The Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian once had an exhibit where a wall of television screens flashed a number of different and diverse faces while asking the question: what makes someone Indian? Perhaps the exhibit wanted to make people think and come to their own conclusions because it did not answer the question in black and white terms but it definitely circled around one particular idea:
there is no blood quantum that makes someone Indian, instead rather, it is someone's culture that makes him/her Indian.
This falls in line with a widely accepted school of thought within science and academia that "race" is merely a social construct which has more to do with the perspectives and cultures learned from parents, family, friends, and society in general, than it has to do with genetic heritability. Scientists have found that there is more genetic variation within one race than there is between different races. There are of course some identifiable phenotypical and genotypical differences between certain groups of people, but the underlying lesson learned is that even though we may think we are different from others and may even look different, we are all really far more alike than different -- so alike in fact, that it is pointless to make genetic racial distinctions.
Let's try this out. What if an Indian child was adopted by a non-Indian family and raised by loving parents oblivious to any Indian culture? Would he be Indian? According to the social construct theory, no. What if a non-Indian child was adopted and raised by a loving Indian family? Would he be Indian? Absolutely. What if the adopted Indian child, later in life, became interested in going "back to his roots" and embraced some if not all of his biological parents' culture? Would he be Indian then? Of course. In both examples we still see that the person is defined by the culture he embraces and not what is in his blood line.
On one level, this simplifies things: we are all basically the same but simply choose to live according to different cultures. However, on many other levels, this muddies the water. According to the social construct school, "race" has historically been used by one group to either justify mistreatment of another group or to maintain political power over another group. Therefore, it is seen in a negative light in the past and is seen as something typically used to justify racism. We see traces of this throughout our history in things such as the one drop rule, Jim Crow laws, and countless other historic examples of legalized racial discrimination. So, if separating people into races was such an evil practice in the past, why is it still so widely accepted and utilized today? It is no longer used to keep people from voting or using particular drinking fountains, but is used nevertheless and is every where you look. Every application or form that needs to be filled out, government or not, asks about race. People discuss why this demographic is underrepresented in such and such.
Many will say racialism today is used to try to make up for injustices of the past -- Indians were wronged when their lands were taken, etc. They will also say that even if racism against minorities is not legally institutionalized today, it is still an undercurrent present in most of society that can only be remedied through government intervention. That is another conversation altogether, but even if we accept it as true, how do we "level the playing field" or give "equal oppurtunity" to minority races when race does not exist? As in the past, race exists when it is convenient. Regardless of whether or not it is justified in certain instances, no one can deny it is still used as a political tool and is oft considered wrong only when it is being used by the "other team".
If we assume distinguishing people by race is a necessary evil to make restitution for the past, we can focus again on the narrower issue of race and Indians as a microcausm of society as a whole and see that the waters are still muddy. For a tribe to be officially recognized as a tribe by the federal government, it has to initially meet several requirements, one of which is proving descent from a historical Indian tribe -- a blood quantum of sorts. After the tribe is officially recognized by the government, however, it can then determine its own rules for who is and who can become a member of the tribe. This is logical in one sense because the blood lines of tribes have changed and are changing considerably. When a tribe might have first come into existence, it is very possible that all the members were full or half-blooded tribal members. Now though, many tribal members are far from that because of mixing and migrating that has naturally occurred. Some tribes require someone to be one quarter, one eighth, or maybe one sixteenth blooded to be a member; while other tribes only require that someone prove direct descent to become a member. I have a friend who is a card carrying member of a tribe and is only 1/232nd or so blooded. What are his other 231/232nd's? Probably mostly European and this is where things get confusing. Is he deserving of any benefit from a governmental-tribal treaty created years earlier with the intent of benefiting Indians?
One superficial answer might be that even though he and perhaps many other tribal members are no longer genetically tribal, they have kept the tribal culture alive by maintaining its sovereignty. First, this reinforces the thought that race is merely a social construct and is cultural rather than genetic and there should therefore be no blood requirements to join a tribe. Second, is this really preserving the culture? Perhaps, but I am sure my friend would not have been so interested in his distant and minute cultural heritage if it did not get him an extensive graduate school scholarship reserved for minorities. Are he and the many others like him keeping the culture alive simply by registering with the tribe and using that distinction as a tool for some type of personal benefit?
Certainly most cultural activities do not need any official sanction or immunity to be practiced under current laws (peyote, clitorectomies, human sacrifice, and the like might be a different story), so official tribal recognition is not recquisite to preserve a culture. I had Indian friends and neighbors who did not live on the reservation, were only loosely if at all involved in tribal politics, and yet were quite active in hoop dancing and other Indian cultural activities. They did not need the protection of the tribe to do these things. My point is not that we should get rid of tribes. Treaties were created and they should be honored. My point is that any issue involving race is sticky and impossible to define in any clear terms and only becomes more difficult as time passes. As a tribal blood line becomes diluted, the tribe is revealed for what it is: a political body trying to maintain political potency. Even tribes whose populations are fairly homogeneous today still alter tribal membership requirements -- basically gerrymandering -- when it serves political or financial ends.
Is governmental interference any easier to justify and implement when we expand the dialog outside Indians and include other "minority" races? Not really. Africans were wronged when they were brought here as slaves and still for many years after supposedly being "freed". How do we right these wrongs? Do we give certain people tax breaks or money? Do we set up a quota system to ensure that all races are equally represented in every school and every job? Or do we make the quotas proportional to each race? What if the demographics differ from area to area? Do we do it locally or across national averages? What if someone is half minority? Do we set up a point system so they only get half the points as someone who is full minority? Do all minorities get the same points? Chinese worked in horrid conditions on railroads and Japanese were put in internment camps, but neither of those groups were slaves. Many of the original slaves in the new world were from Ireland -- how do we distinguish the Irish slave descendants from the non-Irish slave descendants? Latins were neither slaves nor put in internment camps and may or may not have worked on the railroads. Should the government intervene on their behalf at all? They have probably been victimized by the unofficial and conspiratorial racist undercurrent, so maybe that is reason enough the government should intervene. Of course, gays have been discriminated against by societies, religions, and the Boy Scouts of America. It would not be fair if the government turned a blind eye and failed to intervene on their behalf as well. Would gay blacks get more points than straight blacks? What about fat people and ugly people? I know they are discriminated against as much as anyone else. They are probably more underrepresented in Hollywood than Asians and blacks. It is difficult to determine where to draw the line on government intercession when there is no hard line between those who have been discriminated against and those who have not. Discrimination and injustice is experienced in a gradual spectrum of degree from brutally severe to the ridiculously absurd and the line is usually drawn by those who are the most adept at playing power politics.
I am not sure how to rectify all the injustices that have occurred throughout history (to be honest, it is not possible), but continuing to separate ourselves in archaic racial classifications only divides us to be conquered by a smarter and more organized political foe. We must delve deeper than the superficial skin-deep differences that divide people. We should be inspired by these new scientific discoveries that we are practically the same regardless of skin color and are all related. Studies such as the National Geographic genographic project have traced all human migration back to one common ancestor. There is no genetic cut off or blood quantum determined by some government or tribal council, there is no social construct, there is no question: we did not partially come from the same ancestor; all people in the entire world are wholly descended from a common ancestor some 60,000 years ago. We should make our voices be heard by proclaiming this common heritage whenever and wherever we can. When any job or school application, census, anybody, or anything asks you to to check a box to distinguish your race, check the box that truly recognizes and honors humankind's shared heritage: African.
-Box-Checker
