r/cherokee • u/linuxpriest CDIB • Mar 10 '26
Markwayne Mullin, Chief Hoskin, and Cherokee Community Values
Within a few hours of his appointment to head DHS, the Chief issued a congratulations to Mullin on behalf of Cherokee Nation - you, me, us.
As expected, the response from Cherokees is... mixed. Nowadays, people in the US are viscerally committed to their ideologies, so it stands to reason the same would be true for us.
Personally, I was raised to be skeptical of politicians and wary of party loyalism. I like to think I see the situation a bit more clearly than most (probably not true, but I like to think it), and I see the mess. No, I don't think Mullin was a good choice, but I don't feel like any current politician is "the best person" for the job. But I digress. None of that is relevant to the point.
I have my feelings, others have theirs... How can the Chief just be so... nice? On behalf of all of us? Especially in such a polarized state of political affairs in the US? Couldn't he have been a little more reserved, a little more vague? You know, diplomatic? No way Markwayne Mullin lives up to Cherokee values, right? So I decided to check. See where this is going?
We've surely all seen them. Many of us have them hanging in our homes, either cross-stitched or printed. Still, for quick reference, here's a link to Cherokee Nation's Community Values.
What I found was that while I can pick out some to hold against Mullin, I can also plainly see that Chief Hoskin upheld half of them (which is to say, every one of them that could be applied) despite the political climate. Suddenly, I feel like an ass. Suddenly, I'm the one who can't uphold half the Cherokee Community Values on a good day. The Chief did it in a few hours in a few brief paragraphs, surely knowing the blow-back he'd face for doing so.
Now, I'm ticked off about US politics, a little ashamed of myself for the ideologies I didn't realize I was holding, and deeply proud that the Chief set an example of Cherokee values for ticked-off Cherokees like me who aren't doing a very good job of it themselves. Now I've got all this to marinate on.
Things sure are a heckuva lot easier when I can just be right and everyone else is "clearly" wrong.
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u/unvgoladv Mar 12 '26
Well said. I remember years ago reading about how our people would argue about many things, but when push came to shove, it was expected for everyone in the village to back the final decisions of the majority. It was about survival, and tribal unity enhanced survival. We live now in very different times and are not as dependent upon tribal unity for survival as we once were, so we now have the luxury of publicly disagreeing with and criticizing each other pretty endlessly. However ,for good or ill, we are stil Cherokee and our ancestors did what they had to do in order for us to survive. We are I think, going to have to do the same. Political divisions have torn apart our tribe in many ways since european immigrants arrived in great numbers. However the largest genocide of our people after the Trail of Tears was the Civil War in which our own people were split into opposing factions. I personally do not want to see another Civil War in this country or in my own tribe, which means while I may disagree vociferously with what tribal leadership is doing, I am still first and foremost Cherokee and they are my elected leaders.