FORBIDDEN TO TALK

“Blood quantum” is such an evocative phrase. “Blood’ is always good for impact and “quantum” makes it sound so mysteriously scientific, like an .OO7 movie title. The trouble is blood quantum doesn’t describe anything real. It was a boondoggle invented by whites who hoped that it would mean that “Indians” would so yearn to be white that they would never marry other “Indians” and therefore thin their genetics out of existence because everyone assumed that being “Indian” was a matter of inheritance. Half, quarter, eights, sixteenths, gone. But they DID marry other Indians.

Whites had color confused with slavery as though that practice weren’t atrocity enough apart from justifying it by claiming that some human beings were not really human and certainly not citizens. (In the beginning to be a citizen you had to be male and own land. Color not mentioned at first.)

All of this moral sinkhole and the scramble to escape it has done enormous damage on many levels: children developing identity, families keeping relationships, and the internal nations of Indian reservations meant to hide and confine troublesome people away from whites, but never allowed to govern themselves. These assaults on the conscience are as painful as raids in the movies.

There used to be kids with major emotional wrestling matches who would shout at me, “Don’t look at me! I forbid you to even think about me!” It was too painful for them to imagine what I might be thinking. That’s about where a lot of people are now, except that it’s on social media. They rarely block someone they want to assault.

Technical tribal members and technically excluded people with the same or similar characteristics have brought to Twitter the idea of territory that is marked off and designated for one person or another, like reservations. Yesterday they were shouting at me. “Get off our subject! We forbid you to talk to us! You’re white and not allowed.” They sound like right wing Republicans, “Proud boys.” It’s not rational. It’s not helpful. But it’s real and even justified, defensive cries of pain from persons who don’t feel heard.”

Not all “Indians” pay much attention. Certainly not the people who live elsewhere, get an occasional check for $5.43 for some mysterious reason, never bother with mail elections. Not the families who have established small businesses and technical careers. Mostly the people affected by the issue of BQ are those who have been addressed by one advantage or another that is based on this bogus blood quantum (like scholarships or hiring). One person is boosted, the sib next in order is shut out.

In case you can’t tell, this is argument against blood quantum, though it is such a convenient fantasy, something like IQ that measures cultural participation, or like the psychological types that keep being identified and then discarded.

Why should whites be included in the discussion? Because they made up the idea along with “commodities” and land ownership “allotments”. What were they thinking? The worst of the ideas was the obsession with incorporation which pretended that a company was a person and had “rights” but was owned by a multitude of people called “shareholders.” Supposedly they would meet and democratically decide what the corporation should do. The trouble was that this was a front — the managers owned the company and controlled it.

This was supposed to be the model for the Tribal Business Council, but they never allowed the shareholders any power, only threw them a small amount of money to keep them quiet. Even this was doomed because the federal government never let go, even after Eloise Cobell pried the People’s money out of their “trust fund” pockets.

So “blood quantum” is a discussion that is powered by money, control, and identity. White people are part of it at every step. And the “Indians” accept the idea of color-controlled slavery by saying anyone with any white blood is probably white, a drop of bleach in the water turns the whole thing white in the way they used to refer to a drop of ink. Actually, what they mean is a culture that approves of white. University education, nice clothes, presentation that earns access and participation in the larger world.

In the beginning the People at contact were majorly different from the intruders. They were crushed by disease and famine more than guns. Buffalo were deliberately wiped out to remove their food and replace them with owned cattle. “Owning” was a new concept, a new fence. But progressive consciousness back East and in Europe interfered with the killing of people. So“Indians” weren’t allowed to vote and their danger or just nuisance value was confined. They didn’t want to be like white people but some white people wanted to be like them and joined them. It was a political time bomb. Still is.

Claiming misery and blaming oppressors is the usual strategy. Lawsuits and historical documents are coming into play. The great irony of the “blood quantum” trope is that it’s not scientific, though it claims DNA as justification. Red blood cells have no nucleus and therefore have no DNA.

Worse, when people mate and a new being is created, the chromosomes divide in half — half sperm and half ovum — but they re-combine to direct the growing and expanding of the new being and that part is NOT in halves. Some genes will be from one side and some from the other, never divided in equal halves. Anyway, it turned out that “Indians” married each other across the country and around the world. “White” is a dumb category that originated in early immigration policy to protect Anglo-Germanic culture. The “Indian” idea that some were “black white people” was more accurate. Was York, Clark’s slave so entwined with his “owner” that Clark said he could not do without him, any less “white” in his ideas than Clark?

Back to science. DNA genetics are intricate and complex. If you read about it at any length in proper scientific writing, you’ll find much of it is nothing like the pop talk that seems able to turn out the genetic labels in our “underwear” — er, “software.” There are hints, suggestions, possibilities. The part (certain sections of the genetic helixes) for the whole is common practice because there are thousands of genes. Few get an entire genome analyzed, even with the amazing machines. Just sections.

During WWI the idea of blood types came up — 4 separate blood components that were incompatible, that would curdle and destroy rather that save with transfusions. The types were on dog tags so medics in the field could do proper transfusions. This reinforced the idea of blood that could be labeled and quantified. Scientists are working on the idea of manufactured blood that is either free of the conflicting parts or quenches them somehow. “Plastic blood” is not a reality yet. Our best is plasma, the fluid that carries the red blood cells.

Forget skin color. All blood is red. The point of it is oxygen which is carried to and from cells by bonding it with iron, which is why we have red blood. If it worked out to be copper that carried the oxygen, we would have green blood. That’s a sci-fi thing. Red is the sacred oxide for painting faces and iniskum.

I get interested in all this stuff in an abstract way, but I see the point of the objection to me on Twitter. They don’t think I acknowledge their pain and frustration, what they had thought should be an entitlement, but was instead a psychological identity trauma that causes suffering. I do see that. I don’t deny emotion. But claiming ownership, pretending that thought can be assigned and fenced terrain, forbidding and attacking, are bad strategy. Self-defeating gaming.

Get hold of realities and plan for the future. Take down the fences. Rethink that unfortunate idea of “owning.” Let white people talk sometimes. Even the black ones.