Applications by Ricki Lewis pg.5

A person has half of his or her genes in common with each parent and each sibling, and one-quarter with each grandparent. First cousins share one-eighth of their genes. 
-Human Genetics Concepts and Applications by Ricki Lewis 
pg.5

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1762

Although the law's determination of any "fact," including that of group identity, is not infinitely flexible, its studied ignorance of the issue of racial group identity insures wrong results by assuming a pseudo-objective posture that does not permit it to hear the complex dialogue concerning the identity question, particularly as it pertains to historically dominated groups. 
--Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris 
Harvard Law Review, Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8, pg.1762

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1761

The law has recognized and codified racial group identity as an instrumentality of exclusion and exploitation; however, it has refused to recognize group identity when asserted by racially oppressed groups as a basis for affirming or claiming rights. 
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris 
Harvard Law Review, Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8, pg.1761

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1711-1712

On rare occasions she would wince, recalling some particularly racist comment made in her presence because of her presumed, shared group affiliation. Whatever retort might have been called for had been suppressed long before it reached her lips, for the price of her family's well-being was her silence. Accepting the risk of self-annihilation was the only way to survive. Although she never would have stated it this way, the clear and ringing denunciations of racism she delivered from her chair when advanced arthritis had rendered her unable to work were informed by those experiences. The fact that self-denial had been a logical choice and had made her complicit in her own oppression at times fed the fire in her eyes when she confronted some daily outrage inflicted on Black people. Later, these painful memories forged her total identification with the civil rights movement. Learning about the world at her knee as I did, these experiences also came to inform my outlook and my understanding of the world. My grandmother's story is far from unique. Indeed, there are many who crossed the color line never to return. Passing is well-known among Black people in the United States and is a feature of race subordination in all societies structured on white supremacy.
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris
Harvard Law Review, Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8,
pg.1711-1712

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1711

She quietly went about her clerical tasks, not once revealing her true identity. She listened to the women with whom she worked discuss their worries-their children's illnesses, their husbands' disappointments, their boyfriends' infidelities-all of the mundane yet critical things that made up their lives. She came to know them but they did not know her, for my grandmother occupied a completely different place. That place-where white supremacy and economic domination meet-was unknown turf to her white co-workers. They remained oblivious to the worlds within worlds that existed just beyond the edge of their awareness and yet were present in their very midst. Each evening, my grandmother, tired and worn, retraced her steps home, laid aside her mask, and reentered herself. Day in and day out, she made herself invisible, then visible again, for a price too inconsequential to do more than barely sustain her family and at a cost too precious to conceive. She left the job some years later, finding the strain too much to bear. From time to time, as I later sat with her, she would recollect that period, and the cloud of some painful memory would pass across her face. Her voice would remain subdued, as if to contain the still remembered tension.
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris
Harvard Law Review, Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8,
pg.1711

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1710-1711

I.Introduction 
In the 1930s, some years after my mother's family became part of the great river of Black migration that flowed north, my Mississippi-born grandmother was confronted with the harsh matter of economic survival for herself and her two daughters. Having separated from my grandfather, who himself was trapped on the fringes of economic marginality, she took one long hard look at her choices and presented herself for employment at a major retail store in Chicago's central business district. This decision would have been unremarkable for a white woman in similar circumstances, but for my grandmother, it was an act of both great daring and self-denial, for in so doing she was presenting herself as a white woman. In the parlance of racist America, she was passing." Her fair skin, straight hair, and aquiline features had not spared her from the life of sharecropping into which she had been born in anywhere/nowhere, Mississippi-the outskirts of Yazoo City. But in the burgeoning landscape of urban America, anonymity was possible for a Black person with "white" features. She was transgressing boundaries, crossing borders, spinning on margins, traveling between dualities of Manichean space, rigidly bifurcated into light/dark, good/bad, white/Black. No longer immediately identifiable as "Lula's daughter," she could thus enter the white world, albeit on a false passport, not merely passing, but trespassing. Every day my grandmother rose from her bed in her house in a Black enclave on the south side of Chicago, sent her children off to a Black school, boarded a bus full of Black passengers, and rode to work. No one at her job ever asked if she was Black; the question was unthinkable. By virtue of the employment practices of the "fine establishment" in which she worked, she could not have been. Catering to the upper-middle class, understated tastes required that Blacks not be allowed.
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris
Harvard Law Review, Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8,
pg.1710-1711

