Having ethnic issues...help!!

[Dob Bole]

I am Cherokee. My dad is white (his grandmother was also cherokee, but that doesn't count for much- my dad is seriously one of the whitest people I've ever met.) So far so good...except I live in the Deep South, where everything is black and white. Since I'm not black, people seem to want to categorize me as white.

Therefore, whenever I might mention being Cherokee, people just roll their eyes and act like I'm a lying poseur, because I'm supposed to be a white guy...my skin is even NOT BLACK! And I'm not even wearing a headdress and slaying the townspeople!

So I have Cherokee people who would say that "Aha! Your dad is white, so the only reason you claim to be Cherokee is a royalty complex" and some of my friends who either think I'm a liar because I'm not riding around stabbing buffalo, or want me to be like them so they won't get confused.

Any advice, other than telling everybody to fuck off? Anyone have any experience with this?

[specter]

1. My dads grandmother was 100 percent Cherokee

What does that make me. Did you know that there are no full blooded male Cherokees. They all died on the trail of tears.

[Dob Bole]

12. .......

I will forgive you for now. Was your grandmother a cherokee princess?

[specter]

15. No

but they were all from North Carolina.

[Dob Bole]

18. Oh, sorry...

thought you were being sarcastic...and not so much in my favor.

Hard to interpret speech online...sorry!

[specter]

20. LOL

not a problem, your correct it is hard to tell from my writing im sorry. but what I wrote is true I believe

[Sabriel]

2. Why say anything to them at all?

What business is it of theirs, anyway? You know who you are, and that's all that counts (man, is that cliched and trite, or what?)
Sabriel

[clydefrand]

3. Why do you need to be categorized at all?

You are just you! Does it really matter? Do you need to be identified one way or the other?

[freetobegay]

4. My white Greatgrand father married his bride she was

Taken off the trail of tears. My Grandfather married a Cherokee girl. My fathers skin is red. When you look at me I am white. When I look at someone I don't see color, I only see a human being. Whats my point. Enjoy life.

[AlCzervik]

5. my sister is the whitest person on the planet

she's almost translucent. anyway, i'm the exact opposite of her, i have olive color skin, dark hair and a very ethnic nose. When people ask me...Areyou italian, are you Jewish, do you and your sister have the same parents?" i usually tell them to guess and then i dont confirm what they said, makes them crazy. It's no ones business what you are.

[greyfox]

6. Heathens!

Tell them that you are a child of God (you do not have to even say who your God is or if ya know one)... and let it go... but please don't tell em to F off! <g>

[seventhson]

7. Yeah - I have a lot of experience with this

BUT it is as a non-Native European American.

I live near NYC which is near the Casino Land of the Pequots and Mohegans.

I have worked off and on for years with some of the disenfranchised people who are either "not Indian enough" or "too black" or "too light" to be "Indian".

Sometimes it is other Native people who do the discriminating too.

Donald Trump famously said "These people do not even look like Indians" when he was opposing them (for his franchise).

I think the bottom line is that you DO need to say "Fuck You" I AM Cherokee. I am an indigenous person and I embrace my heritage!

I do think it helps to reconnect with the heritage though. Go to the villages. Talk to the elders in the communities that still exist. Go to the Powwows when they happen. Embrace the culture.

Like "Black" and "White" Red" is a state of mind NOT an appearance. Cherokee Nation is a citizenship issue NOT an appearance issue.

But who the hell KNOWS what the original people looked like here 400 years ago? They do NOT look like Jeff Chandler and Hollywood "Indians" who were white (except Anthony Quinn who WAS Native).

I also recommend "Black Indians" by , I think, Kaplan, who goes into the history of tribal peoples who intermarried with Africans AND Europeans. THAT is the history: slavery, bondage, slaughter, rape, integration (to a great extent) , intermarriage and multiculturalism.

That is true across the continent but especially in the SE.

Many Cherokees WERE considered "white" and even owned slaves.

But it is a complex history and people are pretty ignorant. Find people who get it and fuck the rest of them. Or try to explain the history. But that might be too much work.

Peace

[intheflow]

8. As a northern white woman

I have no business telling you anything. But I know a number a people who consider themselves NA even though they look white; they, too, have mixed backgrounds. Of course, Indians in many places intermarried whites just to stay alive or in their home land.

Don't know where you live, but you might check out the Eastern Band of Cherokees home page. They're based out of Cherokee, NC and might be able to give you some resources on how to deal with deep southerners.

To better understand your father, you might read Middle-Class Poverty: Race- and Class-Passing Within White America by Thandeka. It'll seem kinda irrelevant at first, but it gets better.

That's what I can offer up from my blatently white position.

