If They Get Rights, Then Nobody Gets Rights

Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Tim Scott (R-SC), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Rand Paul (R-KY), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and James Risch (R-ID), I don't think, are blocking the Violence Against Woman Act on the grounds that they hate women. I'm sure they'll all tell you that they love women. And that they treat their wives well and want their daughters to grow up to be strong and capable and even independent.

Their objections arise because they refuse to allow undocumented immigrants, internationally trafficked sex slaves, transgendered*, and indigenous women who live on tribal lands the same protections that other American women receive from domestic abuse - which, sadly, is very limited as it stands.

So, Cruz, Lee, Scott, Rubio, Johanns, Paul, Roberts and Risch hate immigrant and First Nation women. And they hate them so much that they're willing to dismiss the needs of all other women in the United States.

No, wait.

I guess they DO hate all women.

Courtesy of FB's One Million Vaginas

Feel free to print this poster out and defecate on it.

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*When I first wrote this post, I had forgotten about the language that would also protect international sex slaves and the transgendered people as well (additionally, men who are also victims of domestic and sexual violence). I apologize for those glaring omissions.

White Rapists, Native Women, and Diplomatic Immunity

I'm encouraged - and I want to talk more in depth about this - that rape culture in the US among males and females is in sharp decline the last few decades. It's truly magnificent. It's like racial oppression's decline in government and society since the 60's. Which, as I'm sure long-time readers of the Left Cheek will know, doesn't mean that we can claim victory. Anybody who's been paying attention to politics and national events will know that the US still remains a very racist and misogynist county. Not just among the Republicans, either.

But, damn, they sure know how to illustrate and blow up trends. Take these two coming in at a perfect storm under nationalist Eric Cantor:

[The Violence Against Woman Act], which has been reauthorized consistently for 18 years with little fanfare, was, for the first time, left to expire in Sept. 2011. The sticking point has been new protections for three particularly vulnerable groups: undocumented immigrants, members of the LGBT community and Native Americans. The additions are supported by Democrats and opposed by House Republicans, who are calling them politically driven.

(All boldings, italicizing and underlinings are mine. I'd add arrows if I could.)

Only in retrograde ConservativeLand can you decry protections for vulnerable groups as being "politically driven."

Finally, after stalling on these amendments and letting the bill expire in September of this year, House Majority Leader Cantor is meeting with Joe Biden to push through a bill (House Republicans pushed through a version of the bill without the amendments earlier). And yet, Cantor is stalling on one of the issues.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy... explained the provision, probably the least understood of the three additions in the Senate bill: It gives tribal courts limited jurisdiction to oversee domestic violence offenses committed against Native American women by non-Native American men on tribal lands. Currently, federal and state law enforcement have jurisdiction over domestic violence on tribal lands, but in many cases, they are hours away and lack the resources to respond to those cases. Tribal courts, meanwhile, are on site and familiar with tribal laws, but lack the jurisdiction to address domestic violence on tribal lands when it is carried out by a non-Native American individual.

Sounds reasonable, right? I mean, if a crime is committed by a tourist in another land and to a native of that land, you expect the place where the crime is committed to have jurisdiction, right? Especially since the place is, y'know, local and therefore, can access the scene of the crime and the victim and any available witnesses and parties at a reasonable time and with adequate knowledge of the local lay of the land. It's very reasonable, considering that other jurisdictions are usually busy enough trying to take care of their own areas. I mean, you would assume it was reasonable.

Well, unless the perp happens to be male and American and the alleged victim happens to be female and indigenous (We've already talked about how indigenous people are immensely mistreated by colonial and dominant [read: White] cultures). I mean, how dare anyone suggest that another country would or could possibly try a good ol' boy USA si-ti-zin.

That means non-Native American men who abuse Native American women on tribal lands are essentially "immune from the law, and they know it," Leahy said.

They can get away with rape - because they have...

Diplomatic Immunity!
image courtesy of

As a result of this immunity, 86% (yes. Eighty-six PERCENT) of rapes of tribal women on tribal lands are done by non-tribal men, according to a report by Amnesty International.

Now, this report is important to read. Because in it, you don't just get a story of an angry white male leftist angry with the angry white male Republicans and so forth. This isn't just a story of injustice in Washington, DC or the injustice of voting for the wrong guy. No, that's an obvious component of injustice. But the real injustice is how Native women are treated for the fact that they are Natives and they are women - and then that they are sexual abuse survivors.

