native americans

Chris Knight's avatar

“Trump wants to deprive Native Americans of their citizenship!”

That’s what I’ve heard from a number of people since yesterday, so I looked into it.

Yes, it’s true: per the strictest interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment at that time, indigenous Americas were not counted as citizens of the United States.  They were instead citizens of their respective tribal reservations.

So the attorneys et al on Trump’s side are literally correct.  Up to the time that the Fourteenth was adopted, at least.

But the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 clarified that Native Americans who were tribal citizens were also American citizens, to be counted and taxed as much as any other citizen.

I doubt that anyone in this administration has even a passive thought to deprive any legal citizen in the United States of their citizenship.  Congress has already stated through legislation that indigenous Americans are fully American citizens.

President Trump ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Exemplifying how Star Wars is truly a universally beloved saga, this July is seeing the release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope dubbed in the language of the Navajo nation of Native Americans.

Star Wars, Navajo, language, translation, A New Hope, Native AmericanThe Navajo Nation Museum has been collaborating with Lucasfilm to translate the first Star Wars movie into Diné bizaad: a language currently spoken by nearly a quarter-million people, most of whom live throughout the American southwest.  And if you speak fluent Navajo you’ll have a chance to get in on the action because auditions are slated to start later this week at the museum in Window Rock, Arizona.  For now everything about the Navajo script is being held close to vest (even the title, which TIME.com speculates could be Sǫʼ Baaʼ).  The classic phrase “May the Force be with you” could translate into “May you walk with great Power”, or many other possible permutations.  ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

I’ve never played an Assassins Creed game. I have no idea what this series is about. But daaaaang if this cover for Assassins Creed III isn’t hella awesome…

Playing as a Native American with a tomahawk, scalping British soldiers during (presumably) the American Revolutionary War. Now there’s a direction that I can’t remember video games ever taking.

Kinda makes you wonder what a Nintendo adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans would have been like, huh?

Thanks to good friend Drew McOmber for spotting this!...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Found this curious lil’ article by one Richard Thornton at Examiner.com, as it was cited a number of times throughout this past day. If there’s anything of merit to this thesis, there exists the possibility that the Maya civilization once stretched from the Yucatan as far north as Blairsville, Georgia!

From the article…

Archaeological zone 9UN367 at Track Rock Gap, near Georgia’s highest mountain, Brasstown Bald, is a half mile (800 m) square and rises 700 feet (213 m) in elevation up a steep mountainside. Visible are at least 154 stone masonry walls for agricultural terraces, plus evidence of a sophisticated irrigation system and ruins of several other stone structures. Much more may be hidden underground. It is possibly the site of the fabled city of Yupaha, which Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto failed to find in 1540, and certainly one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent times.

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Chris Knight's avatar

How is this not an example of racial preference in hiring?! Hell, this is explicitly a sexual preference too. Isn’t that what government isn’t supposed to be doing?!

Well anyway, it’s a tough job market out there but if you happen to be Native American, a man and a practitioner of sacred healing, you’re in luck! The Bureau of Prisons divison of the United States Department of Justice is hiring a “Native American Medicine Man” to work at the Federal Prison Camp in Duluth, Minnesota.

Here’s the official job description…

The Federal Bureau of Prisons, FPC Duluth, Duluth, MN, intends to make a single award to a responsible entity for providing the services of Native American Medicine man to the inmate population as outlined in the statement of work. The anticipated date of the award will be approximately October 1, 2010 subjected to funds availability for the next fiscal year.

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Chris Knight's avatar

Family members of Geronimo, the great Apache warrior, are suing the Skull and Bones secret society at Yale University. The purpose of the lawsuit: to compel Skull and Bones to hand over the skull and other remains of Geronimo that were allegedly stolen from his grave in Oklahoma in 1918. Supposedly, Skull and Bones (the membership of which includes many business leaders and politicians, including both presidents Bush) has been using Geronimo’s noggin for weird sexual rituals deep within its headquarters known as “The Tomb”. It has long been alleged that Geronimo’s remains were in Skull and Bones’ possession, but a letter unearthed a few years ago that detailed the grave robbery has lent new credence to the claim.

All I gotta say is: any “fraternity” that makes its initiates masturbate inside a coffin, cannot possibly be of much good....

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