Despite what Rep Watson says, federal law upholds the Cherokees" rights to determine our own citizenship. In Nero vs the Cherokee Nation, the courts said that race discrimination laws don"t apply to an Indian Nation"s citizenship because it would constitute "an unacceptable interference" with the Nation's right to self-government. Rep Watson says we are breaking a treaty. She ignores the fact that the United States NEVER honored a treaty and that modern federal Indian policy guaranteeing Indian self-determination is in itself an abrogation of Article IX. Rep Watson is not "enforcing" a treaty. She wants to re-instate one article of one treaty, ignoring every broken treaty that cost the Cherokee so much. And she would hurt the true Black Cherokees who are tribal members.
Rep Watson simply wants to provide ongoing reparations to non-Indian descendants of freed slaves in the form of Indian benefits. When only 2 percent of the Cherokees owned slaves, 296 to be precise. When 70% of the Cherokees fought for the Union to end slavery and more died than ever owned a slave. When no Southern State ever gave the land and money reparations that the Cherokees did. If Rep Watson wants the Cherokees to continue making reparations for slavery, she should have the honesty, courage and political conviction to engage America in a national dialogue on the issue of reparations and who really still owes them. Instead, she is attacking an indigenous nation with no regard for the truth of either Cherokee history or modern Indian law. Her attempts to promote anti-Indian sentiment amount to nothing less than racist hate speech.
Rep Watson tries to make this about race and money, but to Cherokees it is about ancestry and identity. Like every other INDIAN Nation. We are the most inclusive tribe in the country. There are Cherokee citizens whose blood is mingled with white people, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and other Indian tribes. But we are one family united by our Cherokee ancestors. We have always honored our treaties, Rep Watson. We still wish the United States had.







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Posted October 25, 2007 | 06:55 PM (EST)