Blood Quotient. What is a "real" Indian. Sticky topic. Irritating topic. A topic I can't seem to stop writing about. I had planned a lovely article about some of the ironies in "Native" plays and screenplays, but everywhere I go the blood question rears its ugly head again. I had even started researching the original article with a trip to an Internet message board about "The New World, hoping to engage in lively dialogue with other interested Indians. This is not what I found. Instead, I found a bunch of Indians squabbling about who was really Indian and who wasn't. The worst offenders were two ladies, both "breeds" of non-related nations, strangers who had decided to judge and dismiss each other's validity because each had had the nerve to post their photos on the site.

I suppose it must be said that one was mixed with a "white" background and the other was more with a "black" background. One was more of a city Indian and one more of a reservation Indian. The one mixed with a "black" background was older, and said she was a Clan Mother. The one mixed with a "white" background had lived on several reservations and was now living in the city. Both photos were wildly different. The Clan Mother was dressed in full regalia, braids, and a somber stare. The City Indian had put forth a photo of her and some friends out for the evening. Boom! The Clan Mother decided the City Indian was operating under the "one drop" rule. The City Indian mocked the Clan mother for dressing up to "prove" she was Indian. Both felt sufficiently safe for the gloves to drop and the color question started flying back and forth. (in both directions) It was nasty and ugly and a lot of the other posters were completely confused by the conflict.

A white friend of mine put it in perspective for me. He had decided he would "help" me research but he came back incredibly frustrated. "Bloody hell, I couldn't find anything useful, just bickering. You guys are more concerned about racial purity than the fucking Nazis." As much as he pissed me off I knew he was on to something. "You have to get that crap settled," my friend observed before he hung up on me, "because it's stopping you from getting shit done." That observation was specifically directed at yours truly, but I think it can be applied to all of us.

Synchronicity struck and another friend called me to go see "GrandChildren of the Buffalo Soldiers". Two of our good friends were in the cast, and hey, if we don't support, then don't expect support, right? The only thing I knew about the play was that it was by William S. Yellowrobe Jr. and that it was currently stirring a controversy (which is typical of our Mr. Yellowrobe). Happy to see my friends working and also desperate to get current, I hustled my posterior over to the show. I was functioning under Indian time (as per usual) so I didn't get a chance to actually view the synopsis. The story was about the mixed blood grandchildren of a Buffalo soldier and an Indian woman. Like ripping off a scab, we were on it again.

What I want to know is why? Why are we so concerned about "full-bloods" and "half-breeds", etc.? Again, I'll ask, why don't we leave it to the nations involved? If one is considered an Indian by their own people, where do the rest of us get off questioning that? I can't help but think it's the insidious influence of the American culture that surrounds us. We're not in a bubble no matter how much we try to preserve our culture.

There is no question that a certain amount of segregation has always occurred amongst the Nations. Just look at any pow-wow to see the residuals. I'm sure the Nations "typed" by appearance. It is fairly reasonable to assume that a Nation could assess who was a member just by a glance. But was it merely skin color? Or was it other things that indicated your ethnicity, i.e. regalia, haircut, markings, or your Cousin Arnie's jaw line?

It would be naïve to assume that we could still use such straightforward indicators to tell who is who. Times have changed. We have changed. After the evisceration of our peoples we had to band together to survive. 500 Nations became a vague collective of something called "Indians". In addition to our traditional stories we now had a shared history of the Invaders. We were all affected by them. The Invaders didn't respect our Nations. They saw us by skin color, and one redskin was just as good as another as long as they were under control. So why have we mimicked them and decided that skin color is a good barometer for who's Indian?

Now, some like to argue that we have to protect ourselves from the wannabes, those Indian "groupies" who've decided to co-opt our culture because they're so dissatisfied by their own. However I would argue that those people are by far the minority. When I was growing up, the last thing one aspired to being was "Indian." Indians got beat up for walking on the sidewalk. Indian meant if there was a crime in the neighborhood, people knocked out your door first. It's difficult for me to imagine anyone actively seeking that as a lifestyle.

Granted this is a touchy subject for me in so many ways. Yes, I'm a paler "breed" that is always viewed with some suspicion by citizens of other Nations until I prove myself. Yet, I have the security of having spent half of my early years running around my Grandpa's farm in Oshweken. However, thanks to my Jamaican father, there's still a certain amount of suspicion amongst my own family about us as well. How much of that is due to skin color (we do pass as "white" breeds) and how much of that is cultural, well, who's to say?

Yellowrobe's play was hard to watch in many respects. If it weren't for one character continually reminding us that "Ind'in people don't do this" and "Ind'in" people don't do that" I would've forgotten that it was an Indian play. The arguments about skin color and "passing" almost seemed to be about, or directed to, another culture completely - the American culture that almost destroyed us. Polarizing over skin color does not seem "Ind'in" to me. My Dad winning over my mother's family by cooking curry goat for them, on the other hand, absolutely does. I hope you'll pardon the generalization, but one thing does seem to be absolutely common amongst all the Nations.

"Ind'in people" LOVE to eat.

C L O S E