Because we can talk all day about who is obstructing whose what in the less-than-sacred halls of Wallhalla, District of Columbia. But what of a support worker near Fairbanks who had been shamed into anonymity by the sheer factor that she is Indigenous, female, and had been sexually assaulted?

In July 2006 an Alaska Native woman in Fairbanks reported to the police that she had been raped by a non-Native man. She gave a description of the alleged perpetrator and city police officers told her that they were going to look for him. She waited for the police to return and when they failed to do so, she went to the emergency room for treatment. A support worker told Amnesty International that the woman had bruises all over her body and was so traumatized that she was talking very quickly. She said that, although the woman was not drunk, the Sexual Assault Response Team nevertheless “treated her like a drunk Native woman first and a rape victim second”. The support worker described how the woman was given some painkillers and some money to go to a non-Native shelter, which turned her away because they also assumed that she was drunk: “This is why Native women don’t report. It’s creating a breeding ground for sexual predators.

This view of Disposable Lives is prevalent in most cultures. But why, Oh why, in such a "Christian"-predominant one as the US. As Alaska? Why treat others as less-thans when we are all human and, according to Christian theology, all made in the image of God and all bearing the love of the Christ? Why are these lives treated as if they are invisible? Why are there stories trivialized that - even in the protection of - they are treated as political fodder?

Over the past decade, federal government studies have consistently shown that American Indian and Alaska Native women experience much higher levels of sexual violence than other women in the USA. Data gathered by the US Department of Justice indicates that Native American and Alaska Native women are more than 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women in the USA in general.
A US Department of Justice study on violence against women concluded that 34.1 per cent of American Indian and Alaska Native women – or more than one in three – will be raped during their lifetime; the comparable figure for the USA as a whole is less than one in five.
Shocking though these statistics are, it is widely believed that they do not accurately portray the extent of sexual violence against Native American and Alaska Native women.
“Most women who are beaten or raped don’t report to the police. They just shower and go to the clinic [for treatment].”
Native American survivor of sexual violence (identity withheld), February 2006
Amnesty International’s interviews with survivors, activists and support workers across the USA suggest that available statistics greatly underestimate the severity of the problem. In the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, for example, many of the women who agreed to be interviewed could not think of any Native women within their community who had not been subjected to sexual violence.

These stories are ignored, these women abused disproportionately, these survivors out of reach of justice and appropriate medical attention. This continues to happen not just because Eric Cantor is a big meanie. But because in the big scheme of things, what does it matter if Native women and their communities are adequately prepared and taken care of?

The tremendous - as in Visible-From-Space - racism and sexism  in the GOP isn't helping. After all, just because you don't care about certain groups or they're invisible from your point of sight doesn't mean they don't need protections. But not only that, there is the hubris that only those who come up through and are within a White Man's system of "justice" are capable of administering justice to White Men.

The two sources say, to Cantor's credit, his staff has said they're willing to try to come up with other solutions to responding to violence against women on tribal lands, as long as the solution doesn't give tribes jurisdiction over the matter.

That, as you may have noticed, is NOT to Cantor's credit.

Playing the Race Card Card

20061129_3282, a photo by graphia on Flickr.

Let's role play a scenario that I see, on average, at least twice a week on the webz.

Jan (Person of color): Did you hear/see that? I find that comment directed at my race to be incredibly insensitive and hurtful.
Jim (Person not of color): Stop being so sensitive. Must you throw out the race card?

It's a weird counter-argument. But it's also horribly inhumane. Without a trace of irony - and most likely without noticing it - by trying to prove how Jim isn't really racist, he actually demonstrates just how racist his frame of reference is.

Let's break it down, shall we?

Jan is hurt by remarks that she is quite aware are directed at her race/family/ethnicity/culture/identity group.
Jan lets others know, that may not know, how hurt she is by the offending statement.
Jim is offended (OFFENDED!) that Jan is offended by such a statement.
Jim does not understand why Jan should be upset as he does not share her cultural or historical background.
Rather than taking Jan seriously as a real, adult human being with actual feelings and emotions and intelligence, he continues to downgrade not just Jan's feelings as being less than legitimate (which leads Jan to feel like less of a person, at least in Jim's eyes), but also Jan's history, culture, family, and humanity.
Jan is not a legitimate person in the eyes of this white person.
Jan is led to believe - and with good reason - that Jim does not trust her accounts of her own experience and reaction simply because Jan is a different race or ethnicity.

