Don't Join the Disenrollment Club

“I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” – Groucho Marx

In 2011, Cedric Sunray wrote a column here simply titled, “Disenrollment Clubs.” He opened with a quote about the Cherokee Freedmen, from Cherokee Nation Tribal Councilwoman Cara Cowan Watts: “This is not a club; you can’t just claim to be Cherokee and show up and be included.”

Sunray then deconstructed her position, observing “disenrollments are not the work of the community at large, but rather those who control the power structures within them.” He concluded that tribes who disenroll their kin “sink to the level of the Lions, Kiwanis, or . . . Knights of Columbus, in terms of function and stature in the international community.”

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/11/16/dont-join-disenrollment-club