Friday, February 11, 2005
And some more Native opinions on Churchill
"Ward Churchill tells these huge lies," said Suzan Harjo, president of the Morningstar Institute, a national American Indian-rights organization.
"He's notorious, and he's not an Indian. In 15 years of being interviewed and investigated, he hasn't come up with a single Indian ancestor."
In past interviews, Churchill has said he is largely of English and Swiss-German descent but is one-sixteenth Cherokee. His critics within the American Indian community don't believe it.
"He hides behind dark glasses and a beaded headband, but he's an academic fraud," said Vernon Bellecourt, an American Indian Movement activist in Minneapolis who has had a long-running dispute with Churchill.
Churchill has claimed to be a member of the Keetoowah band of Cherokee, but Harjo says that tribe at one time was issuing "associate membership" cards to anyone who asked for one, even designating former President Clinton as a member.
Attempts to contact the tribe Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Harjo, who is Cheyenne and Creek, says that as an American Indian, she was deeply offended by Churchill's comments about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"He's besmirched the good name of Native Americans who rushed to ground zero and did ceremonies for the people there and poured money into the relief effort," she said.
The above was cut from a much longer article posted on the S.F. Bay Area Indymedia page, link: AIM statement regarding Ward Churchill : SF Bay Area Indymedia Indymedia can by no stretch of the imagination be called right-wing, as can be seen in my previous posts on them and what the F.B.I. tried to do--and succeeded doing for a brief period--to them.
"He's notorious, and he's not an Indian. In 15 years of being interviewed and investigated, he hasn't come up with a single Indian ancestor."
In past interviews, Churchill has said he is largely of English and Swiss-German descent but is one-sixteenth Cherokee. His critics within the American Indian community don't believe it.
"He hides behind dark glasses and a beaded headband, but he's an academic fraud," said Vernon Bellecourt, an American Indian Movement activist in Minneapolis who has had a long-running dispute with Churchill.
Churchill has claimed to be a member of the Keetoowah band of Cherokee, but Harjo says that tribe at one time was issuing "associate membership" cards to anyone who asked for one, even designating former President Clinton as a member.
Attempts to contact the tribe Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Harjo, who is Cheyenne and Creek, says that as an American Indian, she was deeply offended by Churchill's comments about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"He's besmirched the good name of Native Americans who rushed to ground zero and did ceremonies for the people there and poured money into the relief effort," she said.
The above was cut from a much longer article posted on the S.F. Bay Area Indymedia page, link: AIM statement regarding Ward Churchill : SF Bay Area Indymedia Indymedia can by no stretch of the imagination be called right-wing, as can be seen in my previous posts on them and what the F.B.I. tried to do--and succeeded doing for a brief period--to them.
