Ward Churchill - NOT a Native American? Fire him.
POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 03:59
VIEWED: 16391
PAGE 13 of 16
From your response, I'm guessing the first rationale you have for participation in a virtual lynching is 'Because he deserves it'.
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Just a quick point: the White House is the residence of the President as well as the office. You could make the argument that the President is working from home. Of course, you could make an argument that the President is always on call and therefore has no private time. Just putting that out there. (To provide context. I disliked Clinton. I was one of those howling that, "It's not the sex. It's the lying". I'm pretty embarassed of that behavior now. I blame it mostly on youth and listening to too much Rush Limbaugh before I started educating myself and realized that anger and fear were a poor basis for decision making and a hindrance to rational discourse. When I think back on it, what I really didn't like about Clinton was that he started out poorer than me and was way more successful than I'll ever be. I've gotten over that. Now he looks positively glowing in comparison. 
).
But back to the topic. I've already outlined why I feel this is an important topic. I'm curious about the motivations of those who think Churchill should be fired. Why is this important to you? I hope that it's because you are concerned about the integrity of researchers working in the field of Native American Ethnic Studies. I hope that it's because you think Ethnic Studies are an important topic of research. I hope that it's not because this was the outrage of the month of the Freepi or the LGFers.
So enlighten me. Please.
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Interesting. I initially supported Clinton in the impeachment scandal. Not that I necessarily supported him ideologically, but that was kind of during my transitional phase when I was moving away from the Left-wing hippy academic camp. After I learned more about the Clinton Whitehouse and began realize how poorly he ran things with his frat-boy mentality, it occurred to me that he brought it on himself. He was a poor leader and finally, whatever argument one can make about the Clinton political opponents, the fact remain that he did lie under oath in a federal court, and that pretty much symbolizes Clinton's value-system. Nothing one can say about Republicans excuses that.
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Sounds like we kind of crossed over in different directions. I've always been a fiscal liberal in my outlook - probably due to generations of union workers on both sides in my family. However, I was raised as a social conservative and transitioned gradually over to a social liberal throughout my late twenties. By the time I hit 30, the transition was complete. Part of my transformation involved weaning myself off AM talk radio (which I listened to avidly starting in the early nineties). (I knew the transformation was complete when I found myself giving a friend the following advide - paraphrased - "Well it's no wonder you have relationship problems. He's listening to Tom Likus while he drives around during the day. Try tuning in some time at work so you at least know the crap that he's putting into his head"). Well, I leave the dial on the local AM sports talk station - especially now that baseball season has started up.
Side note (that popped into my head thinking about my previous radio listening habits) I sure do wish Art Bell was still on the air. I have fond memories of driving late at night through desolate stretches of northern Nevada, or eastern Oregon, or eastern California (as I drove back and forth between LA and southeastern Washington), and being scared shitless by some of those Coast to Coast programs. George Noory just doesn't do the same thing for me. (And if you've never listened to Coast to Coast, try it sometime. It'll make you feel like molding a tinfoil hat - but in a good way ).
As far as Clinton goes, I'm wondering how much of the resistance to him was due to the fact that he was the first of the new generation of Presidents (not from the WWII generation). I know I shudder to think of Presidents who grew up in the eighties getting elected (Or, even worse, a disco duck from the seventies - imagine the convention for that one).
* editted to add: Hmmm. This post, as indicated by the prevalence of parenthesis, probably comes closest to replicating my typical conversational style. Digression. Always digression. 
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Next up: Early "Nutcrusher" Jubal and the Firebuggers
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More updates...
Columnist Suzan Shown Harjo details how WC's fradulent ancestry hurts Native Americans.
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410335
Harjo: Why Native identity matters: A cautionary tale
Posted: February 10, 2005
by: Suzan Shown Harjo / Indian Country Today
I met Ward Churchill 15 years ago, before he gained his present infamous reputation. My friend, a college professor, said this Cherokee-Creek guy wanted to meet me. I expected to meet an earnest young student who would relate to me as Creek (I'm Hodulgee Muscogee on Dad's side and enrolled Cheyenne on Mom's).
Instead, there was Churchill. Caucasian in appearance and in his mid-40s, he was wearing dark glasses and going for the look of an Indian activist circa 1970.
I asked him who his Creek people were and other questions we ask in order to find the proper way of relating. Churchill behaved oddly and did not respond (it's unusual to find Indians so deficient in social skills).
Churchill now refers to that as an ''interrogation,'' which tells me he still does not know how to be with us.
