Many Americans tend to forget that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. first articulated passages from his famed “I Have a Dream” speech in Detroit a few months earlier than the one he performed at the March on Washington. Dr. King addressed a crowd of 125,000 demonstrators after leading a march down Woodward Avenue. Referencing the city’s residential segregation and employment discrimination, King declared, “I have a dream this afternoon that one day, right here in Detroit, Negroes will be able to buy a house or rent a house anywhere that their money will carry them, and they will be able to get a job.”[i] Despite delivering “a longer and richer version of the ‘Dream’ sequence,” according to the preeminent chronicler of Dr. King, Taylor Branch, Dr. King’s delivery of his “Dream” address in Washington, D.C. overshadowed his Detroit speech.[ii]

Many Americans and the media overlooked collective action in Detroit again this past weekend. This time, Detroit was not overshadowed by any stellar oration, but by the media fascination with Glenn Beck’s demonstration. Although most of the media outlets like CNN and the Huffington Post focused on Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” and Rev. Al Sharpton’s “Reclaiming the Dream” rallies, Rev. Jesse Jackson and his organization, Rainbow/PUSH, collaborated with the United Auto Workers (UAW), and its president, Bob King, to organize a march for jobs, justice, and peace this past weekend.

I marched and attended the rally and was intrigued by how the speakers focused less on Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” demonstration and concentrated more on the structural analysis of urban decline, the connections between U.S. foreign policy, and how these issues were linked to Detroit’s current economic predicament. While many speakers at the “Reclaiming the Dream” like Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial sent rhetorical barbs at Beck’s demonstration, those who spoke at the Detroit rally concentrated on a platform to “Rebuild America”:

Jobs:  economic reconstruction driven by targeted stimulus, reindustrialization and trade policy that will create jobs, support manufacturing in America, and put workers first.

Justice:  enforcement of the law regarding workers rights, civil rights, industrial regulation, and creation of strong urban policy, and fair and just education, economic, and health policy.

Peace:  ending the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saving lives and redirecting the war budget to rebuilding America.[iii]

These proposals sound more positive than just blaming big government, immigrants, and other people of color, right? Just like Dr. King throughout the 1960s, speakers argued that sound public policy could help alleviate short-term pain and construct more just ways of redeveloping our urban and rural areas.

And similar to Dr. King in the last two years of his life, speakers at the Detroit rally drew connections between the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan for prosecuting wars and rebuilding their societies without focusing on reconstructing American cities. They also identified the banks that control financial capital and the multinational corporations as responsible for choking America’s cities.

When Rev. Jackson and Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) declared Detroit the epicenter of industrial decline, they were not being hyperbolic. Detroit has gone from being known as the “arsenal of democracy” to the poster child for government disinvestment, deindustrialization, and capital/white flight. All of these factors contributed to the city’s inability to adjust to broader economic restructuring.[iv] Detroit has lost almost half of its population between 1950 and 2002.[v] According to sociologist William Julius Wilson, the city shed 51 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 1967 and 1987.[vi]

Further, as Wilson writes in More Than Race:  Being Black and Poor in the Inner City, “less than 20 percent of the jobs are now located within three miles of the city center.”[vii] This explains why one notices that the central business district resembles a virtual ghost town after business hours. Detroit has remained racially segregated. And the lack of revenue has led to crises in public education and transit.[viii]

Detroit has also closed almost half of its schools since 2005. It is safe to conclude that Detroit is spatially unjust for its residents and workers. Now, my recitation of these facts are not meant to contribute to negative perceptions that many Americans unfairly have of Detroiters, but to corroborate Rev. Jackson’s and Representative Waters’s claims that Detroit is a crucial site for redevelopment. Many Detroit activists have been hard at work addressing these issues on a local level. Jackson and his allies are just arguing that they need help rebuilding their city.

Of course, not all activists in Detroit agreed with the march. Longtime Detroit freedom fighter, Grace Lee Boggs, was the most notable dissident. In a challenging and rather inspiring article entitled, “If Not Now, When?,” she argues that we should think “outside the box” like Malcolm X and work in the spirit of Dr. King’s call for a revolution of values. She contends that activists should “stop dreaming and protesting” and work to build “sustainable local communities” and aspire to “live more simply.”[ix]

Boggs’s critique of the Detroit march and the strategy she advocates are important. It is true that mobilizing affairs such as marches have their limits and that self-help community building projects can empower workers and residents and address immediate concerns. But her approach should represent one arm of the struggle to achieve justice and rebuild our communities. I also fear Boggs’s strategy runs the risk of depoliticizing itself because of her antipathy for oppositional protest. Yes, we want self-sustained communities, but we want a better political/economic/social system—for everyone. Her article fails to address the question of how we change the system.  I agree that we need a revolution of values and conversation around that, but, ultimately, we need some measure of political power (something that some liberals and many leftists don’t want to admit).

