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CCRed

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CCRed

CCRed

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57 minutes ago, PN-G bamatex said:

Complete Athlete is the best place to start, but I’ll check to see if the school is running any fundraisers.

Welcome to the Indian Nation, CCRed. All Southeast Texas is welcome to join us for this fight.

Let’s not go too far, LOL.  I’m not actually joining the Indian Nation. Just seems like the Disney libs are being really stupid about this. 

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CCRed

CCRed

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2 hours ago, purpleeagle said:

I guess the next thing they will want to do away with cowboy/Indian movies. Except with the one about Gen. Custard. Watch out Dallas Cowboys.

The Cowboys are the one’s that should offend everyone. They were slaughtering and stealing the “natives” land. 

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PN-G bamatex

PN-G bamatex

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21 hours ago, CCRed said:

The Cowboys are the one’s that should offend everyone. They were slaughtering and stealing the “natives” land. 

If you look hard enough, you can find something offensive about every human mascot. Pirates and Buccaneers were swashbuckling murderers and rapists. The Raider archetype draws on age-old bands of thieves and bandits that robbed stagecoaches and murdered travelers on the coachroads. The Minnesota Vikings appropriate Scandinavian history and culture. The Notre Dame Fightin’ Irish and the ULL Ragin’ Cajuns elevate stereotypically drunk, stubborn and aggressive depictions of Cajun and Irish Americans.

Do we let that take the fun out of everything? And more to the point, when did culture become property? This country spent fifty years believing that the hallmark of diversity was cultural exchange. That was supposed to make our country stronger. Now, seemingly overnight, any person who’s not a product of a particular culture adopting customs or practices of that culture is stealing it? What happened to imitation being the highest form of flattery?

The bottom line with PN-G is, we adopted the Indian mascot because Attakapa and Karankawa Indians were the original inhabitants of Port Neches. Generations of local residents have found Indian artifacts in their backyards, and the presence of Indian burial mounds in Port Neches is well documented. Most of Southeast Texas would have no earthly idea Indians ever lived here were it not for the constant reminder that PN-G is.

When the first generation of the original Port Neches High School’s students made that decision in recognition of the town’s history back in 1925, it was, ironically enough, arguably a progressive decision, by the standards of the day. This happened in an era when most of America was reviled by anything Indian. Most white people were actively trying to stamp out evidence the Indians ever inhabited America, but the people in Port Neches weren’t. At roughly the same time PNHS adopted the Indian mascot, my quarter-Cherokee great grandfather was losing the family blacksmithing practice he’d inherited from his white father because the people of Wood County, Texas, didn’t want to do business with an Indian blacksmith. My three-times great grandmother, a full blooded Cherokee woman who died a few years earlier, spent the last decade or so of her life terrified the government was going to take the family farm, round her up and send her to Indian Territory, all because my white three-times great grandfather died before she did and wasn’t around to stop them anymore. Based on the documentation we have, the probable inference is that my four- and/or five-times great grandparents walked the Trail of Tears. My eighth-Cherokee grandfather, who could pass for white, never spoke a word of his heritage publicly after he moved to Orange County, for fear of suffering the same employment troubles his father did.

The hardest thing for me to reconcile in elementary school was why my grandparents were so quiet about our Cherokee lineage, when my peers thought it was pretty cool. Looking back today, I know my experience was different than theirs because anything Indian was cool at PN-G, in an era when it wasn’t anywhere else in America. Now, that striking contrast between cultural attitudes at PN-G and in the country at large, which has been inculcated for generations and was so progressive for its day, is suddenly racist? We’re supposed to give up that legacy because political winds shifted and social media makes it easy for internet low-lifes who’ve never stepped foot in Mid-County to harass elementary, middle and high school kids on Twitter? I don’t think so.

In so many ways, this community has emulated exactly what the world knows American Indians to be: proud people, who produced strong warriors, that fought for decades to preserve their homes, their families and their way of life, against hopelessly overwhelming odds. I have watched this town demonstrate that same enduring spirit time and time again. Through hurricanes, explosions, cyber attacks, and national crusades against the cross in our park, we have always stood firm. This time is no different. We have never given in to all those things before, and we’re damn sure not about to give in to naked attempts to humiliate and intimidate our children now.

