Thursday, January 15, 2015

Disenrollment Bankruptcy and Tribal Per Capita Poverty. THEFT Under BIA's Watchful Eye and Greased Palms

As the theft of Tribal per capita payments, via disenrollment nears the $1 BILLION mark, the estimable  Gabe Galanda of Galanda Broadman law firm has post up as to how Tribal Per Capita is CREATING Poverty.

Yes, it's a form of elder abuse, to rob our elders of their rightful share of what the tribe offers to all members.   This includes health care, elder benefits, and the respect they deserve as lifelong members.

To have a Non Indian/Non Blood council keep or steal per capita, is the height of irony.


“In November, a [Las Vegas] Review-Journal reporter and photographer encountered one of the disenrolled, 52-year-old Darla Hatcher, sleeping with her meager belongings in front of an upholstery shop in the homeless corridor.

By way of introduction, she gestured toward nearby tribal land and said: “I am a disenrolled Paiute.’”




Thanks to some wonderful scholarship by Seattle lawyer Greg Guedel about the socioeconomic impacts of tribal per capita monies, The Economist has cast a bright light on the topic. Guedel’s research found that:
From 2000-2010, gaming Tribes in the Pacific Northwest that did not issue per capita payments to their members did better in reducing poverty rates than the gaming Tribes that issued per capita payments.
In other words, tribal per capita monies are not alleviating Indian poverty; they are exacerbating it.
Indeed, the apportionment of tribal communal assets and distribution of those assets to individual tribal members is, by the United States’ design, a mode of tribal termination and Indian assimilation. See Tribal Per Capitas and Self-Termination (“Tribal per capita payments are a creature of the United States and its Indian termination policies.”). This dynamic dates back to the mid-1800s, although we as American indigenous people act oblivious to that genocidal reality.To be sure, tribal per capita distributions are presently catalyzing the most severe form of Indian poverty: Disenrollment and exile from one’s tribal community–and at epidemic levels.


Disenrollment takes an obvious financial toll . . . But it also can psychologically devastate former members.
“’It leaves them in a tenuous place of being betwixt and between,’ he says. ’They know they still are what they are claimed not to be. I just feel for them.’”
Surely other Indians feel for their brothers and sisters who have been spiritually, financially and otherwise bankrupt through disenrollment. Right?

Read about the ACCOUNTING for Tribal Per Capita Theft

4 comments:

TOM BRICE, GOD BLESS AMERICA said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Remember how the Casinos were going to help all true natives, and tribes were excited and thought this was their dreams come true? Lots of tribal members approved of casinos because they wanted better for their people. Now it is a catastrophe, where non-Indians are stealing from the true people, and Leaders are handing it out right and left to anyone who supports them and empowers them, and Lawyers are laughing at the whole thing while they teach the leaders how to destroy their tribes, ignore their own constitutions, eliminate term limits, cheat in voting, and disenroll members whose descendants were full blooded members. They have ripped us of our heritage, our sense of belonging. They threaten us, they mock us, they taunt us, and they try to forget us. We will not be forgotten or ignored, we will see justice!

H. Caufield said...

It is truly disappointing what ha become of Indian Gaming. To the anonymous comment on January 16th at 4:28, you are correct in stating "non-indians are stealing from the true people." I know this first hand, and sadly those with the authority to stop it turn a blind eye or are deeply ensconced in theft as well. Pechanga Resort and Casino is a prime example of this.

White Buffalo said...

I really feel for this woman. I am sure my family would not let this happen to one of our elders. We would ask them to come and stay with us. This is the Indian way we look to our elders for guidance and wisdom. Shunning and disrespect of our elders is an attitude of the dominate culture. It is most difficult for Indians who are without a tribe to live in a manner and tradition that teaches the next generation what it means to live in a community. We have lost this even in our own families, for we are separate with our goals and actions. This is seen even in this fight against the corruption of the casino councils. Their advisers and lawyers know that to beat the enemy you must create division within.