Re: Kennewick Man and other subjects

[Adam Levenstein <cleon42@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- "Jose G. Perez" <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Adam,
>
>     I don't think people are trying to trash you
> without reason, or making
> stuff up just to be mean.

No, you're right. It probably simply shows a lack of
the ability to reason, and lack of a desire to deal
with what I'm actually saying. It's easier to simply
say, "He's an ignorant racist."

> All the arguments about
> how this guy may or may
> not have been affiliated with the ancestors of this
> one particular group,
> and so on, however, are irrelevant to the point
> comrades have been trying to
> convince you of. The point is, the
> European/American/White side isn't
> exactly coming into this with clean hands.

A point I haven't denied - nor do I care to. (It would
be rather foolish.)

> They've
> been stuffing graves full
> of Indians who were recently alive and robbing the
> graves of those who have
> been dead a little longer since the 1500s, and the
> Native Peoples, the
> descendants of the very few that survived, want it
> to stop. And it really
> doesn't matter whether the "man" was Amerindian,
> Asian, European, Black or
> extraterrestrial.

Another point I don't argue with.

>     I happened to get assigned a lot to cover
> various Indian issues in the
> YS and the Militant in the 70's and there's one
> figure that I'll never
> forget. And that was that in 1500, there were about
> 20 million native
> peoples living in the United States.  By 1900, after
> the last of the
> acknowleged massacres, Wounded Knee in 1890, there
> were a little over
> 100,000 left. That's what -- 0.5%?

Actually, if Chairman Craven would permit me, modern
archaeologists have upped that figure at point of
contact. 20,000,000 is considered a very, very
conservative estimate.

>     Asking the Umatillas to "prove" their bona-fide
> claim over these remains
> is like asking the children who were still alive in
> some Nazi death camp
> when the camp was liberated to provide a note from
> their parents allowing
> them to leave. And it misses the point entirely,
> which is not about degree
> of consanguinity which *might* be revealed by DNA
> typing, but the rights of
> the survivors of the holocaust.

Again with the Nazi reference - anyone here ever hear
of Godwin's Law?

>     It is true this is a hindrance to sceintific
> anthropological
> investigations. But then again, not infrequently
> scientific anthropological
> investigations have been a hindrance to the survival
> of indigenous peoples.

Point taken.

> The more quickly scientists abandon both active
> promotion of the genocide,
> or a studied neutrality towards what no one can or
> should be allowed to be
> neutral towards, the more quickly it will be
> possible for respectful
> discussions to begin between representatives of the
> scientific community and
> the corresponding Indian nation, on how the various
> interests may be
> accommodated. The PRE condition for that happening
> is that the rights of
> Indian nations to
>
>     But RIGHT NOW, the politics override everything.

I think this statement exemplifies the problem I'm
having -- the (perhaps potential) idea that ideology
is more important than science. I can see that opening
a door to a really, really bad place.

Of course, this is probably the result of a conceptual
misunderstanding. I got the idea from Louis (and
Craven, though I'm not taking his rants too seriously)
that his objection was that should KM turn out to be
non-Native American, it challenges NA sovereignty. And
therefore, because we don't want to challenge NA
sovereignty, we shouldn't find out who KM really was.
Again, this very well could be the result of a
misunderstanding; I don't respond well to people
calling me a racist, and it doesn't happen very often.

> Kennesaw Man is being
> used to try to undermine and roll back native
> american rights, to narrow
> their scope, to introduce all sorts of exceptions,
> conditions and
> qualifications.
>
>     And looked at in the abstract, the caveats and
> conditions may all seem
> quite reasonable. But not when you've had half a
> millenium of genocide.
> Science will advance all the more surely for having
> broken with this
> genocide, whatever data may be temporarily
> sacrificed.

Your point, overall, is well made - I'll have to give
it some thought.

Adam


=====
Adam Levenstein                          cleon42@xxxxxxxxx
ICQ: 17125158

And now, for something completely different.

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