Panel discusses Churchill Effects of essays seen as positive, negative; his heritage in question By Jimmie Braley braley@mscd.edu

Photo by Matthew Jonas • jonasm@mscd.edu Metro professor Zia Meranto, right, addresses the panel while Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, left, looks on March 30 in room 640 in the Tivoli. The panel discussed Native American studies programs, the effect of Ward Churchill on their culture and ways to provide proof of tribal heritage.

       Speakers addressed a crowd on campus March 28 to discuss the importance of Native American studies in universities, Native American ancestry assertions of University of Colorado at Boulder professor Ward Churchill and the dispute surrounding his inflammatory remarks.
   The event was organized by Metro Political Science professor and Director of Native American Studies Zia Meranto.
   “ The politics of irony is what the Churchill case is all about,” said Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, the keynote speaker. “Ward Churchill has committed identity theft.”
   Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is of Lakota Native American descent and a well-known author on Native American sovereignty.
   She was joined by three other panelist speakers including Denver Human Rights & Community Relations Director Darius Smith, Amy Weinstein, executive director of the National Scholarship Providers Association and Metro anthropology professor Jack Schultz.
   Cook-Lynn said Churchill has also come under fire for his claims of Native American Ojibwa heritage.
   While Cook-Lynn, Meranto and others agree that some of Churchill’s essays are able to help the Native American cause, his ancestry claims have done nothing but slap the face of every true Native American.
   The Rocky Mountain News has reported that it has “identified 142 direct forebears of Churchill and turned up no evidence of a single Indian ancestor among them.”
   At one point during the panel discussion, Smith came under verbal attack by a pro-Churchill Native American in attendance.
   “ If Native Americans critique the handling of issues regarding Native Americans, they come under attack and are regarded as disloyal to the Native American’s overall cause,” Smith said in his defense.
   He said what Churchill has done is create an aura of distrust among partisan Native American groups.
   Cook-Lynn said the only thing Churchill has accomplished through his claims seems to be a violent separation between conservative and liberal Native American groups on issues concerning the Native American community.
   In addition to Churchill, Meranto spoke about ethnic studies in relation to native studies, the concept of indigenous perspectives in native studies and the issues within the Native American community.
   The panel of speakers spoke significantly about the importance of teaching Native American studies in our universities independently from ethnic studies.
   “ Indians are not minorities,” Cook-Lynn said.
   She also said she believes that Native Americans cannot rationally be placed under any sort of ethnic pretext because they are “indigenous to the land.”
   “ In many respects, they are different and Native American issues apply to Native Americans,” Schultz said, responding to separating ethnic and native studies.
    Schultz explained that because of the Native Americans’ claim to sovereignty and indigenousness, the two studies are extensively different and must be taught differently.
   “ It is important,” Cook-Lynn said, “that we have authentic Indian professors to teach native studies to keep our true history intact, and native studies are the only educational strategy in use to keep Indian nations sovereign.”
   According to Cook-Lynn, Native American children have the highest dropout rate; they have served the most time in the American penal system and are notoriously the poorest group of people in the nation.
   Cook-Lynn explained that “the new generations of Indians are capitalists,” and she said she believes capitalism is what is at the heart of the struggling Native American community because it “attempts to exploit our resources.”
   “ Change or be killed,” is the message Meranto said she perceives from society toward the Native American.
She also said that in respect to a free nation, by which we all assumingly live, that statement implies anti-Americanism itself.
   Meranto claims it is un-American, by definition, to expect assimilation of the Native American culture into a society to which it does not pertain, nor has it ever been rightfully affiliated with.
   She also said what the Native American nations need among themselves is functional and positive dialogue where libelous claims can’t lead to further discrepancies of what it means to be a “true” Native American.
   “ All of this creates such a firestorm that it impacts all groups, not just Native Americans,” Meranto said.