Sidestep - Blood Quantum

It has been said by Rachael Hopkins, an Oklahoma native American now living in NZ, that Blood Quantum is a colonial tool of racial superiority and economic dependency and native communities can't let go of. She does say that entering the debate can be a black hole (wiser words were never spoken).

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THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION [IS] HOW TO DEFINE AN ETHNIC OR RACIAL GROUP IN CONTEXTS WHERE REWARDS OR RESOURCES ARE INVOLVED?…..WHO CAN LEGITIMATELY CLAIM TO BE INDIGENOUS, WHEN POSITIVE INCENTIVES TO CLAIM THAT IDENTITY EXIST.

There is an incredibly pervasive undercurrent to this debate which assumes that there is a benefit – cultural, financial, and otherwise – that needs to be protected. And how do you protect a group’s access to a resource? You make it smaller.

I live in Aotearoa-New Zealand, where indigenous identity is a combination of whakapapa, genealogy, and self identity. This is the official standard for Māori identity (Kukutai, 2004) – one I think we could learn from in the US. (except here in NZ Rachael, self identity means you can identify as anything legally - even a cat).

In the US, the bottom line to Native Identity, the minimum required standard is federal proof of membership in a federally recognised tribe (there are plenty that aren’t, or that lost recognition) to claim Native identity. Socially you don’t have a lot of ground to stand on outside family and community situations without proof. Virtually all tribes use blood quantum – the degree of your Indian blood represented as a fraction – to determine membership.

This is what a CDIB (certificate degree of Indian Blood), my CDIB, looks like. This is the Federally mandated proof of Native Identity I need to access any so called benefits afforded Native communities by the government. Not by chance the minimum degree of blood quantum for enrollment in my tribe is 1/4; meaning that tribal identity and membership are designed to disappear in three generations with intermarriage.

The thing is, fractional identities (the institution of using a fraction to represent identity and their associated verbiage; #halfcaste – don’t get me started) are a Victorian colonial construct representing Victorian ideas of race and the express political objective to erase native populations (Kukutai, 2007). I guess Rachael can;'t work out men and women of both races married for convenience or love and never thought to place upon themselves the misconception of colonialism as those who blame it for everything do these days. Back then Rachael, they didn't think like you and I. they were free of woke bullshit that has crept into our society.

Rachael says that as an issue of race: it ensures that inferior indigenous identities, cultures, and histories are naturally and inevitably replaced by superior colonial ones. Oh, and why was that Rachael? You weren't here then but why did Maori love to wear Europeans clothes, take up metal axes and throw away their stone ones, change their food habits... Was there a law forcing them to do that?

She talks of 'fractional identities', completely unaware (I assume), that Maori had a class system of chiefs right down to slaves would could be killed or eaten at any time, some were sacrificed at the bottom of post pits for new pa (verified).

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Rachael talks typical woke BS. Blood Quantum was a colonial idea for sure, it was not a Native American idea. But it preserves identity and pureness of race identity unlike NZ where you have some claiming to be Maori (with 1.25% native blood) who look more European than some Europeans do - (if you know what I mean). If you aren't 50% something you aren't a majority any one race. Why do Maori claim identity as Maori (not saying its wrong) at say 3.5% but won't accept their Italian roots at say 12%? Answer me that! Maori willingly drive cars, live in European designed houses, eat non-native processed food, use equipment not invented by Maori and observe holidays not their own, all while claiming to be of a different culture. It's like a NZ born man with Scottish roots wearing a kilt and saying it sets him apart. No it doesn't, it just acknowledges ancestry. It's a tough thing to live the way of 250 years ago - claiming it to be your culture, when even Europeans don't live as they did 250 years ago - don't you think? Think hard on that one. No one in the world, except the Sentinelese, live as they did 250 years ago.

Some commentators say they were born into a culture and then colonisation came along. Wrong John, you were born into 1970, not 1790!

Another wishes marriages were arranged ... like in the old days!!!

Some weird thoughts in the name of colonialism.