Taxation was a large part of the reason the colonialist sought and fought against the tyranny of England and won their independence. Now, natives are taxed not just federal, state, county, local, but tribal taxes, yes, there is such a thing. Do you really think natives are privileged? Surviving by treaty moneys is not privilege, it???s a legal binding compact, this why we have little or no lands left. Privilege is standing before a judge and given soft sentences compared to excessive sentencing given to Indians; privilege is walking into a store or restaurant without being ignored or treated with disgust because your skin is brown or black; privilege is given opportunity to colleges and institutions with the full blessings of those places; privilege is not receiving substandard healthcare and being told ???no???!
My point is this, where is it non-Indians are threatened by the prosperity and independence of Natives? More money is spent on prison inmates than Native Americans health care; native youth have the highest rate of suicide and addiction; and everyone still think we pay no taxes and get free government handouts. Many tribal members are not all covered and receive benefits from their respective tribes. Politics and nepotism are rampant and many tribes discriminate on their own people, but we still refuse to be victims. We participate in elections and become police officers, lawyers, and teachers while still maintaining songs and dances handed down centuries ago. Non-natives are stuck in this vacuum of compliance and rigid materialism by consumerism and capitalistic gain. Is there more to life than money and power? How about taking care of the earth? How about seeing that the earth is a living entity that is pissed right now and there has to be someone, namely the Indians that still see life in a planet that has been scraped, raped, bled, and burned. I have a lot of compassion and anger about the poor. Yes, I said poor. Not poor Indians, or poor blacks, just the poor. Economics is what gives us our common struggle. I know that non-Indians do not have an easy ride. They struggle like everyone else paying for college and working to make a better life for their children???s futures. Like non-Indians, natives also have a good ol??? boy system and are prone to corruption with anything involving money. I am not pro-gaming, but I am pro-community development. Unfortunately, we may need the first to attain the latter. I see tribes giving money to their state governments; send disaster relief moneys to communities, firefighting and assist in law enforcement and that, is where you make a community work and not fail. Across the board, there needs to be more alcohol and meth rehabilitation and fewer prisons built. Where are our priorities as Americans regardless of our race?
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Taking Back the Land
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In the frontier days, a dispute like this might well have been settled at the point of a gun. These days, it's heading for court. Vickers's group and the two counties in which the land is located—Madison and Oneida—are likely to file suit to seek to overturn the Interior Department's decision. Local municipalities contend the nation owes at least $22.5 million in back taxes on the land and also should be responsible for the approximately $340 million assessed on the 19-story casino and resort buildings. "The loss of the tax base, that's significant," said Oneida County Executive Anthony J. Picente Jr. But the Oneida Nation counters that federal courts have ruled that Indian gaming sites and land cannot be taxed.
The Oneidas aren't the only ones trying to make up for past inequities. For more than 100 years, tribes lost huge swaths of land via treaties, legislation and, most famously, by force. In 1881, Native American tribes owned about 138 million acres; today that figure is down to roughly 55 million acres, according to the Indian Land Tenure Foundation. "Some of our sacred areas we don't own anymore," said Nedra Darling, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has been generally supportive of tribes reclaiming their land and placing it into public trust. "It's like somebody owning your temple or your church. It's just not right."
Skirmishes are breaking out even over tiny parcels. Some residents in Santa Barbara County, Calif., are angered that the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, with one of the smallest reservations in the country, now at about 150 acres, aims to put 6.9 acres of tribally owned land into trust and then build a cultural museum, park and retail space. Opponents, who are suing the federal government to change the land-to-trust approval process, say they are only trying to protect their rural quality of life in objecting to any expansions in the tribe's business operations or trust lands. "Whether it's 6.9 or 69 or 699 [acres], the local community doesn't have a say," said Steve Pappas, a founder of Preservation of Los Olivos.
For the Shakopee Sioux Indians in Minnesota, resistance has come from officials who contend that the tribal land buys impede economic development. In addition to restoring the land, the tribe wants to place 760 acres in trust and use much of it for housing. "We're running out of land for our community members," said Glynn Crooks, the tribe's vice chairman. "We're buying land to fit the needs of our tribe." The tribe, which owns the profitable Mystic Lake Casino, also wants to put up a cultural center, fire station and powwow grounds.
The city of Shakopee opposes the trust application and has filed a federal appeal. Mayor John Schmitt says the city will lose tax revenue—and argues further that the land buy gums up long-held plans to develop nearby properties into a park, a housing development and a commuter park-and-ride facility. "It puts the Native Americans in control of one third of the community's developable land," Schmitt says. "They were able to disrupt the orderly development of the community."
But with all those casino dollars rolling in, Native Americas finally see an opportunity to take back what they contend was always rightfully theirs. "We see more economic ability now in Indian Country than ever before," said Cris Stainbrook, president of the Indian Land Tenure Foundation. "We'll be able to continue reacquiring land. That's our mission." But just as before, there will be a fight over that land.
With Konnie LeMay
© 2008
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