Native Health And Sovereignty Symposium
On November 8, 1997, CWPE and the Midwest Treaty Network co-sponsored a "Native Health and Sovereignty Symposium" in Milwaukee to explore the "dangerous intersections" of population control, environmental racism, the prison system, and the anti-immigration backlash as they pertain to Native communities.
The following is a brief synopsis of some of the talks given at the conference. Please contact CWPE if you would like the full conference report.
Religious Freedom
Sammy Toineeta talked about how she became aware of religious freedom issues at a very early age. She was raised in a traditional manner by her grandmother on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. She could not practice her traditional ways in town, because when she was growing up, many members of her tribe were still spending time in jail for getting caught doing the Sun Dance. Today many Native peoples live on reservations, a word which often has negative connotations today. However, this was land that was reserved for use by Native people, and many sacred sites are located on these lands. The Lakota had reserved the Black Hills through treaties. But what they found, Toineeta stated, was that it did not matter that these sacred sites were protected by treaties when the US government and business interests discovered gold on that land. So the US government passed the Homestead Act which allowed settlers to homestead and mine for gold on the Black Hills.
Toineeta relayed a discussion she once had with a man who argued that if Native peoples are so unhappy with the US government, they should all go back to their reservations, set up international borders, and issue their own passports [note: some Native nations do issue their own passports]. Toineeta rejoined: I'll be happy to do that on one condition; the US government should return our land. Then the man complained, "You can't expect the US to give back all its land to Native peoples," and she replied, I don't want all the land, I just want the land we negotiated through treaties, and then I'll be happy to go back to the reservation and I'll set up the borders myself. His answer: "You can't expect the US to honor every treaty it has signed!" Unfortunately, this is the mentality out there; and these are the people who vote.
Toineeta sat on a committee that helped draft the Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. Unfortunately, it gives Native people no cause of action of right to sue under that Act. Recent Supreme Court decisions have ruled that the First Amendment does not protect Native people's right to practice their religious traditions. Recently, there have been efforts to strengthen the Indian Religious Freedom Act. Some protections, such as ceremonial use of peyote, have passed. But the one area that is the major stumbling block is the area of sacred sites. The reason is that corporate and government interests are threatened by the fact that sacred sites are located on lands that are rich in energy resources. It is not in their financial best interest to pass sacred sites protection. The issue of sacred sites was tabled, and then welfare reform came on the table. Now, nations are forced to contend primarily with legislation that threatens the day-to-day existence of their members and are not in a position to advocate for sacred sites protection. However, says Toineeta, this issue is still of key importance because our ability to practice our traditions are under constant attack. Sacred sites are also important in terms of protecting bio-diversity. When a forest is cut down, you can lose 250,000 plants. Her office is publishing a booklet on sacred sites that will be available soon. For more information on it, contact Sammy Toineeta at the National Council of Churches-Racial Justice Working Group, 475 Riverside Drive, Rm 832, New York, NY 10012.
Education
Donna Beckstrom addressed issues of education and language preservation. She noted that, prior to colonization, not only were Native people healthy, they were very educated. The education may have been informal, but young people were constantly educated, even before birth. As soon as children were born, they were taught certain things because it is believed that before the soft spot closes, the spirits can go in and out of children and it is important to be very careful with them. Children were also taught in ways that were sensitive to their individuality. Our philosophy was that the learner decided when she or he needs to learn. We are brought up with the idea that you do not know everything; that you do need to go to the elders for learning-but at your rate and your speed. Our curriculum is our teaching stories. Everyone gets something different out of these stories, and that is how it should be. In the US, schools generally teach that everyone should learn the same thing at the same rate at the same time. We didn't follow that philosophy; each person was taught in a way that made sense depending on their unique abilities at their own speed. That's the model Beckstrom proposed for Spotted Eagle High School in Milwaukee-no grades, individuals should only compete with themselves. We believe you never stop learning, stated Beckstrom. Now, people say, "I've got my degree; I'm done with education." But Beckstrom was told, if she lived to be 500 years old and was given teachings all day long everyday, that she would never learn it all. One of the things that guides her life is that the elders told her that if she ever wanted to learn, a teacher would be there for her. She just had to have her eyes open. There's a lot going on with Indian curriculum, said Beckstrom, you just need to know what's going on.
Indian Child Welfare
The Indian Child Welfare Act was enacted to address the enormous number of Indian children that were being adopted into non-Indian homes. In fact, one quarter of all Indian children in Minnesota are being raised by non-Indians. Loa Porter discussed the Indian Child Welfare Act, particularly as it applies to foster care. The Indian Child Welfare Act is not uniformly enforced. For instance, if case workers do not know a child is Indian, which is often, then they do not contact that child's tribe. Case workers are often very ignorant about the Act, even if they do know a child is Indian. Once notified, the tribe has the authority to intervene in that case. Indian children stay in foster care 7-10 years as compared to non-Indians who stay for 2 years. Thus, foster care for Indian children becomes essentially an adoption into a non-Indian home. Tribes can place children according to their own guidelines. The Ho-Chunk have guidelines that are based on their clan system, and this takes precedence over any state guidelines. Unfortunately, however, not all tribes have such guidelines which reduces the ability of a tribe to have a say in that child's future. The Indian Child Welfare Act confers many possibilities to tribes for asserting their sovereignty in this area, Porter argued, but it is important for them to put policies in place. Now, the Indian Child Welfare Act is under attack, particularly by the Christian Right. They argue that ICWA makes it more difficult for a child to be adopted and will thus encourage abortion.
