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By a contributor March 25, 2005
Shortly after this writer submitted an article on the Red Lake High School multiple killing, an article by David Yeagley appeared on the Republican Party's activist FrontPageMagazine.com that also puts shooting suspect Jeff Weise in the context of Ward Churchill .(1) Yeagley notes that the media has tended not to describe Weise as indigenous. Yeagley objects to this seeming obscuration of indigenous identity, saying that indigenous people "are proud of being Indian," so proud that even "people who aren't even Indian are aggressive about claiming to be Indian, like Ward Churchill."
First of all, the Red Lake shootings happened on March 21st, not 22nd, Dr. Yeagley. And Weise's last name is misspelled as "Wiese" in the last paragraph. But anyway.
This writer agrees with Yeagley that the media has strangely neglected to identify Jeff Weise's "ethnicity." But it is not because it was not obvious and that the media actually thought it could get away with portraying Weise as a white persyn. In fact, several news articles display photos of Weise and suggest that his grandfather was Chippewa, but still do not specify Weise's "ethnicity" (e.g., http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/22/school.shooting/; http://www.sltrib.com/nationworld/ci_2618131). The reason why the media has not focused on Weise's "ethnicity" is that it is still stuck in this stupid notion that ancestry, but not culture and other criteria such as language, is universally decisive in indigenous identity. So for the media to now suggest that "Native Nazi" is an oxymoron would be awkward. The media cannot ridicule "little Injuns that could" last week on the basis of alleged lack of blood quantum and then suggest this week that Weise is in some way not really indigenous because he was a Nazi.(2) As far as ancestry, Weise was reportedly very "Indian" in that sense. The media has proved itself incapable of nuance on this issue of the relationship between ancestry and culture in indigenous identity, so there is just this awkward silence not even mentioning Weise's "ethnicity," or nation, except in the most indirect ways. Any article mentioning Weise's being indigenous would be compelled to explain how an indigenous persyn could claim to be a neo-Nazi, and they don't even want to get into that. The idea that an indigenous persyn by blood could be a Nazi is incomprehensible to the typical Amerikan, who, like David Yeagley, thinks race is decisive though he won't openly uphold racial superiority.
If Yeagley's claim is true that most Red Lake High School teachers are white (which is true for most indigenous students in the united $tates), then that is thanks to national oppression, not just assimilation. This is where revolutionary First Nations nationalism and racial nationalism diverge. The problem is not just assimilation or even cultural assimilation, but national oppression that eradicates the cultural distinctiveness of First Nations in a way that subordinates them. Much less is it mainly a problem of genetic mixing. Based on his Libertarian National Socialist Green Party Nationalist Forums alleged posts as "NativeNazi," Weise quoted Adolf Hitler, was anti-Semitic, and was a Holocaust-denier. He apparently opposed imposing eugenics on other nations, but explicitly opposed "interracial mixing" among his own nation and complained that there were "barely any full blooded Natives left." mmunity/forum/YaBB.cgi?board=News;action=usersrecentposts;username=Todesengel). It doesn't get much clearer than this. It is possible that Jeff Weise did not buy into LNSG ideology completely, so maybe he did not believe in eugenics, but the context of Weise's posts speaks for itself. "Each tribe must separate itself genetically from all others in order to survive, as otherwise it is assimilated; further, National Socialism recognizes that the individual comes second to the collective, comprising both human society and the natural environment that supports it. As a result, National Socialists are willing to engage in eugenics, racial separation and removal of elements hostile to a healthy society."(3) Yeagley papers over this in a hurry to show that Weise only opposed "racial intermarriage" and was not trying to assimilate. If he had been assimilating, then there would be stronger cause to call him "white" is what Yeagley is implying.
"Indians are a vanishing race, vanishing through intermarriage. Jeff opposed this, but he had liberal, white, anti-Indian teachers and counselors, who advocated intermarriage, which he saw as genocide."(1)
MIM does not advocate forced integration or even integration as a necessary goal for oppressed nations. The decision between integration and separation is one that oppressed nations have to make on the basis of knowledge of their own conditions and scientifically conceived revolutionary strategy. So, the choice is not between just assimilation perpetrated by the white man and anti-assimilation through racial nationalism. For Yeagley to suggest that the only alternative to the ideology of white feel-good integrationists is opposition to intermarriage is ridiculous. Intermarriage isn't the only thing that is causing some First Nations to disintegrate, and even then intermarriage itself isn't the problem, but the loss of culture, language or territory that comes with some marriages. Also and importantly, minimum blood quantum requirements make some couples' children ineligible for membership in indigenous nations even though the children could be indigenous on the basis of all other criteria. Yeagley doesn't even mention poverty, unemployment or First Nation border issues.
The language Yeagley actually uses is "Indians are a vanishing race"--a race, not nations. Yeagley views blood as being principal in indigenous identity, plain and simple. He openly advocates the bloodline theory that motivated Jeff Weise at least in part on Monday.
In a way that sounds almost hysterical, Yeagley has accused Ward Churchill of hating indigenous blood. "According to Churchill's definition, you're Indian if you want to be. It's about knowledge, culture, and tradition. It's a like a religion. It's not a race at all. Churchill despises Indian blood. . . . Ward Churchill has made a career out of accusing the United States of committing genocide against Indians and other minorities, but he advocates the non-existence of the Indian race. Sounds like a genocide to me."(4) This is just simple-minded bloodline theory not recognizing the complicated ways in which indigenous people form their identity, not just by having a minimum blood quantum, and it is disingenuous when Dr. Yeagley surely knows that even the least restrictive minimum blood quantum requirements are still controversial among many indigenous people. Maybe Yeagley should do some homework, have a get-together with Ann Coulter.
Yeagley resents Ward Churchill's allegedly "exploiting" First Nations people, but it is no secret that Yeagley finds little wrong with the white man's appropriating indigenous images today.(5) Again, Yeagley seems to think blood is principal in indigenous identity.
Resisting assimilation doesn't happen primarily through sub-reformism, but Yeagley argues that Jeff Weise resisted assimilation persynally. Yet, Yeagley fails to acknowledge that neither Rammstein nor John Lennon, a couple of Weise's reported music favorites, are indigenous culture. In the sense of getting a gun and carrying out a mass murder of indigenous people, we can even say Weise did integrate into the white nation in action.
Notes:
1. "Indians, Nazis, and the School Shooting," March 25, 2005, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17491 (accessed March 25, 2005, at 1:05 AM PST.)
2. Ann Coulter, "The Little Injun That Could," February 10, 2005, http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16970
3. Steve Martinez, "LNSG condemns modern society in school shooting," March 22, 2005, http://www.nazi.org/nazi/policy/weise/
4. David Yeagley, "Ward Churchill Exploits Indians," February 28, 2005, http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17172
5. David Yeagley, "Who Gets to Play Indian?" February 17, 2004, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12213
David Yeagley, "Transcript: David Yeagley vs. Russell Means," April 2, 2001, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1271
6. David Yeagley, "Nation Building, Comanche Style," February 28, 2002, http://www.badeagle.com/html/nation_building.html
"America today can learn important lessons from Comanche history. . . . Comanches came to power through the intuition of exclusiveness. Comanches simply evicted or eliminated all people different from ourselves. Our bands never fought among themselves."