Who’s Chief of American Indians?
by David A. Yeagley
Originally published at FrontPageMagazine.com | July 17, 2001
American indians have no desire for a national Indian leader – a la Jesse Jackson and Black Americans. Each tribe is different, and we are incapable of accepting one head chief. Our history proves this: If Indian people had achieved any unity at all, there may never have been an America.
Yet the idea of a national Indian leader seems irresistible to those who want the position.
Take Russell Means, an Indian rights activist who appears on TV anytime a controversial topic about Indians pops up in the national spotlight. Means is Oglala/Lakota Sioux, but he has taken it upon himself to speak for all Native Americans. For example, during an April 2 appearance on Fox News, he called the use of Indian names for school athletic teams "hate speech." "Anyone who disagrees with this," states Means, "is not using his brain."
Means openly defies the Uncpapa Sioux elders of Standing Rock (ND), who decades ago blessed the name "Fighting Sioux" as the University of North Dakota’s sports moniker. If Means had his way, and the name was removed, the will of these elders would be eradicated.
I support these elders and their wise decision, and do not appreciate it when Means speaks for me and all other Native Americans on the issue. But the mainstream media treat Means like the national Indian leader, and Means acts as though he is. This gives the average viewer the wrong impression of how Indians feel. It certainly contradicts and even eliminates what the Uncpapa elders felt.
Elsie Meeks, another candidate for the national Indian leader, acts as Means does, only with real political influence. Meeks, the only Indian on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, persuaded the commission that the use of Indian names as sports monikers violates Titles II and IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Last April, the commission unfortunately agreed.
Meeks says Indian monikers are "disrespectful and offensive," and create "a racially hostile educational environment that may be intimidating to Indian students." Now the recommendation to Congress via the commission is that any school using an Indian sports moniker forfeits any federal or state funding it receives. We can only hope Congress has the backbone to ignore such nonsense.
In a May 16 guest commentary for Indian Country Today, Meek again offered a perfect example of how she thinks she speaks for all American Indians. Other ethnic groups "are not offended when they are used as sports mascots [such as the ‘Fighting Irish’] … it is for those ethnic groups to decide what is and is not offensive to them. Their opinions and decisions should be respected. Native Americans only ask the same."
Some Native Americans. In reality the Sioux have been superficially consulted through inadequate surveys on the mascot issue. Originally comprising five different tribes (Oglala, Lakota, Uncpapa, Yankton, and Santee), the Sioux have plenty of disagreement among themselves. A Dec. 7, 1999 Associated Press article reported that Standing Rock Sioux "have mixed views." Some Standing Rock Reservation leaders now don’t even want to be called "Sioux" at all, so why would they care about the "Fighting Sioux"?
Means and Meeks, ipso facto, speak for Native Americans, and the left-leaning mainstream media happily uses them. When issues like the mascot debate come under fire, the media flock to hear the opinions they agree with, like Means and Meeks. But other Native Americans who disagree with the two mini-dictators have not been consulted.
Lumping Indians into one category is the White Man’s political way. There’s a voting block there, or so it appears to race-based manipulators, so the White Man clumps all Indians into one group. Indians like Means and Meeks are a promising political hope to anyone wanting to unite votes based on race. The two act as though Indians are one unified ethnic group, and not a continent of separate nations.
But Indians don’t think racially or politically. A national Indian leader essentially forces one Chief on us -- imposing non-Indian ways on Indians.
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