What Makes Someone Native American? (Lumbee Tribe) - Washington Post 8/20/2018

[SirReginald]

I'm not going to post the whole article. You can find the whole article down below in the description. It talks about the Lumbee tribe in NC.

In March 2012, Heather McMillan Nakai wrote a letter to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs asking the agency to verify that she was Indian. She was seeking a job at the Indian Health Service and wanted to apply with “Indian preference.” Nakai knew this might be difficult: As far as she was aware, no one from her North Carolina tribe — the Lumbee — had ever been granted such preference.

Her birth certificate says she’s Indian, as did her first driver’s license. Both of her parents were required to attend segregated tribal schools in the 1950s and ’60s. In Nakai’s hometown in Robeson County, N.C., strangers can look at the dark ringlets in her hair, hear her speak and watch her eyes widen when she’s indignant, and know exactly who her mother and father are. “Who’s your people?” is a common question in Robeson, allowing locals to pinpoint their place among the generations of Lumbee who have lived in the area for nearly 300 years.

Yet in the eyes of the BIA, the Lumbee have never been Indian enough. Responding to Nakai the following month, tribal government specialist Chandra Joseph informed her that the Lumbee were not a federally recognized tribe and therefore couldn’t receive any federal benefits, including “Indian preference.” Invoking a 1956 law concerning the status of the Lumbee, Joseph wrote: “The Lumbee Act precludes the Bureau from extending any benefits to the Indians of Robeson and adjoining counties.” She enclosed a pamphlet titled “Guide to Tracing Indian Ancestry.”

- The Washington Post

natural gas pipelines on their land.

Above all, the law deprived tribal members of a clear label they could use to identify themselves to outsiders. It even confused the government officials charged with enacting Native American policy — people like Chandra Joseph at the BIA, who insisted in her letter to Nakai that the Lumbee were not a recognized tribe. If the BIA treats you like you’re not really Indian, it’s hard to convince people who haven’t closely studied Indian law that they’re wrong. And the constant burden of explaining and justifying one’s identity can take a psychological toll. Reggie Brewer, a cultural coordinator for the tribe, says the current Lumbee recognition quest is not about money but respect. “We know who we are,” he says. “We want our children to have that self-pride, that self-esteem of who they are.”

In her hometown, Nakai rarely had to explain her background. But when she went to summer camp with other Native American children, they started asking questions she didn’t know how to answer. “Everywhere I went, people would say, ‘Are you mixed? What’s your heritage?’ ” Nakai recalls. “And I would look at them blankly.”

Some Lumbees have red hair and freckles, others have tight blond curls, and others have sleek, dark hair and mocha skin. No one is kicked out of the tribe because of their skin tone — and that concept is hard for the BIA to accept, according to Mary Ann Jacobs, chair of the Department of American Indian Studies at UNC-Pembroke. “They don’t like the fact that we refuse to put people out who look too white or look too black. If they’re our people, we keep them.” Jacobs laughed, as if the idea of doing anything else were absurd. “We refuse to give them back. Why should we separate out based on this thing, this race thing? If we have grown them and they speak Lumbee the way we speak Lumbee, and they’ve gone to Lumbee schools and Lumbee churches and we’ve fed them and nourished them, they’re Lumbee.”

- The Washington Post

Stinston Revels, Nola Graham and Bryce Locklear, and Mickey Revels

 

[SirReginald]

In my opinion, they have more stake than those $5 Indians.

 

[SirReginald]

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[CinnaSlim]

The US controls who is "legally" Native so that they will eventually breed themselves out and die off, so they can take all their land.

 

[Shoog Shatmi]

In my opinion, they have more stake than those $5 Indians.

Some of them may have a tiny bit of Indian ancestry, but overall their whole Indian identity as a group is completely made up.

 

[SirReginald]

Some of them may have a tiny bit of Indian ancestry, but overall their whole Indian identity as a group is completely made up.

You mean the Lumbee?

 

[SirReginald]

The US controls who is "legally" Native so that they will eventually breed themselves out and die off, so they can take all their land.

Those crackas do that to exploit the casino money. They are White Washing the American Indians.

 

[AggiePride336.]

I don’t know what makes one Native American, or care to be honest, but I know of Lumbee indians very well.

My grandma stays in the town full of them in Lumberton NC, and she went to a predominately Native American/Lumbee Indian university; UNC-Pembroke.

 

[SirReginald]

I don’t know what makes one Native American, or care to be honest, but I know of Lumbee indians very well.

My grandma stays in the town full of them in Lumberton NC, and she went to a predominately Native American/Lumbee Indian university; UNC-Pembroke.

Are they cool people? I never encountered them, but my grandfather's parent was Native and in NC. My mother told me that they were racist against my grandmother because she wasn't light enough. This was in the 30's and 40's.

 

[Shoog Shatmi]

You mean the Lumbee?

Yes, the Lumbee. Genetically they are mostly white with a minority of black ancestry. They adopted an "Indian" identity to avoid the stigma and legal consequences of being considered part black.

 

[KingZaire_]

Indigenous Mexicans

 

[AggiePride336.]

Are they cool people? I never encountered them, but my grandfather's parent was Native and in NC. My mother told me that they were racist against my grandmother because she wasn't light enough. This was in the 30's and 40's.

That doesn’t surprise me, and some can still be like that. My aunt works in a nursing home where a lot of them reside, and the stories she’s told me. Some of them didnt want my Aunt touching them with her black skin.

I’m cool with a few Lumbees, and the younger women tend to love black men and culture. It makes sense, since some would just call them biracial instead of Native. The ones I know are cool. They drink like fishes though. Love some liquor

 

[AggiePride336.]

Lumberton, Pembroke, Maxton, St Paul, Hope Mill, Laurinburg, Fairmount NC. That’s Lumbee Central right there

 

[SirReginald]

Yes, the Lumbee. Genetically they are mostly white with a minority of black ancestry. They adopted an "Indian" identity to avoid the stigma and legal consequences of being considered part black.

I've read that theory and a few others. I knew an Afro Indian girl at my old highschool too.

 

[SirReginald]

Also, Louis Farrakhan meet with some Native Americans several years back and talked about their African ancestry.