Another fraud like Churchill?
Russell: When does ethnic fraud matter?In my last column, I talked about Andrea Smith's tenure case at the University of Michigan. I am Cherokee, and Smith has in the past claimed that same tribal affiliation. Her e-mail handle, I have learned, is "Tsalagi." After some preliminaries:So we come to the question whether Smith is an ethnic fraud like Ward Churchill. My position is that even though not Cherokee, she cannot be a fraud of Churchill's stature. He made public statements that no tribal person I know would endorse. He then abused Hannah Arendt's work when he claimed that her study of Eichmann supported the idea that some undocumented worker washing dishes in the Windows on the World restaurant deserved his fiery death on Sept. 11, 2001. Or, for that matter, some newly graduated kid who was learning to trade stocks because her goal in life was wealth.
Who among us had fully formed values in our early 20s? Kids grow up, and all Indians I know believe that kids should have the opportunity to grow, to make mistakes, to become wise elders. Churchill's proper response to his insult of the dead would have been to apologize. His moral failure gives tribal Indians understandable reason to reject his invented Indian identity. His outrageous conduct led to a close reading of his work and it did not stand up to the vetting it never had at the front end, and that gave the University of Colorado cause to fire him. How to judge Smith:When there is reason to hire an Indian, the process is not rocket science. If the individual is tribally enrolled, the burden of proof should be on anybody who claims that individual is not Indian. If a person who is not tribally enrolled claims to be Indian, the burden should be on the claimant. The test of being Indian is not who you claim, but rather who claims you.
If the University of Michigan wants a researcher and teacher, it would appear by objective criteria they have one. If they want a Cherokee, not.
Smith's record does not appear to require augmentation by hereditary advantage. Ethnic fraud is harmful to tribes and sometimes to individual real Indians if they are passed over for a fake in a job that really does call for a tribal person. Ethnic fraud is not harmful to universities unless they allow it to be. The University of Michigan should articulate its values and rule according to those values. Comment: Let's reiterate Steve Russell's succinct formula for determining who's an Indian:If the individual is tribally enrolled, the burden of proof should be on anybody who claims that individual is not Indian. If a person who is not tribally enrolled claims to be Indian, the burden should be on the claimant. Exactly. For more on the subject, see Educating Russ About Who's an Indian.
To be fair, Churchill directed his remarks at the WTC's "technocratic corps," its "relatively well-educated elite." Presumably that didn't include janitors, clerks, or interns.
Churchill was silent about whether the WTC's non-elite deserved what they got. Perhaps he considered them collateral damage. If so, that would make him no different from the well-educated elite in the White House today, who don't care how many civilians they kill in their mad hunt for "terrorists."
For Churchill's response to the criticism he received, see Terrorism: "Good" vs. "Evil."
Who among us had fully formed values in our early 20s? Kids grow up, and all Indians I know believe that kids should have the opportunity to grow, to make mistakes, to become wise elders. Churchill's proper response to his insult of the dead would have been to apologize. His moral failure gives tribal Indians understandable reason to reject his invented Indian identity. His outrageous conduct led to a close reading of his work and it did not stand up to the vetting it never had at the front end, and that gave the University of Colorado cause to fire him.
If the University of Michigan wants a researcher and teacher, it would appear by objective criteria they have one. If they want a Cherokee, not.
Smith's record does not appear to require augmentation by hereditary advantage. Ethnic fraud is harmful to tribes and sometimes to individual real Indians if they are passed over for a fake in a job that really does call for a tribal person. Ethnic fraud is not harmful to universities unless they allow it to be. The University of Michigan should articulate its values and rule according to those values.
To be fair, Churchill directed his remarks at the WTC's "technocratic corps," its "relatively well-educated elite." Presumably that didn't include janitors, clerks, or interns.
Churchill was silent about whether the WTC's non-elite deserved what they got. Perhaps he considered them collateral damage. If so, that would make him no different from the well-educated elite in the White House today, who don't care how many civilians they kill in their mad hunt for "terrorists."
For Churchill's response to the criticism he received, see Terrorism: "Good" vs. "Evil."
posted by Rob at 8:35 PM
4 Comments:
"technocratic corps," its "relatively well-educated elite."
They were just as innocent.
Here's Churchill's response to that point:
* Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as "Nazis." What I said was that the "technocrats of empire" working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns." Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the Allies.
* It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that a CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the logic by which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently sought to justify target selection in places like Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American "command and control infrastructure" in an ostensibly civilian facility converted the Trade Center itself into a "legitimate" target. Again following U.S. military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing, those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than "collateral damage." If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these "standards" when the are routinely applied to other people, they should be not be surprised when the same standards are applied to them.
False claims and wild connections still do not make these innocent victims any less innocent.
He starts lying with his first sentence " Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as "Nazis".
Eichmann, was in fact, a Nazi. Not a fringe member of the movement, but one of the few names most identified with it.
I don't buy your argument. If I compare you to some person, I'm not comparing you to every member of the group to which that person belongs. If I compare you to Mel Gibson, for instance, it doesn't mean you have the qualities of every filmmaker or Australian or anti-Semite.
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