Indian Blood' or lifeblood? : an analysis of the racilization of native North American peoples

Abstract

The racialization of Native Americans has distorted their individual and collective identities. As a mechanism of Western imperialism, "race" has contributed to their dispossession, disintegration and deculturalization. Racialized oppression continues at federal and tribal levels through the usage of racial terminology and in blood quantum policies, leading to the fragmentation, marginalization, stigmatization and alienation of Native individuals. As such, race and blood quantum pose a threat to the survival of tribes. Tribes have within their means indigenous alternatives to race and blood quantum and will need to revitalize these indigenous practices and principles if they are to safeguard their survival as autonomous cultural and political entities.