Vine Deloria Jr.’s famous manifesto, “Custer Died for Your Sins,” was obviously intended as an intellectual kick in the pants for white America, but I’m here to tell you that some Indian people of my generation felt the boot as well. When that classic came out, I was a young man already involved in the mainstream civil rights movement for several years.
Why? Because it seemed to me that blacks, formerly “Negroes,” now African Americans, were manifestly correct in their demands. Having been raised in a small Oklahoma town where racism against blacks was a mere cut above racism against Indians, it was not hard to pick sides and the only way to avoid picking sides was to consciously decline to live in your times.
I was tired then and I’m tired now of hearing how the white colonists brought forth wealth from a “New World” by dint of their intelligence and toil. Wealth had two sources in the early colonial days: Land and labor. The wealth of this country was built on stolen Indian land and stolen black labor.
Deloria not only left the bogus historical narrative in tatters, he articulated the difference between black claims and Indian claims without derogating black claims. The black claim was for equality as promised in the 14th Amendment, a full-bore attack on “separate but equal.”
Indians, on the other hand, are all about “separate but equal.” What we want is to be left alone on what’s left of our property. Our claim is based on the treaties, since the Constitution has little to do with us. This is hard to explain to people of good will, let alone our enemies.
When we choose to assimilate we demand equality with white people, the same as blacks.
When we choose not to assimilate, we demand to be left alone. People who come on Indian land should be subject to Indian law as surely as a New Yorker is subject to California law in California. White people are entitled to fair treatment but they are not equal to Indians on Indian land. This is not racial discrimination. All tribes have marry-ins and all tribes have special friends who have joined their lives to the tribe in some manner, but it takes more than showing up.
This explanation reminds me of a time when I was walking through the Taos Pueblo with some other tourists we had met in an art gallery downtown. A tribal cop came along and asked us to leave before the sun went down as ceremonies were about to be held.
As we headed to the parking lot, one of our new acquaintances reminded me “You said you were Indian.”
“I am.”
“Then why are you leaving?
“Because I am not a citizen here and these are not my ceremonies.”
“Oh.”
This fellow was not stupid. He just never thought about it, and there is little in mainstream education that would cause him to think about it. This is why all Indians are indebted to those Indians who provide the missing education in a public matter.
This education took place recently when Dennis Banks and others crossed between the United States and Canada to exercise Indian rights under the Jay Treaty. I renewed my U.S. passport recently and I paid extra for a little card containing my basic information electronically, good for transit of the Mexican and Canadian borders (which before 9/11 required no passport). What is so terribly complicated about issuing such cards to Indians without a U.S. passport?
It’s hard to predict what the media will notice. Which brings me to the gang that recently took a big hit for the Indian team: The Iroquois Nationals.
As readers of this paper know, from July forward there has been major coverage of the Iroquois Nationals by wire services as well as all the major television networks. It’s a splendid irony that the media can’t pass up: The inventors of a game that existed before there were nation-states on the American continent unable to play in a championship without flying the false colors of Canada or the U.S.
Yes, I meant to say “false.” Yes, I’m aware that when the U.S. and Canada go to war, Indians always show up and fight. That’s called protecting your home. But when the Iroquois Nationals play lacrosse, they play to win – and the U.S. and Canadian teams do not get a free pass.
By refusing to travel on false documents, the Iroquois Nationals lost a chance to compete that had to be heartbreaking for them. You don’t just get on an airplane to play for a championship. You train for it and concentrate on it for months. This is why I say the Nationals took one for all Indians.
People who didn’t think of it before have had cause to reflect that the Haudenosaunee antedate the U.S. Articles of Confederation, let alone the Constitutions of the U.S. or Canada, both 18th century documents.
The First Nations are not terrorists and to paint this dispute as being about terrorism is dishonest posturing. Indian nations that are not located within one country have a need for internationally recognized travel documents. If the Haudenosaunee passports can be counterfeited, nobody has more interest in seeing that does not happen than the Haudenosaunee.
This passport brouhaha can be fixed without opening up any borders to terrorists carrying lacrosse sticks. Until it is fixed, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the Iroquois Nationals for giving Americans a good kick in the pants.
Steve Russell, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is a Texas trial court judge by assignment and associate professor emeritus of criminal justice at Indiana University-Bloomington. He is a columnist for Indian Country Today. He lives in Georgetown, Texas, and can be reached at swrussel@indiana.edu.