We can expect some success with provoking Americans to rethink their values, but we cannot expect those who run the system to just change how they think or the way they live. We will have to consider political protests as a supplement to self-help forms of urban revitalization, especially if the visible hands of the “free market” seek to appropriate Boggs’s model should it become “too” successful. Boggs’s criticisms are valid despite my concerns, of course. Boggs and her allies see another path towards achieving justice. And their organizations like the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center and programs such as the annual Detroit Summer push the boundaries of what is possible in our dismal economic climate.[x] They demonstrate that if one can build independent and sustainable communities successfully in Detroit, then one can build them anywhere.

I do not intend to sensationalize the apparent divisions between groups of activists. I maintain that the implicit opposition between engaging in oppositional protests and making claims on the government, corporations, and banks, and organizing independent community-building projects is a false one. Those who prefer protest should do so, while those who favor community-building should focus on that. Dr. King had a way of reconciling two seemingly opposing approaches and outlooks during moments of internal conflict. We should seek to do the same. None of us should focus on our particular strategies so much that we miss the exciting opportunities for creating alliances and offering support to one another. This could be a fruitful combination. And I think we need to advance a multi-pronged approach to prevail politically and address immediate problems facing workers, inhabitants, and our children in impoverished areas.

Structural critiques of the U.S.’s economic crisis that Rev. Jackson, Rep. Maxine Waters, President Bob King, and their allies continue to offer, and community building projects spearheaded by activists and organizations like Grace Lee Boggs and the Boggs Center in Detroit, are precisely the ones that are needed to build effective policy proposals and help revitalize our cities. If we work hard to do both, it may become too difficult for Americans to dismiss or ignore Detroit and the struggle for jobs, justice, and peace. Another Detroit and another United States and another left may not just be possible, as the U.S. Social Forum proclaimed this summer at their forum in Detroit, but, in fact, we are coming. Let’s make sure we continue to keep each other honest and follow through.

###

Austin C. McCoy is an activist and Ph.D. student in the department of history at the University of Michigan. His research interests include 20^th Century American Politics, African-American politics and activism in Chicago, and metropolitan history.

Photo: The Detroit News

[ii] Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters:  America in the King Years, 1954-63 (New York:  Simon & Schuster, 1988), 843.

[iii] CNN, “Rally Aims to ‘Reclaim the Dream,’” http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/28/us.march.on.washington.anniversary/index.html?iref=NS1 (accessed August 29, 2010). For the “Rebuild America” platform see, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, “Why We March,” http://rainbowpush.org/pages/why_we_march (accessed August 29, 2010).

[iv] Detroit is also an example of a city unable to adjust to more post-fordist of economic production. This is where companies move towards a slimmer and more decentralized form of production. Post-fordism is also characterized by a shift from manufacturing- to service-based economies. New information technologies and quicker forms of transportation also undergird this economic structure. Chicago also suffered from deindustrialization, but Chicago, unlike Detroit, historically has had a diverse economy, which included (and still does) a robust financial sector.

[v] Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis:  Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, New Jersey:  Princeton University, 2005), xvi.

[vi] William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears:  The World of the New Urban Poor (New York:  Vintage Books, 1996), 29.

[vii] Wilson, More Than Just Race:  Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 41.

[viii] See the recent Detroit Free Press Editorial, “Statewide, transit needs a big push,” for a discussion of the state’s public transportation woes. See http://www.freep.com/article/20100829/OPINION01/8290435/1231/opinion05.

[ix] Grace Lee Boggs, “If Not Now, When?” http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/386635/e4737de20c/1615000809/99d762037a/ (accessed August 29, 2010).

[x] Detroit Summer is a multi-racial and inter-generational collective. The program preaches self and social change through collective action. They do so by organizing youth-led media arts projects and community-wide potlucks, speak outs, and parties. See their website for more details:   http://www.detroitsummer.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24&Itemid=4. The James and Grace Lee Boggs Center is a non-profit organization that seeks to nurture visionary leadership for community activists and organizers. See their website for more details: http://www.boggscenter.org/.

