Do you recall the notion that was sometimes taught in our anti-racism trainings? It was argued that since People of Color didn't have power they couldn't be racists. The problem is power is relative with the system of racism in the United States. The present administration of the Cherokee Nation (Oklahoma) presided over by Principal Chief Chad Smith illustrates that oppressed people can be oppressors as well. As a righteous young Cherokee named Shannon Prince writes in Indian Country Today ;
Cherokee people have historically been both oppressed and oppressors; but so often, that history of oppressing others is ignored or equivocated. It astounds me, as a Cherokee, that our people continued to own slaves after the Trail of Tears. After the Trail of Tears, after suffering and crying under horrendous brutality, the Cherokee knew exactly what dehumanization was: yet we continued to dehumanize others. We didn't have a problem with the unjust hierarchal system that gave some peoples rights at the expense of others; we only had a problem when it was used against us. While we cried on the Trail of Tears, we ignored the cries of blacks and, as a nation, were fine benefiting from the racial hierarchy when it allowed us to enslave others. . . .
As Cherokee, we should ask how our ancestors could turn from our teachings of duyukduh, which emphasizes balance, interrelatedness and respect for all peoples. We should ask how our leaders and Beloved Women could condone such injustice - and why Smith continues to do so.
What my brother laments is the disgraceful attempt of Smith and his supporters to rob the descendants of Cherokee slaves of their right to Cherokee citizenship. This is a right guaranteed by the Cherokee constitution and by treaty, and upheld in a recent ruling by the Cherokee courts. All of Indian Country condemns this betrayal of principal, yet Smith continues to advance the absurd claim that this racist campaign is act of sovereignty. Shannon Prince correctly points out by this logic the United States was justified by its sovereignty in removing the Native people from their homelands, sovereign people must act morally.
Who then is a Cherokee? People who are descended from the ancient Cherokee people. People who cherish Cherokee culture and care about the Cherokee people's honor. The Freedman are descended from the Cherokee people, and the claim that the Dawes List is a list of Cherokee while the Freedman List is a list of African slaves ignores that Cherokee adopted many African runaway, that Cherokee have intermarried with former slaves, that the Dawes and Freedman designation was a product of the racist U.S. government during the era of Jim Crow. The Freedman Cherokee have given themselves to the Cherokee culture for well over a century and in this struggle they are showing their devotion to the Cherokee people's honor.
Shannon Prince continues his powerful lament:
As Cherokee people, we have to decide the right way to handle history, the honorable way to exercise sovereignty, and the correct way to bring forth justice and healing. We have to celebrate the beauty in our culture, soothe our wounds of oppression as well as the oppression we dealt out to others, and practice gadugi with all members of the community. We have a long road ahead of us, and recognizing the citizenship of the freedmen is the first step.
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