Who Gets To Be An Indian | Richie Meyers | TEDxBrookings

thank you well the story of it it is a wonderful pronoun when I used to work in Washington DC on a daily basis I would get between 5 to 100 calls of people calling from the majority of the American public wanting to know what they get once they found it it being an interesting thing the series of memes you're about to see are simply data that I scoured the internet and Facebook for they're out there they circulate it's kind of a new way to do anthropology for me but the words treaty and nation are words of our own language selected in our diplomatic and legislative proceedings by ourselves we have applied them to Indians as we have applied them to the other nations of the earth they are applied to all in the same sense Chief Justice John Marshall 1832 noted for being the person to render all native people in this country domestic dependent nations so a dual status of identity is to be an American Indian but of the 567 tribes as noted earlier from the opening from Redwing they're very different but they are the same at the same time very different with their tribal cultures languages and ideas as you can see from this particular picture the truth and memes is always there but you got to be an Indian to know those things so humor is something that I think is probably the best medium to transmit conflicting and contentious issues and ideas some things like identity claiming to be something when you're not according to who and why are some issues that this topic is dealing with now there is this idea that maybe you shouldn't talk about things that are contentious because hey we just don't like to talk about those things but when you get to human identity in the capacity of people going for jobs saying they're somebody when maybe they're not really that person because their parents are their families say otherwise to be somebody well this issue started off a somewhat controversy for people in this country as to her identity racial politics in the United States it's safe to say in the literature is dominated by black and then after that you have the other categories for minorities the fellow there is a Red Lake tribal number who's making a run at being a comedian sometimes pictures say more than other things this person here is a tenured professor in the UC system I attempted to interview her and at that time she wasn't native and last statement she is and will always be this person is recent at Dartmouth they are of a different identity of a 501 3 Sikh identity now getting into awkward moments that awkward moment when you can't tell the difference between an Indian and the Asian I crack up because I got plenty of relatives and cousins and hey just like a Brazilian family phenotypes are interesting in Indian country you could have someone who looks like my Irish side of the family as pasty as can be in white you have native looking you have african-american black skin color you have Asiatic features physical anthro 1 but with the discourse on natives and Facebook it's fascinating that dreamcatcher is not going to work it was made in China now I run into other natives from other cultures and they'll start telling you the Lakota version of otomí and the way the dreamcatcher was made and I'll say oh that's cool what's your cultures story for that and they look at me because they think that as a native person they have claim to a story that's not from the people who reside in a geographical space that is specific now I kind of come from the people who eat Tanika it's meant to show you that certain things when an anthropologist tells people they were usually telling white folks so you're translating the tribal exotic to the mainstream middle-class American and a presentation if I can touch some of my cousins and relatives I like to do that with memes and humor Hanukkah is something that if you don't know I suggest you try to figure out what that is now Dances with Wolves started off a big thing here I'm sorry you can't behead men and had women dancers at the Black Hills powwow safe to say that those previous people in the original slides there that I showed with pale phenotypes it's not about the physicality it's about who you're related to so if you've been married four times and you still have the same in-laws it's kind of a joke but it's kind of true when you come from a very close-knit tribal identity who are your relatives who do you come from where do you fit now here we have the pre and after it's an interesting concept and then we have every res has that one white girl who keeps it real and lives the native way now to go into each of these memes I could probably do a good thesis or conference paper but we all know that one white boy who's cool enough for an enrollment number to prove that you're Native you need one of those enrollment numbers if you like Mad Max as I do I thought this meme was rather incisive if you see the road warrior you'll find that little guy but there are themes implicit and embed it within these images obviously from savagery to evolution of human beings to a civilized status but that look when they asked to verify your CDI B certificate degree of Indian blood so the only minority in the u.s. having to carry around their blood quantum and pedigree are Native people that's an awkward predicament because every time you reproduce you got to think about that now the discourse the look when you ask for help at the tribal building well I chess employees be like I can't find your chart number now dealing with bureaucracy dealing whatever tribe you come from with the federal government these phenomenas are a part of your ex your upbringing and experience your shared pan-indian identity there are different tribes again 567 affords people the conflict of what does it mean when you have you can go to the store Halloween's coming up there are differences between the phenotype white and black and here we have Navajo this cartoonist is really interesting for the fact that he demonstrates a little bit more of an political satire going on but that originally pre-contact then after you have admixture to the error where everybody was John Wayne ish to a degree then to the BIA 70s and then to now where human beings are overly saturated with Facebook now the Eclipse just occurred the other day and in that we have up here it's a beautiful thing for tribes up here just like coyotes but to other tribes it's not necessarily the same traditional Navajos will not view the Eclipse no matter how spectacular it's thought to be so if you're traditional and you have to go to the internet to figure that out that's saying something not quite sure what but fight for your planet not your country nation-states every indigenous population is held with inside of one those are not the original people of this hemisphere obviously it's interesting to see who are the people who are indigenous if the Bering Strait theory is true it would beg to you know question this notion of aren't the original people further south so circling it all back to the story of it when I used to get those calls on a daily basis what is it who controls it and how has it been defined for us it's an interesting question thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 42,420

Rating: 4.8627005 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Humanities, Culture, Identity

Id: kHqad01OLZI

Length: 8min 36sec (516 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2015