The 1921 murder of Osage Nation citizen Anna Brown was one of the most complicated investigations in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Photo: FBI

Opinion

Alex Jacobs: Some of our own people are willing to sell their blood

Monday, June 12, 2017

After reviewing Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, a book about the murders of dozens -- if not hundreds -- of Osage Nation citizens, Alex Jacobs doesn't think much has changed when it comes to the exploitation of natural resources in Indian Country. Even tribal citizens are willing to sell their sovereignty, the Mohawk artist and poet writes:

We got appropriation by fake Indians, pretendians and wannabees. It’s become a business, a religion and a lifestyle. They got degrees, they got tribal ID cards, some just got crappy family stories, some got high cheekbones and that seems to be enough. We had whites playing Indian as Jack Crabb in Little Big Man; before that there were five-dollar Indians who were white men who paid Indian agents $5 to be listed and enrolled under the Dawes Act so they could get such Indian benefits as land or food rations. This also led to voting in tribal elections, education benefits, and passing down fraudulent family claims. Once it becomes generational, their spawn would marry inside the tribe to produce authentic paper-carrying ethnic Indians who could cover-up the original sin. Still others continued to marry out yet could retain that percentage of blood quantum as an enrollment entitlement ace up the sleeve.
They take our places, they take grants from deserving Natives because they know how to game the system; they are articulate in the English language, media, history and how to bullshit, because they were raised bullshitting about their Indian heritage. They steal our voices, stories and names. They call us names, they get offended when people call them names, then they get offended when Natives who struggle sell a little culture just to survive. Now they run for political office using their genetic Indian-ness to propel their career and search out the highest bidders.
Generational trauma has now been passed from the likes of Charles Curtis to WW Keeler to Ross Swimmer to Markwayne Mullin, all progressives whose actions and backgrounds reinforce the Blood for Oil concept, all willing to sell out rights and titles for currency of the realm in the name of progress and sovereignty.

Read More on the Story:
Alex Jacobs: Blood For Oil 100 Years Later (Indian Country Media Network 6/11)