Wednesday, December 14, 2011

VDH: Where is Eric Holder When You Need Him? National Review On Chukchansi Disenrollments

UPDATE: We left messages for Keven Bearquiver to see if his quote was accurate. We are still waiting for contact, but I've had communication with people that have dealt with Bearquiver in the past as they said it doesn't sound like something he would say. I'm betting the BIA isn't too happy about the notoriety. Suffice it to say, in the past, many tribes would shun or cast off members if they were a danger to the tribe. But to have a council terminate families en masse is a symptom of AFFLUENZA that has affected Casino Tribes.

One of the good things about having the New York Times write about your issues is that important people look in. Victor Davis Hanson, of the National Review asks Where is Eric Holder? Well, we know he's been busy with Darrell Issa on Fast and Furious, but disenrollments and civil rights violations are coming fast and furious too.

Here's his article

It has been 30 years or so since cultural relativism took hold in the universities and popular culture, arguing that there are not universal liberal values spread by Western civilization, but instead only those “constructs” used by a privileged (white, male, heterosexual, Western) elite to deprecate the “other” and solidify its own power.

But every once in a while, we get an honest expression of the bankrupt and illiberal multiculturalism that openly follows this ultimate logic of prejudice and bias.

Here in central California, the local Indian gaming concern (the rich Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians, which operates 2,000 slot machines) is in the process of purging a sizable number from its Native American rolls, on grounds of insufficiently pure racial heritage. This will mean more dividends for the remaining racially “authentic” tribesmen. Or, as Pike Bishop says in The Wild Bunch, “Ten thousand cuts an awful lot of family ties.”

All this racial factionalism has won the attention of the New York Times, which nonetheless misses the irony of establishing one’s cultural fides as an Indian only on the basis of blood lines through ethnic inquisitions (one of the expelled was a fluent native speaker, another an expert traditional basket-weaver).

But the Times does report verbatim some choice quotes. Here is the complaint from one dejected and dis-enrolled tribeswoman whose ethnic pedigree was rejected by the tribe’s racial heraldry board on the basis of “incorrect information submitted by whites.” She laments, “It’s like I’m now a white girl with Okie kids.” (Is the culturally sensitive Times indifferent to the slur “Okie” and its historical baggage of prejudice?)

But even that racialist lament is topped by the retort of none other than a federal official from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, one Kevin Bearquiver, the bureau’s deputy director for the Pacific region. He lectures us, the unenlightened, in support of these race-based, intolerant expulsions:

“The tribe has historically had the ability to remove people. Tolerance is a European thing brought to the country. We never tolerated things. We turned our back on people.”

Indeed. I guess someone should immediately call Eric Holder’s Civil Rights Division.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Already done,make sure they respond by mail in 14 days. (Now your going down the right path).

Anonymous said...

watch out for fake emails on new york times articles.

OPechanga said...

I have contacted Kevin Bearquiver for comment on his quote. No response yet

Anonymous said...

So Mr Bearquiver is saying "turning your back on your brothers and sisters IS the Indian way?" OK just wanted to clarify. Nice job representing Indian Country Mr Bearquiver.

Anonymous said...

post info to reach Eric Holder’s Civil Rights Division

Anonymous said...

To: "inspector.general@usdoj.gov"
e-mail

'aamokat said...

“The tribe has historically had the ability to remove people. Tolerance is a European thing brought to the country. We never tolerated things. We turned our back on people"

But did they turn on their back on their own people for just being born?

In our case, the Hunters of Pechanga, elders almost 100 years ago verified during our probate hearings for our allotment, which we still own, that our ancestor, Paulina Hunter, was a tribal members.

So people alive now ignored every piece of evidence that supported us and kicked her out retroactively even though she is no longer alive to defend herself so now all of her descendants are kicked out of our tribe.