While the mainstream media is debating whether Iraq can be declared a victory or not there is virtually no discussion regarding this surge in contractors. Meanwhile, serious questions about the accountability of private military contractors remain.

In the past decade the United States has dramatically shifted the way in which it wages war — fewer soldiers and more contractors.

Last month, the Congressional Research Service reported that the Department of Defense (DoD) workforce has 19% more contractors (207,600) than uniformed personnel (175,000) in Iraq and Afghanistan, making the wars in these two countries the most outsourced and privatized in U.S. history.

According to a recent State Department briefing to Congress’s Commission on Wartime Contracting, from now on, instead of soldiers, private military contractors will be disposing of improvised explosive devices, recovering killed and wounded personnel, downed aircraft and damaged vehicles, policing Baghdad’s International Zone, providing convoy security, and clearing travel routes, among other security-related duties.

Worse, the oversight of contractors will rest with other contractors. As has been the case in Afghanistan, contractors will be sought to provide “operations-center monitoring of private security contractors (PSCs)” as well as “PSC inspection and accountability services.”

The Commission on Wartime Contracting, a body established by Congress to study the trends in war contracting, raised fundamental questions in a July 12, 2010 “special report” about the troop drawdown and the increased use of contractors:

“An additional concern is presented by the nature of the functions that contractors might be supplying in place of U.S. military personnel. What if an aircraft-recovery team or a supply convoy comes under fire? Who determines whether contract guards engage the assailants and whether a quick-reaction force is sent to assist them? What if the assailants are firing from an inhabited village or a hospital? Who weighs the risks of innocent casualties, directs the action, and applies the rules for the use of force?”

“Apart from raising questions about inherently governmental functions, such scenarios could require decisions related to the risk of innocent casualties, frayed relations with the Iraqi government and populace, and broad undermining of U.S. objectives.”

We’d like to pose an additional question to the ones listed above: when human rights abuses by private military contractors occur in the next phase of the occupation of Iraq, which certainly will happen, what is the plan for justice and accountability?

This massive buildup of contractors in Iraq takes place at a time when the question of contractor immunity – or impunity – is at a critical point.

In one example, since 2004 our organization, the Center for Constitutional Rights, has been demanding — in US courts and through advocacy — that private military contractors who commit grave human rights abuses be held accountable. Contractors have responded by claiming something known as the “government contractor defense,” arguing that because they were contracted by the US government to perform a duty they shouldn’t be able to be held liable for any alleged violations that occurred while purportedly performing those duties – even when the alleged violations are war crimes. Contractors also argue that the cases CCR has brought raise “political questions” that are inappropriate for the courts to consider. These technical legal arguments have been the focus of human rights lawsuits for years — and so far the question of the contractors’ actual actions have not been reviewed by the federal courts.

One case that should be watched closely this fall is Saleh v. Titan, a case brought by CCR and private attorneys against CACI and L-3 Services (formerly Titan), two private military contractors who military investigations implicated as having played a part in the torture at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers throughout Iraq.

Saleh v. Titan was filed six years ago on behalf of Iraqis who were tortured and otherwise seriously abused while detained and currently includes hundreds of plaintiffs, including many individuals who were detained at the notorious “hard site” at Abu Ghraib. The plaintiffs in Saleh v. Titan, many of whom still suffer from physical and psychological harm, are simply seeking their day in court, to tell an American jury what happened to them.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed the case last September and the Supreme Court will be deciding whether or not to take the case this fall. This and a handful of other cases will signal how civil lawsuits on behalf of those injured or killed by contractors will be handled in US courts -and decide whether victims of egregious human rights violations will obtain some form of redress and whether contractors who violate the law will be held accountable or be granted impunity.

And how will human rights abuse by contractors be handled by criminal prosecutors in the coming years? Given its track record, it is safe to say that Iraqi civilians cannot count on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute many contractor abuse cases. The DOJ was given an “F” by Human Rights First in their 2008 report Ending Private Contractor Impunity: Report Cards on the U.S. Government Response since Nisoor Square. The DOJ has never pursued criminal prosecutions for contractor involvement in the crimes of Abu Ghraib; something CCR still demands today.

Iraq’s Parliament signed the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in 2008 which gave it the power to prosecute some US contractors who commit crimes against Iraqi civilians. We can all hope Iraq’s justice system will be able to overcome the political challenges involved in prosecuting US companies or US contractors and other foreigners in Iraq’s courts. But even that will not stop the common practice of contractor companies simply pulling their employees out of the country when a crime happens.