Most Native people want to know each other's nation, clan, society, family, Native name - who are you to me and how should I address you? It's an enormously respectful way that we introduce ourselves and establish kinship.
It wasn't much of an encounter, but it was enough to tell me that he was not culturally Muscogee or Cherokee and had not been around many of our people.
The next time I heard his name was from Native artists at the Santa Fe Indian Market. Churchill was peddling a scandal sheet, railing against White Earth Chippewa artist David Bradley and the New Mexico and federal Indian arts and crafts laws, which Bradley and other Indian artists helped to enact.
It turned out that Churchill was a painter - not a good one, but bad art is not illegal - who would face stiff penalties if he promoted his work as made by an Indian if he were not, in fact, an Indian.
The Indian arts laws bow to tribal determinations of tribal citizenry or membership. There's also an ''artisan'' category as a way for a Native nation to claim an artist who does not meet its citizenship criteria, but who is part of one of its families.
People began to check out Churchill's claims. Cherokee journalist David Cornsilk verified that Churchill and his ancestors were not on the Cherokee Nation rolls. Creek-Cherokee historian Robert W. Trepp did not find them on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation rolls.
Churchill lashed out against tribal leaders, sovereignty, citizenship and rolls, attacking Native people who did not support his claims as ''card-carrying Indians'' and ''blood police.''
Then, he went tribe-shopping. He added Metis, then Keetoowah, variously claiming to be an associate member, an enrolled member or 1/16 or 3/16 Cherokee.
Oneida comedian Charlie Hill recalls Churchill interviewing him in 1978. ''I asked him, 'Are you Indian?' And he said, 'No.' Later, I heard that he was saying he was Indian and wondered just how that happened.''
Churchill started listing his various ''Indian'' credentials on resumes as he moved into academe. He also moved into American Indian Movement circles, but most of the activists did not accept him as an Indian or as an activist.
AIM founders and leaders Dennis J. Banks and Clyde H. Bellecourt, both Ojibwa, state that ''Churchill has fraudulently represented himself as an Indian, and a member of [AIM], a situation that has lifted him into the position of a lecturer on Indian activism. He has used [Denver AIM] to attack the leadership of the official [AIM] with his misinformation and propaganda campaigns.''
Churchill took up ghostwriting for Oglala actor/activist Russell Means. Together with a small following, they protest the annual Columbus parade in Denver.
As Churchill has lurched through Indian identities, he has not found a single Native relative or ancestor. He is descended from a long line of Churchills that Hank Adams has t
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another article with various bits on WC's real ancestry:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_364
9896,00.html
Rocky Mountain News
Churchill's 'Indian' claim to be probed
Assertion is at heart of academic career
By Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News
March 25, 2005
The University of Colorado will delve into the most personal aspect of the Ward Churchill controversy after the chancellor's review committee Thursday asked the question on many people's tongues.
Is he really an American Indian?
The answer could help determine whether Churchill "engaged in fraudulent misrepresentation" to help gain public acceptance of his work as an Indian scholar.
Since at least 1979, on an initial employment application at CU, Churchill has claimed Indian ancestry. His scholarly career has been shaped around his identity as an American Indian.
CU now will try to find out whether there's any "reasonable basis" for that claim, and "whether Professor Churchill has attempted to gain a scholarly voice, credibility and an audience for his scholarship by wrongfully asserting that he is an Indian," says the report of the review committee.
Critics, largely originating from within segments of the American Indian community that have been fiercely at odds with Churchill, have long shunned him as a white "wannabe Indian."
In the face of such criticism, Churchill takes offense at being asked to verify "my pedigree" like a dog, but he hasn't come up with any ancestor who can be shown to be an American Indian.
The review committee said it looked into Churchill's often-stated claim that he is "an enrolled Keetowah Band Cherokee" in Oklahoma. Churchill actually has an auxiliary membership, awarded by the band's council in May 1994 several months before it ended the practice.
The committee said the Keetowah's principal chief, George Wickliffe, reported back to CU that "an 'associate' of the band is not enrolled in the tribe; associate membership is merely an honorary designation, like an honorary degree from a university."
CU had been informed of the questions surrounding Churchill's claims at least by 1994, when some of his enemies within the Indian activist community brought the issue to the attention of the chancellor's office.
But CU concluded at the time that an employee's "self-identification" of his ethnic status was good enough.
The report detailing the findings of Chancellor Phil DiStefano's review of numerous allegations about Churchill was released Thursday.
