Well now, this should be it for Ward Churchill at the University of Colorado. From his talk at the University of Hawaii Tuesday night (2-22-2005):
"Is he an Indian? Do we really care?" he said, quoting those he called his "white Republican" critics.
"Let's cut to the chase; I am not," he said.
Basically, Churchill makes this belated admission only after having his background drawn, quartered, and ground up for hamburger to feed the evil VRWC. Mmm, hamburger....
Leave aside anything else he's said, he lied on his resume in a particularly bad manner. He got his job as chairman of the CU Ethnic Studies Department on the representation that he was a Native American. This guy was a tasty treat for bloggers. He's just the kind of small fish that's easy picking for a blogger or smalltown reporter. Just track down a couple of generations of his geneology, and NOPE, no Injuns there.
It would seem that the University would have no reasonable choice except to fire him with extreme prejudice. If you tell a prospective employer that you worked at IBM, neglecting to explain that it was as part of the cleaning crew- that would be padding your resume. But a German Aryan dude pawning himself off as an Indian to become chairman of an Ethnic Studies department- Now that's taking it to a whole nother level.
The university bypassed numerous qualified applicants who really were Native Americans to hire this schmuck. They simply wouldn't have hired a plain old white guy for this job- nor, probably, should they.
What possible logical argument could be made for the university keeping him in his job? This revelation would seem to have to be understood to constitute the complete death of his entire professional position. Bereft of life, his professional reputation lies at peace. It is an ex-reputation.
On the plus side, he did make some effort at moderation in his anti-American rhetoric. He had caught the attention of the VRWC, blogger division, with his hateful and unsympathetic statements about America supposedly deserving 9/11. He had referred to the victims of 9/11 as "little Eichmanns."
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Shawn
Churchill has never claimed to be a full Indian. Even on his resume for CU he says "unenrolled" Creek/Cherokee.
Even if that provocative quote *attributed* to Churchill were true in a big picture sense (Churchill has Indian ancestors is indisputable, but has never claimed to be full Indian), it'd be consistent with what Churchill has been saying about "tribe" membership and lineage (in his book _Indians Are Us?_ for instance). Among American Indians there is a debate over whether blood or culture is more important in assessing indigenous identity. Check out http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/mn/sept112001/wardchurchill02212005.html for a discussion of this and also the links on that page.
2 - P6
You want a white guy fired for not being a minority?
3 - jay
Dude is toast. Word is his lawyer is already calling around to find out who taped the event. Later Bud! Hope you have a comfy book deal or Michael Moore movie deal to often the blow.
The way it went down in Hawaii:
State Senator Fred Hemmings called him out as a "academic, literary and cultural fraud." He was the "white Republican enemy" he mentioned during the speech. I saw it coming he was unraveling Sunday Feb 21 as KGMB taped a press conference where he was asked "whether he was native american". He said it irrellevant. Asked again he went crazy and screamed at the reporter "WHAT PART OF IRRELEVANT QUESTION DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND!" The camera tightened in on his face as his shook out the last syllable. Even the normally left of left local media couldn't sweeten that one. It was obvious that he was starting to crack........stay tuned.
4 - Shawn
From http://starbulletin.com/2005/02/23/news/index2.html
Churchill "went on to explain that the issue of whether he is Native American has been blown up by sloppy reporting and reporters quoting other reporters."
People who do not know what Churchill means by "pedigree" should not be accusing Churchill of lying about his identity. Churchill has never claimed to be a full Indian. Now he is just (if the quote is accurate) reiterating he isn't a full Indian pedigree/blood-line wise.
It is only inept reporters who do not know what "unenrolled" means on Churchill's resume who are spreading this rumor that Churchill lied about his Indian identity. Check out the link I mentioned above.
5 - Shawn
"His pedigree is "not important," Churchill said: "The issue is the substance of what is said.""
Let's be clear about this. Churchill has Indian ancestors. What he is saying is that the "Indianness" his blood should not be an issue when the real issue is what he said in his essay.
6 - Al Barger
P6, it's really not even a question of what I want. I'm pretty skeptical personally of the whole idea of an "ethnic studies" department. What the hell do they "study" of any significance?
However, if you're going to have such a position, it wouldn't make much sense to put a white guy in charge. It seems like being some kind of ethnic minority would be more or less a prerequisite for the job.
Even if you considered it that you might hire a white man to such a position, that's not what they were told they were getting. Whitey here absolutely goddam lied on his resume to get the job.
