Reply to What kind of perks does Indian heritage give you at schools?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]IMO, I don't think greatx2 NA should qualify. That makes you like 1/8?  At that point, you don't even look NA.[/quote]

My great-great-grandparents walked from Tennessee to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears, a forced march instigated by the US Government in which their property was seized and they were made into internal refugees, put in concentration camps, then forced to march a thousand miles, which led to the death of a third of the tribe. It was genocide. If I got a slight admissions advantage because of my native American ancestry (my family has documented our genealogy and registered as Cherokee with the tribe in Tahlequah), I'm not going to feel any guilt.

And you probably wouldn't think my ancestors "looked NA" either....the east coast tribes have intermarried with Europeans since the 1500s and many Cherokee have blue eyes and light skin. [/quote]

Yes, you will get admissions preference.  Because these great-great-grandchildren are working on overcoming serious obstacles with regard to their educations.   :roll: [/quote]

Not that PP. I think you are trying to make a sarcastic point about the fact that what happened three generations ago is not particularly relevant to obstacles faced by the descendants of those Indians. Is that generally correct? This is in fact an incredibly ignorant thing to say. There are 15 federal tribes with unemployment rates over EIGHTY percent. This is unquestionably a relic of being slaughtered on mass, discriminated against, denied educational opportunities, and being relocated to land that was specifically chosen because it was isolated and barren. To not believe that the Federal government's concerted action is directly responsible for the extraordinarily bad economic conditions of current Indian tribes requires either an extraordinary amount of ignorance or willful denial.

Now, if you want to point out that some relatively small percentage of people who are only 1/16th Indian happened to have ancestors who married into more fortunate families several generations ago, that is doubtless true. Of course, Tribes self regulate their membership to some extent to make sure their citizens still have a meaningful connection to the tribe, so those descendants who long ago found better opportunities are often not recognized members to begin with. But in any case, given the actual socioeconomic condition of many Indian tribes, a member of those tribes who has performed well enough in school and on standardized testing to be even a plausible candidate for a top school has in fact done something extraordinary in achieving so much.

If I were on an admissions board of a school, and I had two plausible candidates for admission, one who grew up in Chevy Chase, and one who grew up on a Navajo reservation, I would certainly find the Navajo candidate's achievements more impressive relative to the resources available to him or her. And I say that as a parent of children who will grow up in Chevy Chase.[/quote]

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