Reflections
from the Ahnishinahbæótjibway (We, the People)
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There
has been an uproar in the news media about the due
process of law as it is being applied by the government of Singapore to
U.S.
citizen Michael Fay. On Tuesday, the
Bemidji Pioneer reprinted an editorial carried by the Associated Press,
which
concluded that punishment by caning “is not a matter out of which
international
incidents should be made,” although the editorial writer calls this
lawful
administration of justice is “a barbaric one.”
The
widespread media hype over the punishment of Michael Fay,
who has had a fair and legal trial under the laws of Singapore, is
ironic, but
probably not unexpected, since Mr. Fay is an upper-caste White, and
under U.S.
common law would be accorded special considerations, meaning no more
than a
slap on the wrist. The American
judicial system works very differently for the high-class Whites at the
top of
the immigrants’ hierarchy, than it does for those non-Whites who are
called
“low-class.”
The
laws on the U.S. books require that a person be read
their “rights,” and define a person as “innocent until proven guilty”
under due
process of law. Rodney King had not
been convicted of anything when the Los Angeles police administered
some
corporal punishment with a baton (in layman’s terms, a club). When they were pounding on Mr. King as he
lay on the ground, did the police tell him that he was under arrest? While they beat him up, did they read him
his rights? What’s the difference
between being clubbed in Los Angeles and being caned in Singapore—a
presumably
fair trial?
What
about all of the “Native Americans” who have had the
Minneapolis Police as their judge, jury, and executioner?
Just about every non-White male who has
lived in Minneapolis knows what the “elevator ride” means: after a
person is
arrested, and has their arms handcuffed behind their back, half a dozen
of the
Brave Men in Blue beat the defenseless “suspect” up, in the elevator in
the
Minneapolis Courthouse. This barbaric
behavior does not violate the European invaders’ U.S. Constitutional
clause
about “cruel and unusual punishment” because for many years, this kind
of
“elevator ride” was usual and commonplace, and I suppose in crooked
English,
something has to be both cruel and unusual in order to be
“unconstitutional.” The Minneapolis
elevator ride was sanctioned
and funded by the Minnesota State Legislature, rather than the Ku Klux
Klan—or
are these both part of the same thing?
The
media’s hue and cry about Michael Fay’s punishment in
Singapore has been drawing on the deep racism against Asians which has
been a
part of Euro-American culture for a long time.
The media has implied that punishment by caning is Chinese
barbarism. If caning is an indigenous
Asian legal punishment, then it belongs in Asia, just as the
English-law
practice of “capital punishment” belongs in England.
In the Euro-Americans’ smug self-satisfaction about the U.S.
legal system, they do not stop to think that their imported Roman and
English
law is not indigenous to this Continent, and does not belong here. The media has been insinuating that
Singapore’s legal system should be under the supervision of
“International
Law.” The Catch-22 is that what they are
calling International Law is an European concept, based on the European
perspective
of European languages, coming out of inherently violent Roman Law, and
has no
legitimate jurisdiction over the Aboriginal Indigenous peoples of the
world. The so-called “Indian Law” which
is periodically promoted in the media, is also Roman law, and is a
foreign
concept which does not belong on this Continent either.
IDENTITY
PROBLEMS:
Saturday
evening, I received a phone call from a female who
refused to identify herself. She
referred to my not voting in the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act
elections for
the puppet “Sovereign Tribal” governments which the U.S. Senate called
“Federal
instrumentalities for the implementation of U.S. policy.”
She was upset that I am not an Indian, and
claimed that I should not live on what she called “Indian land.” I told her that where I live is Ahnishinahbæótjibway land, and has belonged to
my patrilineal ancestors of
the Bear Dodem, long before either the Indians or the Euro-Americans
got
here. It is still Ahnishinahbæótjibway land, and this place
where I live still belongs to my
people of the Bear Dodem. This is not
“Indian land,” although I did not have a chance to tell the anonymous
caller
that the Indians ceded whatever claim they might have had under all of
the
“sacred Indian Treaties” that they liked to sign so much.
