Robert C. Juneau Glacier Reporter Letter to the Editor 9-5-12

Glacier Reporter Letter to the Editor  
9-5-12
Robert C. Juneau  

To the editor:  
Charles Darwin once said in his book Voyage of the Beagle,"If the misery of our poor be 
caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin." Blood Quantum 
is a product created by Scientific Racism.  In a Wisconsin Women's Law Journal article 
entitled A Closer look at Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez:  Membership By Sex, By Race, 
And By Tribal Tradition by Lucy A. Curry on Page 187-188 it says,"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; 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." Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez is a U.S. Supreme Court case which grants tribes the right to determine their own membership.  In American Indian Quarterly an article entitled Indigenous Identity What is it, and who really has it?  Hilary N. Weaver says on Page 240 there are,"three facets of identity-self-identification, community identification, and 
external identification," and on Page 247-248," The way we choose to define ourselves 
is often not the way that others define us.  When the practice of defining Native identity 
by blood quantum is combined with the highest rate of intermarriage of any group 
(75 percent), Native people seem to be on a course of irreversible absorption into the 
larger U.S. society.  Scholars such as Jaimes and Rose suggest that the federal government has an interest in the statistical extermination of indigenous people, thereby 
leading to an end to treaty and trust responsibilities." Blood Quantum doesn't work.  Our 
tribe should choose one that does like the one suggested by BEAR.