This week was all about my people, the Indians. Obviously PTJ has a racial content quota to fill but that's besides the point. I actually enjoy studying about Native Americans. I feel that the issues surrounding Native Americans. or the American Indian, are broad and interesting to discuss. Concepts such as sovereignty, biopower, imperialism, colonialism, identity, culture, etc., all find themselves within the history of the Native Americans. I think the timing of this week was great given what we've learned so far. Our discussions on poverty, representation, and sovereignty on the international level set us up well for discussion on micro and macro level implications of Columbus' actions.
One area I had hoped we would discuss more is the self-determination of the Native Americans. I'm interested in seeing how their self-determination has changed over the years and what their status is society is today. In an earlier comment I had on Hilary's post, I talked about the importance of tribal courts in the status quo. To summarize, the Native Americans don't have jurisdiction over criminal issues that exist within their territory. My comment goes into more depth regarding this, but I'm curious as to whether the U.S. has progressed over the years regarding their policy to the Native Americans. One one level, I think they have. The United States has attempted to rectify the problems of the past through legislation targeted towards Native Americans, Museums, and other policies. But on a discursive and representational level, I'm not entirely sure. When I went to the other section's class on Thursday, we discussed the discursive representations of Native Americans. Indians, Native Americans, Redskins, and American Indians are all names that are correlated with these people. Throughout my post I've been referring to them (not trying to create an us-them dichotomy here, just trying to make a sentence flow well), as Native Americans, which has negative connotations associated with the term "native". Additionally, issues such as blood quantums are surprisingly prevelant today regarding Native American policy. Blood quantums are a way of defining what consists of a Native American based upon the degree of ancestry or blood correlated with a tribe. The government determining what an ethnic group consists of is an entirely separate issue that could be debated in full, but the fact issues such as this exist today is extremely intriguing.
Regardless, class last week was great. I can't wait for Thanksgiving break as I'm writing this in the early hours of the morning since I just came back from my debate tournament. Hopefully everyone has a great thanksgiving!
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