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"Little Eichmann" Professor's New Indian Name - Chief Wannabe
EFL...have at it, Rantburgers!A number of Native scholars and activists are challenging his posture of speaking for American Indians in his inflammatory writings on the 9/11 terrorist attacks and even his claim to be an American Indian. The Oneida Indian Nation, which has historic ties to nearby Hamilton, issued the following statement: ''It's disturbing that anyone would use such hateful speech, and do so while claiming to be an American Indian when there is significant evidence that he is not. Oops. Professor Churchill caused many in the media to falsely believe an American Indian scholar could besmirch the lives of those who died on 9/11. Because of this, he owes every American Indian an apology. ''Likewise it is sad that he would perpetrate this apparent hoax on Hamilton College, an institution founded to help educate Indian students.'' (Hamilton was founded by Samuel Kirkland, 18th century missionary to the Oneidas, and the famous Oneida Chief Schenandoah is buried on its grounds.) Churchill resigned his position as head of the CU Ethnic Studies program but kept his $96,000 per year teaching post. After initially planning to move the panel to a larger auditorium, Hamilton College cancelled it, citing credible threats of violence. The Colorado University Board of Regents called for an emergency session but, according to reports just before press time, had decided it did not have legal authority to fire Churchill summarily from his tenured position. Misrepresentation sounds like good grounds to me... Although the national furor struck with the unpredictable suddenness of a Great Lakes storm, Churchill has long been a divisive and somewhat feared figure in Indian country, especially among his former colleagues in the American Indian Movement. Some prominent activists involved in earlier confrontations have devoted a great deal of energy to investigating his claim to be an American Indian himself and have found no evidence to support it. At various times, according to press reports, Churchill has described himself as Cherokee, Keetoowah Cherokee, Muskogee, Creek and most recently Meti. In a note in the online magazine Socialism and Democracy he wrote, ''Although I'm best known by my colonial name, Ward Churchill, the name I prefer is According to Jodi Rave, a well-known Native journalist and member of the Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara Three Affiliated Tribes, Churchill was enrolled as an ''associate member'' of the Keetoowah by a former chairman who was later impeached. The one other known member of the same program, since discontinued, was President Bill Clinton Chief I Did Not Inhale When Puffing on Peace Pipe. Rave said that she made this discovery as a student in a journalism class at the University of Colorado. She was also in a class taught by Churchill. When her article came out, she said, he dropped her grade from an A to a C minus. Glad to see he didn't take it personally... Suzan Shown Harjo, a columnist for ICT who has tracked Churchill's career, said that aside from the in-laws of his late Indian wife, he has not been able to produce any relatives from any Indian tribe. Beyond the question of his personal identity is the question of his standing to represent Indian opinion, not only on 9/11 but also in his other published works. Mohawk ironworkers helped build the World Trade Center and other monuments of the New York City skyline, and one crew was actually at work in the flight path of the plane that struck the second tower. St. Regis Mohawk Chief James Ransom noted that they joined rescue teams at great personal risk. Far from suffering for his views, Churchill appears to have been sought out by many in the universities as a representative of American Indian thinking. But to many Native intellectuals, he is traveling under false pretenses, both in his ideology and his personal identity. Posted by: Desert Blondie 2005-02-03 |
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