Kiara Imani Williams: Tribal ID dismissed in nation's capital

Last month, a few of my close girlfriends and I decided to have a girls night. We thought salsa dancing sounded like fun, so we braced the cold weather and ventured into DC, where we ended up at a small salsa dancing club located in Adams Morgan. The bouncer quickly looked at my Virginia license and let me pass. My friend Victoria then pulled out her tribal ID and handed it to the bouncer. Victoria Humphreys, age 23, is a member of the Akimel O’Ohdam and Hopi Native American tribes, registered with the Gila River Indian Community. Tribal ID's are identification cards for Native Americans similar to state issued licenses and identification cards that validate their identity and membership to a particular tribe. After analyzing the ID, the bouncer passed the card back to Victoria explaining that "they don't accept those kinds of ID's." Victoria tried to explain that she was Native American, and that her ID was a federally recognized form of identification, but the bouncer did not want to hear it.

At this point, I was freezing cold—and irate. What did he mean by not accepting that "kind" of ID? The federally recognized kind? The legal kind? I immediately asked to speak with the manager, who was very understanding and eventually let her inside. Over the next few days, I thought about the incident a lot. This wasn't the first time this had happened to us, but I couldn't figure out exactly why the exchange had made me so angry. In the bouncer's defense, maybe he'd never seen a tribal ID before. After all, I've only seen one for the first time recently. Maybe he didn't know the ID was a federally recognized form of identification, but if he had only let us explain the situation, he would have understood.

And then it hit me. I wasn't angry because he didn't accept the ID, I was angry because he didn't care. He didn't care about her background, he didn't care about who she was, or why her ID looked different from everyone else's. He didn't care about the Homestead Act that stole land from countless Native Americans, the broken treaties and promises that were made, and all of the suffering they endured as a result. I've seen bouncers accept ID's from Sweden, France, Africa, and Jamaica without hesitation, but when it comes to Native Americans, who are arguably more "American" than any of us, bouncers and bar managers feel the need to take extra precautions.