While the report said CU intends to determine whether Churchill misrepresented his ethnic status to enhance his acceptance as a scholar, it also said no action can likely be taken against him at this point for making that claim on his employment application.
That's because more than 10 years have passed since the previous chancellor declined to take any action on those complaints.
"The question arose in 1994 when certain Indian leaders communicated with the University claiming, among other things, that Professor Churchill lied on his application about his Indian heritage. The then-Boulder campus chancellor reviewed this complaint and concluded that University policy permitted self-identification," the report said.
Because the university at the time took no action, "the question about Professor Churchill's employment application must be considered closed as a result of this 10-year-old review," DiStefano's report continued.
In earlier interviews, Churchill has claimed Indian ancestry from a forebear named Joshua Tyner, who some family lore held was half-Cherokee.
Genealogical investigations by Churchill critics and later by the Rocky Mountain News found that Tyner was a Georgia man who, in 1816 or so, pioneered in southern Illinois. He is Churchill's fourth-great-grandfather, seven generations removed.
Even if Tyner were half-Cherokee, that would make Churchill 1/128th Indian, far below any threshold to be considered as an enrolled member of an Indian tribe.
But there is no evidence Tyner wa
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The statement that set off this politically-motivated witch-hunt (and it IS a politically-motivated witch-hunt. Tom Delay would never survive one-tenth of the probing) was Churchill's statement that international financiers and traders in the World Trade Center were "little Eichmans" who were busy enriching themslves while impoverishing the rest of the world.
I took this as an indictment of "the system" in which each cog does nothing evil individually but the overall effect is brutal. However, I'm reading "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by Perkins which shows how loan, trade, and security policies are DELIBERATELY set up to impoverish nations and- failing that- how the "jackals" and USA troops may not be far behind. Perkins was part of that system. I suggest that you all read the book.
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Well, whatever the original motivation or whatever the politicians and media is thinking. I think we should all take a hard stand on unethical misrepresentation and research misconduct - especially in the academic world where good scholarly research depends on at least that much.
And it's not just the guv'ment that's trashing him. This is his "own people" turning their backs on him, not just b/c he claims to be Indian and has arguably questionable heritage, but on top of that, he is combative, hostile, has questionable motivations, has a past pattern of behavior in trying to misrepresenting himself and his work and passing himself off as something he is not - he just give people (not just Indians) a bad name. From everything that's been said by his "fellow Indians" - he is the very meaning of the Fraud.
And now because of all of this and what he has done to the good name of academic and scholarly research, he sits in judgement by his own peers.
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
The statement that set off this politically-motivated witch-hunt (and it IS a politically-motivated witch-hunt. Tom Delay would never survive one-tenth of the probing) was Churchill's statement that international financiers and traders in the World Trade Center were "little Eichmans" who were busy enriching themslves while impoverishing the rest of the world.
I took this as an indictment of "the system" in which each cog does nothing evil individually but the overall effect is brutal. However, I'm reading "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by Perkins which shows how loan, trade, and security policies are DELIBERATELY set up to impoverish nations and- failing that- how the "jackals" and USA troops may not be far behind. Perkins was part of that system. I suggest that you all read the book.
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Read this carefully:
"Well, whatever the original motivation or whatever the politicians and media is thinking. I think we should all take a hard stand on unethical misrepresentation and Congressional misconduct - especially in the political world where good governance depends on at least that much.
And it's not just the Democrats that's trashing him. This is his "own people" turning their backs on him, not just b/c he claims to be Christian and has arguably questionable morals, but on top of that, he is combative, hostile, has questionable motivations, has a past pattern of behavior in trying to misrepresenting himself and his work and embezzling money and being a hypocrite - he just gives people (not just politicians) a bad name. From everything that's been said by his "fellow Congressmen" - he is the very meaning of the Fraud.
And now because of all of this and what he has done to the good name of Congress and politics, he sits in judgement by his own peers."
Get it??
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and the point? Sure it's important to have good honest politicians and strong leadership with some backbone in them, but (it's a shame) that's in itself self-contradictory in this days. You won't get an argument from me if you wanted to take them all out back and slap some sense into them. Same with the lot of these sports "heroes".
But I think you are shifting the focus away from academic dishonesty. These people are *not* just romantic figures to look up to and merely learn from, these people are in the position to teach, to generate, and to verify new ideas - supposedly. Fraud should be dealt with expediently and severely in this world.
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