Re: marxism-digest V1 #5031

[Juan Rafael Fajardo <fajardos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> marxism-digest       Saturday, October 5 2002      Volume 01 : Number 5031
...
> Date: Sat, 05 Oct 2002 18:59:57 +0000
> From: lause@xxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: rebel flag flap in Dixie
...
> Still more annoying, Cherokee, Creek and other older nations in present
> Oklahoma regularly use a Confederate flag as part of both identity politics

> and a demonstration of their worthiness to participate in the Southern white
> universe.  The fact was that the Southern white supremacist Democrats who
> removed these groups from the Deep South to an Indian Territory subsequently
> invaded and subjugated them in 1861 and coerced formal alliances with the
> Confederacy (never reflected in what the Native peoples there actually did).
> When the whites finally opened the Territory to their own settlment in 1889,
> most came from adjacent Southern states and imposed a Southern identity.  That
> the entirely mistreated Indian peoples there would accept it is disturbing, if
> understandable after a fashion.


I once had a student, Cherokee by birth, but who grew up on a series of
reservations in California's far northern counties, who sported the
Confederate battle flag every chance he got.  Now, this kid was pretty
messed up and angry at the world and if he could piss someone off,
especially adults, by using racial slurs, so much the better.  However,
when it came to the Confederate flag, he regarded it as part of his
Indian identity.  Curious about that I pressed him on the point.

He explained that many people on the reservations he grew up on sported
the Confederate flag because they believed that the Confederacy had
aided native nations against a common foe and not broken any of the
agreements, unlike the victorious Federal government.   Those
reservations are in N. California, so no Southern identification can be
ascribed, but rather a pointed rejection of the country that did invade
and despoil them.

Of course, that is entirely anecdotal, and only one person's unverified
account, but I offer it because it sheds a different light on what Mark
L. brings out.

- Juan


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