It’s amazing that we haven’t learned much in over 600 years.
The battle ground may be different, but the rules and broken rules haven’t
changed an iota. Why, America, do you insist on continuing to persecute the
indigenous Americans? Wasn’t stealing their land, murdering their people, and
shipping them to reservations enough? Must you continue to persecute them by
not recognizing the local Indian tribes, like the Pamunkey, legally?
Sheesh, it makes me angry that some people will create
issues in order to keep the powers that from doing not only what is ethical but
also what is moral. But then, it is Washington, and if there is one thing they
have proven time and again they lack common sense. It harkens to those lines of
Emma Lazarous:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled
masses yearning to breathe free.
Give us your politicians, the wayward,
The muddled asses yearning to take bribes.
Well maybe those last two lines were ad libbed. Eh, and
author is an author after all.
Perhaps Joe Heim said it better in his article when he said:
The
Pamunkey Indians were supposed to learn this week whether they would become the
first Virginia tribe to receive federal recognition — a status they regard as
long overdue for a tribe that claims Pocahontas as an ancestor.
But that didn’t happen. Not
at all, instead Kevin Washburn, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary
for Indian affairs, says he will not make a final decision on the Pamunkey case
until the end of July, a delay that has given critics hope that they will
succeed in derailing the Pamunkey application.
Wait a minute, what are you talking about critics trying to
derail something that really shouldn’t be asked for. It doesn’t make sense.
True as it may seem, there are actually people trying to undermine the request,
which apparently would open the doors to allowing – gasp – casinos.
According to Heim’s
article, the anti-casino group Stand Up for California sent a letter to the
Bureau of Indian Affairs claiming several Pamunkey tribe members are descendants
of a pre-Civil War free African Americans, and are not Indians. Meanwhile, a
group of congresswomen argued in a different letter that the tribe has long
discriminated against African Americans and women.
So I guess doing the
right thing also has to come under the purview of the politically correct. Are
we truly worried about whether the Pamunkey may actually be able to make money?
Or is this just another way to persecute and mistreat the only true Americans.
