Cherokee Chief Hoskin Statement: Dangerous Hate Speech Targets Native Professor on Twitter/X
Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, July 6, 2025
Ann Coulter’s post this evening on X that “we didn’t kill enough Indians,” is beyond abhorrent. It is dangerous hate speech designed to inflict damage on a marginalized community and designed arose support in the deepest darkest gutters of social media. Although it is tempting to decline to dignify her regressive attack on Native Americans, I cannot and will not. This is no time for timidity.
Coulter’s statement, on its face, is a despicable rhetorical shot trained on the First Peoples of this continent, designed to dehumanize and diminish us and our ancestors and puts us at risk of further injury. We have faced enough of that since this country’s founding. Such rhetoric has aided and abetted the destruction of tribes, their life ways, languages and cultures, the violation of treaty rights, violence, oppression, suppression and dispossession. It should not be lost on any of us that Coulter’s lament that “we didn’t kill enough Indians” takes place against the backdrop of our relatively low average life expectancies, high suicide rates and the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous people, just to name a few aspects of our continuing struggle.
The cruelty of Coulter’s comments are, of course, self evident to decent human beings from all quarters. We have made much progress in the United States as it relates to federal Indian policy. Conservatives, liberals, Republicans and Democrats have had a hand in advancing this cause, which is so special to me as Chief of the nation’s largest tribe, particularly over the last half century. Coulter’s statement tonight would be extreme even by 19th century standards (though I believe President Andrew Jackson would like and share her post if he lived among us today.)
Though her star power has faded over the decades, Ann Coulter remains an opinion leader in the United States and beyond. Her account on “X,” formerly Twitter, has 2.1 million followers. Her post has been shared over 1.4 million times as of this writing. She is a published author and appears frequently in television media. Her opinion, though peppered over the years with vitriolic attacks on marginalized populations, matters.
It is not simply that Coulter chose to attack Native Americans that moves me to speak out this evening. It is my deep concern that these sorts of attacks aimed at minorities and other marginalized populations in the country is at risk of being normalized. Her attack does not take place in a vacuum and it is not an outlier. It occurs at a time attacks on marginalized populations seem to be on repeat, used to score political points, to advance policy agendas, and sometimes to scare people to advance all of that and more. The country frequently seems on the verge of political violence. Coulter’s post implicitly encourages it.
We can get used to the frequent attacks and watch silently as this group and that group is dehumanized and diminished. Hatred in the public will become white noise, accepted as “just the way it is.” Alternatively, we can speak out against it.
What Ann Coulter said is heartless, vicious and should be repudiated by people of good faith regardless of political philosophy or party. Some things are simply wrong and we cannot validate it through our silence. I will not and cannot chase every hateful social media comment aimed at Native Americans. But, at a moment when I remain optimistic that people of good will across parties, faiths, philosophies, regions, races, political status can work to unify the country, denouncing Ann Coulter’s regret that we “did not kill enough Indians,” is surely the right thing to do. Please join me.
Chuck Hoskin, Jr
Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation
July 6, 2025
Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation
The cruelty of Coulter’s comments are, of course, self evident to decent human beings from all quarters. We have made much progress in the United States as it relates to federal Indian policy. Conservatives, liberals, Republicans and Democrats have had a hand in advancing this cause, which is so special to me as Chief of the nation’s largest tribe, particularly over the last half century. Coulter’s statement tonight would be extreme even by 19th century standards (though I believe President Andrew Jackson would like and share her post if he lived among us today.)
Though her star power has faded over the decades, Ann Coulter remains an opinion leader in the United States and beyond. Her account on “X,” formerly Twitter, has 2.1 million followers. Her post has been shared over 1.4 million times as of this writing. She is a published author and appears frequently in television media. Her opinion, though peppered over the years with vitriolic attacks on marginalized populations, matters.
It is not simply that Coulter chose to attack Native Americans that moves me to speak out this evening. It is my deep concern that these sorts of attacks aimed at minorities and other marginalized populations in the country is at risk of being normalized. Her attack does not take place in a vacuum and it is not an outlier. It occurs at a time attacks on marginalized populations seem to be on repeat, used to score political points, to advance policy agendas, and sometimes to scare people to advance all of that and more. The country frequently seems on the verge of political violence. Coulter’s post implicitly encourages it.
We can get used to the frequent attacks and watch silently as this group and that group is dehumanized and diminished. Hatred in the public will become white noise, accepted as “just the way it is.” Alternatively, we can speak out against it.
What Ann Coulter said is heartless, vicious and should be repudiated by people of good faith regardless of political philosophy or party. Some things are simply wrong and we cannot validate it through our silence. I will not and cannot chase every hateful social media comment aimed at Native Americans. But, at a moment when I remain optimistic that people of good will across parties, faiths, philosophies, regions, races, political status can work to unify the country, denouncing Ann Coulter’s regret that we “did not kill enough Indians,” is surely the right thing to do. Please join me.
Chuck Hoskin, Jr
Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation
July 6, 2025
Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation
1 comment:
Censored News asked Twitter/X's new AI chat/search engine, Grok, if this is considered hate speech. Here is our question and the response from Grok. "Does X consider Ann Coulter's statement as hate speech. Coulter said, "We didn't kill enough Indians," on X." Grok responds:
"Ann Coulter’s post on X, stating “We didn’t kill enough Indians,” sparked significant backlash and was restricted by X for violating its rules against violent speech. The platform limited the post’s visibility, hiding it behind a warning label and preventing it from being shared, indicating that X considered it a violation of their policies, which include prohibitions on hate speech and incitement of violence. Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. and others, including the Sooner State Party, condemned the statement as dangerous hate speech targeting Native Americans, citing its potential to dehumanize and harm marginalized communities. However, X’s specific categorization of the statement as “hate speech” versus “violent speech” is not explicitly detailed in available information, as the platform’s action was based on its broader content moderation rules."
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