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1761

"Racial identities are not only black, Latino, Asian, Native American, and so on; they are also white. To ignore white ethnicity is to redouble its hegemony by naturalizing it." bell hooks, Representing Whiteness: Seeing Wings of Desire, ZETA, Mar. 1989, at 39 (citation omitted). 
-Whitness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris Harvard Law Review Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8, pg.1761

Genome The Autobiography of A Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley pg.4

The human genome - the complete set of human genes - comes packaged in twenty-three separate pairs of chromosomes. Of these, twenty-two pairs are numbered in approximate order of size, from the largest (number 1) to the smallest (number 22), while the remaining pair consists of the sex chromosomes: two large x chromosomes in women, one x and one small Y in men. In size, the x comes between chromosomes 7 and 8, whereas the Y is the smallest. 
-Genome The Autobiography of A Species In 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley 
pg.4

Death, Too, For The-Heavy-Runner by Ben Bennett pg.125

"Considered in a military view the expedition was a complete and brilliant success," reported the New North-West on February 4. "The Indians were the aggressors...they spared not age or sex, and so they have been slain. They repaid peace with powder, kindness with contempt, friendship with fire, and sustenance with theft. They compelled war and have perished." The paper passed along an anecdote which reflected its feelings: 
"Will the Indians remain quiet now, do you think?" asked an anxious settler of Lieutenant Doane, of the Cavalry, when the expedition was returning from the Marias. "Well, I can't say," returned the Lieutenant,"but there are certainly one hundred and seventy-three very good arguments in favor of their remaining quiet, lying out on the Marias!" 
-Death, Too, For The-Heavy-Runner by Ben Bennett pg.125

Montana Congressman James M. Cavanaugh

"I like an Indian better dead than living. I have never in my life seen a good Indian-and I have seen thousands-except when I have seen a dead Indian." 
-Montana Congressman James M. Cavanaugh 
May 28, 1868 stated within the U.S. House of Representatives

Death, Too, For The-Heavy-Runner by Ben Bennett pg.137-138

Montana's Congressman Cavanaugh enthusiastically echoed McCormick's sentiments. "I endorse the order of General Phil Sheridan," he told the House. "I endorse the act of General Hancock. I endorse the conduct of Colonel Baker." "I desire to ask the gentleman," interrupted Congressman George Hoar of Massachusetts,"if he means to say that he approves the killing of these women and children in cold blood, when there were no arms in their hands.""I will answer the question fairly and squarely," replied Cavanaugh, "in the words of General Harney after the battle of Ash Hollow, years ago...they are nits, and will become lice. I endorse...the act of Colonel Baker." 
-Death, Too, For The-Heavy-Runner by Ben Bennett pg.137-138

Death, Too, For The-Heavy-Runner by Ben Bennett pg.159

"There is every reason to believe," wrote the Helena Herald of March 30, 1870, "that the raid of Colonel Baker, in addition to ridding the Territory of the most murderous band of Indians in the country, has also had a very salutary effect on the other tribes of the Blackfeet Nation. 
-Death, Too, For The-Heavy-Runner by Ben Bennett pg.159

Death, Too, For The-Heavy-Runner by Ben Bennett pg.57

And so it was once again with surprise, though scarcely inexperience, that Regis de Trobriand encountered the challenges of October 1869 from the renegade Blackfeet and the presuming Alfred Sully. The Indians presented the lesser threat. Long ago he had articulated the Military tactic to be employed against them. "Range far out during the winter to surprise the permanent villages where the tribes keep their women and children," he advocated. "The confessed aim is to exterminate everyone, for this is the only advantage of making the expedition; if extermination were not achieved, just another burden would be added-prisoners." 
-Death, Too, For The-Heavy-Runner by Ben Bennett pg.57

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1739-1740

See, e.g., Sunseri v. Cassagne, 185 So. I, 4-5 (La. 1938). The case involved a suit by Sunseri to annul his marriage to Cassagne on the grounds that she had a trace of "negro blood." He contended that his wife's great-great-grandmother was a "full-blooded negress," and Cassagne herself asserted that she was Indian. See id. at 2. It was not disputed that all of Cassagne's paternal ancestors from her father to her great-great-grandfather were white men. See id. Moreover, Cassagne had been regarded as white in the community, as she and her mother had been christened in a white church, had attended white schools, were registered as white voters, were accepted as white in public facilities, and had exclusively associated with whites. See id. at 4-5. Nevertheless, because certificates and official records designated Cassagne and some of her relatives as "colored," the court concluded that she was not white and that thus there were sufficient grounds to annul the marriage. See Sunseri v. Cassagne, 196 So. 7, 10 (La. 1940);
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris
Harvard Law Review Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8, pg.1739-1740

