Cockburn to Indians: get over it!

James Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Mon Oct 26 07:43:34 PST 1998


One interesting aspect of the excerpt that Lou quotes from Ward Churchill is the differing attitudes that Indians and whites towards notions of "race." He makes it clear that for most Indian tribes genetic heritage was of less interest than one's willingness to follow the tribe's way of life. Thus many tribes were quite willing to accept people of European and/or African ancestry into their tribes. This contrasts with Euroamerican concerns with racial purity. Also, Ward Churchill notes the attraction that the Indians' ways of life had for many white settlers during colonial times and later on. It was no doubt in reaction to this attraction that the Euroamerican ideology that conceptualized the Indians as "savages" , as "children of the Devil," and as biological inferiors was developed in the first place. The Indians had to be viewed as the Other both in order to combat the attractiveness of their way of life and to justify their destruction so that whites could gain control of their lands.

Jim Farmelant

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