"Whatta you mean "we", paleface? - Native Americans to Ward Churchill
It's pretty amazing that Churchill has been able pull off a charade for so long given that so many Indians have been complaining about him for many years.
It's important for Native mothers and fathers to speak out because pseudo-Indians do things that affect our children.
Churchill will not be discriminated against on the basis of being Indian, but he is placing our children and grandchildren in harm's way by creating ill will and hostility against Indians. Native kids and elders who actually look Native are the ones who suffer from the blowback.
It's important for Native people to speak out in order to counter the sort of thing that Churchill, even after being so very publicly unmasked, is now telling reporters: that he is Indian by virtue of community acceptance over a prolonged period. While some people in Colorado believe one or another of his stories, no Native nation and no Indian community of interest accepts him as one of their own.
Native artists never knew nor embraced him, either as an artist or as a Native person.
Churchill once worked for news outlets, but has not been accepted as a Native journalist, particularly by those he's viciously attacked after they reported what they found: that he could not substantiate his Indian claims.
(This note is for any reporters and editors who are confused: Churchill is the Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley of American Indian studies, but without their talent. Churchill simply makes it up, too, plus he invents Indian credentials. Keep in mind that no one accused their papers of violating free speech when they fired frauds for cause.)
Colorado and all universities should respect Native nations at least as much as they respect schools and other employers, but they don't. They frown on people who falsify their written material and wrongly claim degrees they did not earn and jobs they did not hold. But when people falsely claim to be Native, it is seen by some as less serious, less offensive and something anyone besides the Indians ought to decide.
Churchill got jobs, promotions, tenure and the Ethnic Studies chair at the University of Colorado because he portrayed himself as American Indian.
Now he's wrapped himself in the First Amendment, carefully draped over his Indian blanket. He's threatening to sue if he's fired for breach of contract or for the shameful things he said about the 9/11 victims.
The university should fire him because he has perpetrated a fraud, and moral turpitude is a deal breaker. The university shielded him from those who tried to reveal the truth and looked the other way as he attacked a lot of decent Native people.
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indiancountry.com
Other Churchill articles:
indianz.com
indianz.com
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