This, in effect, is what racism is, what white supremacy is. It is also a sign of sexism. In this regard, Jan is doubly cursed.

A similar scenario can also be played out according to class or sexual identity, for instance). But it's been ridiculous efforts like Rush Limbaugh's "uppity" comments - directed at the First Couple and only at them - and the refusal of specific white Christians to acknowledge that that phrase is used disparagingly toward Black people who are perceived to rise above their station. In fact, judging by the responses I've seen from several paleo-conservative white male Christians, they don't give a rip about the hurt that that phrase causes African Americans.

Add to that, Thanksgiving is once again upon us and we still, in 2011 AD, mock and ridicule the very tribes and nations that were in the Americas first. Those very people that we systematically wiped out through assimilation and murder. And - adding insult to those injuries - we continue to mockingly dress our sports mascots as racist caricatures of "savage" Indian chiefs. A continuation of a history of profiting from the humiliation and exploitation of those we've been oppressing.




When the First Nation tribes and people inform the alumni and students, universities, and professional sports teams that the mascots and mock-ceremonial actions are offensive to the very people that are being caricatured, the white men invariably answer, "No, they aren't. You aren't really offended."

Excuse me. But I have to ask my fellow white males, "WHAT THE FRAPPIN' HELL ARE YOU THINKING?"

Who do we think we are to tell others what they should be offended by when we're offending them, both historically - and because we choose to ignore their histories - currently? Especially after hundreds of years of oppression, genocide, slavery, removal, segregation, and utter marginalization. And now we White people want to act like everything's cool between us and the people we've marginalized and profited from - when it's obvious that we are only continuing the same acts of aggression?

Yeah, we're sick like that...

And that's tragic... pt 1: Racism 101: Why defenses don't work

The title for this series is taken from the remarks of Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern when the legislators were discussing whether and how to get rid of affirmative action in the state:

Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said minorities earn less than white people because they don’t work as hard and have less initiative.

“We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.”

Kern said women earn less than men because “they tend to spend more time at home with their families.”

Minorities are lazy?

Before I go any further, I should make note of the fact that I'm white. My grandmother is Puerto Rican. My step-grandfather is Filipino. But I'm so Northern Euro that my daughter is blond, I will end up burning and peeling like an orange pretty soon, and then my will hue quickly disperse into freckles like shattered glass.

So, while I have been pulled over for being in the wrong neighborhood - usually mine or my friends', and at least during one point, mercilessly and sexually humiliated by the officer - I’ve never actually been the victim of actual racism. When I say “racism”, however, it means something a bit different than the classical version of racism that most in the mainstream think of*. Largely because that type of racism has been buried since Archie Bunker in American society (although in many respects, latent racism has come to the fore since a black man became president. Many of my friends can testify to this from personal experience. Of course, all one really needs to do is turn on the news to see someone questioning President Obama's American-ness, or his intelligence. Or photoshop him on a picture of a witch doctor. Then there's the monkeys, watermelons, nearly everything that comes out of Newt Gingrich or Rush Limbaugh's mouths. dot. dot. dot.). It is politically incorrect, for example, to use derogatory terms for black, Latino, East Asian or Southeast Asian, or First Nations** people. It is widely considered offensive and taboo to tell a black citizen to move over for a white citizen. And trying to keep a minority from voting on the basis of a test will get you in trouble with the law.

However, if that black person himself got in trouble with the justice system, laws are set to explicitly ban him from voting. And the chances that a black male will end up imprisoned are more-than-curiously high in the US. Furthermore, although slavery’s long been outlawed, darker skinned Americans tend to work for significantly less than white laborers do - that is, when they are hired. Black and Latino men (especially) have difficulty finding jobs, period. And twice the percentage of black men as white counterparts with comparable education and experience are unemployed.

photo © 2005 Elvert Barnes | more info (via: Wylio)When the subject of racism comes up, white people always - always - put up their defenses. The first and most outlandish one is, "I'm not racist." Which is a bit of an odd deflection. But maybe it's not a deflection. Maybe the person who says this feels that he is being attacked. It's just that that is rarely the case. Typically speaking, white people have our wires routed differently about this topic. So when the topic of race comes up, a white person who is not as familiar with discussions of race and racism (yet who belongs to the majority culture which gives him or her advantages that a person of color will not receive in this society) will tense up. To be honest, it quite physically hurts - as a white person - to be even hinted that we could be racist. It's not unlike being suggested that one is a child molester. Guilty-until-proven-innocent. So I can understand the defense. But at some time we need to drop the defense and listen to what is actually being said.

