Indigeneity & Blood Quantum

Numbers of doubt and division designed to destroy connection.

It's all Aristotle's fault!

Basically, depending on your documented lineage, you are considered indigenous according to census rolls in the United States (I don’t know how it works in Canada.)

This has made the terrain for conversation more treacherous than not; and perhaps that is the intention. As this distinction doesn’t just determine who gets money, but who can claim cultural status, and who cannot.

I call it all Aristotle’s fault because he’s the one that started the obsession with quantifiably categorizing everything.

Pan-Indianism

Not all indigenous tribes are the same … crazy to say, I know … but it’s true.

Not all beliefs, nor traditions translate … some do, they don’t have to though.

The uniqueness between tribes is what contributes to our ingenuity and continued evolution.

And sometimes, traditions can be misinterpreted and appropriated (I’m looking at the prevalence of dream-catchers in South America, and the term “A-ho” in general. I’m sorry, can’t help but laugh at the latter … it always makes me chuckle … jaja … a-shovel.)

Though we ought to remember our previous section on Performative Identities, and how we are all susceptible to its dangers (think Elizabeth “I’m Cherokee” Warren).

Though in our newfound awareness, we are now able to choose not to participate in activities which may perpetuate lateral appropriation for capitalist gain.

Blackness as Indigeneity

The question that often frustrates people is, what does it mean to be indigenous?

And I’ll dare to posit a response … it means to have a connection to the land, and a sense of peace born of a sense of oneness with the land.

Blackness as an identity, for example, is a product of maintaining a connection to the land, and one’s humanity, in the face of unspeakable trauma and depravity.

If it is to be considered a test, Blackness continues to redefine what it can mean to be a human being. This is most clearly seen in the creation of jazz, blue, rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop, salsa, bachata, and most/many other forms of music, art and dance.

This transmutation of difficulty into art, and beauty, evidence of lessons learned and shared, is a testament to the ineffable, and eternal divinity of the human spirit.

So often it is in the artistic mediums that we are best able to fortify, and explore connection to life and the land; it is for this reason that native America indigenous people were forbidden from dancing, and most forms of Black music were also banned at one point in time or another.

And so referring to Black people as indigenous is not unreasonable.