The Indian-Negro Color Line/Paper Genocide

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• published: 25 Jun 2017
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ONLY TO ENLIGHTEN OTHERS , LIKE I HAVE BEEN ENLIGHTENED *My Experience on the Indian-Negro Color Line* Julianne Jennings • December 27, 2011 Growing-up on the Indian-Negro color line (I am the daughter of a European mother and a black and Indian father), I lived with mixed signals and coded information by the dominant culture. It had determined that white European culture and people were superior in contrast to those who were generally classified as darker, “primitive” and “uncivilized.” Applying the adage “write what you know,” my master’s thesis was titled “Blood, Race and Sovereignty: The Politics of Indian Identity.” This work would not have been possible without the professors in the Department of Anthropology at Rhode Island College (RIC). They taught me how to challenge racial paradigms and stereotypes that Western society has about Indians; and how to brave racial orthodoxy and search new ways of thinking about our country’s seemingly insoluble problems with race. Classroom discussions about race motivated me, at the age of 46, to reclaim my Indian ancestry by having my birth certificate changed from “Negro” to “American Indian.” The experience was emotionally overwhelming as I had been denied my birthright as an E. Pequot-Nottoway. Changing my birth certificate was not because I was ashamed of my multiracial identity; it was an affirmation of my survival as an Indian and an act of self-determination in a country that has gone so far to erase my ancestry from history. I assert my tri-racial identity, but most of America’s forms, like birth certificates, at present allow listing only one race. To employ biological over cultural definitions of American Indians reflects a fundamental ignorance of American history and its unprocessed shame of slavery and American Indian traditions. Thus, issues about race are especially important to me, as “mixed-blood” Indians are not considered “authentic” by mainstream society. We have to dress in buckskin; feathers and beads to be taken seriously, yet those with European ancestry do not have to wear tall black hats or buckled shoes to convince others of their ancestry. Mainstream society has effectively marginalized our inherited way of being, but it is past time to tell our story: Further, the infamous “one-drop rule,” which grew out of slavery and later Jim Crow segregation, was systematically employed to strip southern New England Indians of their identities. Cultural purity has been replaced by “alleged” blood purity. It decreed that a single drop of black blood, or a single ancestor who was African, made an individual of mixed race black, causing Native Americans to suffer racial reassignment. Indians became classified as “Colored,” “Negro,” “Black” and in some cases “White” on census records and birth certificates as a means to codify and strengthen segregation, discrimination and the disenfranchisement of Indian people. Julianne Jennings (E. Pequot-Nottoway) is a Ph.D. student at Arizona State University https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/opinions/my-experience-on-the-indian-negro-color-line/ *THE SECRET OF SELLING THE NEGRO* (*1954, sound, 20 min, color*) as featured in the documentary, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO. https://youtu.be/E8PBrhFN35c?list=PLYE8BVzZHNlxeCV1vCS-V4eRU_YFAd3FZ *Gail Fisher an Indigenous American* In the second video movie Gail Fisher stars in *The New Girl In The Office* (*1960*) Drama about the hiring of the first white-collar African American worker at a manufacturing plant. Produced by President's Committee on Government Contracts. Featuring Ed Asner, Lou Gossett, Clarice Taylor and Gail Fisher as The New Girl. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jp6ZKSX_nk&t;=894s *For more Negro films go to *reelblack* channel @ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPk29gUc_ltOGQ6f3Lh5kCg *Gail Fisher* (August 18, 1935 – December 2, 2000) was an American actress who was one of the first black women to play substantive roles in American television.[1] She was best known for playing the role of secretary *Peggy Fair* on the television detective series *Mannix* from 1968 through 1975, a role for which she won two Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy Award; she was the first black woman to win either award. She also won an NAACP Image Award in 1969 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gail_Fisher A multiple pageant winner, among her titles were "Miss Transit," "Miss Black New Jersey" and "Miss Press Photographer." Date of Birth 18 August 1935, Orange, New Jersey, USA Date of Death 2 December 2000, Culver City, California, USA (kidney failure) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0279500/bio African Americans Ain't Africans