The Indians Have Saved the Day!

"But that doesn't mean just anyone can get an abortion. Long says providing and receiving abortions would be illegal if the person performing it and the woman were both non-Indian."

WTF kind of backassward racist crap is that?

we only use red face to deal with "bear with wide canyon"

My hat is off to the Pine Ridge people. It is amazing that we now have Indians upholding the US of A constitution while the current regime in Washington DC seems to have forgotten that we are a country governed by law.

Sounds like compassion to me, and respect for women’s intelligence

It isn't racist. It is staying within bounds of federal and state laws.



signed,

A Lakhota Woman

Wow, really? Me too Good to see another winyan in SL. Welcome cuwe!

On the issue of abortion in Pine Ridge: for the past several years some people have been growing hemp on private Indian allotteee land in Pine Ridge. Every year Federal Marshalls come in and cut down the hemp and confiscate it. The family continues to grow it each year, taking photos of federal marshalls cutting it down and removing it. Nothing is done.

I'm trying to imagine how they will attempt to stop abortions in Pine Ridge. Close the clinic? Circle it with National Guardsmen?(oh, wait! They're all in Iraq...) My vote is on jailing doctors and pregnant women until they give birth...

Probably... If you are in Pine Ridge, I'm sure you know about Wounded Knee:



That about says it all for how the Federal Government intends to honor the alleged sovereign state or any treaty they have ever made with any Native American tribe.

If the Roe v Wade is overturned in the Supreme Court then it will change things on the Res:



And I don't doubt that upon the reading of the ruling by the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade that those people will waste two seconds before they march onto the reservation in large numbers and set fire to that clinic, whether there are women in it or not. It's not life they care about, it's control.

//sarcasm//Frankly, I think my ancestors should have thought of doing this a long time ago, if we would have helped the migrating europeans control their birth rate, we would probably not have been herded onto reservations with bad land and poor water rights. //sarcasm//

This is a really good overview of Tribal Sovereignty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty

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Umm, yeah, I have ancestors who were killed in Wounded Knee and/or were near there on their way to Pine Ridge when it happened.

My post was just a little background about why Cecilia's abortion clinic probably won't happen successfully. Further, many traditional Lakota are against abortion because it goes against Lakol' wicohan (Lakota way of life), as does incest, rape, dishonoring women, etc. Hard to find balance when mainstream culture has a huge hold on Native culture, but many do still hold to the old ways.

I do think SD legislators and the governor are going to find it hard to hang onto the Indian vote in future elections, however with so many bad decisions made in this year's legislative session. There are a lot of comments I could make about tribal sovereignty, but it depresses me too

One can only hope - but then changing legislators has never helped us all that much (my ancestors are Blackfoot - my Father lived on the Reservation in Idaho, just below the Canadian border). Seems to be six to one, half a dozen to another when it comes to representation for Native Americans. I believe there are extreme cultural barriers to more of us running as political representatives ourselves, but I really would like to see more of it. I tried once, but it made me feel so bad I could not sleep at night. Seriously.

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So if state law doesn't apply to that land, and a non-native is on the land, then it's perfectly okay that that land's laws don't apply to them when they're on it?
It's understandable that the laws for Native lands are different as part of a reparation scheme, but both groups of people are U.S. citizens and for the law to ignore the borders for one race and not another seems pretty shady to me. Laws vary from county to county and state to state, but they cover all people equally in each place unless you are a criminal (or rich enough to get the best justice money can buy).

If all men are supposed to be created equal in the eyes of the law, then it shouldn't suddenly matter what race they are just because they're vacuuming out a fetus.

Tell me how it's not racist because I don't understand.

Signed,

1/16 Irish, 1/16 Scottish, 1/8 English, 1/4 Mexican, 1/4 Yaqui,
because a signature like this is not a replacement for making sense.

Actually, it's confusing to us too, but jurisdiction is a huge issue in Indian Country. For instance, a federal crime that is Indian against Indian on Indian land is investigated by the FBI and tribal police. A federal crime that is white against Indian (on Indian land) will be investigated by a state or county sherriff AND the FBI AND tribal police. A federal crime that is white on white (on Indian land) will be investigated by a state/county sherriff and sometimes FBI.

It is a huge mess trying to figure out who is responsible. Another example, for misdemeanors or traffic incidents, often a tribal officer is the only one who can stop and/or arrest the person if they are Indian on Indian land, but a tribal officer cannot stop a white person for the same if they are on Indian land.

Also, have to point out in South Dakota's case (and we are discussing SD I think?), tribes do not receive highway money for road maintenance or new highways unless they grant the state police jurisdiction on reservations. This is a problem for several reasons:
1) racial profiling (vehicles in SD have license plates that designate county by number, so if you're from Shannon County, where Pine Ridge is, often you will be stopped by state highway patrol simply for the reason they are suspicious of people from Shannon County)
2) the number of prisoners in SD prisons and convictions for federal crimes in SD is 50%(?? some high percentage??) higher for Native people than all other races. (again, racial profiling, but much of it is because SD law enforcement is much more suspicious of Indians than they are of white people, which has been proved by the SD Peace & Justice Center and two recently won cases by the ACLU.)
3) Tribes have to give up their sovereign right to police their own lands just so they can have federally-funded highway money for federal highways that run through Indian land.
4) It sucks to be Indian in South Dakota...

Pilamaya ye, cephanshi. These are only some of the very reasons I do not live in SD and have not for most of my life.

One thing I have learned in all my years is it is better not to try to discuss such things with the washichun that don't understand. If, after hundreds of years, they don't understand now, they never will. This is what the washichun have taught me and I have learned it well. Life is waste, lila waste.