Battle brews over Indians with black ancestry

I could not understand this until I figured out that the racism is about "MONEY".

Lee News Service Sunday, December 04, 2005

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Radmilla Cody grew up in a Navajo world, butchering sheep, raising goats and speaking Dine.

Yet many in her tribe, and her family, never accepted her.

Her maternal uncle called her a black pig.

Neighborhood kids taunted her with names like “Zhinii Zhinii coco puff,” a Navajo slur for blacks.

Even when Cody was crowned Miss Navajo Nation, some complained she could not represent the country’s largest tribe.

Cody was born to a Navajo mother and a black father.

more...

http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/articles/2005/12/04/news/regional/33b4d74f6533b591872570cc002690cf.txt

...there's hardly an Indian that doesn't have some African-American ancestors.

The freed blacks were semi-pariahs in the Northeast right after the Revolution, and when not in cities were to be found on marginal land, on the fringes of farming communities -- right where the surviving Indians were. Intermarriage was extremely common

SE Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Long Island -- all places where there's usually a 'joke' about the local Moneg Indian tribe -- 'Moneg' for 'Mostly Negro'.

Racism against blacks, not Indians, held up tribal recognition for several bands in New England.

is a group now known as the "Ramapo" Indians. They are comprised of approximately five families with Dutch surnames. They are of a mixed ethnic combination: the Lenelenape (sp?) or Algonquin tribes, Dutch settlers, and runaway or freed slaves. They have been known in the past as "Jackson Whites" which is now a derogatory, racist term.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/J/JacksoW1.asp

They lived removed from other communities as a community unto themselves and were more or less left alone until around World War II when the area started to seriously be developed.

The group has been requesting federal recognition as an "Indian trible" in order to receive federal aid, and perhaps, to open a small casino on their land.

Hey,

State recognition is far ahead of federal for tribes in Virginia and North Carolina that have significant European and African mixture. Federal recognition of the Lumbee was held up by Helms's opposition to it, but now Dole has come over on that issue and it looks much more likely. Virginia's state-recognized tribes have been expressing a lot of discontent lately, often in the news.

CYD

She's quite the beauty, and a nice, good hearted young lady, too.