ICGPA

Comment from Christine Rose on the non profit ICGPA players union effort to close the BIA: “…It sounds to me like the same ole dominant culture wanting to change the rules to benefit themselves while telling the tribes they are looking out for their best interests. In essence, as so many white supremacists do, they are calling anyone who they believe has other rights then they do to be racist. In fact, these people aren’t happy until they have total control.”

Dear Christine and Rob,

Christine, you use the term “dominant culture” as if you are not a member of it. All United States citizens are members of the dominant culture. With the single exception of the residents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs reservation system. Unfortunately, those citizens find their culture is being administered to by government bureaucrats. The same government agency that has been plundering the Tribes, and their lands, incessantly for 186 years.

The BIA has stifled, and interfered with, the ability of tribal communities to evolve and develop alongside other communities within our political subdivisions. Without question, this has been done intentionally and by design. Change the rules? No Christine, you and Rob want to ignore the existing rules, along with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

You have some gall calling our non-profit union white supremacists, when you apparently want to give a free pass, to the oldest racist institution operating in the Universe; the U. S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs.

We are unable to follow your thinking. How does our desire to close a government sponsored racist organization, that is recognized throughout the civilized world as such, qualify us to be white supremacists? We have years in our struggle to rid society of the most reprehensible government institution since slavery. Yet, somehow you view our conduct as racist?

Do you have any knowledge at all of the origins and/or the reputation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs? Can you appreciate, that every single Indian icon noted and respected from Native American history, gave their lives in a futile attempt to free their tribal community, from the clutches of the Bureau of Indian Affairs! Yet, you maintain that the BIA has the respect and support of the Native American Indians?

A bold assumption indeed! Since it seems nobody has ever bothered to ask the residents their personal feelings about much of anything. We can find no formal studies, or professional inquiries, where anyone has sought the opinion on any subject from the tribes. Let alone their true feelings regarding the BIA or, how they might feel about being isolated and segregated from the rest of humanity.

Some folks are apparently unaware, or have forgotten, that the tribal communities were all forced into the wilderness, under the very real threat, of annihilation. The BIA reservation system was the only sanctuary for tribal communities. Not necessarily a happy place but, preferable to cultural and racial extermination. The BIA reservations were not the first choice of the Tribes; they were the only choice.

Not surprisingly, the reservation inhabitants have adapted over the years. Of course, that is what the Indian communities have always done. Since the end of the last Ice Age, indigenous people have adapted to their changing world. When the Indians are finally provided an opportunity to adapt their culture to the present, unfettered by the BIA, there is no doubt they will succeed in evolving comfortably, along with the rest of humanity.

The Cherokee were well on their way to adapting to life in colonial times, when the State of Georgia decided to steal their lands and, send them off along the Trail Of Tears. Of course, the seven year old Bureau of Indian Affairs was Johnny on the Spot, helping to herd them off into the Wilderness; where one in three died, mostly women and children.

Christine, how can kicking government bureaucrats out of their lives and communities, be construed as removing any benefit from the Tribes? Providing the tribal governments title to their lands, and responsibility for managing their own affairs, in what way resembles racist conduct?

Perhaps you are inclined to follow the same racist beliefs proffered by the BIA. Or, you concur with Felix on Indian Law; that the Tribal communities lack the ability and, are too unsophisticated to hold title to their own tribal lands. Is that what you and Rob are trying to say? Because that is the way it reads from your comments.

The last couple of years struggling to comprehend how we wound up in the Twenty First Century with an archaic, and outmoded institution like the BIA, has been a painful, gut-wrenching odyssey. I don’t know who, if anyone, that you could have been speaking with, in order to assume that the Indians all support the status quo. We found, those reservation residents that would agree to discuss such matters with a non Indian, were clearly not supporters of the BIA, or HUD. Nor were they fans of any of the many other government bureaucrats, that swarm all over their community, and infest their lives.

We are merely suggesting that we finally provide the Tribes all of their rights as citizens, which we should have done when they were granted citizenship in 1924. God knows, no race has paid more dearly for the right to hold title to their land than Native American Indians. In the United States, property rights equates to civil rights.

By the way; what is your suggestion for the 26,000 U.S. citizens living in Third World Poverty within the BIA’s many sovereign nations?

Ours is to Join the Tribe of Human Beings Unlimited: Help Close the BIA and provide the tribal communities full rights of citizenship; including the right to manage their own affairs and hold fee simple title to their property.

C/O ICGPA

P.O. Box 1754

Tombstone, AZ

Email: info@tribeofhumanbeings.org

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