Mascots No More: The Powerful Political Impact of the Native Vote in 2020
By Dr. Elizabeth Rule
Many members of the public erroneously believe that Native Americans exist only in historical memory. In truth, for those living away from significant tribal populations, it is relatively easy to understand why this myth persists. Indian iconography on everything from motorcycles to butter, mega sports mascots like the Washington Team and Cleveland Indians, and even the American holiday calendar (I’m looking at you, Columbus Day and Thanksgiving!) perpetuate a romantic idea of who we are as a nation and relegate the original inhabitants of this land to the safety of the past. With Native peoples confined to a bygone era, the United States won’t have to grapple with the contemporary realities of tribal sovereignty, treaty obligations, and the federal-tribal trust responsibility; never mind the intergenerational trauma caused by decades of mass killings, genocidal policy, family separations, nonconsensual sterilizations, land exploitation, and other atrocities some would conveniently like to forget.
Invisibility affects the daily lived experience of the 5.2 million Native peoples and 574 tribal nations in the United States today. In fact, the largest public opinion research project on Native Americans, conducted in 2018, concluded that the perpetuation of stereotypical images, erasure in popular culture, and misinformation in K-12 education that inform this misconception, generate substantial bias against contemporary Native communities. Such bias against Native peoples manifests materially in a range of areas as wide as policy outcomes to racial violence, and from government relations to self-determination.
Indigenous invisibility is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. Well into the nineteenth century, the United States’ federal policy toward Indians emphasized mass physical eradication — efforts amounting to genocide and ethnic cleansing. Extermination campaigns, such as the Sand Creek Massacre, where, on November 29, 1864, approximately 700 troops under command of the Col. John Chivington blindsided and killed nearly 200 peaceful children, women, and elders, attempted to erase Native peoples and the government’s “Indian problem” entirely. As policy tactics shifted near the turn of the twentieth century, efforts to render Indigenous populations invisible unfolded through concentrated assimilationist campaigns. These policies include the outlawing of tribal religious and cultural practices (which were only protected, by the way, in 1978 under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act), as well as the infamous boarding school education system which Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt summarized so clearly in the motto to “Kill the Indian, save the man.” Now, in the twenty-first century, the original Americans continue to face erasure. Misrepresentations, misinformation, and stereotypes attempt to shadow the beauty, vibrancy, and resilience of our peoples and cultures.
Another modern form of Indigenous erasure comes through suppression of our political participation. Native peoples became citizens of the United States with the passage of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act but still faced voter suppression by state laws in the forms of poll taxes and literacy tests as well as English language exams and excursion based on reservation residency. Only in 1958 did Native Americans gain the right to vote in all states.
Since then, however, efforts to silence the Indigenous voice have emerged as modern forms of violence — this time not in the form of military missions or forced assimilation, but through lack of access to the ballot box. Although the 1965 Voting Rights Act supported the Native vote and the Supreme Court affirmed the ban of literacy tests for voting in the 1970 Oregon v. Mitchell decision, more recent tactics such as South Dakota’s controversial voter identification law, which required a street address rather than the P.O. Box addresses used by more than 5,000 Native American residents. In the age of COVID-19, the challenges posed by mail-in ballots and a lack of internet connectivity continue to pose substantial barriers to national political participation.
As we near the 2020 presidential election, the Native American vote is more critical than ever. Foundational issues involving tribal sovereignty — from the Indian Child Welfare Act to environmental protections, economic development to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women — will all be either bolstered or challenged by the incoming or continuing presidential administration. Both the Biden-Harris campaign and Trump-Pence ticket recently released their tribal nations platforms. Unfortunately, both come less than one month out from election day and, until now, both candidates have remained relatively silent on Native issues, save for President Trump’s use of the racial slur “Pocahontas” as a derogatory reference to Sen. Elizabeth Warren during the first presidential debate and his October 9 “Proclamation on Columbus Day, 2020,” which labels those seeking to “undermine” the “intrepid hero” — referring to today’s descendants of the millions killed by Columbus and their allies who champion Indigenous Peoples’ Day — as “extremists” and “radical activists.”
This nation is built on Indian land. Our proud Native warriors sacrificed and continue to sacrifice for this country and serve in the United States Armed Forces at higher per capita rates than any other racial demographic. At the same time, we have been disproportionately damaged by mismanagement of the COVID-19 response. Children, women, and LGBTQ2S members of our communities face violence from perpetrators who act with impunity. As Native peoples, we must raise our voices heard in the political arena. We are a people with strong ties to the past, who exist in the present, and whose votes will shape the future.
Dr. Elizabeth Rule is the director of the AT&T Center for Indigenous Politics and Policy, assistant professor of Professional Studies, and faculty in residence at George Washington University, as well as a current MIT Indigenous Communities Fellow. Rule’s research on issues in her Native American community has been featured in the Washington Post, Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, The Atlantic, Newsy, and NPR. She is also a published author, releasing scholarly articles in American Quarterly and the American Indian Culture and Research Journal. More than 100 public speaking engagements and interviews on topics related to Indian Country have taken her across three continents and to seven countries. Previously, Dr. Rule has held posts as a postdoctoral fellow in the Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies Collaborative at American University, Ford Foundation Fellow, and predoctoral fellow at MIT. Rule received her Ph. and MA in American studies from Brown University, and her BA from Yale University. Rule is an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. *The views expressed in this piece are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of George Washington University or the AT&T Center for Indigenous Politics and Policy.