Second, and worse, is the defense usually given by people ACTUALLY accused of racism: "I have lots of black/hispanic/latino friends." Let's take it at its face value, however, and try not to laugh at the absurdity of them calling someone that they just degenerated in front of thousands of people "friends"... Let's say that he does have a few non-White friends. Does that qualify him as a not-racist? If a man has a wife and a mother and a daughter, does that mean that he can't be a sexist? Does that disqualify him from chauvinism, or wife-beating, or spousal abuse?

Third, and this is the one that I run into most often is the shock (shock!) that America or society could possibly be racist. Since we don't see a Sheriff Bull Connor chasing down black school children with rotweillers or water cannons, then racism is no longer tolerated in this society. If anything, they argue, the government practices reverse racism by allowing for affirmative action (which some argue is a soft form of paternalism), which discriminates against whites.

But when we look at the inescapable fact of the high proportion of African American and Latino males (and females) that are incarcerated, the ghastly high proportion of African American, Latino, and First Nations people that are in deep poverty, the apartheid state of American education and housing - we run into a tension. Do we still believe that there is no societal racism, do we still believe that the cards are not stacked against people of color? Do we believe that it's a problem of the lack of preached personal responsibility in the black, Latino, and indigenous communities? (Although those virtues are preached probably more in those communities than in white communities, from my experience.) Do we find other factors, such as the War on Drugs that criminalizes large portions of black youth? (Although as high a percentage of whites use and abuse drugs as people of color, yet people of color are checked at unbelievably higher percentages. That is, it's generally higher than us white folks seem to comprehend). Do we believe that the lack of perceivable African American/Latino success is a result of the acceptance of culture-wide victimology? (Although only a handful of black and brown youth - even now - consider their status as colored in America as being that they'll have to work harder, not less, to achieve success.) Or do we remain silent, thinking, however briefly, however under-our-subconscious, that the problem is inherent within that people group?

Seriously, how do we reconcile what we see with our beliefs of who should succeed in American society? How do we reconcile the piss poor way black men and youth are treated by our justice system with our understandings of how the justice system is supposed to be fair and just?

From my experience, part of the problem in this impasse in the whites and minority dialog is that we white folks don't raise our children to recognize and shield themselves from racism. So we come up late to recognizing the system of oppression as it stands. I grew up in a multicultural family, multicultural communities, multicultural church, and multicultural schools - but it wasn't until well after high school that I realized how hurtful some of my words in regards to race relations were. So I don't expect that (or, really I shouldn't expect. I am a little impatient, to be honest) the majority class will immediately grasp our failure in this matter. Further, it's hard and hurtful for our friends of color to have to put up with our mistakes, time and again. Especially if they have a history themselves of being ignored and invisible. So don't necessarily count on them to do the corrections and the history lessons.

You may need to bone up on that stuff on your own. Y'know, read some racial history; listen and begin to trust the words of people of color; bone up on some scholarship; spend some time with your minority friends - without an agenda; realize that there is no singular voice for minority cultures - that it's as wide and varied as our own white culture; invite others into your life and surroundings.

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**Commonly, I use two meanings for racism - individual and institutional - but the fundamental meaning behind both of them is the idea of enacting power over a person or people of a different race or ethnicity based on preconceived notions of the inferiority of those within the race or ethnicity. Typically speaking, the dominant culture (eg, Whites in America) are not the recipients of racism.

**One of the biggest concerns for some is not to sound too politically correct. And I can understand that concern, if by that we do not mean not being able to say anything that might be construed as offensive (I honestly don't know where the balance is for that. But I would say that if you're going to say something about another group in public, be aware that others are watching and may call you on the carpet for it. If you don't want to be called on the carpet for such comments, educate yourself), but rather this constant change of vocabulary to what is considered the less offensive term. But I believe in self-identification.

