$5 Indians: There was a recent NN post about someone being a “$5 Indian” that sort of made me want to address this. There are terms that are loaded in any group, and that can have different connotations when used by insiders v outsiders.
Native ppl are consistently erased in a way that NN just don’t experience. This isn’t to say that other NN groups don’t have their own burdens that native ppl don’t experience, but that only natives have the experience of being documented like livestock.
And to this day having one’s identity heavily tied to the same govt committing genocide giving you papers telling you that you can access an identity & by an exact percentage & have much of society at large think this is perfectly ok and going along.
As a result, there’s a huge difference between when native people v NN “call out” a person for being a “fake” native, esp often requesting papers, and then using what is essentially meant at that point as slur terms like $5 Indian against them.
First, a little history of the term. It originally referred to NN (mainly white) who paid the Dawes commission $5 to be illicitly listed on the Dawes Rolls. Any time the oppressors get to decided who is part of a group – there were LOTS of issues:
newsmaven.io/indiancountryt…
newsmaven.io/indiancountryt…
For most natives using the term, there is a real understanding of the source of the term and what it means in a bigger context. Many natives don’t use it at all, because it’s not a relevant term to most frauds, which don’t have any relation to Dawes Rolls.
On the other hand, many NN use this term A LOT to slur anyone when they want to erase their identity, as far as even calling the two young Kanien'kehá:ka men at CSU who had the police called on them for “not belonging” such.
The diff is when a person claims a native identity but then starts saying sketchy stuff, other natives generally know if the person is likely faking or not. They’re not just guessing bc they don’t like the person’s opinion.
There’s generally innocuous questions that any native could answer. “What’s your tribe/clan/band?” “Who’s your folks?” Fakes get defensive or start talking about their BQ or other sure signs. Fakes claim to be from tightknit groups who’ve never heard of their family.
That is when natives will usually start calling out someone for being a fraud. Not because they have horrible opinions. Natives are humans, and so there are twatty natives too. They’re still native and it doesn’t give NN’s a right to deny their indigeneity.
You have ppl who’ve taken large platforms who’ve been called out bc of course when you take a platform you will be scrutinized (looking at you Kaya and Warren), but again, this started WITHIN the native community, not from without.
When a NN uses the term $5 Indian, it is just another layer on centuries of a colonial society trying to erase natives through massacre, sterilization, forced separation, pencil/paper genocide, enrollment, etc. It’s another NN taking it upon themselves to be arbiter of native ppl
For non-Dawes tribes (most tribes), it’s an insult undermining tribal identity based on something wholly irrelevant to their tribes. The vast majority of native ppl have 0 connection to the Dawes Rolls, yet ppl slur them with a term from Dawes.
For natives documented via Dawes, it’s leveraging something designed at the turn of the century as a weapon against natives to strike another blow. The “5 Civilized Tribes” didn’t choose the Dawes Act. Many were registered against their wills.
Many black natives were erased by being registered a Freedmen of no native ancestry. Many refused to register and now their descendants are still impacted. Many were forced to pick one tribe (such as I had family with one Cherokee parent and one Creek who had to choose).
To this day many Dawes Tribes natives still work to define identity for themselves even though the government defines it with a document created for the purpose of stealing the tribes’ land. There are issues, but NN’s slurring with the term only cuts the wound deeper.
If someone has shit opinions, says something racist, etc. Call them out. If they try to comeback with “I’m Native American” you know…it doesn’t matter. Being native isn’t a pass to be a bigot. Tell them that. If Kaya Jones got enrolled tomorrow she’d still be a horrible person.
Don’t take it upon yourself to tell them they’re not native. If they’re sketchy and other natives are in a thread, you won’t have to. Other natives will notice. If other natives do call them out as faux, then that’s in their lane to do so. Not yours for ethnic insults.