Treaty Rights
Justine Smith discussed the centrality of treaty rights in Native struggles. She noted that there is a difference between treaty rights, land rights and sovereignty. Land rights are broader than treaty rights because some land issues are not necessarily covered under particular treaty rights. Sovereignty, stated Smith, is the right for a nation to determine its future. Many people complain about some tribes, such as the Goshutes or the Mescalero Apache, who are negotiating for nuclear waste sites on their reservations. But, stated Smith, sovereignty means you have the right to make both bad and good decisions. Native nations are held to a different standard than are other nations. Other countries may have policies that are problematic, but people don't argue that they should be dismantled as a result. Native nations, by contrast, are seen as deserving of sovereignty only if non-Natives agree with all of their decisions. When you leave a community alone, argued Smith, eventually the right decisions do get made.
Also, when we talk about sovereignty, we have to ask, does the community really have the power and ability to choose its own destiny? Smith gave the example of the Mescalero Apache whose members voted on a proposal to store an MRS (a so-called temporary nuclear waste site) on their reservation. They voted it down. However, another vote was put forth, but this time the tribal government officials visited members who relied on tribal housing and said, please re-consider how you should vote if you want your home. Unsurprisingly, they voted for the MRS. However, this is not a case of sovereignty because the tribal members really did not have the choice to determine that policy.
Treaty rights have not necessarily been all that helpful to Native peoples since they are almost always disregarded when they conflict with corporate or business interests. However, the important thing about treaty rights is that they by definition involve international agreements between two equal nations. The fact that Native nations have treaties indicates that Native nations are sovereign.
Land rights are central to any Native struggle because land is about everything that is important to Native identity. Even Native languages are land-based, and when one takes away the land, it can be difficult to even communicate in the particular language that comes from that land. Also, Native peoples have very high rates of cancer, which can be largely attributed to the extent to which a nation no longer eats its traditional foods. The survival of Native peoples is inextricably linked to land.
Treaty rights have been under major attack in Wisconsin, particularly over issues of mining and spearfishing in northern Wisconsin. Gaming compacts are up for renewal, and Governor Thompson has stated that he won't renew these contracts unless tribes give up their treaty rights. One major reason is that the gaming revenues have enabled tribes to finance legal teams that are helping them to resist the governor's attempts to promote mining near reservation areas. Consequently, Thompson has been saying that he will not renew gaming contracts unless tribes give up their efforts to stop these mining efforts. Recently, however, due to a swelling of popular support, Thompson was forced to sign into law an anti-mining moratorium in Wisconsin.
NAFTA/Trade Issues
Gabrielle Tayac talked about the ramifications of the anti-immigration backlash for Native peoples. She notes that many peoples crossing these artificially created borders are indigenous peoples. But these borders serve to divide us and dilute our political power. She contended that when we look at the numbers of indigenous peoples in North America as a political force, we are in the minority. But when we look at indigenous peoples to the south of us and globally, we are not. In some countries in Latin America, indigenous people are in the majority. Many of us wonder, what does NAFTA have to do with us? Well, Wisconsin has been the subject of severe mining, and yet much of the profits go not to Wisconsin citizens but to Canada. That has to do with these trade agreements between companies that allow capital to flow across borders to increase the profits of multinational corporations. Argued Tayac, the fate of indigenous peoples is inextricably linked across borders, not just on the moral level, but on the material level. Sometimes, she stated, indigenous peoples in North America have prejudicial attitudes toward indigenous peoples from the South. She stressed the need for Native peoples to devise strategies across borders. She suggested the possibilities of opening trade agreements between indigenous nations.
Cultural/Spiritual Appropriation
Andrea Smith talked about spiritual/cultural appropriation of Native cultures/spiritualities by non-Natives. This appropriation takes place in a variety forms, including: plastic medicine wo/men selling pipe ceremonies and sweat lodges; sports teams using Indians as mascots; companies going to indigenous communities, soliciting knowledge about traditional herbs and plants and then patenting this knowledge; and now even corporations collecting DNA from indigenous peoples and patenting this genetic material.
When we look at issues of spiritual/cultural appropriation one response is, sure this appropriation is irritating, but is it really that big of a deal? Do Indian mascots really make that big of a difference? Is it really that important if a plastic medicine man sells a pipe ceremony? Smith argued that not only is this issue critical, but that it is in fact a life and death issue for Native communities.