With these fundamental questions left unanswered and legal loopholes left open, thousands more armed contractors will soon be filing into Iraq, onto the streets where Iraqis work, study and go about their everyday lives.

As Senator, Obama called for less dependence on private military contractors and for accountability when they committed human rights abuses. He told Defense News in 2008 that he was “troubled by the use of private contractors when it comes to potential armed engagements.” Senator Clinton co-sponsored legislation to phase out the use of security contractors in war zones.

As President, Obama pretends the occupation of Iraq is ending with the withdrawal of combat troops while he and Secretary of State Clinton quietly hire a shadow army to replace them.

For more information about Saleh v. Titan, please see: http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/saleh-v-titan

By Bill Quigley and Laura Raymond. Bill and Laura work at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Contact Bill at quigley77@gmail.com and Laura at lauraraymond21@gmail.com

There’s a school of thought that the best strategy for dealing with the problem of racism is to stop paying attention to race.  The argument is basically that by paying attention to race and racial dynamics, we perpetuate the construct of race itself, giving it legitimacy it does not deserve.

This argument is usually advanced by white neoconservatives, but this is not always the case, as evident in this interview with Morgan Freeman, who literally says that the answer to racism is that we have to “stop talking about it.”

Now, I’m a big Morgan Freeman fan, but on this particular issue, I couldn’t disagree with him more.  I think we need to keep talking about race. If anything, we’re not talking about it enough, at least not about the things that really matter, like say educational inequities, health disparities, and our racially biased criminal justice system.

I’m hardly alone in this point of view.  Here for example is an excerpt from the American Sociological Association’s official statement on this topic, titled The Importance of Collecting Data and Doing Social Scientific Research on Race

Some scientists and policymakers now contend that research using the concept of race perpetuates the negative consequences of thinking in racial terms. Others argue that measuring differential experiences, treatment, and outcomes across racial categories is necessary to track disparities and to inform policymaking to achieve greater social justice.

The American Sociological Association (ASA), an association of some 13,000 U.S. and international sociologists, finds greater merit in the latter point of view. Sociological scholarship on “race” provides scientific evidence in the current scientific and civic debate over the social consequences of the existing categorizations and perceptions of race; allows scholars to document how race shapes social ranking, access to resources, and life experiences; and advances understanding of this important dimension of social life, which in turn advances social justice. Refusing to acknowledge the fact of racial classification, feelings, and actions, and refusing to measure their consequences will not eliminate racial inequalities. At best, it will preserve the status quo.

The ASA statement pretty much sums it enough for me.  Since when has ignoring a social problem made it go away?  Is there even one historical example of social change that was achieved, not by activism and struggle but by pretending the problem wasn’t there?

To be sure, it is unlikely that we will ever associate Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin with racially progressive scholarship, but having these data available to social scientists would allow large-scale modeling of a variety of different online behaviors, including social networks.  As just one example, access to racial data would allow social scientists to better understand what contributes to racial segregation and, in turn, better understand the factors that might predispose racial inclusion.  With access to data, the possibilities for greater understanding and, ultimately, for social change, are limited only by our imagination. Without the data, we are left to wonder and, perhaps, to assume that virtual communities don’t have the same racial dynamics and prejudices as the real world.  They do, of course — online communities show the same patterns of racial segregation as are observed off line — a fact that we know only because we have some racial data from the social media sites.

There is, I admit, some trust involved in taking this perspective.  We have to trust the social media sites not to use the data for nefarious purposes. Given our nation’s history, I can certainly see why some may be reluctant to do so.  And yet, we do have laws protecting against discrimination and, laws aside, one can reasonably assume that the social media sites are profit-oriented and that they are more likely to increase profits by creating and maintaining a racially inclusive platform.

Ultimately, of course, though we can make reasonable guesses, we cannot be certain what the social media sites will do with the information.  Racial data are a tool. Like any tool or bit of information, there is always the possibility that it may be misused.

I get that. But even so, despite Morgan Freeman’s claim to the contrary, this is not actually a morally ambiguous question.  We live in a society in which race impacts people’s lives in ways both profound and mundane. To ignore this reality, to pretend that it didn’t exist or that its existence is not worth tracking and studying is to invalidate not just the experiences but the very lives of millions of Americans. Personally, I’d much rather see them as they are.

Authors note: This piece was originally written as part of an expert roundtable on this topic for the site Technicultr.  Additional expert perspectives on this question can be found here:

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For more racial analysis of news and popular culture, join the | Between The Lines | Facebook page and follow Mikhail on Twitter.