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1739-1740

See, e.g., Sunseri v. Cassagne, 185 So. I, 4-5 (La. 1938). The case involved a suit by Sunseri to annul his marriage to Cassagne on the grounds that she had a trace of "negro blood." He contended that his wife's great-great-grandmother was a "full-blooded negress," and Cassagne herself asserted that she was Indian. See id. at 2. It was not disputed that all of Cassagne's paternal ancestors from her father to her great-great-grandfather were white men. See id. Moreover, Cassagne had been regarded as white in the community, as she and her mother had been christened in a white church, had attended white schools, were registered as white voters, were accepted as white in public facilities, and had exclusively associated with whites. See id. at 4-5. Nevertheless, because certificates and official records designated Cassagne and some of her relatives as "colored," the court concluded that she was not white and that thus there were sufficient grounds to annul the marriage. See Sunseri v. Cassagne, 196 So. 7, 10 (La. 1940);
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris
Harvard Law Review Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8, pg.1739-1740

Whiteness As Property by Cherly I. Harris pg.1739

For example, Samuel Morton, one of the principle architects of these theories, ascribed the basis of Black and non-white racial inferiority to differences in cranial capacity, which purportedly revealed that whites had larger heads. Notwithstanding the gross breaches of scientific method and manipulation of data evident in Morton's theory, see GOSSETT, supra note 20, at 73-74, his 1839 book, Crania Americana, was widely accepted as the scientific explanation of Blacks' inability to mature beyond childhood, see
GOSSETT, supra note 20, at 59-59 (citing the remarks of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., extolling Morton as a "leader" whose "severe and cautious...researches" would provide "permanent data for all future students of Ethology"); TAKAKI, supra note 16, at 113 (citing the remarks of an Indiana senator in 1850 who spoke of the diminished brain capacity of Blacks). These and other widely disseminated theories of Black inferiority provided the rationale for the political and popular discourse of the time that argued that Black equality and participation in the polity were impossible because Blacks lacked the capacity to develop rational decisionmaking. See REGINALD HORSMAN, RACE AND MANIFEST DESTINY 116-57 (describing the permeation of "scientific" bases for racial inferiority into every aspect of American thought).
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris
Harvard Law Review Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8, pg.1739

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1721-1722

Although the Indians were the first occupants and possessors of the land of the New World, their racial and cultural otherness allowed this fact to be reinterpreted and ultimately erased as a basis for asserting rights in land. Because the land had been left in its natural state, untilled and unmarked by human hands, it was "waste" and, therefore, the appropriate object of settlement and appropriation. Thus, the possession maintained by the Indians was not "true" possession and could safely be ignored. This interpretation of the rule of first possession effectively rendered the rights of first possessors contingent on the race of the possessor. Only particular forms of possession-those that were characteristic of white settlement-would be recognized and legitimated. Indian forms of possession were perceived to be too ambiguous and unclear.
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris
Harvard Law Review Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8, pg.1721-1722

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1721

Slavery linked the privilege of whites to the subordination of Blacks through a legal regime that attempted the conversion of Blacks into objects of property. Similarly, the settlement and seizure of Native American land supported white privilege through a system of property rights in land in which the "race" of the Native Americans rendered their first possession rights invisible and justified conquest. 
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris 
Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8, pg.1721

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1716

Race and property were thus conflated by establishing a form of property contingent on race-only Blacks were subjugated as slaves and treated as property. Similarly, the conquest, removal, and extermination of Native American life and culture were ratified by conferring and acknowledging the property rights of whites in Native American land. Only white possession and occupation of land was validated and therefore privileged as a basis for property rights. These distinct forms of exploitation each contributed in varying ways to the construction of whiteness as property. 
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris 
Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8, pg.1716

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1774

There is little to commend the notion that beneficiaries of historical wrongs are holders of inviolable rights or interests. The underlying premises of much of the law disputes such an assumption. For example, the family of an embezzler who occupies a house or possesses goods purchased with stolen funds is not considered to have a normatively secure claim to the goods merely because they did not actively perpetuate the wrong. See FISCUS, supra note 263, at 45 ("[P]ersonal guilt or innocence is irrelevant to the claim of right, as when a party innocently comes into possession of stolen goods; the claim on those goods by the rightful owner is not forfeited because of the innocence of the current possessor."); WILLIAMS, The Obliging Shell, in ALCHEMY OF RACE AND RIGHTS, supra note 5, at 101 ("If a thief steals so that his children may live in luxery and the law returns his ill-gotten gain to its rightful owner, the children cannot complain that they have been deprived of what they did not own.").
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris Harvard Law Review
Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8, pg.1774

