The reason why we are pushing for our tribes to recognize us as full and equal citizens is because we recognize them as truly sovereign nations. As sovereign nations, they have specific human rights obligations to the descendants of the people they enslaved.
I know many people within Native sovereignty movements believe that sovereignty gives Indigenous nations a free pass to treat their members and non-members however they want, but that’s truly not how sovereignty works. When a sovereign nation makes a cognizant choice to harm
a group of people (specifically when that harm is so targeted based on race and ancestry), that nation has obligations. And other nations should be holding nations who are committing human rights abuses accountable. That means other Natives nations and the United States.
With sovereignty comes responsibility. The Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations were governments that chose to implement anti-Black constitutions, employ people as slave patrollers, and make money off of slavery. They also chose to bring their slaves with them during removal and
their citizens treated our ancestors horribly. I’m sorry, but there are consequences to those actions. Sovereign nations don’t get to commit horrible human rights abuses and then walk away and say, “well, since not every slave was raped, not every Freedmen has a Blood Quantum,
“so you’re all barred from tribal citizenship.” That’s just not how sovereignty works when your nation chose to enslave people. 🤷🏽♀️ Imagine it the United States kicked Black Americans out of this country or never gave us citizenship because not all of us had white Americans blood
INDIGENOUS NATIONS DO NOT GET A FREE PASS TO BE ANTI BLACK OR ABUSE BLACK PEOPLE AND THEN USE SOVEREIGNTY AS AN EXCUSE TO EXCLUDE THEM FROM THEIR TRIBES LATER.
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