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Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
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19 Dec, 5 tweets, 1 min read
Y’all, trust me I don’t want to be tweeting about Deb Haaland. I find my ancestors’ histories and cultures to be far more interesting than advocating for policies with someone who doesn’t even think I’m valid. But I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for my ancestors and for
my family who find tribal citizenship to be very important to them. I’m gonna be honest, I wouldn’t even qualify for any tribal benefits. The main programs I want are language programs that are free to citizens. This isn’t about benefits but honoring what my ancestors fought for.
They could’ve left Indian Territory if they wanted to and could’ve been US citizens with some rights. But they didn’t. They stayed in their nations and fought for us to be equal today. I’m fighting for their memory.
We have some simple asks and I think as a Native woman who understands tribal sovereignty she can work with the tribes to make sure we have reconciliation and healing but that we’re all equal citizens. I just want her to do the right thing but this “advocacy” is tiring.
There’s a whole history thread I wanted to make yesterday as it took place on December 17th but instead I was dealing with Deb being nominated. I would much rather talk about the history and such but I can’t ignore that she will literally sell Freedmen out.

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More from @ChoctawFreedmen

Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
19 Dec
Oklahoma is the perfect example of race being a myth crafted to shift control of land and wealth into white communities. Because each individual Native person in the Five Tribes received a land allotment (including women), white lawmakers made all non-Black people legally white.
This allowed for white men to marry non-Black Native women and shift control of Native lands into white communities and hands. Even though most white men couldn’t get a Native land allotment themself, by re-classifying non-Black Natives as white and setting up Jim Crow marriage
laws on racial lines, they were able to control Native women’s lands thru marriage and accumulate wealth. These Jim Crow Laws were the first laws every established after Oklahoma became a state and came into effect on December 18, 1907. Image
Read 15 tweets
Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
19 Dec
Many people have asked why it matters that she removed a clause requiring the Cherokee Nation to treat the Freedmen equally in receiving housing funding? I’ll tell you why. Cherokee Freedmen are not eligible for CBIDs, although I think they should be (Freedmen “Blood” should
be counted as Indian Blood). Anyone who has a CBID knows that for most services (especially outside of your tribal boundaries), you need a CBID. You need to present a CBID for healthcare, now Haskell is trying to deny Freedmen based on the fact that they do not have CBIDs.
There are many other services based on CBIDs as well. The Cherokee Nation, under the leadership of @ChuckHoskin_Jr, is urging other tribes and other facilities to treat Freedmen equally and has sent the same directive to their programs. This is great. However, this could change
Read 7 tweets
Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
18 Dec
Deb Haaland is not a member of one of the Five Slaveholding Tribes. However, she has now chosen to accept a position as an agent of the federal government to oversee tribal affairs. In her position, supporting Black Freedmen of the Five Slaveholding Tribes is a good first step.
If she didn’t want to become an agent of the federal government and now become a party to the Treaties of 1866, she shouldn’t have accepted Biden’s offer to become the Sec. of the Interior. She is now the agent who is supposed to make sure the US govt upholds their end of tribal
treaties and make sure tribal governments uphold their end of treaties with the US govt. that’s literally part of her job description. So either way, she will have to take a stand on Freedmen. Whether she chooses to aid the tribes in our discrimination, or chooses a benign
Read 4 tweets
Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
17 Dec
Representative Deb Haaland has been chosen as Biden’s Sec. of the Interior. Haaland has refused to make support the Freedmen of the Five Slaveholding Tribes and had co-sponsored legislation that would allow our tribes to continue receiving funding despite their Jim Crow policies.
To the “progressive” organizations who continued to support Deb Haaland despite knowing this information, I hope you will stand with us now. Black Natives deserve to be treated equally. @ndncollective @sunrisemvmt @justicedems @MarkRuffalo
I am currently feeling mixed about this news. I hope she will now support us. We can’t allow this Jim Crow discrimination to continue for another four years. I am feeling very much stabbed in the back by Native and progressive orgs and people who have never spoken up for us.
Read 5 tweets
Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
17 Dec
During the Civil War, the Five Slaveholding Tribes aligned themselves with the Confederate States of America. In their treaties with the Confederacy, slavery was upheld and in the case of the Seminole Nation, the Confederacy promised reparations payments to slaveholders whose Image
slaves had been freed during the Second Seminole Wars. Many slaves owned by Seminoles were freed by Jesups Proclamation (the precursor to and the blueprint for the Emancipation Proclamation), so the Confederacy promised reparations payments for those freed slaves.
Pictured are Cherokee Confederate veterans in 1903.
Read 4 tweets
Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
16 Dec
Black and Native solidarity will be so difficult and so complex because although both groups have committed harm against one another, Native tribes committed harms (like slavery, discrimination, and violence) as sovereign nations, whereas Black Americans committed harms without
political independence or sovereignty. The Buffalo Soldiers, for example, were soldiers associated with the US army. They were acting as agents of the US govt and not their own political wills. There’s a stark difference in what accountability should and could look like.
Native tribes are often infantilized across the board, and are treated as “sovereign” in name, while either federal and state governments ignore their treaties and rights or Native activists excuse their historical and present harms.
Read 5 tweets

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