Dave Gram of the Associated Press writes not just about the apology being considered by Vermont lawmakers, but about the state’s sorry history in targeting its Native residents, as well as some others, for sterilization:

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — If the state of Vermont had carried out a plan to sterilize his grandmother, Don Stevens said Tuesday, he “wouldn’t be here.”

Many Vermonters of mixed French Canadian and Native American heritage, like Stevens’ grandmother, as well as poor, rural whites, were placed on a state-sanctioned list of “mental defectives” and degenerates in the 1930s and placed in state institutions like the Home for the Feeble Minded in Brandon.

Some had surgery after Gov. Stanley Wilson in 1931 won enactment of a sterilization law. It was designed to reduce the number of people seen as placing demands on public services, and to purify what University of Vermont zoology professor Henry Perkins, a national leader of the so-called “eugenics” movement, called “the fine old stock of original settlers in Vermont.”

Now the Vermont Legislature, which once endorsed breeding people like cattle, is considering a resolution expressing regret. It vows never to repeat “this dark chapter in Vermont’s history” and expresses the Legislature’s “profound sorrow and sincere regret that such a program of sterilization was sanctioned.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Abenaki, buffalo post, eugenics, French-Canadian, Gov. Stanley Wilson, Henry Perkins, Home for the Feeble-Minded, Native American news, R-Northfield, racism, University of Vermont, Vermont Commission on Indian Affairs, Vermont Legislature, Vermont Rep. Anne Donahue

Talk about making a bad situation worse.

Michael Steele, the head of the Republican National Committee, is in hot water for a Fox News interview, in which he suggests that the GOP won’t win back the House this year. And he said something else in that interview, addressing host Sean Hannity’s question about whether the Republican Party needs to be more moderate in order to be successful.

In the YouTube clip above, Steele defends the party’s plaform, saying that it’s one of the best political platforms in a quarter-century – here, he raises his hand – “honest Injun on that.”

Wait, it gets worse. Here’s the Fox transcript of the talk:

HANNITY: But there’s — but there’s a battle, and you know this is going on, because you’re the chairman. I’m sure you deal with this a lot more than I do. There are those that are saying that, for the Republican Party to be successful, they’ve got to, quote, moderate — be more moderate.
STEELE: No, no!
HANNITY: You hear that.
STEELE: That’s what has gotten us into trouble, when we walked away from principle. Our platform is one of the best political documents that’s been written in the last 25 years, honest engine on that.

A big boo-hiss to Fox for insulting people’s intelligence.

Michigan Democratic Rep. Dale Kildee, who co-chairs the Congressional Native American Caucus, takes Steele to task for his remark and Fox for its clumsy cover-up, as the Hill, the newspaper that covers Congress, reports here.

Kildee is demanding an apology from Steele.

“His insensitive comment undermines and threatens to reverse the progress we have made to correct those wrongs. A cursory look through a dictionary or even some knowledge of Native American history would show Mr. Steele that the term is a racial slur for Native Americans,” Kildee says.

No word on whether one is planned.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Congressional Native American Caucus, D-Mich., Fox News, Michael Steele, Native American news, racism, Republican National Committee, Sean Hannity, U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee

Clover Anaquod was shopping for Halloween with her son this week when he gasped and pointed to a display.

Headdresses. Tomahawks. Peace pipes.

Anaquod, who is Assiniboine Sioux from the Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana, tells the Missoulian that she was taken aback.

“Native American regalia is not a costume,” said Anaquod. “I took it personal.”

As for 10-year-old Matthew, “he was shocked. It hurt his feelings to see these.

Confederated Salish and Kootenai elder Tony Incashola says Indian costumes on Halloween make people view Native Americans “more as a display than humans.”

On the plus side, said Incashola, it seems as though fewer people these days tend to sashay out on Halloween in feathers and paint.

“They feel it’s time to move on, that those days are gone,” he said. “Gradually, more and more people are starting to understand the feeling.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: Assiniboine Sioux, buffalo post, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Halloween costumes, Native American news, racism

Oh dear, oh dear. We’re going to expand upon this theme in a later post regarding Halloween, but as a member of the Fort Peck Reservation’s Assiniboine tribe told us yesterday, “Indians aren’t a costume.”

Now, could someone please tell Tyra Banks? She thought it was a good idea for the contestants on “America’s Next Top Model” to go all biracial even though they, you know, aren’t.

In this E! Online interview, Brittany – the model who posed in a faux war bonnet – shrugs off any notion that people might be offended. “I hope that the Native American culture doesn’t take it to be offensive.” She also calls it “one of the best shoots of the cycle.”

Apparently trying to get Brittany into the right cultural mindset, Banks told Brittany to think of an eagle during the shoot, according to The Celebrity Cafe. What, Indian people never think about, say, lattes?

Brittany didn’t make it to the show’s next level. Gotta watch that karma stuff. Ya know?

Gwen Florio

Tags: "America's Next Top Model", buffalo post, Native women, racism, Tyra Banks

Is it just us, or is “Get over it” one of the more offensive phrases in the English language? Nona Main says she hears it a lot.

Main is Gros Ventre, from the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northern Montana, and she says people often tell her that the racism she perceives is all in her head, according to this story in Indian Country Today.

“A lot of that goes with the fact that a lot of people think that we have a victim mentality,” Main says. “And they say, ‘Get over it. It happened a long time ago.’ It didn’t happen a long time ago, it’s still happening. I’m not trying to play the victim, I’m trying to educate you about what’s going on in my world so you guys can stop treating people this way. I don‘t treat you that way.”

