News – Page 183 – Turtle Talk

Still, even on the local level, changing a name is difficult. Part of the reason is the nature of cultural sensitivities. One person’s offensive name may be another’s point of pride, as communities are learning as they grapple with requests to change sites that use the term “Squaw.”

City Pulse News Article and Radio Show on a Possible Tribal Casino in Lansing

October 6, 2011Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here is the news coverage. An excerpt:

Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero said a casino in Lansing would have a “tremendous positive impact,” but some experts disagree.

On Friday, following reports that his administration is negotiating for a casino, Bernero issued a written statement saying his “administration strongly supports the concept of a casino in Lansing because it would have a tremendous positive impact on our local economy.”

But Matthew Fletcher, MSU professor of law and director of the indigenous law and policy center said building a casino in Lansing would siphon wealth from other communities rather than create new wealth.

“Michigan Indian gaming is what I would call zero-sum, it’s grown as much as it can,” Fletcher said. “If a casino generates let’s say $100 million, almost all of that is going to come from other communities.”

Fletcher said the Indian gaming industry leveled off about 10 years ago at the $10 billion mark. Even the three non-Indian casinos in Detroit started siphoning money from the Indian casinos. [MF edit: this supposed to be $1 billion, and limited to Michigan, but no biggie]

“There certainly will be positive economic impacts (for Lansing), there will be some growth,” Fletcher said. “The significance of it isn’t going to be a whole lot.”

And the radio show, on the MSU radio station (89 FM):

Ted O’Dell of the Lansing Jobs Coalition, tribal spokesman James Nye and MSU professor Matthew Fletcher discuss Indian casinos. Katherine Draper and Bruce Witwer of the Greater Lansing Housing Coalition speak about the Homeowner Education Resource Organization program. MSU theater senior Dennis Corsi previews his new theater company’s first production, “Bare,” which opens this weekend.

Minn. Public Radio on White Earth Band Poverty and Return to Traditions

October 6, 2011Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

Derrick Bell Dies at 80

October 6, 2011Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Sad, sad news….

From the NYTs:

Mr. Bell’s core beliefs included what he called “the interest convergence dilemma” — the idea that whites would not support efforts to improve the position of blacks unless it was in their interest. Asked how the status of blacks could be improved, Mr. Bell said he generally supported civil rights litigation, but cautioned that even favorable rulings were likely to yield disappointing results and that it was best to be prepared for that.

Much of Mr. Bell’s scholarship rejected dry legal analysis in favor of allegorical stories. In books and law review articles, he presented parables about race relations, then debated their meaning with a fictional alter ego, a black professor named Geneva Crenshaw, who forced him to confront the truth about the persistence of racism in America.

One his best-known parables is “The Space Traders,” which appeared in his 1992 book, “Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism.” In the story, as Mr. Bell later described it, creatures from another planet offer the United States “enough gold to retire the national debt, a magic chemical that will cleanse America’s polluted skies and waters, and a limitless source of safe energy to replace our dwindling reserves” in exchange for one thing: its black population, which would be sent to outer space. The white population accepts the offer by an overwhelming margin. (In 1994, “The Space Traders” was made into a TV movie titled “Cosmic Slop.”)

OAS Human Rights Commission Grants Hearing on Hul’qumi’num Land Claim

October 5, 2011Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Press Release here. And the text:

Amnesty International, National Assembly of First Nations File Briefs in Support

LADYSMITH, BC, Oct. 5, 2011 /CNW/ – In an unprecedented action, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS) will hear a human rights complaint brought by six British Columbia First Nations, charging Canada with the uncompensated taking of their ancestral territory for the benefit of private forestry and development corporations on Vancouver Island. The Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group (HTG), comprised of the Cowichan Tribes, Lake Cowichan First Nation, Halalt First Nation, Penelakut Tribe, Lyackson First Nation and the Stz’uminus First Nation, has accused Canada of violating the human rights of its 6,400 members by failing to recognize and protect their rights to property, culture and religion, as recognized under the OAS’ principal human rights instrument, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. Canada has been a member of the OAS since 1989.

According to Robert Morales, Chief Negotiator for the HTG, Canada, despite repeated protests, continues to permit widespread clear-cutting, deforestation and environmentally destructive development activities throughout their ancestral territory by three major forestry development companies, TimberWest Forest Corporation, Hancock Timber Resource Group and Island Timberlands. The three corporations are the major successors in interest to Canada’s 1884 grant of over 237,000 hectares of Hul’qumi’num lands containing valuable timber, coal and other resources to the E&N railroad corporation. Today, those companies control nearly 190,000 hectares, roughly 2/3 of the HTG members’ ancestral territory. The HTG has submitted extensive evidence to the human rights body documenting the companies’ clear-cutting operations, which it claims go unregulated by the government, while causing the relentless destruction of the traditional way of life, culture, and religious practices of the HTG communities.

HTG’s human rights complaint charges that under Canada’s Comprehensive Land Claims Policy, relied upon by the government since 1973 in negotiating treaties with First Nations, so-called “private lands” owned by the large timber, mineral and real estate development companies are “off the table.” The government refuses to negotiate over the return or replacement of these lands, and, under its land claims policy, will not discuss compensation at the treaty table. HTG also charges that Canada refuses to consult with HTG, as required under well-established principles of international human rights law, before allowing the forestry companies to permanently destroy their lands and resources, with no benefits provided to the HTG First Nations.

Prominent international human rights groups, including Amnesty International, and over a dozen Canadian First Nations governments and organizations, including the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), have filed briefs supporting HTG. First Nations leaders and human rights experts predict that a victory in the case for HTG could throw the government’s entire process for negotiating and implementing treaties involving land claims with First Nations across Canada into serious question.

Robert A. Williams, Jr., a law professor and Director of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program of the University of Arizona, is representing HTG as lead counsel in the case. He believes that a favorable decision for HTG in the case “will vindicate the position of First Nations leaders and communities throughout Canada that the Comprehensive Land Claims Policy needs to be scrapped in favor of a process that complies with international human rights standards for the recognition and protection of First Nations’ peoples in their ancestral lands.”

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