[tjdee]

9. Supposedly, I'm Cherokee as well, somewhere.

I don't even bother mentioning it because I don't know where it is, and people do the rolly eye thing because I don't have headdresses and have relatives that slay townspeople ;) I do have a number of white folks in my family history as well.

I've been told I don't look like "other American black people". The thing is this: if you're brown, you're black. If you're golden, you're Asian. If you're copper skinned, you're Native American. If you're not, you're white. That's how it is. You may wish to express the totality of your background, but other people don't want to spend that much time thinking about it. Eh, whatever.

I'd search out other Cherokees in your area also. they may feel similarly.

[DuctapeFatwa]

10. You don't need to wear a headdress and slay the townspeople

But a tasteful do-rag and a handy supply of cream pies could prove most effective.

[Nevernose]

11. One rotton apple spoils the whole bunch

Latley, it has become rather popular to claim Amerind heritage. My ex-wife is proud to be part Blackfoot, although extensive geneaology shows no Native American genes, at least not for the last 150 years or so.

I also have a close friend who claims to be 1/16 Sioux, and is pissed that this does not qualify him for special privilages, such as college funds or other types of financial aid.

More importantly, their ridiculous claims -- based largely on the current fashion -- makes it a hell of a lot harder for anyone who actually does have American Indian heritage to be taken seriously.

I recently took my daughter on a week long tour of the Southwest ("INDIAN COUNTRY!" as the signs say), and only managed to convince her that real Indians did not wear headresses or war paint when I picked up a couple of hitchhikers on a reservation along the NM/AZ border.

There are countelss stereotypes our society still has to face, and quite a few of them are regarding the American Indians.

[LDS Jock]

13. My father married a pure Cherokee

My mother's people were ashamed of me
The Indians said I was white by law
The White Man always called me "Indian Squaw"

CHORUS:
Half-breed, that's all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born


We never settled, went from town to town
When you're not welcome you don't hang around
The other children always laughed at me
"Give her a feather, she's a Cherokee"

Repeat Chorus

We weren't accepted and I felt ashamed
Nineteen I left them, tell me who's to blame
My life since then has been from man to man
But it can't run away from what I am


Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Dob Bole]

14. Thanks...feeling better...

I'll check out some of those books (been reading Vine Deloria lately anyway) and I really appreciated the personal stories. It just feels like I'm stuck alone sometimes and nobody gets it.

[KT2000]

16. Why not just play it by ear?

- depending on who is asking such questions and why. May I share a personal anecdote?

After my mother's death, my 75 year old father moved to another town to be closer to his brother. He bought a house in a new development that he saw during the week when everyone was away at work.

After moving in he noticed that it was a ethnically/racially diverse neighborhood - extremely so. Many of the buyers were participating in a program that helped new immigrants purchase homes so we are talking about world representation.

My father was learning to live alone, in a new town. He worked most days putting in his lawn and garden. Neighbors would come over and introduce themselves or just chat. My father, a white man born in 1905, would often ask "what nationality are you?" I cringed when I heard him say that because I was afraid people would take offense. Things had changed over the years and such bluntness was not appreciated. But I know that he did this because he was truly curious and interested.

His neighbors were most gracious and did not take offense. In other words - there was no problem but someone could have taken offense and made it a problem, but for what? Life is hard for everyone - live in peace.

Anyway - thanks for the opportunity to remember my dad - he would have hated Bush for sure.

[GingerSnaps]

17. People don't come in colors

If you mix enough primary colors you come out with the same color every time. We are all the same underneath our skin.

[Technowitch]

19. Just say whatever feels best to you

Fact is, from what you're saying, you're 3/4 Cherokee. If that's how you want to identify, feel free to tell others to screw off, and that if "full blood" is the only thing that cuts it, all the so-called 'pure' Cherokees probably aren't either.

I know this doesn't exactly apply, but I get the same thing when I tell people I'm Irish. For some reason, they expect flaming red hair and freckles, or else the 'fair skin and black hair' of the other typical Irish-looking folk. Fact is, I'm somewhere in between, with fair skin and auburn-reddish hair tending toward brown.

There's also all kinds of other ethnicities in me -- Scottish, German, Slavic, etc. But the grand total is still more Irish than anything else and to have to explain the precise details would chew up more time than is warranted.

The only other statement that would be any more truth than saying I'm Irish would be to say I'm a mongrel... but that'd tend to imply that I'm way less than 50% anything.

So Irish it is for me.

And Cherokee it can and should be for you, in my opinion.

Oh, and that crap about your skin not being dark enough? I've known other Cherokee with light skins. Happens. I knew a blonde one, too, in college (natural, not from a bottle).