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It became immediately clear that they had been duped by the government into accepting a barren arctic desert as their new home. The effects of the relocation were devastating. Compounding the issue of sparse hunting opportunity was the federal government’s failure to provide the people with any form of housing, leaving the Inuit to try to survive in Igloos and tents. The struggle for food and shelter in the desolate north left many dead.

On August 18, 2010—five decades after relocation—Canada’s Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development John Duncan officially apologized on behalf of the federal government. “The government of Canada deeply regrets the mistakes and broken promises of this dark chapter of our history and apologizes for the High Arctic relocation having taken place,” said Duncan as he stood before a group of Inuit residents in Inukjuak, Quebec. “They were not provided with adequate shelter and supplies. They were not properly informed of how far away and how different from Inukjuak their new homes would be, and they were not aware that they would be separated into two communities once they arrived in the High Arctic … Moreover, the government failed to act on its promise to return anyone that did not wish to stay in the High Arctic to their old homes.”

The apology appears to be widely welcomed as a step towards healing by those in the community who were affected by the relocations. But as contrite as the Indian Affairs Minister was in his apology, other events currently unfolding make it painfully obvious that the federal government has simply not learned from their many, many mistakes.

Doing right, yet getting it wrong

On February 24, 2010 the mayor of Halifax, Nova Scotia apologized for the evictions and razing of the African-Canadian community of Africville during the 1960s. At that time, I laid the charge that an apology for the “what” and the “how” that happened in the past, but which does not address the “why,” is in itself a failure. This is especially true if the same underlying “why” still persists after the apology is made. While Duncan’s apology to the Inuit has been a very long time coming and is important to the people affected by the federal government’s interference and broken promises, it still amounts to a failure because the government is doing nothing to change the underlying behavior for which it has apologized.

While Duncan was delivering his apology to the Inuit of Inukjuak, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) was going forward with the draconian act of imposing a new Chief and Council on Barriere Lake, an Algonquin band located on unceded territory in Quebec about 300 kilometers (190 miles) north of Ottawa, Ontario. The community of Barriere Lake, who have a long established traditional system of self-governing called the Mitchikanibikok Anishinabe Onakinakewin, have widely denounced the decision by INAC. Casey Ratt, who is the Band Council Chief appointed by INAC, has refused the position.

The actions of INAC are not only undemocratic, they are also a violation of section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act which the Canadian government has affirmed protects “the inherent right of self-government as an existing Aboriginal right.” The reason that the INAC feels that they are entitled to impose their decision concerning such matters upon the Algonquins of Barriere Lake—and the reason the federal government gives INAC a pass at circumventing the Constitution—is found buried in the federal legislation concerning government policy with regards to First Nations. I am speaking specifically about section 74 of the Indian Act, which allows the Minister of Indian Affairs to impose its own electoral system and its results on a community “whenever he deems it advisable for the good government of a band.”

It is widely believed that the reasoning behind INAC invoking this obscure section of the Indian Act—a provision which has only been used three times in Canadian history, the last being in 1924 against the Haudenosaunee government—is, in the words of community spokesperson Marylynn Poucachiche, “to sever our connection to the land, which is maintained by our traditional political system. They don’t want to deal with a strong leadership and a community that demands the governments honour signed agreements regarding the exploitation of our lands and resources.” It’s an old tactic we’ve seen many times before: destabilize, install, control. In this particular case, the government’s end goal is to exploit the community’s land.

When it comes to fully understanding the many complicated issues facing the First Nations, it is almost impossible to do so without also discussing the aforementioned Indian Act and understanding its history. So let’s dive in together…

An Act Respecting… whom?

For those who are not familiar, the ironically titled An Act Respecting Indians (R.S., 1985, c. I-5)—commonly known by its legal short name as the Indian Act—is a federal statute that originated in 1876. It is the legal embodiment of the government’s long standing policy to coerce the First Nations people (whom the Act identifies as “Indian”), through paternalistic and oppressive policies and practices, to assimilate into the dominant white British-Canadian culture. Historically the Indian Act has been, in effect, a blueprint for apartheid and cultural genocide.

