Imagine if the leaders of the United States held a national referendum. The question before the national electorate being one of who should be denied the right to vote. How do you suppose such a vote would play out? It would be safe to say that those who make up the majority of the population would be safe. This is the type of mob rule the founders of this nation were most fearful of. As Benjamin Franklin noted, democracy was not unlike two wolves and a sheep voting on what was for lunch, in such cases the rights of a minority will surely be trampled on, yet such injustices continue to exist and not in faraway lands where tyranny is a long accepted custom, but here in the United States, specifically the Cherokee Klan Nation.
In 2007, the 300,000 member tribe held a referendum on whether or not the decendenats of former Cherokee slaves who had been granted membership in the tribe over 100 years ago should be expelled. One has to wonder what were the underlying motivations of those who made the proposal in the first place. Needless to say, the overwhelming vote in favor of expulsion, has revealed the apparent underlining bigotry within the Cherokee Nation. By what concept of justice and morality can any majority through plebiscite attack to expropriate the rights of a minority? It is not just and it certainly should not be law, but alas it is and was, and the tribal court has now upheld the racially motivated decision. Cherokee proponents of the move argue they have the right to decide who is a member of their tribe and it should be based on blood rather than law or treaties, such as the 1866 treaty which extended membership to the former slaves. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is right to demand the Cherokee’s honor their treaty obligations.
Surely it is not a question of genetics…look upon some of these so-called Cherokees who have advanced this agenda, many of these Cherokees are as white as the palest Scandinavian, yet we are to believe they are the defenders of Cherokee purity? Nonsense, they are the defenders of bigotry and nothing more. Is anyone else struck by the incredible irony that a people who have endured such hardships, over the centuries, such as the Trail of Tears, could perpetrate such an injustice?
Links:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44516027/ns/us_news-life/#.TnDrxF28q5N
http://www.cherokeephoenix.org/Article/Index/5473