I ran a poll in the Port Neches neighborhood watch group, which has thousands of current Mid-County residents in it, last weekend. Hundreds of responses poured in. The vast majority - 87% - said PN-G should keep all of its traditions exactly as they are. The community is as united about this as it’s ever been about anything. The Beaumont Enterprise falsely claimed the community protested the mascot in a headline because 17 people, many of whom don’t even live in PN-G, put on a protest outside a training for school board members. The reality is that the community demonstrates its actual sentiment when 8,000 purple-clad PN-G fans show up in the stadium five times a year.

The best way that we can honor the Indian spirit we have revered and emulated for so many generations, is to stand up for our beliefs, our values, our traditions, our home and our kids, the same way they fought valiantly to do for nearly all of the nineteenth century. I can think of no better way to honor my own ancestors, and nothing else they’d prefer that I do. We know our history, we respect our history, and we live our history - if we didn’t, we never would have been the PN-G Indians to begin with. This community is no stranger to great challenges. Every time, it has met them with perspicacious, persevering pride, and firm, fervent faith. And every time, this community has emerged victorious. It’s who we are, and what we speak to every time we say, we are PN-G. This time will be no different.

Always be Faithful.

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Majestyk

Majestyk

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On 3/26/2022 at 9:55 AM, CCRed said:

Where can I find PNG t-shirts ?  It would be even better if they were band shirts.  We have a trip planned to Disney in a few weeks and I would love to show my support while there.  I’m not going to lie, I would never wear them again, but it would make me happy to wear it EVERYDAY while there.

Sounds pretty cool.  Unfortunately WO-S is probably the the only school whose merchandise is sold throughout the entire triangle.  The local PN-G Kroger, Wal Mart etc. should have a pretty good supply tho.

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Austin1985

Austin1985

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Just put a $5 on the logo and everything will be fine.....lol

 

It may be fashionable to play Indian now, but it was also trendy 125 years ago when people paid $5 apiece for falsified documents declaring them Native on the Dawes Rolls.

These so-called five-dollar Indians paid government agents under the table in order to reap the benefits that came with having Indian blood. Mainly white men with an appetite for land, five-dollar Indians paid to register on the Dawes Rolls, earning fraudulent enrollment in tribes along with benefits inherited by generations to come.

“These were opportunistic white men who wanted access to land or food rations,” said Gregory Smithers, associate professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University. “These were people who were more than happy to exploit the Dawes Commission—and government agents, for $5, were willing to turn a blind eye to the graft and corruption.”

The Dawes Commission, established in 1893 to enforce the General Allotment Act of 1887 (or the Dawes Act), was charged with convincing tribes to cede their land to the United States and divide remaining land into individual allotments. The commission also required Indians to claim membership in only one tribe and register on the Dawes Rolls, what the government meant to be a definitive record of individuals with Indian blood.

 

The Curtis Act, passed in 1898, targeted the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole), forcing them to accept allotments and register on the Dawes Rolls. The two acts—which came during a “period of murky social context” after the Civil War when white and black men were intermarrying with Native American women, aimed to help the government keep track of “real” Indians while accelerating efforts to assimilate Indian people into white culture, Smithers said.

“By 1865, African Americans and white Americans were moving into the Midwest, into the Indian and Oklahoma territories, all vying for some patch of land they could call their own and live out their Jeffersonian view of independence,” he said. “The federal government poured a lot of effort and energy into the Dawes Commission, but at the same time it was very hard for both Native and American governments to keep track of who was who.”

The Dawes Commission set up tents in Indian Territory, said Bill Welge, director emeritus of the Oklahoma Historical Society’s Office of American Indian Culture and Preservation. There, field clerks scoured written records, took oral testimony and generated enrollment cards for individuals determined to have Indian blood.

That included authentic Indians, Welge said. But it also included lots of people with questionable heritage.

“Commissioners took advantage of their positions and enrolled people who had very minimal or questionable connections to the tribes,” he said. “They were not adverse to taking money under the table.”

The implications of such shady practices are enormous now, Smithers said. Five-dollar Indians passed their unearned benefits to heirs who still lay claim to tribal citizenship and associated privileges.

“Now we have people who are white but who can trace their names back to the rolls used by tribal nations to ascertain who has rights as citizens,” he said. “That means we have white people who have the ability to vote at large; it means political rights; it means the potential to influence tribal policy on a whole range of issues; it means people have access to health care, education and employment. The implications are quite profound for people who got away with fraud.”