Main was part of a panel discussion on racism in Montana. Titled “There’s an Elephant in Our Community,” the event was sponsored by Not In Our Town, an organization against racial discrimination, and the Unitarian Universalist Fellow-ship church at MSU-Billings as part of American Indian Heritage Day. Main is a student at MSUB.

She says comments on the local paper’s Web site are an example of where negative stereotypes of American Indians prevail whenever there is a story about them.

“If you go on there, and you read the things that people say on there, you feel like saying, ‘Why can’t these people come up to me and tell me that to my face rather than hide behind a computer with a name that nobody knows you by? Can you come up to me and tell me that to my face what you think of me? Can you do that?’ And I don’t think any of them can.”

On this particular point, we heartily concur with Main.

And speaking of Indians in Montana, members of that state’s congressional delegation say they’re moving quickly on a bill to grant federal recognition to that state’s landless Little Shell Band of Chippewa. The tribe, whose 4,300 members live near Great Falls, Mont., has been formally seeking recognition for three decades. Today, the Bureau of Indian Affairs turned them down.

“It kind of hurts, naturally, but it’s not the end of the line,” Little Shell elder Roger Salois, 72, tells the Associated Press, here. “…But we’re still together, and we’re still Little Shell.”

The Little Shell have proven their persistence. Now it’s time for the state’s elected lawmakers to do the same.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Federal recognition, Fort Belknap Reservation, Gros Ventre, Little Shell Chippewa, Montana State University Billings, Native American news, racism

Kudos to this school district in New York State, which is in the process of selecting a new mascot.and logo for teams now known as the Red Raiders. Yes, they’re doing it under duress, and it’s taken them a long time, but at least they’re doing it.

School Superintendent Bill Lynch tells the Valley (N.Y.) News here that the district and the high school moved away from the Indian iconography back in the early 2000s under what the story terms “strong pressure” from the State Education Department.

In 2001, the New York State Education commissioner urged school districts to re-evaluate Native American school nicknames and mascots but stopped short of implementing an immediate ban, the News’ Andrew Henderson writes.

As part of Fulton’s process, school administrators and community members visited a nearby reservation – an eye-opening experience, Lynch says.

“There truly was a view of them being offended by the use of Indian iconography and symbols outside of their culture,” he tells the News. “We stopped using the Indian head at that point, but we did not replace it with anything.”

(Interestingly, the story never uses the “Red Raiders” team name.)

Longtime school board member Robbin Griffin says she better understands the objections to the logo now.

“It’s about religion,” she says. “We don’t want to be offending people who have religious beliefs. I really didn’t understand it. I do now.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Native American news, racism, Team names

A group of at least 50 parents and Crow Tribe members is seeking the resignation of Hardin, Mont., School Superintendent Al Peterson, who recently called Big Horn County Sheriff Lawrence “Pete” Big Hair (See photo below, left) “the biggest drunk in the county.”

The comments came in the context of Peterson’s job as vice president of a Hardin economic development group and its failed attempts for a contract to fill an empty jail built by the group. Peterson’s comment was printed in a Billings Gazette story about the debacle.

Parents and others – including Crow Tribe lawmakers and a member of the tribe’s executive branch – went to a Hardin School Board meeting this week to protest, according to this Billings Gazette story.

The paper reports that Peterson declined to resign when the crowd asked him to do so, and that the board took no action on a request to remove Peterson, saying all options needed to be discussed.

Peterson’s words also prompted a letter to the editor of the Gazette, calling Peterson’s statement “based on racism with harmful political intent.” Read the letter here.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Apsaalooke, buffalo post, Crow Tribe, Hardin, Native American news, racism

Or, better yet, don’t.

But you can read all about it in the Washington, D.C., City Paper, which lists its picks for the worst sexy Halloween costumes here.

The paper has some fun with the concept, but writer Amanda Hess is clearly gets the insult, too. She writes:

“To the Halloween industry, Native Americans are super sexy! (As long as we’re talking about large-breasted, thin white women dressing up as Native Americans, and not real Native Americans).” Targets of genocide as sexy. Right.

We won’t offend you by posting the photo of the blond woman in the very low-cut fringed costume, patting her hand against her mouth, but the City Paper has an entire photo array.

We here at Buffalo Post don’t mind a little exuberant bad taste every once in awhile – especially not with the weekend on its way and Halloween fast approaching. It’s just that this one’s over the line.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Halloween costumes, Native American news, racism

It takes a lot to get us worked up on a Sunday. We’re more about a big pot of coffee, the Sunday paper, and a leisurely walk with the dog. Sure as heck didn’t need to read that a distressing story (here in the Rapid City, S.D., Journal, with accompanying photo) has come back to haunt us.

We last wrote about this wine holder back in July and, after a flurry of hurt feelings and even some productive discussions about race, assumed that was the end of it. Silly, silly optimistic blogger. Now the wine holder is on sale at a shop in Deadwood, near Rapid City, where it originally was sold (and where the store owner removed it after people objected.)

There’s a twist here – Dahna Allard, who owns Madame M’s Unique Boutique and Gifts in Deadwood – is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and says she doesn’t find the wine holder, which sells for $79.50 offensive.

She tells the Journal that complaints about the item being insensitive are themselves insensitive. “I think it’s insensitive to the Indian people to assume all Indians are alcoholics,” she says.

But while a similar cowboy wine holder holds an actual wine bottle in the store’s display, the Indian holder contains only pop bottles because of sensitivity toward the issue of Indians and alcoholism, she says.

We see her point, even if we’re disinclined to agree. But we’d sure like to hear from other people. Does it make a difference if an Indian person selling this particular souvenir? Should it?

Gwen Florio

Tags: "drinking Indian" souvenir, buffalo post, Native American news, Oglala Sioux, racism