Don Firth said

The Fanatic has a tendency, not to try to persuade, but to beat people about the head and shoulders and attempt to bury them in some kind of collective guilt.

Yes - I think that is what is at work here.

John P said

Lizzie, please pay attention to those who tell you that many people who care deeply about the same issues you care about won't talk about it in your presence. If you stay true to form, you are now going to tell me that I don't care about the plight of Native Americans. You'd be wrong, but I can't prove that to you. The fact is that I don't want to be associated with you. I think you do more harm to the cause than good and I don't want anyone thinking I'm anything like you at all. And yet I still care deeply about oppressed people everywhere. Go figure.

Good observations and advice.

Many Americans have been watching one case that is trying to make a huge difference in the status of tribal people in the U.S. Cobell v. Salazar has been in play since the Clinton administration. Here is a summary. Also, here in the Atlantic Monthly is a plain-English description of the case and outcomes.

John P also asked

I'm also wondering why people who grew up in and live in white society but had a Native American ancestor three or four generations back think they are in some way Native American. Isn't the way you spend your life, the culture that you actually live in, a more important determining factor?

There is no easy answer to this question. In the 1950s the US government tried resettling reservation Indians to urban centers, trying to mainstream the populations. It didn't work - it created pockets of poverty and lack of cultural support for a lot of people who today still have claims to do with land and royalties but are scattered and intermarried with other cultures and have descendants who are picking up the pieces. Within multi-cultural families one of the biggest questions in Indian Country is "who is an Indian?" Blood quantum is everything for enrolled members of recognized tribes, but is a thorn in the side of those who refused to join the Dawes Act sell-out in 1887. Is Indianness genetic, cultural, traditional, etc.? There's no easy way to slice it - the feds totally messed up when it came to managing Indian lands and taking on the role of Big Brother to (perceived) child-like Indian people. Treaties and agreements abound, and the Dawes Act is a shining star in the codifying of internecine Indian disputes among themselves and with the U.S. government ever since.

SRS