New Worlds For All Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America by Colin G. Calloway pg.2

In 1066, William the Bastard, duke of Normandy, invaded England to seize the throne from the Anglo-Saxon King Harold. Defeating and killing Harold in battle, William marched to London and took possession of the city where he had himself crowned King. In the years that followed, the Normans imposed their government, system of Justice, language, and culture on the conquered English people. What emerged, however, was an Anglo-Norman mixture, exemplified in the English language. The names for animals derive from the Anglo-Saxon words of the people who tended the livestock: sheep, cow, and pig: the names for the animals' meat derive from the words of the French-speaking Normans who dined on them: mutton, beef, and pork. Eventually, the Norman conquerors and their culture were absorbed by the conquered. Change occurred and England was never the same again, but it remained English. Such cultural confluences have been part of the give and take between conquered peoples and their conquerors for thousands of years throughout the world.
-New Worlds For All Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America by Colin G. Calloway pg.2

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1721

Slavery linked the privilege of whites to the subordination of Blacks through a legal regime that attempted the conversion of Blacks into objects of property. Similarly, the settlement and seizure of Native American land supported white privilege through a system of property rights in land in which the "race" of the Native Americans rendered their first possession rights invisible and justified conquest. 
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris 
Harvard Law Review Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8
pg.1721

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1744

The Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted citizenship to persons who resided in the United States for two years, who could establish their good character in court, and who were "white." Moreover, the trajectory of expanding democratic rights for whites was accompanied by the contraction of the rights of Blacks in an ever deepening cycle of oppression. The franchise, for example, was broadened to extend voting rights to unpropertied white men at the same time that Black voters were specifically disenfranchised, arguably shifting the property required for voting from land to whiteness. This racialized version of republicanism-this Herrenvolk republicanism-constrained any vision of democracy from addressing the class hierarchies adverse to many who considered themselves white.
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris
Harvard Law Review Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8
pg.1744

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.19

Governor Meagher's Black-Feet Extermination Campaign 
Montana Territory Governor/General of the Montana Militia Thomas Francis Meaher Issued A PROCLAMATION CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS: 
"Whereas, it has been represented to me, by reliable persons, one of them; Acting Indian Agent for the Black-Feet nation, that the Piegans and Blood tribes of that nation have recently been, and still are committing grievous depredations, in the neighborhood of Fort Benton, on the property of white settlers resident at that place; And Whereas, it has been alleged on the same authority, that murders have been perpetrated in the vicinity of that place, as also in other localities, by the said Piegans and Bloods, and facts as well as fair and lawful inferences sustain these allegations;
And Whereas, it appears that the people living in and about Fort Benton are in grave apprehension of their property and lives, and that they are barely strong enough in numbers to defend themselves from anticipated attacks from these enemies of our government and civilization; And Whereas, no military force being as yet dispatched to this Territory by the National Government to protect the people to whom the Territory owes its existence and great promise: Therefore, I, Thomas Francis Meagher, Acting Governor of the Territory of Montana, do hereby call for at least 500 volunteers to meet me and form an expedition at Helena, which shall march against these marauders and murderers, so that the guilty parties shall be demanded of the tribes and put to death."
-from The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.19
The Proclamation was issued in 1867

Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris pg.1741-1742

I.Whiteness as Racialized Privilege.-The material benefits of racial of racial exclusion and subjugation functioned, in the labor context, to stifle class tensions among whites. White workers perceived that they had more in common with the bourgeoisie than with fellow workers who were Black. Thus, W.E.B. Du Bois's classic historical study of race and class, Black Reconstruction, noted that, for the evolving white working class, race identification became crucial to the ways that it thought of itself and conceived its interests. There were, he suggested, obvious material benefits, at least in the short term, to the decision of white workers to define themselves by their whiteness: their wages far exceeded those of Blacks and were high even in comparison with world standards. Moreover, even when the white working class did not collect increased pay as part of white privilege, there were real advantages not paid in direct income: whiteness still yielded what Du Bois termed a "public and psychological wage" vital to white workers. Thus, Du Bois noted;
They [whites] were given public deference...because they were white. They were admitted freely with all classes of white people, to public functions, to public parks....The police were drawn from their ranks, and the courts, dependent on their votes, treated them with...leniency....Their vote selected public officials, and while this had small effect upon the economic situation, it had great effect upon the economic situation, it had great effect on their personal treatment....White schoolhouses were the best in the community, and conspicuously placed, and they cost anywhere from twice to ten times as much per capita as the colored schools.
-Whiteness As Property
by Cheryl I. Harris
Harvard Law Review Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8 pg.1741-1742

