If He Was Sincere.....

Image of Open Letter from Chief Gary Batton

 Over a year ago, Chief Gary Batton of the Choctaw Nation published an open letter about launching an initiative to look into the possibility of Choctaw Freedmen citizenship. However, since that time many people have sent letters to the Choctaw Nation, expressing an interest in engaging in the "meaningful conversations" with him that he implied was to occur. 

To this date, no one has received even a form letter from the Choctaw Nation, saying "thank you for your letter". No response, no acknowlegement, nothing. Last year, one Freedman descendant with family in SE Oklahoma, was able to establish a cordial relationship by phone with one of the tribal officials in the capitol. However, in late spring she made a call, and was suddenly told that the tribes attorneys  had advised them not to engage with callers about Freedmen.

So--the tribe is now "lawyered-up" in anticipation of some kind of adversarial action coming from Freedmen descendants?  Really? So the question has to be asked--was the open letter not sincere ? 

This year, several of us attended the hearing on July 27th with the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs,  and we were able to listen to the spokesperson on behalf of the Choctaw Nation speak about issues of blood, insisting their policy has nothing to do with race. The counsel clearly was unaware of the dozens of Freedmen families whose spouses, or fathers were Choctaws by blood. Perhaps he did not know that  their blood was intentionally left off the final Dawes roll, although their Choctaw fathers were named on the enrollment cards!  This gesture forever cast those Choctaw Freedmen who truly had blood ties, into a category of "Freedmen", forcing them to forever wear some kind of "stain of slavery" ---a stain put upon them by the tribe---not by themselves. Clearly this is all about race, and NOT about blood. 

Michael Burrage telling the Senate Committee that their policy has nothing to do with race.

And at the hearing, many of us were left wondering---if Chief Batton was sincere--could he not have come or did the chance of having a meaningful conversation with descendants of Choctaw Freedmen make him avoid the hearing?

Earlier this year when a Freedmen descendant attended a local event, and this person had the chance to meet the current chief and ask about the issue regarding Freedmen citizenship. The response was simply that not too many letters had come in about it, far less than what they had expected. And that was all.

So the initiative that the chief himself was to launch was based upon an unstated quantity letters to come from Freedmen descendants? The question is asked again----Was the initiative that the chief mentioned in his open letter dependent upon receipt of a specific number of letters by Freedmen to be sent to his office?

If THIS was the issue---his OPEN LETTER would have stated so that is, if he was sincere.

One can only surmise the following:

*If he was sincere no quantity of letters should not have kept him from doing the right thing.

*If he was sincere, the initiative said he would launch would have unfolded.

*If he was sincere, he would honor his word "....We see you. We hear you."

*If he was sincere, he would see us now---he would see us today---because still part of the same nation, still sharing the same history, and still walk and live among Choctaw people as Choctaw people

*If he was sincere, he would allow selected Freedmen descendants to meet with him.

*If he was sincere, he would come and look us in the eye, shake our hands, and sit down with us, all as members of the same community and learn that we are not different from each other.

*If he was sincere, he would have honored his word to meet us, talk to us have meaningful dialogue with us. 

Had he been truly sincere, we would not now feel that an empty gesture was tossed at us in a cruel hollow gesture of words unanwered and requests ignored.

Sadly, time has shown us that what we believed was sincere, truly was not.

Excerpt from the 2021 Open Letter of Chief Batton
(To date, no one has been able to meet with him, nor engage in any dialogue with him.)

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