Saturday, January 19, 2008

Letter to NAACP to Withdraw Endorsement of Prop. 94

We are asking the supporters of NO on expanded gaming to send a letter or fax or email to the NAACP asking them to withdraw their support of Civil Rights violators, namely the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians. Vote NO on 94 and please contact the NAACP.

Address for NAACP National Headquarters is:

NAACP National Headquarters
4805 Mt. Hope Dr.
Baltimore, MD 21215

(410)602-9310 fax
(877)622-2798 toll free

People can also submit letter via email to the California State Conference of the NAACP by using the following link: http://californianaacp.org/contact/form/

In the Subject box for the email submission form type in: Withdraw Support of Prop 94


Sacto NAACP fax is: 916-498-1895


California State Conference of the NAACP
C/o Alice A. Huffman, President
1315 I Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: Withdraw NAACP’s Endorsement of Proposition 94

Dear President Huffman:

I submit this letter as a formal request to the California State Conference of the NAACP to revoke its support of Proposition 94 and return any donation and/or fees received from the Pechanga Band.

Over the last 4 years, Pechanga tribal officials have been responsible for the mass disenfranchisement of over 300 tribal citizens. The actions to remove these citizens from the tribal roles, and deny hundreds more their citizenship, have been characterized by lack of due process and equal protection of existing tribal and federal laws.

Specifically, laws enacted to protect Indian individuals from arbitrary and capricious acts of tribal officials, such as the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, were largely ignored. Targeted individuals were not only denied minimum due process standards, the most recent mass disenfranchisement was approved by Pechanga tribal officials after the tribe’s governing body had passed a law prohibiting such action.

This “cultural genocide” now finds hundreds of Pechanga tribal members and thousands more California Indians cut-off from much needed health care services, senior services, education assistance and child development programs.

Pechanga tribal officials have routinely stated that their actions were merely attempts to determine their membership and have escaped prosecution for their dastardly deeds by invoking the tribe’s sovereignty. Nevertheless, immunity from prosecution does not equate to innocence of action.

Moreover, failure to acknowledge and/or address such gross violations of basic human and civil rights, or to merely brush them aside as tribal matters, will only lead to more victims of rights abuse. Allowing such violations to continue reduces the effectiveness of current civil rights protections for all people.

The actions of Pechanga tribal officials are horrific indeed, and they are the very types of acts that have spurred the NAACP’s continuing and decade’s long fight for freedom so that all people will have “realized the equal hand of justice.”

Please reconsider your position on Proposition 94 and revoke your support of the Pechanga Band’s amended compact.

Respectfully submitted:

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