Post by blackcrowheart on Apr 2, 2007 20:31:00 GMT -5
DNA Testing – The Most Destructive Thing Since Government
It sounded like a great idea…at first. DNA testing that could
determine your ancestry. What a boon for the lost birds, the
curious, and occasionally, the person seeking tribal enrollment.
The National Geographic Society is attempting to map the ethnic
origins of tribal people worldwide to figure out where they came
from…to link us all back to our earliest human ancestor, which
scientists have named "Eve." Their mission is innocent enough; what
will happen to the information they gather may not be.
The human species is semi-nomadic; we don't just stay in one place
no matter what. The traces of our voyages and the resulting
kinships remain in our DNA, making very, very few of us the
descendants of a single people.
What will this mean for tribal peoples when governments start
relying on DNA mapping rather than census reports?
Remember the days when character counted? When honor meant
something and when who a person was on the inside was more important
than how they looked on the outside? I'm told that this used to be
the way a person found acceptance, or rejection, among tribal
nations…by their own merit.
I'm not talking about a Utopian myth. People have never been
perfect, no matter what color they are. But on the whole, tribal
people were a lot better off before everyone else starting defining
who and what they were based on roll numbers, allotments, and now,
DNA.
A complicated scandal is unfolding at American Indian Health
Services in Santa Barbara. Its history of chaos is long and
unfortunate. In recent months, all the non-Indian employees were
fired. Then, all the staff was asked to prove federal tribal
recognition. Going directly against the Agency's own mission
statement, all its clients were told to come up with this proof
before they made their next visit.
This wasn't a mandate from the state or the federal government; it
was an action taken by the recently hired executive director; a half
Indian Vietnam veteran who had recently retired from a twenty five
year career in administration with Indian Health Services.
The clinic in Santa Barbara was one of the few places where a member
of the Indian community…as defined by honor, participation in the
community, blood, birth, or a piece of paper from a recognized tribe…
could go to get medical services. The medically indigent, those
without insurance, those who would be turned away elsewhere had this
one very special facility they could go to. Emphasis on the word
had. The facility is once more in peril, embroiled in lawsuits, its
Board of Directors in shambles, its clients suddenly shunned unless
they can come up with federal recognition.
Among the issues under debate are who should be considered an
Indian. According to DNA evidence, it should not be the Coastal
Band of Chumash. It should not be some of the clients.
Federally recognized clients need not fear…at least this generation
of them. Their children, however, might not be Indian enough to get
tribal cards. And people with DNA that has already been infiltrated
can look forward to the same fate for their children's future.
Pretty soon, no one is going to be Indian enough. Not Indian enough
for tribal enrollment, not Indian enough to make their DNA worth
testing.
Tribal identity by government and scientific standards is succeeding
in doing what Custer couldn't. It is exterminating the Indian.
Casino money will prompt the demise of those tribes who aren't
squabbling over Indian Health Service benefits.
Reducing the number of people on a tribe's rolls is a short-term
solution to tribal economics. It means there will be less
descendants in future generations. At some point, new figures for
the minimum viable population of a tribe will be established by the
government, perhaps based on DNA research, and the smaller tribes
will find themselves no longer Indian…not only deposed of their
material wealth and land, but deposed of their identity.
Tribal councils have been dealt a hand of cards that will only get
smaller when it is measured by blood quantum and DNA. They decide
who is Indian. They decide, in this day and age, not by who
deserves to have a voice in tribal affairs or who is worthy as a
human being, but by whose blood is in their veins, and how much
flows.
There is a lot to be said for the powerful genetic memory carried in
that blood. There is less that can be said about the process of
using federal recognition and DNA evidence to determine if that
person should be called an Indian.
Corina Roberts
www.RedbirdsVision.org
www.lulu.com/corinaroberts
It sounded like a great idea…at first. DNA testing that could
determine your ancestry. What a boon for the lost birds, the
curious, and occasionally, the person seeking tribal enrollment.
The National Geographic Society is attempting to map the ethnic
origins of tribal people worldwide to figure out where they came
from…to link us all back to our earliest human ancestor, which
scientists have named "Eve." Their mission is innocent enough; what
will happen to the information they gather may not be.
The human species is semi-nomadic; we don't just stay in one place
no matter what. The traces of our voyages and the resulting
kinships remain in our DNA, making very, very few of us the
descendants of a single people.
What will this mean for tribal peoples when governments start
relying on DNA mapping rather than census reports?
Remember the days when character counted? When honor meant
something and when who a person was on the inside was more important
than how they looked on the outside? I'm told that this used to be
the way a person found acceptance, or rejection, among tribal
nations…by their own merit.
I'm not talking about a Utopian myth. People have never been
perfect, no matter what color they are. But on the whole, tribal
people were a lot better off before everyone else starting defining
who and what they were based on roll numbers, allotments, and now,
DNA.
A complicated scandal is unfolding at American Indian Health
Services in Santa Barbara. Its history of chaos is long and
unfortunate. In recent months, all the non-Indian employees were
fired. Then, all the staff was asked to prove federal tribal
recognition. Going directly against the Agency's own mission
statement, all its clients were told to come up with this proof
before they made their next visit.
This wasn't a mandate from the state or the federal government; it
was an action taken by the recently hired executive director; a half
Indian Vietnam veteran who had recently retired from a twenty five
year career in administration with Indian Health Services.
The clinic in Santa Barbara was one of the few places where a member
of the Indian community…as defined by honor, participation in the
community, blood, birth, or a piece of paper from a recognized tribe…
could go to get medical services. The medically indigent, those
without insurance, those who would be turned away elsewhere had this
one very special facility they could go to. Emphasis on the word
had. The facility is once more in peril, embroiled in lawsuits, its
Board of Directors in shambles, its clients suddenly shunned unless
they can come up with federal recognition.
Among the issues under debate are who should be considered an
Indian. According to DNA evidence, it should not be the Coastal
Band of Chumash. It should not be some of the clients.
Federally recognized clients need not fear…at least this generation
of them. Their children, however, might not be Indian enough to get
tribal cards. And people with DNA that has already been infiltrated
can look forward to the same fate for their children's future.
Pretty soon, no one is going to be Indian enough. Not Indian enough
for tribal enrollment, not Indian enough to make their DNA worth
testing.
Tribal identity by government and scientific standards is succeeding
in doing what Custer couldn't. It is exterminating the Indian.
Casino money will prompt the demise of those tribes who aren't
squabbling over Indian Health Service benefits.
Reducing the number of people on a tribe's rolls is a short-term
solution to tribal economics. It means there will be less
descendants in future generations. At some point, new figures for
the minimum viable population of a tribe will be established by the
government, perhaps based on DNA research, and the smaller tribes
will find themselves no longer Indian…not only deposed of their
material wealth and land, but deposed of their identity.
Tribal councils have been dealt a hand of cards that will only get
smaller when it is measured by blood quantum and DNA. They decide
who is Indian. They decide, in this day and age, not by who
deserves to have a voice in tribal affairs or who is worthy as a
human being, but by whose blood is in their veins, and how much
flows.
There is a lot to be said for the powerful genetic memory carried in
that blood. There is less that can be said about the process of
using federal recognition and DNA evidence to determine if that
person should be called an Indian.
Corina Roberts
www.RedbirdsVision.org
www.lulu.com/corinaroberts