(NAME-MCE) Racism in Indian country

[KispokoT at aol.com]

Perhaps some of you know of similar indidents you can share with Dr.  Chavers
 
Gina Boltz 
Director, Native Village Publications 
Director, Youth Forum for The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous  
Grandmothers 
_http://www.nativevillage.org_ (http://www.nativevillage.org)  
Secretary/Treasurer, Link Center Foundation 
_www.linkcenterfoundation.org_ (http://www.linkcenterfoundation.org)  
 
 
Indian Country Today 
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416071 
Racism in  Indian country 
Posted: November 07, 2007   
by: Dean Chavers  
Just as assimilation is the  emotional issue in Indian country, racism and 
discrimination are the most  avoided, the most ignored and the most covered-up 
issues. There is no book on  racism against Indians, even though one is sorely 
needed.  
The first time I went to South  Dakota, in 1965, there were signs in the 
stores, bars and restaurants saying:  ''No dogs or Indians allowed.'' The next 
time I was in the state, in 1970, the  signs were still up. Shortly after that, 
they started to come down. But the  attitudes stayed up when the signs came 
down. It is still not a good idea to be  an Indian in South Dakota. There is an 
excellent chance you will be  discriminated against.  
L. Frank Baum, author of ''The  Wizard of Oz,'' was also an anti-Indian 
journalist in South Dakota. In the 1890s  he wrote the following editorial:  
''The PIONEER has before declared  that our only safety depends upon the 
total extermination [sic] of the Indians.  Having wronged them for centuries, we 
had better, in order to protect our  civilization, follow it up by one more 
wrong and wipe these untamed and  untamable creatures from the face of the earth. 
In this lies safety for our  settlers and the soldiers who are under 
incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may  expect future years to be as full of trouble 
with the redskins as those have  been in the past.''  
Murder is widespread in Indian  country, and it is most often a case of 
non-Indians killing Indians. In the past  decade, several series of murders of 
Indians have occurred in Lawrence, Kan.; in  Rapid City, S.D.; and in Gallup, N.M. 
In most cases, the non-Indian murderer is  not charged, not jailed, not tried 
and not convicted. In some cases, in what may  be serial killings, police 
have still not developed a suspect or charged anyone.   
In Chiloqin, Ore., the Klamath  Indians have been under assault in recent 
years for their defense of the  suckerfish, which to them is sacred. There have 
been drive-by shootings,  intimidations and violence. The bumper sticker of the 
local hoodlums, who are  ''defending'' local farmers who want Klamath River 
water, is: ''Save a farmer,  fillet a sucker fish.''  
Violence against the Makah Tribe  and other tribes broke out after the Makahs 
decided to engage in a whale hunt.  They had been denied this right for 
decades, but illegally and unfairly. When  they landed a gray whale in 1999, some 
tribal members were attacked and one man  ended up in a wheelchair.  
Violence in the form of rape and  sexual assault against Indian women is 
reported to be 3.5 times higher than the  rate for the general population (source: 
National Sexual Violence Resource  Center). The leading crime on the Navajo 
reservation is reported to be the rape  of Navajo women. Much of the violence 
on this reservation happens in the border  towns that draw much of their income 
from reservation spending. The NSVRC  reports that 70 percent of the crime 
against Indians is committed by  non-Indians.  
State and county officials in  many states have acted to prevent Indians from 
voting. In South Dakota, Montana,  North Carolina, Arizona, New Mexico and 
other states, lawsuits have been filed  seeking to have the right to vote 
conferred upon Indians. Some of these lawsuits  go back to 1948, while others have 
been filed within the past decade. The  American Civil Liberties Union filed a 
voting rights lawsuit in South Dakota as  late as 2002.  
Some 88 percent of Indian  students now attend public schools on or near 
reservations. This is in  accordance with the wishes of the federal government, 
which since 1890 has  pursued a policy of forcing Indians to attend public 
schools instead of BIA  federal schools. The dropout rate, or more accurately the 
''push out rate,'' for  Indians is 250 percent higher than it is for the 
general population. The United  States as a whole still has a 20 percent dropout 
rate, but for Indian country,  the dropout rate is 50 percent.  
The dropout rate for states such  as South Dakota, which Indians call the 
''Mississippi of the North,'' is caused  largely by racist practices in the 
schools, according to the STAR Web site. The  four counties of southern California 
- Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and  San Diego - with dozens of small 
California tribes, have had a long-standing  dropout rate of 90 percent, the 
highest in the nation.  
Indian children are actually  arrested and taken out of the classroom for 
minor infractions, according to the  Rosebud Sioux Tribe. Indian students are 
regularly harassed and physically  attacked by white students. When attacks 
occur, the Indian students (the  victims) are arrested and punished while the white 
students (the attackers) are  not cited or arrested.  
In Red Rock, Okla., in 1992, an  Indian student was arrested and placed into 
the school jail for chewing gum.  (Yes, they have a jail!) At the same time, 
an Anglo student, the son of a  teacher, who set an Indian student's hair on 
fire, was not punished at all!   
Indian students have been  arrested, jailed and fingerprinted for such minor 
offenses as refusing to sit  where they are told or for making too much noise. 
They are systematically  excluded from college preparatory classes, shunted 
into vocational and  ''bonehead'' classes, not encouraged to be in school every 
day, and in general  ignored in preparing them for higher learning and for 
life.  
In Winner, S.D., near the Rosebud  Reservation, the ACLU filed a lawsuit 
against the school district, the  superintendent and two principals in April 2006. 
When a white student pushed an  Indian student against a locker and called 
him a ''prairie nigger,'' the Indian  student, a middle schooler, was arrested 
and jailed when he pushed back. Brian  Naasz, the principal, had the police 
arrest the Indian student, but not the  white student who instigated the fight. 
The ACLU documented that an Indian  student was three times as likely as a 
white student to be arrested.   
In Hayward, Wis., the white  locals call the Indians ''timber niggers.'' In 
my home state of North Carolina  we are called ''swamp niggers.'' In Arizona, 
the Indians are called ''desert  niggers.''  
I am collecting data on these  types of incidents, and would love to hear 
from you. It is time to stop sweeping  this piece of dirt under the rug.  
Dr. Dean Chavers is director of  Catching the Dream, a national scholarship 
and school improvement program in  Albuquerque, N.M. This is a condensed 
chapter from his book ''Modern American  Indian Leaders,'' published in June 2007 by 
Mellen Press. Copyright (c) 2007.  His address is CTD4DeanChavers at aol.com. 
The book can be ordered from  www.mellenpress.com.




 
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