Cetan
But again the purpose of this group is to expose frauds, nothing else. If you have issues with someones viewpoints then go express yourself on alt.native or indianz.com where catfights are the norm and stop wasting our time here with your personal vendettas and agendas
That about sums up my own take on this... And it's sad to see people who may have some legitimate concerns damage their own credibilty by getting into a mud fight.
I should explain that Betsy Ashby is only listed in NAFPS because she spreads so many wierd stories about NAFPS this needed to be addressed.
Betsy Ashby seems to enjoy setting up situations where she encourages Native people who are feeling overwhelmed at being repeatedly invaded to attack mixed blood people who are not causeing any substantial problems. She does this by repeatedly incorrectly identifying these mixed bloods as White and faux Indians and their Native friends as the lap dogs of Whites, and manipulating Native peoples justified anger to target relatively harmless people.
If you look carefully at the reasons Betsy has given for going after "faux Indians ", you will see her excuses are full of contradictions .
Below is a link to the enemies of NAFPS thread where her contradictory behavior is discussed in a number of posts.
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=1234.0Betsy Ashby has a talent for selecting the facts that support the point she wants to make, inventing a few things that aren't fact at all, and leaving out everything that doesn't support the story she wants people to believe .
What I find most disturbing about Betsy is she rarely or never goes after a "pure blood" White person who is using Native ceremonies or culture. Betsy's targets are almost always mixed blood people and their NDN friends.
It seems Betsy feeds on hatred and a sense of power and being connected through causing pain. Besides being wrong and unfair, I don't think Betsy's target of annihilating the people she wrongly identifies as Faux Indians is achievable , and the only thing she is likely to achieve is creating more bad feelings and resentment.
I also don't like to see innocent people harrasssed, but this often happens in cyberspace. NAFPS doesn't usually list people just because they are online bullies, and people are usually discouraged from trying to get this message board involved in retaliating or trying to sort out who did what to who first.
Generally NAFPS only discusses people who claim some sort of position of ceremonial leadership or political authority, which involves public trust which they may not be entitled to.
It seems you are just using Betsy's questionable behavior , and the fact that there is some discussion of Betsy's tactics here, as an excuse to bring your fight with Monica over here .
I've been reading a bit over on the alt.native site and I see both of you sometimes expressing yourself in needlessly inflamatory ways that hurt whatever legitmate point you may have been trying to make..... And to be honest, I have seen you make some seemingly unfounded accusations which go way beyond bitchy and trivial...
And now you are starting in on David Seals...
Why?
It seemed you were hoping to show that Betsy Ashby's definition of who is a "faux Indian" is flawed, using David Seals as an example of an unenrolled person of some Native descent , who has contributed to the Native community and who Monica considers a friend . That seems fair enough and a reasonable thing to do. However, if that was your intention , why are you now trying to get NAFPS interested in the guy as a "faux Indian"?
As you yourself point out Seals wrote as a Native American author before it became the law people need to be enrolled to make this claim.
Whether or not Seal's is enrolled , he obviously does have very real connections with a Native community, and unless he is writing about a fake version of culture and history, I doubt his work as an author would be considered a fraud or a position of authority he is not entitled to.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that whatever legitimate concerns you may have had in your desire to confront Monica have been lost in your own need to be right, rather than stand up for what is right .
In my own belief, when there is a problem it's important to first clearly identify what the problem is, and then try to pick targets that actually are central to the problem. I understand when we are offended and frustrated or scared it can be hard to lay aside the smashing and bashing, but I also think that it's important that when the central problems are identified we take the time to make a plan of attack which has a reasonable hope of reducing or eliminating the problem.
And I agree with Cetan . However you and Monica sort out your differences that is probably something that doesn't belong on this message board.
There is one more thing I want to point out because it is offensive, though I think you are probably honestly unaware of this...
I see where you keep accusing Monica of being a racist . And yes, Monica is outspoken about her strong dislike of non native people. But accusing her of being racist probably only reinforces her whole point.
Would you accuse a Jewish holocaust survior of being racist if they expressed a deep revulsion for Germans? Or would you understand there was probably some deep unhealed wounds behind such statements? ? If you knew a woman who was vocal about her distain for men , who said she did not think men were fully human, and you knew this woman had been repeatedly severly abused by men , from an early age , would you go on and on about what a hateful person she was - accusing her of having a problem, and being a malicious character? Or would you understand there was a lot of unresolved history behind that womans feelings?
If you are actually interested in resolving this, it might be more constructive to ask what it is specifically that non native people do that Monica doesn't like, and how exactly she see the general culture and Non native population supporting this? What does she see as ways to change this? What does she feel she needs to do to protect herself and her people from further abuse ? Even if Monica doesn't always express her feelings in a "nice' way or target the real problems , she probably has some really good reasons for not feeling friendly.
And when she does tell you ( and I see where she already has ) maybe you could try listening instead of trying to tell her she is wrong...
When you repeatedly accuse Monica of being racist and malicious, when there is some good reasons and a long history behind her feelings, these attacks on her character probably just reinforce her feelings that non native people don't have the capacity for basic human qualities like empathy and being able to respect things on their own terms. Your expectation that after all the history Native people should still feel friendly , should still be willing to cater to White peoples desires and say it's all OK and they forgive everything, sounds like one more manifestation of that same assumption that everything should revolve around White people and their needs. Yeah I can see where that would piss Monica right off.
I agree with Cetan. I don't think this fight belongs here.... But it would be good if you could rethink your tactics. Because you do have some legitimate concerns and all you do is discredit both those legitimate concerns and yourself, when you get into unprincipled thoughtless mud slinging.
