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By a contributor, March 19, 2005
[The following article concerns the case of Ward Churchill, a professor at the University of Colorado that the governor of Colorado is attempting to get fired for a speech he made on 9/11.]
It appears that most high school and college students today cheat, and that many college instructors who are aware of cheating among their students are unwilling to deal with the problem.(1) Many college students who do cheat plagiarize written material. Most college students do not even think Internet plagiarism is a "serious issue." While professors seem to be held to higher standards than students, it comes as no surprise that many bloggers as well as journalists have latched onto the allegations of plagiarism against Ward Churchill, who has unequivocally disputed the tenuous claims. Yet, the various uninformed bloggers and columnists keep repeating the allegations as if they were true.
Chalk it up to plagiarists' guilt, which they are projecting onto Churchill. They copy each others lies, doing little to none of their own research and often failing to even cite each other as sources. The patently false "interpretation" of Ward Churchill's "Some People Push Back" essay as saying that all the World Trade Center dead were little Eichmanns is common. As another example, Churchill has in various places, including Indians Are Us? : Culture and Genocide in Native North America (1993) , discussed how in his childhood and as a teenager, he was encouraged in different ways to develop an indigenous identity. Yet, National Review editor Rich Lowry insinuates that Churchill never identified as being indigenous before applying for a position at the University of Colorado.(2) Churchill has written extensively on why it is not valid to use blood quantum to determine a persyn's membership in an indigenous nation. His aversion to the blood quantum and "tribal" affiliation questions are nothing new.
Ward Churchill, like other North American indigenous persyns, finds the blood-quantum question to be particularly objectionable for several different reasons and will refuse to answer it except to dismiss the question. Yet, Lowry takes Churchill's refusal to pin himself down on the question out of context in order to portray him as a "shaman" who is avoiding exposure. Lowry goes as far as suggesting that people who are not fully enrolled members of government-recognized tribes do not deserve to call themselves indigenous. Apparently, how indigenous persyns view themselves is not important, only their blood quanta or official indigenous statuses. There are a number of reasons for the growth since 1960 in the number of indigenous persyns counted by the census, including a resurgence of indigenous identity among persyns who have dispersed away from reservations.(3) Furthermore, "previous scholarship about the inconsistency of census counts of Indians has established clearly that census counts of Indians increased sharply because of changes in ethnic classification" (p. 638).(3) Since 1960, the ways in which indigenous persyns are classified has changed. For Lowry to suggest that those who now self-identify as indigenous, when they were not counted as indigenous before, are just shamans or wannabes is misleading.
Something else that also needs to be considered is that increased indigenous self-identification in the census may represent a polarization of the population into the Euro-Amerikan nation and First Nations (as well as other nations, such as the Black nation). For the additional indigenous persyns since 1960 who "cannot be accounted for by the usual explanations of population growth" (p. 947), Joane Nagel has argued that the growth that is unexplained by population growth can be explained by federal policy, increased "ethnic" consciousness relating to the civil rights movement, and indigenous political activism.(5) The notion that there are only shamans/wannabes, on the one hand, and persyns who have always been organically connected to First Nations, is over-simplistic and a distortion of reality.
"[T]he American Indian population includes many individuals with multiracial ancestry who must choose their racial identification. . . . beginning in the 1960s there has been a shift from negative to sympathetic and romanticized views of Indians in popular culture."(5) We should also remember that many white nationalists have had a hypocritical attitude toward oppressed nationalities, at times defending the "purity" of oppressed nations' blood, at other times stabbing oppressed nationalities in the back figuratively and literally. For instance, more than a hundred years ago, even "anti-racist" anthropologist Franz Boas considered "how far it is desirable to promote mixture between the Indians and other races. It is clear that, with the increase in settlement in our country, the chances for the Indian to survive as an independent race will become slighter and slighter. The opinion is frequently held that half-breeds . . . are much inferior in physique, in ability, and in character, to the full-bloods. But no statistical information is available which would justify a conclusion of this character. If there was a decided deterioration of race, due to mixture, it would seem that the opportunity for race mixture should be limited so far as this can be accomplished."(6) In this particular paper, Boas believes that the "full-blood" (First Nations persyn) as well as the white persyn are the standards by which "half-blood" First Nations persyns ought to be compared--criminally, physiologically, etc.
It's been more than eighty years since KKK Grand Wizard Edward Young Clarke purported to defend the purity of the Black people. White people, such as David Duke, continue up to this day pretending to defend the biological as well as cultural purity of oppressed nations.(7) Alongside them are mouthpieces like James Fenelon who repeat as fact the lie that Ward Churchill misrepresented his indigenous identity(8) when he clearly marked "unenrolled," and his associate membership with the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee was never formally revoked.(9) Neither Rich Lowry nor James Fenelon provide one piece of evidence showing that Churchill has misappropriated any indigenous cultural practice or consciously invented his blood quantum in order to deceive people. But they insist on tarring Churchill's character and, along with him, every speaker or writer--including in peer-reviewed publications--who relies on his work.
What indigenous persyns in North America actually think, about the war against Iraq for instance, is not really an issue for these bloggers and columnists. They, especially the non-indigenous writers purporting to defend First Nations, will disown anything that makes First Nations look bad in the eyes of the white man.
Notes:
1. "CAI Research," http://www.academicintegrity.org/cai_research.asp
"Here are some recent findings," http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism_stats.html
"Plagiarism Statistics : Did You Know???" April 16, 2000, http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring2000/Overbeck/stats.html
2. Rich Lowry, "Lowry: The shaman's a sham: Fake Indians are an insult to Native Americans," March 18, 2005, http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2612564
Rich Lowry, "Putting the Sha in Shaman," March 14, 2005, http://www.townhall.com/columnists/richlowry/rl20050314.shtml
3. Karl Eschbach, "Changing Identification among American Indians and Alaska Natives," Demography 30, no. 4 (1993): 635-652.
4. Joane Nagel, "American Indian Ethnic Renewal: Politics and the Resurgence of Identity," American Sociological Review 60, no. 6 (1995): 947-965.
"there is enormous controversy among native people about who should be considered an Indian for purposes of receiving tribal services, federal benefits, affirmative action consideration, or rights to participate in tribal governments" (p. 950).
5. Karl Eschbach, Khalil Supple, and C. Matthew Snipp, "Changes in Racial Identification and the Educational Attainment of American Indians, 1970-1990," Demography 35, no. 1 (1998): 35-43, p. 36.
6. Franz Boas, "The Census of the North American Indians," Publications of the American Economic Association, New Series, no. 2 (1899): 49-53, p. 51.
7. David Duke, "Are you a racist?" March 12, 2005, http://www.davidduke.com/index.php?p=266
"I understand that there are intrinsic differences between peoples and that those differences have profound effects on society. I also believe all people have a basic human right to preserve their own heritage " (my emphasis).
8. James Fenelon, "Fenelon: What are we to do? The problem of Ward and 'Indian' issues," March 18, 2005, http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410560
In contrast:
George Joe, "Ward Churchill responds to controversy," March 18, 2005, http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410567
"While Churchill fights for his academic life, the controversy has endangered Ethnic Studies programs nation-wide."
9. Eddie Glenn, "Controversial professor claims ties to UKB," February 4, 2005, www.tahlequahdailypress.com/articles/2005/02/04/news/top_stories/aaaaaaaprof.txt