Michigan Indian – Page 156

An Open Letter to Margaret Wente: Modern Racial Segregation Talk

October 27, 2008October 27, 2008Matthew L.M. Fletcher3 Comments

As Nick Reo mentioned, Margaret Wente’s column in the Toronto Globe and Mail last weekend cannot go unanswered by the North American Native community. In this column, Ms. Wente offers a theory/proposal that Canadian First Nations be segregated, usuing the American/Jim Crow-style “separate-but-equal” rhetoric.

I offer a few preliminary comments based on some truly amazing things she asserted. I leave the “Disrobing” book by Widdowson and Howard for a later date.

Let’s start with this quote:

Instead, our policies are based on the belief that aboriginal culture is equal but separate, and that the answer to aboriginal social problems is to revive and preserve indigenous culture on a “separate but equal” parallel track.

Ok, first, “separate-but-equal” was discredited in Brown v. Board of Education, decided by the United States Supreme Court 54 years ago. “Separate-but-equal” is code for racism, for Jim Crow, and for racial segregation. And a person with an American education like Ms. Wente knows that full well. This use of racist code words is intolerable.

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Saginaw Chippewa Tribe’s Stop the Violence Campaign

October 24, 2008October 25, 2008Kate Fort1 Comment

From The Morning Sun:

Purple Painted for a Cause
Friday, October 24, 2008 5:44 AM EDT
BY PATRICIA ECKER
Sun Staff Writer

In the same spirit that the color pink is used as to signify breast cancer awareness, the color purple has been the catalyst for education, discussion and unity on the Isabella Reservation.

“Paint the Rez purple” was simply an idea thrown out to the community by the members of the Domestic Violence Awareness program of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe’s Domestic as a way to show support for October’s Domestic Violence Awareness month.

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MichGO v. Kempthorne Cert Petition

October 24, 2008October 25, 2008Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here is is: michgo-cert-pet-10-23-08

The questions presented are two-fold. First, the petitioners raise the nondelegation doctrine argument that caused Judge Rogers Brown in the D.C. Circuit to dissent below. And second, the petitioners make the same argument about recently recognized tribes that the Supreme Court will decide in Carcieri v. Kempthorne.

See our earlier posts here and here and here and here and a link to an Indian Country Today article about MichGO.

The interesting question here will be whether the government will file a response at all, given that there’s no circuit split (by MichGO’s admission), that the SCT already denied cert on the first issue in the Carcieri litigation, and that the second issue will be decided by Carcieri.

“American Indian Education” Reading and Signing — Saturday 1-3 PM

October 24, 2008October 26, 2008Matthew L.M. Fletcher

On October 25, I will be reading from and discussing my book, “American Indian Education: Counternarratives in Racism, Struggle, and the Law,” at Everybody Reads bookstore, located at 2019 Michigan Avenue, Lansing, Michigan.

The website for the reading is here. And the link to the my book page is here.

EPA Cert Petition in EPA v. New Jersey

October 22, 2008October 22, 2008Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

This petition joins one already filed by the utilites (earlier cert petition and D.C. Circuit briefs and opinion here and here and here).

epa-cert-petition-in-epa-v-nj

Pokagon Band Amended Compact Materials

October 21, 2008Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Available here and here.

Here are the amendment “highlights“:

Fluent Anishinaabemowin Teacher for Sutton’s Bay Schools in Leelanau County

October 21, 2008October 22, 2008Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Wanted: Fluent Anishinaabemowin Teacher for Suttons Bay Public Schools and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. Teacher will be employed half time by Suttons Bay public Schools to instruct a Level 1 class at the high school level, a beginning class at the middle school level, as well as some foundation language experiences at the elementary level.

The ideal candidate will help develop the high school curriculum, which will grow in the following year into a two-year course sequence. The applicant must be a first speaker of the Odawa or Ojibwe dialects of Anishinaabemowin. The applicant must write in the double vowel system and speak the dialect of Manitoulin Island or the North Shore of Ontario. The applicant should have training in the Total Physical Response methodology of teaching the language, and should have a minimum of three years experience teaching Anishinaabemowin. The teacher must know the cultural aspects of the language and the worldview inherent in Anishinaabemowin.

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Pokagon Band Settles Revenue Sharing Dispute & Amends Gaming Compact

October 21, 2008Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Business Review Western Michigan:

Amendments to the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians’s gaming compact will give the state an immediate $15 million and give the tribe the right to open limited satellite casinos in Hartford and Dowagiac, Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s office announced today.

The amended compact resolves issues between the state of Michigan and the tribe that led to the Pokagon Band’s withholding revenue-sharing payments to the state for most of the 14 months its Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo Township has been open.

The band contended the state’s Club Keno game eliminated the tribe’s exclusive rights to operate electronic games of chance. The exclusivity provision was deleted from the amended compact. As a result of this change, the band immediately will make an initial annual payment of more than $15 million to the state.

Similar disputes between the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians were resolved earlier this year. Amendments to compacts do not require approval of the state legislature.

The amendments to the 1998 compact extend the life of the compact from 2018 to 2028, to ensure a full 20 years, as the original compact intended, according to the joint announcement. A series of lawsuits delayed the casino’s opening to August 2008.

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