Imigration in America

[LavCat]

Until the year I was born the state of Arizona withheld the right to vote from Native Americans, contrary to federal law. You think things are different now?

It looks like things are changing. While turnout still seems a bit depressed compared with the ~42% nationwide turnout, this article also discusses some cultural barriers of engaging Native Americans in non-tribal politics. I confront these statistics all the time. To me, the crux of the racism is in measuring them by, and expecting Native Americans to embrace the culture of the white oppressor. The same struggle exists worldwide in how Europeans brought the modern world to indigenous peoples. Part of the discrimination (and an insidious one) is using our yardstick to measure their achievement in our culture.

So, the best we can do now is to offer them the opportunities they were denied in the past, and respect them for however they choose to live their lives. They can choose to live in the tribes, or in our world. A little disclaimer here; my wife attended a tribal grade school, and a majority black high school.

Denying suffrage did make the choice easier I suppose. My disclaimer is that my father's grandmother was Cherokee.

In the year that I was born, black students were denied access to the University of Georgia, blacks were arrested for sitting at "White only" lunch counters across the south, the Supreme Court outlawed segregated inter-state bus service in Boynton v. Virginia, etc, etc, etc.

Do you think things have changed?

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Of course things have changed. My state ratified the Fourteenth Amendment in 2003.

But then again our governor just declined to reappoint the only African American on the State Supreme Court. I gather that the Supreme Court has always been somewhat political, however from when the court was created in the State Constitution of 1947 till now, no governor, Republican or Democrat, has declined to reappoint a sitting justice.

Thinking again of Indians (Native Americans, if you will), in our ancient state constitution, if a dispute was between two Europeans, it was to be decided by a jury of twelve Europeans. If between two Indians, Indian law would apply. If between a European and an Indian, a jury of six Europeans and six Indians would decide.