The reason is that Native peoples are engaged in a struggle against government and corporate interests who want the resources and land on which Native peoples are based. About 60 percent of the energy resources this country wants is on Indian land. If you want to legitimate the takeover of a people's lands, you have to create the appearance that they are no longer a people, that they have no longer have a culture or traditions that would significantly tie them to the land they claim as their own. Consequently, spiritual/cultural appropriation is fundamentally tied to treaty rights and land rights struggles. In order to appropriate another people's culture, your underlying assumption must be that people no longer exists. How else could you justify taking if for yourself? Native peoples are thought not to really exist, not to be part of living spiritual and cultural traditions, and consequently, anyone could take part in these traditions as well as Native people could. Genocide is the driving force of spiritual/cultural appropriation. Some people think it's a form of flattery that non-Indians want to be Indian, but the real message is that Native people have no self-determination, that they have no right to self-representation, and that non-Natives are better at being Native than Natives are.
Issues of spiritual/cultural appropriation have reached a whole new level in the area of biopiracy. Corporations go into communities, attempt to acquire information about indigenous knowledge of traditional plants, and then patent this knowledge. Not only do they make a profit off of indigenous knowledge, but then the indigenous people no longer have access to their own plants. This is where international trade agreements become very important because corporations are trying to get the US model for intellectual property rights adopted into these agreements. According to this model, intellectual property rights only pertain to individuals or individual companies (which does not apply to indigenous peoples who are community based) and only pertains when one is making a profit from the knowledge (which again does not apply to traditional use of plants that is not profit-making). Thus, the company trying to patent indigenous knowledge for profit's sake is protected under this model, but the indigenous community that gave birth to this knowledge is not. Now, there is even the effort to patent the genetic material of Native peoples in the Human Genome Diversity Project. HGDP was formed in reaction to the much larger Human Genome project, which had confined its project to map the sequence of human genes primarily of whites in North America and Europe. The HGDP targets almost entirely indigenous communities. Those involved in HGDP claim to have the best of intentions: they want to study genetic predispositions to certain diseases, such as diabetes, and they want to disprove any eugenicist theories that claim a biological rationalization for racism. They assure indigenous peoples that nothing will take place without their consent.
However, given the nature of current intellectual property rights, there is nothing that requires this project to give informed consent. Once you consent to a blood test, even for medical reasons, whoever takes your blood has full power to do whatever they want with it.
In addition, some of the statements of HGDP reveal very problematic attitudes toward Native peoples. According to HGDP, "Indigenous peoples are disappearing across the globe-victims of war, famine, disease, or simply the 'urge to merge'. As they vanish, they are taking with them a wealth of information buried in their genes about human origins, evolution, and diversity. By studying these populations, we have a window into the past." Thus, the attitude is not, let's make sure indigenous peoples do not disappear; rather, it is, let's take what we can from them for our benefit before they disappear. Since indigenous peoples are the "window of the past", then they must not be evolved sufficiently and should probably disappear anyway.
Welfare Reform
Tina Koehn noted that now welfare is privatized in Wisconsin, tribes have the ability to bid for their own welfare program. Koehn belongs to a community-based organization that bid for W2 in Milwaukee, hoping to be able to put a community spin on the award that would be lacking from the private corporations that were bidding for it. They won the award. About five years ago, people who needed assistance could go to the welfare office, and, if eligible, get an AFSC payment every month. About two years ago, things changed. People now had to participate in work activities, which was called "pay for performance." Then recently, W2 came, and now everyone has to work to receive any payments. Wisconsin was the first state to end the entitlement of welfare on September 1, 1997. She noted that out of the 20,000 welfare cases in Milwaukee, only 300 are Native peoples. She attributed this to the fact that Native peoples look after each other and take care of each other.
Reproductive Health
Sharon Todd discussed the promotion of long-acting hormonal contraceptives, such as Depo Provera and Norplant, in Native communities. She showed a film, Under Her Skin, which interviewed Native women in Northern Wisconsin who had been given Norplant. They had all been told that Norplant had no side effects, and after these women started to experience major side effects, they had trouble getting the Norplant taken out. Some women were losing all their hair; other women had tumors. Many were bleeding for months. This severe bleeding is a particular problem for Native women because there are many ceremonies they cannot take part in while they are bleeding. Todd argued that pharmaceutical companies tend to minimize the side effects of these contraceptives. For instance, she argued, they will describe "pain" as an unimportant side effect, when in fact, pain can severely reduce your quality of life. The Native American Women's Health Education and Resource Center conducted a study recently and found that Indian Health Services were not following consistent informed consent procedures in the distribution of Norplant and Depo Provera. In fact, often women are not told that other forms of contraception are even available.
This mentality is part of a history of sterilization abuse faced by Native women. The General Accounting Office released a study in November, 1976, indicating that Native women were being sterilized without informed consent. Dr. Connie Uri (Cherokee/Choctaw) conducted further investigations leading her to estimate that 25% of all Native women of childbearing age had been sterilized without their informed consent, with sterilization rates as high as 80% on some reservations. While sterilization abuse has curbed somewhat with the institution of informed consent policies, it has reappeared in the form of promoting dangerous contraceptives such as Norplant and Depo-Provera. Depo-Provera was even widely used in IHS before it was approved by FDA for contraceptive use.