No CDIB card here, fellahs, just move along

Tulsa TV station posted the Cherokee response to Elizabeth Warren's blood test that show she might be 1/64th AmerIndian.

"A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship. Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person's ancestors were indigenous to North or South America.

Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation. Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong. It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is prove.

You need a CDIB card to get treated at an IHS hospital, or to be eligible for government benefits.

A Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood or Certificate of Degree of Alaska Native Blood (both abbreviated CDIB) is an official U.S. document that certifies an individual possesses a specific degree of Native American blood of a federally recognized Indian tribe, band, nation, pueblo, village, or community.[1] They are issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs after the applicant supplies a completed genealogy with supporting legal documents such as birth certificates, showing their descent, through one or both birth parents, from an enrolled Indian or an Indian listed in a base roll such as the Dawes Rolls. Blood degree cannot be obtained through adoptive parents...

however, each tribe decides who they want to be members

For example, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians requires at least 1/16 degree of Eastern Cherokee blood for tribal membership, whereas the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Higher Education Grant for college expenses requires a 1/4 degree minimum.[2] A Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood does not establish membership in a tribe. Tribal membership is determined by tribal laws and may or may not require a CDIB or may require a separate tribal determination of ancestry or blood degree.[3]

How to get your CDIB card.

this sounds confusing, which it is, especially with urban Indians and with those who are of multiple tribal ancestry.

And the IHS won't treat you if you are from Mexico or Canada, even if your tribe has members on both sides of the border.

on the other hand, in Oklahoma, we did treat the Cherokee freeman, who would not pass a blood test.

and there are on going controversies about the "unrecognized tribes". Many of these have a long history that can be traced in county records, and are suing to get recognition.


In some states, due to intermarriage, there are a lot of people with some AmerIndian ancestry, especially in places like Tennessee or Oklahoma, most of whom never try to get benefits because they have assimilated into the white or black local communities and have no tribal ties.

but to be eligible for benefits and/or affirmative action, you are supposed to prove your ancestry via the CDIB card.

On the other hand, there are lots and lots of white folks who "discover" they have a "Cherokee" ancestor, and become "born again Indians", often pretending to be shamans to sell books or get prestige among their new age friends. Others, like Warren, use this vague history to get jobs, or to sell counterfeit art work and artifacts.

the real controversy about Warren is that she used her vague history to get an affirmative action spot. She now denies it, and an "investigation" has cleared her of this charge, but there are many places where the university mentioned her as a minority, so who told them she was a "minority"? Why would they do that if she hadn't used her "history" to get a job under affirmative action?

Of course, this is Harvard, who bragged about Warren being a "minority" while routinely discriminates against East Asians....

so the scandal is that essentially by lying/exaggerating her Indian ancestry, she got job preference over other minorities who actually had been discriminated against.

Now, affirmative action is supposed to be there to help those who had suffered discrimination. and to help those who live in poverty on the reservation, or as "urban Indians", not rich white folks from Tulsa who had no cultural tribal ties, but wanted freebies.