On the flip side, while non-Natives paid to play Indian, many authentic Indians who didn’t trust the government chose not to register with the Dawes Rolls at all, said Gene Norris, a genealogist at the 

This is the hidden content, please
. That means people with legitimate claims to tribal enrollment and the benefits are now excluded.

“Native Americans are the only racial group defined by blood,” Norris said. “Even that was arbitrary. In the 1890s, siblings who talked to different commissioners emerged with different blood quantum. Because they didn’t apply together, some of them have different blood degrees.”

In short, the Dawes Rolls forever changed the way the federal government defined Indians—and, in many cases, the way Indians still define themselves.

In 1900, one woman registered on the rolls with 1/256 Cherokee blood, Norris said. Now, some enrolled members of the Cherokee Nation have as little as 1/8,196 Indian blood.

The Dawes Rolls—even now—are a murky and “very inaccurate” gauge of Indian citizenship, he said. In the 2000 Census, the number of people claiming Cherokee ancestry was three times that of official tribal enrollment.

“That’s what happens when the federal government established the rules, not the Natives,” he said.

Smithers has no estimate of the number of people who fraudulently registered on the Dawes Rolls—or who lay false claim to Indian citizenship now. But five-dollar Indians did not represent an isolated case of appropriation.

“What we had was simply white people claiming to be Indian,” he said. “They were early wannabes, just like we have today. Five-dollar Indian is just another term for that.”

 
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Austin1985

Austin1985

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On 3/26/2022 at 9:55 AM, CCRed said:

Where can I find PNG t-shirts ?  It would be even better if they were band shirts.  We have a trip planned to Disney in a few weeks and I would love to show my support while there.  I’m not going to lie, I would never wear them again, but it would make me happy to wear it EVERYDAY while there.

I didn't read this properly.  This is a Crosby fan wanting to prove a point to a giant corporations in support of the $5 Indian nation.  Bravo sir.......

But errra.....

Didn't you pay said corporation to enter their establishment?  And you want to 'protest' by wearing PN-G apparel?

 

That Sir, seems to be hustling backward.........

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Austin1985

Austin1985

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1 hour ago, Majestyk said:

Sounds pretty cool.  Unfortunately WO-S is probably the the only school whose merchandise is sold throughout the entire triangle.  The local PN-G Kroger, Wal Mart etc. should have a pretty good supply tho.

There's plenty of Bubble merch at the Academy in PA........

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Mr. Buddy Garrity

Mr. Buddy Garrity

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10 minutes ago, Austin1985 said:

Hysterical.  When you have time to kill, just google the Dawes Rolls or $5 Indians so you don't think I'm pulling words out of thin air

Oh people know where it is, but most are afraid of reading truth, doesn't fit the agenda. I remember you put something on here about it years ago in a highly popular thread, thread went quiet after you posted it. I knew why. 😁

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Austin1985

Austin1985

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3 minutes ago, Mr. Buddy Garrity said:

Oh people know where it is, but most are afraid of reading truth, doesn't fit the agenda. I remember you put something on here about it years ago in a highly popular thread, thread went quiet after you posted it. I knew why. 😁

But I'm solutions oriented Buddy.  I'm on their side.  Just need some logo modifications lol.....

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tvc184

tvc184

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2 hours ago, Austin1985 said:

I didn't read this properly.  This is a Crosby fan wanting to prove a point to a giant corporations in support of the $5 Indian nation.  Bravo sir.......

But errra.....

Didn't you pay said corporation to enter their establishment?  And you want to 'protest' by wearing PN-G apparel?

 

That Sir, seems to be hustling backward.........

I think “already planned” if the key. Maybe you missed it.

 The trip is scheduled and Disney will get their money (or may have already gotten it) whether or not any protest shirt is worn. 

While there however, why not stick a thumb in Mickey Mouse’s eye? An even better touch might be a selfie with Mickey wearing the PNG shirt…. Maybe with  Cinderella’s Castle in the background. :) 

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SmashMouth

SmashMouth

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On 3/27/2022 at 9:00 AM, PN-G bamatex said:

I ran a poll in the Port Neches neighborhood watch group, which has thousands of current Mid-County residents in it, last weekend. Hundreds of responses poured in. The vast majority - 87% - said PN-G should keep all of its traditions exactly as they are.

How many of their were American Indians? Exactly...

Honestly, the whole thing is silly to me, but it sure provides for some interesting conversation.

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