Some of these terms are understood in a mostly regional manner. In Chicago, the term those of Latin American descent tend to use for themselves is "Latino". I've heard few indigenous people refer to themselves as Native Americans, but have heard Indian, First Nations, and most commonly by the specific tribe they are a part of.

THoT 3: Aaron Huey: America's native prisoners of war

Aaron Huey, photographer, spent some time with the Lakota people. Here he presents a chronological history of lies, broken promises, and war-ish aggression against the tribes cut against contemporary photos of the people and their communities.

In fact - and I had never considered this before - he refers to the reservations as "Prisoner of War Camps." Definitely worth a view. I'll have to watch again.



Beginning of transcript, courtesy of TEDX:

I'm here today to show my photographs of the Lakota. Many of you may have heard of the Lakota, or at least the larger group of tribes called the Sioux. The Lakota are one of many tribes that were moved off their land to prisoner of war camps now called reservations. The Pine Ridge Reservation, the subject of today's slide show, is located about 75 miles southeast of the Black Hills of South Dakota. It is sometimes referred to as Prisoner of War Camp Number 334, and it is where the Lakota now live. Now, if any of you have ever heard of AIM, the American Indian Movement, or of Russell Means, or Leonard Peltier, or of the stand-off at Oglala, then you know that Pine Ridge is ground zero for Native issues in the U.S.

So I've been asked to talk a little bit today about my relationship with the Lakota, and that's a very difficult one for me. Because, if you haven't noticed from my skin color, I'm white, and that is a huge barrier on a Native reservation. You'll see a lot of people in my photographs today, and I've become very close with them, and they've welcomed me like family. They've called me brother and uncle and invited me again and again over five years. But on Pine Ridge, I will always be what is called wasichu, and wasichu is a Lakota word that means non-Indian, but another version of this word means "the one who takes the best meat for himself." And that's what I want to focus on -- the one who takes the best part of the meat. It means greedy. So take a look around this auditorium today. We are at a private school in the American West, sitting in red velvet chairs with money in our pockets. And if we look at our lives, we have indeed taken the best part of the meat. So let's look today at a set of photographs of a people who lost so that we could gain, and know that when you see these people's faces that these are not just images of the Lakota, they stand for all indigenous people.

THoT 2: The Clarification

Note: This is both a clarification and an extension of yesterday's post, Thankless History of Thanksgiving.

I want it to be abundantly clear that my post yesterday was not a salvo in some War on Thanksgiving. I abundantly love this feast of abundance - as my girth can attest. I love spending time with family. I love turkey. I love tryptophan and naps. And sweet potato and pumpkin pies. And NFL games somewhere playing in the fray.

But history needs to be acknowledged in full. Too many of our friends and neighbors and cousins have suffered too long because we are too full of ourselves to acknowledge that we and our families have done and do bad things.

A friend found my last post to be too anti-Thanksgiving. Granted, the story within the story does seem awfully harsh. I do not, however, apologize for another writer's excesses (if that's how one wants to describe them as). If that's how Robert Jensen feels, that's how he feels. I have no qualms nor arguments therein. I also would not be angry with various indigenous tribes people who also felt a need to not acknowledge the Thanksgiving tradition in this country as some sort of benevolent or good remembrance. After all, do we recognize their fests, let alone their sufferings? Can one enjoy one without sharing the other?

I however, would like to talk about our history as a means of redeeming ourselves, rather than the lazy work of redemptive 'history' that's been making its way through the Great American Redemptive Mythos.

This, then, is my response to my friend:

If the blog comes across as anti-Thanksgiving, that is my error in message control. I'll have to check and edit then.

My intention, however, wasn't to butcher the day - one of my favorites - but to highlight a much-neglected context.

If I heard correctly, Winthrop hosted a second large Thanksgiving feast fifteen years after the initial one to thank God for their successful campaign against the lpcal tribes*. We need to tell our history straight. It needs to include both the inclusion and the exclusion, welcoming and murder, community and violence.

To do less is to do a disservice to our heritage and to neglect our current DNA as well as its majestic and horrible potential.

We can begin to remedy the situation by taking simple steps. Like spreading support for current laws to support current tribes, such as the H.R. 1385:

H.R.1385

Title: To extend Federal recognition to the Chickahominy Indian Tribe, the Chickahominy Indian Tribe-Eastern Division, the Upper Mattaponi Tribe, the Rappahannock Tribe, Inc., the Monacan Indian Nation, and the Nansemond Indian Tribe. This Act may be cited as the `Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2009'.