As the legal thumb used by the federal government to systematically oppress the First Nations people, the Indian Act, at different times through different amendments, has been used to shape and control every aspect of their lives by, for example: placing bans on traditional ceremonies and dances (1885); allowing the forced removal of Indians from reserves near towns with more than 8,000 residents (1905);  allowing municipalities and companies to expropriate portions of reserves, without surrender, to be used for public works such as roads and railways (1911); requiring western Indians to obtain official permission from the government before appearing in “aboriginal costume” in any “dance, show, exhibition, stampede or pageant” (1914);  preventing anyone, whether Indian or not, from soliciting funds for First Nations legal claims without a special license from the Superintendent-General, thereby preventing First Nations people from being able to pursue land claims (1927). In 1930 an amendment was added to make it an offense for pool hall owners to allow entrance to a First Nations person who “by inordinate frequenting of a pool room either on or off an Indian reserve misspends or wastes his time or means to the detriment of himself, his family or household”; the list goes on and on.

So now we know what the Tea Party stands for and who stands behind it.

Until this past weekend, the various factions of what’s collectively known as the Tea Party struggled to define who they are and what they represent. The amorphous movement backed by some of the wealthiest conservatives in the country couldn’t decide if it was a political organization, an ideological alternative to the Democratic or Republican parties, or an Internet-inspired and media-driven coalition of grassroots activists whose organizational base exists ephemerally in the nexus of the World Wide Web and right-wing blab shows.

The Tea Party’s split personality led its folk to wrestle with what a Tea Party platform should contain. Should it be exclusively about eliminating all taxes and rolling back progressive social programs? Or should it demonize President Barack Obama and glorify former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to boost web traffic and daily viewership? Or maybe it should focus on the relationship between the Tea Party and local, state, and federal governments? Could it be all of this? Or none?

Well, leave it to conservative Fox News entertainer Glenn Beck to declare definitively what the Tea Party stands for and who stands behind it–the All Mighty. Beck made clear at his rally this past weekend on the National Mall that the Tea Party is, in fact, a religious movement. “Something that is beyond man is happening,” Beck said, sounding like an evangelical preacher. “America today begins to turn back to God.”

Beck, who organized the rally and heavily promoted it on his television show, said divine inspiration directed his decision to have the gathering on the same day 47 years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Beck declared that politics had no place on the agenda and that his fuzzy version of Christian redemption was necessary to “restore” America to an idealized past. So, he said, it was God’s will that he stand in the same place as King to issue his regressive definition of what the Tea Party represents.

But other than time and place, the Beck-led antigovernment rally shared little with King’s Baptist-fired civil rights demonstration. Most significantly, King used his moment to call upon the federal government to produce voting, housing, and economic rights for black Americans. King’s speech was an affirming call for government action. Not so with Beck’s religion-flavored rant, which was at its heart a negative protest against the government and the people it aims to help.

Indeed, the day after his rally on the National Mall Beck declared that the Tea Party does not stand for social justice of any kind, telling Fox News that his new religious movement stands in contrast to liberation theology, which he says underpins President’s Obama’s faith. Predictably mischaracterizing the president’s faith and Christian-inspired social justice the president supports, Beck said “it’s a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it.”

If so, it’s also a perversion of exactly what King preached and Beck mimics. King envisioned the mountaintop where our nation moved forward, to grant justice and equality to all its citizens. King’s speech soared with its language that stands to this day in diametric opposition to the call by Beck for a return to an era when white males defined and imposed their self-idolizing view of American culture and society. Those days are long gone, thanks in part to the protests, marches, and martyrdom of social justice advocates like King.

Palin, who is something of the movement’s star attraction since her failed run as the GOP’s vice presidential nominee, confirmed Beck’s not so hidden agenda behind his religious revivalism. “We must not fundamentally transform America as some would want,” she said in what sounded like part-political swipe at President Obama and part-religious call to order. “We must restore America and restore her honor.”

It’s fairly obvious what Beck and Palin are attempting. In marketing terms, they are repackaging the old, stale product of white resentment that lurks at the heart of the Beck’s popularity and Tea Party outrage. Having exhausted racist tactics, Beck and his Tea Party faithful seek mainstream acceptability by cloaking their politics of resentment in a religious shawl. He links God and support for the military with his talk of “turning back” and “restoring honor.” This is old wine in new bottles, an appeal to the disaffected and frightened white Americans who see the nation changing right before their eyes.

Changing how? Our nation is becoming browner as racial minorities emerge as a greater percentage of the population. Demographers estimate that by the year 2050, the United States will no longer be a majority white nation. In contrast, those who attended last weekend’s Tea Party rally and demanded to “take back” their nation were overwhelmingly white.

