I KNOW! Let's have a meeting at the most ABUSIVE TRIBE in CALIFORNIA!
Gavin Newsom probably had a good idea for his Truth and Healing Council, a part of the
Governor's Office of Tribal Affairs. The 16 member Native American
Truth and Healing Council was set up to give Californian's a view of the historical wounds CA's Native Americans have experienced over the centuries.
As we who have been dismembered from our tribes in THIS century, via tribal disenrollment, it appears only SOME historical wounds matter. And when they put one of the chief purveyors of stripping tribal citizenship for power, Mark Macarro, chairman of Pechanga on your committee, HOW SERIOUS can you be about truth or healing?
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Mark Macarro Pechanga |
Why does the historical trauma get more attention than the current 21st century trauma our elders and our youth experience now, when it matters to the LIVING? Are bones more important than people? Tribal disenrollment in Indian Country is a sort of paper genocide. It's nothing compared to the horrors in Africa, however, tribes have eliminated large percentages of their people.
California is COMPLICIT in the ongoing abuse of it's living Native Americans
The February meeting of the Truth and Healing Council is going to be held at the casino of the state's MOST EGREGIOUS disenrolling tribe, the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians, which has eliminated FIFTY PERCENT of their tribe THIS CENTURY.
As John McEnroe famously said, YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS! To reward an abusing tribe like Chukchansi is depraved indifference to the suffering of their people BY the leaders of the tribe.
Compare what's happened to native Americans by disenrolling tribes in California:
Stripped tribal members of their citizenship
Denied voting rights to members
Taken away rightful healthcare to seniors
Blocked access to land on the reservation
Denied members due process of law, including legal representation, even writing tools.
Prohibition of practicing religion, including the right to pray at their ancestor's graves.
Threatened others if they speak out violating free speech
Subjected some to ex post facto laws.
Banishment from reservation at a whim.
Failure to follow the tribal constitutions (Pechanga's Macarro did)
Disallow burials where their ancestors were buried. We are surprised we haven't had to dig up our ancestors and have them buried elsewhere.