Why does everyone want to be an indian these days?

I was able to visit a museum in New Orleans focusing on the history and traditions of the Mardi Gras and specifically around black folks who dress up as natives. At first I misunderstood the concept, I thought the people in the parade were a mix of black and native (black indians) and that was the celebration in itself, but then I learned that it is really black people dressed up as natives and the beautiful thing about it is celebrating the fact the native people took in black people who were escaping slavery. (am slowly learning specifics around which nations/tribes)

It is the celebration of the two coming together in solidarity and how they have helped one another out really stretching across the continent before the concept of borders.

The truth of the matter is, is that most black people are mixed with either white or native or both. Everyone I talk to here and I mean absolutely everyone is mixed with native. I met someone the other day (who is visibly black) but whose grandparents were an interesting couple: his Grandfather a Cherokee Chief and his Grandmother was straight from Germany.

When I first started asking questions towards my Dad and his sisters that is one of the first things that was mentioned to me was that we had native in us. It is like we are proud of it. I was told Blackfoot, the Blackfoot Nation stretches from KKKanada down the the states, but then there is also another tribe called Blackfeet which who identify as both black and native.

But then, when I spoke with my Great Uncle he said Cherokee, many people actually say Cherokee and I thought to myself, well, why is it just Cherokee, when there are hundreds of other tribes? Is it because it's such a well known tribe, and so people just say Cherokee? But then I learned that the Cherokee nation is one of the only nations that accepted black people in to their culture.

Quite interestingly enough more recently the Cherokee Nation 'expelled' black folks from their nation. 'Why' is another topic at hand. I am still learning the inner complexities of the relationship between black and native people, one that is very venemous and sacrd, but more so elusive.

Slavery, was one factor in which it wasn't just exclusive to black people, then there was the census records and how natives were punished for not being on the reservations so many identified as 'mullato'. Then there is the intermarriages, the kinship, the solidarity, the struggle. It seems quite obvious that european settlers at the time were quite threatened by the union of native and black folks and I think when there was that communion between the two it was using fire with fire. It was a way of resisting and literally surviving because when there is a 'black indian' at a time when natives were 'free' and blacks were slaves, yet natives were not considered citizens and blacks didn't have reservations, but they had plantations...

...A complex nation