Score 2 for the Indians

     This last month has seen 2 refreshing developments in the ongoing struggle of indigenous people to reclaim what once belonged to them, stolen by custom or treaty. In the first, a federal judge ruled that a portion of Oklahoma granted, by treaty, in the 19th C, to the Creek Nation, was still to be officially considered a reservation and under the tribe's, neither state of Oklahoma nor federal jurisdiction. It didn't mean that "Injuns are comin' - t' take away our land!" but it does mean that the tribe is allowed to adjudicate certain cases outside of any "constitutionally formulated" whiteman-style jurisprudence, set up since the great land grab of 1888. The judge ruled that since Congress had never said otherwise since the treaty was set in place, that the tribe still retains its sovereign dominion... over quite a large area of the state, including the city of Tulsa. This can possibly also mean that other tribes such as Cherokee who were removed by Pres. Jackson with the Creeks and Choctaws may themselves have righteous claims to the same opinions.
     In the other development, a ranch that had been out of Indian hands for over 250 years on the Little Sur River in California was purchased by the Essalen tribe, the original inhabitants, and will be a preserve for endangered species such as red legged frog and California condor. In this case, the land itself has been returned from the clutches of the 'wasichus" and every small step forward like this only serves to help to rectify the immense injustices done to the native people in my native state, and country.
     So score one for Sitting Bull  and the good guys. Wouldn't he look so much better than Andrew Jackson on the $20 dollar bill?

Long Hot Summer

     The latest national mood crash centering around race and police violence doesn't escape me, no matter how apathetic I choose to be toward most developments in my nation.
     The fact that cops are violent is no surprise. Neither is it a surprise that so many of them act like goons and bullies, since "that's their job." To be goons and bullies.
     To train for this , they often spend a term or two first in the military, and when they get out, no further ahead than they were before, they are given preference as veterans, in hiring- especially within police departments, where military hierarchy is a simulcrum of "service" life. These folks are trained to see things in confrontational shades, and so, we end up with a country that appears to have been overrun by an occupying army, where those paid to "protect" us bully, intimidate, harass, and kill us with impunity instead, since, of course, the man at the top "has their back." And we still want to think we are a "free country."
     We could go on about "the man at the top" but one thing strikes me as noteworthy at this point- he seems immune to the voices of actual protest against police violence whether directed at minority groups, or just the population in general. I notice he gives great credence to those who fought tfor the treasonous cause of slavery and secession as if they were "braver than you" and yet where's his own bravery to even match those? And why is a representative of the federal government so opposed to excising remnants and souvenirs of an abolished evil?
     Partly because he pays evil no mind, and swims with the likes of evil kings and dictators himself, and having long ago sold his soul (for whatever reason at the time- becoming most powerful man in the world seems to have been an afterthought) sees no moral turpitude in protecting his "friends" from moral and international justice.
     Well I sure would not want to drink a beer with either him, or most cops on the beat for that matter. The only way a President of the United States could ever be received in my home would be on the other end of a search warrant, thank you. And I never listen to his speeches- I only read abut them later, that's how little I think of the "msjesty" of his imperial position.

     Someday, and soon, America will get is head together about the Great Disease, and also, about Racial Equality These things take time and evolution, and often one step forward can mean two steps back will be required. However, since I happened to grow up in one of the world's great cultural melting pots, Honolulu, I could never understand why people on the mainland were so hung up about race, social status, class, and all those other things that go into making up "white privilege"- something I've never felt much of myself being both
a) a longhair and on the "wrong side" of the War on Drugs"
and
b) my partial native American ancestry, dating back to before the Trail of Tears, which gives me a sense and perception of being part of a community established much earlier than 1492.
     I can't yet, figure why people have to hang on to their stupid ideas that there are "races" when there is just ONE human species, our brains are grey, our blood is red, and when our hearts stop beating, we die.