Try as Beck might with his turn toward religious rhetoric and populist sleight of hand, his teary yelping is a tin-eared imitation of King’s prophetic voice. Indeed, the idea that Tea Party activists embraced Beck as the second coming of King—at a time when the nation is becoming increasingly multicultural—demonstrates why this religion gambit is doomed to fail.

Until Beck, Palin, and Tea Party believers link their national aspirations to an inclusive, affirming, and forward-looking view of the nation, the Tea Party will remain a murky mess, deeply mired in the right-wing’s crack-pot fringe.

Photo: SOURCE: AP/ Alex Brandon

Direct talks between Palestinians and Israelis are scheduled to commence in Washington on September 2, a decade after the last real final-status talks, and nearly two years after the last direct talks. Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu will come face to face for dinner and talks in Washington as guests of President Obama after 18 months of shuttle diplomacy and indirect “proximity talks” headed by Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell.

President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, along with Tony Blair, the special representative of the Middle East Quartet are also due to join the inaugural session in Washington.

While much hope has been placed on these talks culminating in an agreement within a year, most Palestinians and Israelis remain skeptical of their success. More importantly, hopes and expectations have been inflated in some media reports, adding confusion and creating myths about what might turn up only to be yet another photo op in DC.

Here are some of the myths:

Myth No. 1- They’re not talking

Although Abbas and Netanyahu have not sat face to face for the past eighteen months, contacts and cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government have not ceased on several fronts, most notably in commerce and security.

Salam Fayyad, Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, spoke at the Herzliya Conference in February alongside Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak at a time when his boss, President Mahmoud Abbas, was insisting on a total halt to settlement construction before peace talks could resume. Also, Shin Bet and Israel Defense Forces senior officials have made several visits to Ramallah for meetings with senior PA officials and members of the Palestinian security services. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Shin Bet security service head Yuval Diskin recently spent a day in the West Bank city of Jenin as a guest of the Palestinian Authority’s security service.

This is Diskin’s second visit of this kind to Palestinian Authority territory in recent months, the aim of which is to coordinate security ties between Israel and the PA. The first visit was to Ramallah.

Myth No. 2- Settlement Freeze

Settlement construction is “business as usual” in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Although a few projects were pushed back, construction on existing projects continues unabated. Close to half a million Israeli Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. More importantly, settlers have accelerated their activities taking over Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, in Arab neighborhoods in Sheikh Jarrah, Shu’fat, and Silwan. Furthermore, in 2010, more than 240 Palestinian homes have been destroyed in Area C of the West Bank, compared to 182 in all of 2009.

Myth No. 3- Security Fears

Israel’s concern over security in the West Bank is exaggerated. Today the Palestinian Authority is policing the West Bank on behalf of the IDF. Very few Israeli deaths, only two in 2010, have been registered due to attacks in the West Bank. In comparison, far more Palestinians have been killed and injured by settlers and the IDF in 2010. Rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip have also subsided. Israel’s main security concern these days is Iran.

“The threat that Iran poses is very grave for the state of Israel, for peace in the Middle East and the whole world,” Netanyahu said in November 2009, repeating variations on this statement on several occasions.

Myth No. 4- Abbas & Netanyahu can deliver peace

Neither Prime Minister Netanyahu nor President Abbas have the mandate to deliver a peace agreement. Netanyahu would face strident opposition from within his Likud party and fierce opposition from his own foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman who has the ability and influence to unravel his fragile coalition.

Abbas also faces a complex problem of legitimacy. His term as President has expired, and under his watch, Palestinian unity was fractured when Hamas managed to rout his forces in Gaza.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said recently that Abbas was too weak to stand up to Israel and negotiate a just deal at the talks in Washington.

“If the talks succeed they will succeed to Israeli standards and liquidate the Palestinian cause. They’ll give us parts of 1967 lands. They’ll draw the borders as they want and they’ll confiscate our sovereignty,” said Meshaal

Myth No. 5- No preconditions

Prime Minister Netanyahu insisted for many weeks that he was ready to come to the negotiating table in Washington, but without “preconditions.” In fact both he and President Mahmoud Abbas have already announced preconditions, raising expectations and laying the groundwork for failure.

Among the preconditions laid out by Netanyahu for peace with the Palestinians is recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinians consider this condition as a non-starter, instead they’d like to delve into sensitive areas such as the construction of Jewish settlements on occupied territory, the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state and the right of return, issues that will be difficult to overcome.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas has declared that he will withdraw from negotiations if settlement activity resumes. The settlement moratorium is due to expire on Sept. 26. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, seems unlikely to extend it.