If I claimed on an application that I was of African descent in order to get a student grant from the United Negro College Fund, that would be really wrong. It would be outright fraud, really. What Churchill did here was FAR worse.
About this time, if I were one of them real Injuns that got passed over for this lying schmuck, I'd be looking for the bitch with a baseball bat. Would I be wrong?
7 - Shawn
At what point do we say a person is not black? If they have less than 50% of the "black genetic markers?"
What about if my mom was only 60% black? And my grandmother was only 60%? By the time it got to me, I would be less than 50% black according to the bloodline theory, but I would not be unjustified in saying I had black ancestors and calling myself black, especially if I participated in a black community in many different substantial ways and were accepted as a black person.
This is really what it comes down to. Churchill NEVER said he was a full Indian. On his CU resume, for instance, he identified himself as an *unenrolled* Creek/Cherokee, which indicates he wasn't *officially/accounting-wise* a part of either of these nations. How much clearer does it get?
Churchill is not a liar. It is really more complicated than you make it out to be Barger.
8 - Sean
Shawn, you write: Let's be clear about this. Churchill has Indian ancestors.
The article you cite to contains the following:
"Is he an Indian? Do we really care?" he said, quoting those he called his "white Republican" critics.
"Let's cut to the chase; I am not," he said.
You say Churchill is Indian. Churchill says that he is not Indian, nor does he even claim Indian ancestors in that article. Who is right?
9 - Shawn
So, can anyone here (if they genuinely think of themselves as being white) show me their white credentials? Their White membership card? Isn't this question silly?
What if turned out you were actually less than 50% Western European? Still white? Where do we draw the lines?
It is worth pointing out numerous black and white people list themselves as such on census forms when they really are less than 50% "black" etc. lineage-wise, but that does not make them liars. The Uni of Colorado is not an indigenous agency classifying Indians and non-Indians for benefits and services purposes. CU obviously had its own criteria for accepting Churchill as an American Indian, or does anyone here think they were so incompetent as to not know what "unenrolled" meant in an American Indian context?
10 - Al Barger
Churchill cannot show ANY American Indian in his bloodline, not even a little bit. He claimed for years that he was an Indian, but he doesn't have even one identifiable drop of Native American blood. NONE AT ALL.
Shawn, what in the world are you thinking to even TRY to defend this lyin' schmuck?
11 - Sean
At what point do we say a person is Indian? Shawn you insist that it is indisputable that Chruchill has Indian ancestors but other than claiming 'unenrolled' status, Churchill has not pointed to any such ancestors. If he said 'my grandfather was Indian' I'd concede the point but as near as I can tell, CHurchill is Indian because he wants to be Indian.
As far as I know, I have no Indian ancestors. But I want to be an Indian! Can I be an unenrolled member of a tribe? I saw some episodes of F-Troop when I was a kid. Doesn't that count for something?
Would CHurchill have been hired if he claimed to be an unenrolled welshman?
12 - Shawn
Sean, I am going to need to see the context of that quote. I won't accept that interpretation at face value until the audio from the event is made public. However, the context that is available suggests Churchill was refering to being non-Indian in a pedigree sense, which would be true.
Churchill is culturally an Indian. Now, if he wants to disown American Indian communities completely and join a white community, then we could talk about Churchill not being an Indian in any sense, but that's talking about the present. Churchill was not wrong to consider himself an Indian in the past.
This isn't nitpicking. It is actually very controversial to say only persons 50% Indian by lineage are entitled to call themselves Indian.
Question: if a person had dark skin (not that this is necessary to be black, but go with me here) and participated in black communities extensively, but turned out to be only 50% African by lineage, would he be a liar to call himself black?
13 - Sean
If a person claimed to be black, but had absolutely no african lineage, o%, nada, nothing, would he still be black?
I agree that the numbers game as to what percentage of ancestry is required to claim to ba part of an ethnic group is tricky at best, but doesn't there there need to be at least one ancestor to claim to be in a group?
I am fascinated with Cuban culture and history. I love cuban music and cuban food. I root for Cuban baseball players. Could I claim to be cuban on that basis, despite the fact that none of my ancestors are cuban?
14 - Shawn
Barger and Sean, Churchill claims ancestry through his mother. That article you linked to isn't the whole story.
