Skip to main content

McCain Natives push back on Palin smearing

In response to the document and Kendall-Miller’s statements, a member of the American Indians for McCain Coalition told ICT that Kendall-Miller “obviously has an axe to grind.”

“She’s playing a bit of a political game with a popular governor,” said the Republican political observer, who asked not to be identified. “And she’s misleading American Indians, trying to make them believe that Palin is some kind of she-devil.”

Other Republican Natives said it was interesting that the Kendall-Miller document was released unsigned to blogs, news outlets and e-mail.

They wondered whether the Native American Rights Fund, the legal organization for which Kendall-Miller works, had any hand in the production of the document, which they said could be a violation of the governmental rules surrounding its nonprofit status.

Kendall-Miller was adamant that NARF had nothing to do with the production of the document. In fact, she said “bring it on” to criticisms from Republicans about her research and writings.

“I have to be careful because I work for a nonprofit – I don’t want to mix what I do, in any way. That’s the kind of dirty tricks the Republicans do – they come back and try to shut down my employer.”

Beyond the partisan squabbles surrounding the document, Jacqueline Johnson, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, said there are many Alaska Natives who have counterpoints to the arguments brought up by Native Obama critics of Palin.

“There are two sides to the coin,” she said, adding that its NCAI’s position to stay neutral on the candidates, since the organization will have to work closely with whatever administration is ultimately elected.

The governor proclaimed June 10 – 13, 2007, as “National Congress of American Indians Days” in recognition of a conference held by NCAI in Anchorage and has attended some of the organization’s events, according to Johnson.

Ken Johns, president of the Ahtna Inc. Alaska Native Corporation, said that many Alaska Natives with whom he has spoken since Palin became the GOP’s vice presidential pick are strongly supportive of her candidacy.

for the full story:
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/home/content/28304989.html

Popular posts from this blog

Americanization of Native Americans

Americanization can refer to the policies of the United States government and public opinion that there is a standard set of cultural values that should be held in common by all citizens. Education was and is viewed as the primary method in the acculturation process. These opinions were harshly applied when it came to Americanization of Native Americans compared to immigrant populations who arrived with their "non-American traditions". The Americanization policies said that when indigenous people learned American customs and values they would soon merge tribal traditions with European-American culture and peacefully melt into the greater society. For example in the 1800s and early 1900s, traditional religious ceremonies were outlawed and it was mandatory for children to attend English speaking boarding schools where native languages and cultural traditions were forbidden. The Dawes Act of 1887 , which allotted tribal lands to individuals and resulted in an estimated total o...

Indian Boarding Schools - the US Solution to the Indian Problem

American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many by Charla Bear This is the first in a two-part report. For the photos with this piece and the rest of the story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865 May 13, 2008 Col. Richard H. Pratt founded the first of the off-reservation Native American boarding schools based on the philosophy that, according to a speech he made in 1892, "all the Indian there is in the race should be dead." CORBIS 'Kill the Indian...Save the Man' According to Col. Richard Pratt's speech in 1892: "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man." From Need to 'National Tragedy' Early in the history of American Indian boarding schools, the...

UKB and Cherokee Nation Today

Hello, everyone – I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and didn’t overdo too much. It was a foodfest in my neighborhood and it was really fun! In this installment we will bring the story of the UKB and the Cherokee Nation to the present. As the Cherokee Nation began to recover its sovereign powers in the 1970s, after having being squelched for most of the twentieth century by the “bureaucratic imperialism” of the BIA as the judge in the Harjo case described it, the UKB was dwindling. As the Cherokee Nation elected its first Chief since statehood, developed a superseding Constitution, reinstated its citizens, reconstituted its Tribal Council (also a result of the Harjo case), established Cherokee Nation Industries and investigated other economic development enterprises, the UKB receded and was basically defunct by the end of the 1970s. But in 1979, there was a particularly nasty runoff in the Principal Chief’s race between incumbent Ross Swimmer and his opponent, Jim Gordon. Swi...