Indians are so uniquely Sovereign that they
are wards of the U.S. Government under “sacred Trusteeship,” as well as
being
subject to State jurisdiction under Public Law 280.
The
Nameless Woman told me I should be “Indian and Proud,”
but she couldn’t be very proud to be an “Indian,” because she hung up
on me
rather than explaining how to do this seemingly impossible
contradiction. The Indian identity was
invented by the
Europeans, and the oxymoron slogan, “Indian and Proud,” was probably
written by
some White bureaucrat slopping and pigging out at the public trough on
Aboriginal Indigenous peoples’ resources.
The Indian identity is indefensible, which is why Ms. Nameless
hung up. If I didn’t know what it really
meant, I’d
be the first to holler “Indian and Proud”—and if “Indians” were real,
I’d be
defending them. Since I’ve learned the
English language, and understand all of the ugly stereotypes and racist
labels
which are built into the White man’s projection, “Indian,” and all of
the other
destructive definitions which are a part of this European word
“Indian,” I
don’t know how anybody in their right mind could be proud of being an
“Indian.” As a matter of fact, I
consider the word “Indian” a racist insult, and don’t understand why
the Métis
and other people who say they are “demonstrating against racism” aren’t
up in
Washington, D.C. protesting categorization as “Indian,” rather than
worrying
about inconsequential problems like the mascots of the Atlanta Braves.
A
couple of weeks ago, I spent most of the day calling
Washington, D.C., trying to get some sensible answers about the
amendments to
the Indian Freedom of Religion Act. If
anybody knew anything, they weren’t telling.
All I got was invitations to the White House’s Media Circus
Event featuring
Duly Elected I.R.A. Indian leaders—if I want to look at Indo-European
Tribal
Chairmen, I don’t have to buy a ticket to Washington, D.C., to do it. According to media reports, one of the
Wanna-Be Indian I.R.A. Chairmen was in a hurry to catch his private jet. There are some other Indians who have been
forcibly relocated, and travel in the trunks of Minneapolis squad cars,
which
are also known as “trunkmobiles.” Ahnishinahbæótjibway society is egalitarian,
but the people who are
externally defined as “Indians,” have adopted the values of their White
fathers, and have an amusing class system as well as a transportation
problem.
I
suppose that the Real Indian Wanna-Be Leaders get paid good
money to be Indian, and it’s a lucrative job to promote “Indians,” and
draw
public attention away from the real problems.
I don’t need be defined by the immigrant Euro-Americans,
especially not
into a racist and destructive identity.
IDENTITY AGAIN:
Tuesday’s
Bemidji Pioneer had a front-page article about the
Open Doors project in the Kelliher public schools.
According to staff writer Monte Draper, the questions they asked
are “Who Am I” and “Where am I going?”
But, they didn’t want to think about the crucial question:
“Where did I
come from?” You have to know how you
got to where you are, as well as who you are, in order to make a
sensible
decision about where you’re going—unless somebody’s defining you and
regulating
your life as a slave.
The
Bureau of Indian Affairs holds massive amounts of
genealogical information—about the immigrant, pioneer, roots of the
Whites and
the Indians, as well as information about the Aboriginal Indigenous
people. The B.I.A. is hiding this
information, which has been compiled using public funds from mostly
public
sources, and is redefining this public information as “private and
confidential.” This information is
public information which needs to be released to the community. Call Senator Wellstone at: 1-800-642-6041;
Attorney General Janet Reno at: 1-202-633-2001, or Secretary of the
Interior
Bruce Babbitt at 1-202-343-7351.
(Senator Wellstone’s number is toll-free.) The
Bureau of Indian Affairs depends on keeping their dirty
secrets hidden under mis-information and bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo,
having
records destroyed by Congressional order or negligence; or simply
hiding them
as “confidential.” If you are going to
have honest government, that government should have nothing to hide.
My
telephone number is (218) 679-2382 and my mailing address
is P.O. Box 484, Bemidji, MN 56601.
Wub-e-ke-niew
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