....

There is a provision in current law that allows unrecognized tribes to gain recognition through appeal to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Source

Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924 has hurt the Virginia tribes in their prior appeals to the BIA, according to the Washington Times. Tribe officials say the Act forced Indians to identify themselves as "colored" and led to the destruction and alteration of genealogical records. Source

Tribal proponents say the Virginia law amounted to a "paper genocide" and makes the bureau process difficult for the six groups, although there are some genealogical records that do exist and have been submitted to the bureau. Va. Gov. Tim Kaine called the vote "a major step towards reconciling an historic wrong for Virginia and the nation." Source

President Barack Obama has reversed from past presidents and pledged to support recognition of the Lumbee Tribe, which has sought federal oversight for more than a century. According to the AP, Obama has not said whether he will support recognition of the Virginia tribes. Source

Please sign this petition.

*To be fair, preliminary research has not led me to believe that this story is true, either. Story revoked. Genocide, however, is true. And THAT story needs to be told.

Thankless History of Thanksgiving

Update: Clarification on any perceived anti-Thanksgiving bias and a chance for action here.

In looking to the United States' history as a nation of genocidal power over the original Nations (Native Americans, the Tribes, Indians, First Settlers), Robert Jensen asks how we can just so easily rub aside our murderous past? Especially as this murderous past is not *just* our past, but - I add - a part of our very current DNA.

How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures [Washington, Jefferson, T Roosevelt] had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis [in desiring all 'Redskins' to die]? Here's how "respectable" politicians, pundits and professors play the game: When invoking a grand and glorious aspect of our past, then history is all-important. We are told how crucial it is for people to know history, and there is much hand-wringing about the younger generations' lack of knowledge about, and respect for, that history.

In the United States, we hear constantly about the deep wisdom of the founding fathers, the adventurous spirit of the early explorers, the gritty determination of those who "settled" the country -- and about how crucial it is for children to learn these things.

But when one brings into historical discussions any facts and interpretations that contest the celebratory story and make people uncomfortable -- such as the genocide of indigenous people as the foundational act in the creation of the United States -- suddenly the value of history drops precipitously, and one is asked, "Why do you insist on dwelling on the past?"

This is the mark of a well-disciplined intellectual class -- one that can extol the importance of knowing history for contemporary citizenship and, at the same time, argue that we shouldn't spend too much time thinking about history.

Our past does not just lie in our past, but it is a part of our national character, and as long as we can spin it so that we are a benevolent and graceful people, then we can continue atrocious acts of imperialism and genocide throughout the world (what is The War on Terror if not a small-scale act of genocide being perpetuated against Muslims and Arabs?).

Jensen further:

This off-and-on engagement with history isn't of mere academic interest; as the dominant imperial power of the moment, U.S. elites have a clear stake in the contemporary propaganda value of that history. Obscuring bitter truths about historical crimes helps perpetuate the fantasy of American benevolence, which makes it easier to sell contemporary imperial adventures -- such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq -- as another benevolent action.

Very simply and close to home, how can we continue to live as if nothing horrible actually happened between the White structure of the US and the various indigenous tribes and nations? If we can come to grips with this, maybe then "illegal" immigration won't be such a bother*. To further this: how can we now go about and trivialize their histories by naming professional and collegiate sports teams after them? We profit from their misery and then offer that somehow we are "honoring them"? Imagine Henry Ford had killed my great-grandparents and all of their brothers, sisters, and cousins some eighty years ago because they were standing in the way of progress. And now his company wants to introduce the Dye brand of luxury cars?

If the Native tribes say that we are dishonoring them, than we should probably listen to them. If not, we are triply dishonoring them, first by the initial act of dishonor, then by not listening to them, and third by being racist enough to not consider their opinions about themselves as being even equal to our opinions of them.

But then again, isn't that what White Supremacy is? We know what's best? Our views of history are better than what actually happened? Is Rush Limbaugh now the Official Spokesperson for White History, then?

*As it is, many White opponents to immigration contend somehow that the European settlers had broken no laws in emigrating to what is now the US. I guess the universe doesn't have laws? Let alone, the Bible that they were supposed to follow? But this absurdity and logic FAIL demonstrates the reality that laws benefit those who write them. If only those Injuns had lernt to read and write some laws, then...