There is No Native American Concept of Race
A Native American concept of race never existed as we know the idea of race in the modern world.
The term for a Black man translates from Blackfoot language as “Black White Man” and the thought behind this is completely alien to modern western ideation. The Blackfoot “Black White Man” derives from interaction with the Black cavalry regiment stationed at Starr School during the military occupation of the Blackfeet reservation (into the 1930s.) “Black” is descriptive solely in a superficial sense and when coupled to “White”, points directly to European mentality or state of mind and is not primarily concerned with skin color. This is reinforced with the Cree translation for White Man being essentially identical concept: “Not like us” in a sense of thought process. This again loops back in identical sense in the proper Blackfoot term for a White Man per se: ‘Napi Kwan’ or “White Man” refers to someone who is crazy from a cultural perspective and figures in the Blackfoot proverb “Everyone knows the White Man is crazy.” All of the translations taken with the proverb point to color as superficial or descriptive only, with the emphasis on state of mind or thought process. This is clearly reinforced by the noted action anthropologist Karl Schlesier when he states:
“In the old world of the tribes skin color never mattered; what mattered were the expressions of one’s spirit and the voice of the heart”
Karl has spent most of his life in close association with the Southern Cheyenne, and is honorary son, brother and father to three generations of Cheyenne Holy Arrow Keepers and most certainly would be in a position to know this as well. Karl, like myself, is a White Indian and we are not discriminated against in the culturally intact Native community on account of our skin color. If it were a Black Man had achieved the old, culturally intact thought process, their welcome into the Native community would be no different to our own; complete, warm and integrated.
In the present times, when we see modern academics discuss Race in relation to Native America, particularly when those academics skins are Red, we are witnessing European mentality co-opting original Native thought. Were there to be an original native thought assessment of today’s politically correct arguments over race in stereotype such as team sport mascots, terms such as ‘Indians’, ‘Redskins’ and ‘Braves’ would be patently meaningless in any sense of insult. Wilma Mankiller, past chief of the Cherokee, drove a Jeep “Cherokee Chief” and I am certain her choice would have been deliberate and taken in a sense of Native American humor. In the more traditional Native communities, you have “Redskins” memorabilia and fans, the politically correct arguments simply do not apply and in fact are never given a second thought.
Were original Native thought process applicable to African origins, Chimpanzees, Gorillas and Baboons would be perceived in the community as magnificent creatures and the stupid primates would be those people who were possessed of European mentalities looking down on these sentient beings which in reality possess greater social intelligence than those who caricaturize them as lesser than humans.
A different perception than the modern, for certain.