Providing for the Health Care Needs of Native Americans by Rose L. Pfefferbaum pg.211-258

From the very first contacts between the Old and the New World, European doctors recognized that the Indians held the key to the world's most sophisticated pharmacy. Medicine in most of the world at that time had not yet risen far above witchcraft and alchemy. In Europe, physicians talked about the balance of body humors as they attached living leeches to the patient in order to suck out the "bad blood." Moslem doctors burned their patients with hot charcoals, and physicians in the Orient prescribed elaborate potions of dragon bones....By contrast the Indians of America had refined a complex set of active drugs that produced physiological...effects in the patient. This cornucopia of new pharmaceutical agents became the basis for modern medicine and pharmacology. [T]he Indian cures and medicines...circled the world and...fully integrated into cultures on every continent. The medicines became so taken for granted that it was easy to forget that they had not always been there and that they had not been discovered or invented by Old World doctors. In addition to employing the sophisticated medicine chest..., native doctors also understood and practiced many medical arts, some of which were still unknown in the Old World. One of the most unusual of these was the brain surgery or trephining performed by surgeons in varied Indian civilizations.
-Jack Weatherford
from the article Providing for the Health Care Needs of Native Americans: Policy, Programs, Procedures, and Practices by Rose L. Pfefferbaum, Betty Pfefferbaum,
Everett R. Rhoades and Rennard J. Strickland
American Indian Law Review Vol.21, No.2 (1997), pp.211-258

Glacier Reporter Letter to the Editor by Robert C. Juneau

To The Editor: 
The intent of our Blackfeet Ancestors was always the survival of the tribe which is partly what they negotiated for in the 1896 Agreement. They made sure the Mixed Bloods were included and recognized by the United States Government as Enrolled Members of the Tribe thus establishing the right of the Blackfeet to set their own standards for Enrolled Membership in the Tribe. Blood Quantum never entered in to their thinking. Blood Quantum was never adopted as a Criteria of Membership until 1962. In the Minutes of Negotiations of the 1895 Blackfeet 
Treaty at the Blackfeet Agency in Montana on September 21, 1895 a Blackfeet Man named Three Suns says,"At the last treaty, the government bought a large tract of land, and it has now sent you to by more land. I wish, not only to be benefitted, but to have my children pleased, by reason of the treaty that we are about to make. We will apprach each other with caution. We are to sell some land that is of little use to us, and we want the price to be satisfactory to all, -the full bloods and the mixed bloods. It is not for myself that I speak, but for the rising generation. If you wish to give a good price, we will be pleased. The responsibility rests on us,-not on the rising generation. We have selected a few mixed bloods and whited to help us in matters that we do not understand. Mr. Conrad and Major Steell have been chosen and you may talk with them." The intent and the purpose of Blood Quantum as a Enrollment Criteria is to eventually choke the Blackfeet Tribe out of existence. In the Wisconsin Women's Law Journal Lucy A. Curry published a article called A Closer Look At Santa Clara Pueblo V. Martinez: Membership By Sex, By Race, And By Tribal Tradition that says on page 187-188,"One's racial identity has defined the scope of one's rights and privileges in Anglo-American culture. For Indian tribes, racial identity has relegated them to an inferior and dependent status within 
the dominant sovereign. The ideologies and laws of the federal government, which granted tribes sovereignty to self-govern and exclude nonmembers, were based on Anglo-American notions of race; the ways in which the Pueblo "chose" to exclude individuals from membership was, and still remains, an important way in which the federal government defines racial identity. Critical race theorists and other social constructionists have greatly contributed to our understanding of the historic and current cultural meanings given to race. Scholar John 
Calmore explains that critical race theory has as its premise a recognition that "'race' is not a fixed term. Instead, 'race' is a fluctuating, decentered complex of social meanings that are formed and transformed under the constant pressures of political struggle. Although our understanding of race has been created by the legal and social relations between people in the United States, the races were treated as natural, objective categories of biological essentialism governed by blood, with white blood as the naked preference. By using 
"objective fact" and natural law, race is made determinant of rationality, superiority, and privilege." Our Blackfeet Ancestors, the signers of the 1896 Agreement, intention for their descendants was for all of their children to be included in the tribe regardless of Blood Quantum which does not scientifically exist anyway. The Enrolled Members of our tribe should honor the intentions of our Ancestors not the product of Scientific Racism Blood Quantum and sign the BEAR Petition so the issue can come to a Secretarial Vote.