Check out the first link I posted and also: http://www.coloradoaim.org/why.html
QUOTE: In point of fact, there are five criteria by which native people are normally identified in the US-self-identification, genealogy, tribal enrollment, blood quantum and community recognition.41 Churchill qualifies by all five standards. Let's start with self-identification and genealogy. Contrary to Tim Giago's claim that Churchill has identified himself as being of different peoples at different times, the record is absolutely clear that he has always identified as Cherokee (his mother's lineage). The first conclusive evidence of this dates from a 1970 article on the Alcatraz occupation.42 By 1975, having met his father for the first and only time in the interim, he added Creek, as in the identification he gave for an art show he mounted at the Sioux Indian Museum that year.43 Thereafter, he added Mitis -meaning one of mixed ancestry and culture - to accomplish what he called "truth in advertising."44 From 1979 onward, his self-descriptor was always "Creek/Cherokee Mitis," nothing else. Churchill has
y challenged Giago to produce evidence of any other self-identification.45 Giago has not responded.
15 - Shawn
In all fairness Sean + Barger, you are probably picking up on false media coverage of what Churchill said / did not say, but Churchill has in fact claimed ancestry through his mother. If he is now denying this explicitly, then I would like to see the evidence (and not just a blog post thanks).
16 - sydney
This is a shoddy article.
Both qoutes attributed to Churchill are taken out of context and are misinterpreted.
17 - Sean
At the U of Hawaii, Churchill answered his own question as to whether he was Indian by saying "I am not."
Seems to me to be a pretty clear statement.
18 - Mike Kole
The problem with all of this is this: If you are a scientist, you have certifiable knolwedge as a scientist. If you are a mathematician...
If you are a professor in ethnic studies, do you really have to be of that ethnic descent? Isn't it enough to have sufficient knowledge to teach the courses? I for one want no part of any curriculum that requires correct ethnic heritage in order to teach or to learn.
19 - Sean
I agree Mike. The issue is that Churchill has claimed Indian heritage, and now seems to have been caught in a lie and is backing away from it. Presumably he thought such heritage was important while applying for the position at CU. If it was a factor in his hiring, he obtained that position through fraud, at least in part.
For the record, I don't think the guy should be fired his writings, nor should anyone.
20 - Al Barger
Shawn, his mother was not Indian. His STEPmother was.
21 - Al Barger
Sydney, are you claiming the Honolulu Star-Bulletin misquoted Mr Churchill?
Do you have a transcript of his speech?
22 - Temple Stark
A 16th of blood is usually the minimum for tribal enrollment. I'm not 100 perecent sure, but I think that's a federal stipulation (as counterintutive as that seems).
Regardless, Ward Churchill is a complete tool. His comments made no sense and his continued practice of trying to redefine what he said - like quite a few bloggers here - does nothing to endear him to thinking people.
23 - Dave Nalle
I believe the tribes set the requirement of how much blood you need to be enrolled. I think some are as low as 1/64th because they're desperate for members for federal grant money.
I'd ask my wife (1/8 Cherokee - unenrolled) but she's asleep.
BTW, if you ARE part indian and haven't registered with your tribe, you really should - there's a hell of a lot of scholarship money to be had.
Dave
24 - bhw
If you are a professor in ethnic studies, do you really have to be of that ethnic descent? Isn't it enough to have sufficient knowledge to teach the courses? I for one want no part of any curriculum that requires correct ethnic heritage in order to teach or to learn.
I saw Henry Louis Gates, Jr. speak many moons ago, and this subject came up in relation to Black Studies departments. He acknowledged that it was very difficult for white candidates, including his own students, to get jobs teaching Black Studies. These candidates were just as qualified as their black counterparts, but it was harder for them to get hired in those departments.
25 - Shawn
Al, I would like to see your source for the claim Churchill claims ancestry only through his stepmother.
Look, even if it were true, a strong argument could be made that Churchill is culturally an Indian based on his community participation and being raised as an American Indian, but I still would like to see your source.
Contrary to so-called interpretations of the quote appearing in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, it is not in any way clear that Churchill has denied being an ethnic Indian. What he DID say, *according to the Star-Bulletin*, is that he is not a full Indian according to pedigree assumptions. So for example, if my mother was only 90% Indian by known lineage, and my father was 0% Indian by known lineage, my "blood" would be less than 50% Indian, but I would NOT be a liar to say I was an Indian if I was culturally an Indian and developed an identity as an Indian.
Churchill indicated he was "unenrolled" in the Creek/Cherokee nations. The committee who hired Churchill knew exactly what "unenrolled" meant, so this is not a case of beinig mislead. This is really simple.