It was a special day for Native Americans because a man named Roon Jeffries and his assistant, Dixie Holy Eagle, took the challenge of the Year of Unity Committee and named Saturday, August 28, as A Day of Unity at the Fair.

All day tourists and locals visited the booths set up at the Fair by Native entrepreneurs and then sat in the shade of the mighty maple trees to watch the magnificent fashion show of Native designs by Native clothing designers.

Phillip White Man and his horse Sioux Boy drew a good crowd although his exhibit was stashed way back of the horse trailer sales arena. “We’ll do better next year,” said one of the Fair Board members, and added, “And by God, we will have another Unity Day next year.”

I think it is almost unanimous that the success of the Day of Unity has opened the eyes of many South Dakotans, particularly Rapid Citians and to see this Year of Unity conclude at the end of 2010 would border on the preposterous. Every Native American I ran into at the Fair, from Collette Keith, who did a magnificent job as MC of the fashion show, to Randy Ross, Ardis McRae, John Blacksmith, Lonnie Jeffries, Rita White Butterfly, Andy Torres, and Bryan Brewer, all felt that something really good was in the air. They felt it and I felt it.

And the beat will go on. The Unity Committee will meet with the Black Hills Powwow Board on September 15 to work with them in order to dedicate the Powwow to the Year of Unity. We already met with Bryan Brewer and his Lakota Nation Invitational Tournament Board, and this year’s LNI, the biggest Indian basketball tournament in the Nation, will be dedicated to the Year of Unity.

At the VIP tent where food was served to ranchers and special guests I overheard a young non-Indian ranch hand say, “My darned horse bit me today.” My thoughts immediately went to Phillip White Man and the exhibition he had held that day with his horse Sioux Boy as he taught the audience the lessons handed down to him by his Northern Cheyenne ancestors. Using his hands only he talked about how young boys and girls have an unbridled energy that the horse can sense and they needed to know the points and the sides of the horse that react to that energy and if they did not know these keen points, the horse would oftentimes bite them. This young cowboy should have been at the lesson.

The culmination of the day came at the opening of that evening’s Range Days Rodeo. Riders from the Cheyenne River and Oglala Sioux Tribes rode into the arena with their tribal flags while Phillip White Man carried the POW flag. They turned their horses and stood facing the grand stand filled with thousands of people, white and red. Jenny Ghost Bear, Oglala Lakota, sang the Lakota Flag Song as the audience stood in respectful pose. The song was followed by the National Anthem of the United States as a young lady carrying the American Flag entered the arena. The rodeo announcer said, “At this rodeo it doesn’t matter what race, religion or color you are because we are all here in the spirit of unity.”

Gov. Mike Rounds issued an Executive Proclamation congratulating the Central State’s Fair Board for naming August 28 as a Day of Unity. I had the honor of standing front and center in the arena as the Proclamation was read and it was handed to me to present to our Committee.

South Dakota Public Radio, KEVN-TV and the Rapid City Journal have all stepped forward recognizing that something had to be done and they have been reporting on our efforts. It’s extremely important that the media get behind us.

So far this Year of Unity has been an all West River affair. The Unity Committee has been unable to draw any interest from the folks in East River although Native Americans living in Sioux Falls and other East River communities still experience the racial prejudice we are trying to alleviate in West River.

In West River, Natives and whites, are working together to address and end the shameful race problems in South Dakota. Talk is cheap and I urge those that were critical of our efforts from day one to step up to join and share our small successes, especially those folks in Sioux Falls that continue to bury their heads in the sand. This needs to be a state-wide effort.

Dr. Laura (Getty)

Over the past few days, I have been intrigued by the aftermath of Dr. Laura’s racist rant. What’s been most interesting to me is the way that Dr. Laura and her supporters have transformed her from culprit to victim, claiming that her first amendment rights have been taken away. Apart from demonstrating that she clearly doesn’t understand the first amendment, her claims of censorship were not only ironic but amusing considering that she made her announcement on national television while simultaneously plugging her soon to be released book—sales of which will probably skyrocket thanks to this latest controversy.

Oddly enough, this juxtaposition of victimhood and culpability reminded me of another story which had been in the news just a few days earlier—Omar Thornton’s tragic workplace shooting in Manchester. That story could have led to a useful national conversation about workplace discrimination, but that would have required recognizing that the shooting’s perpetrator, Thornton, may have also been a victim, and that some of the victims of the shooting, while not deserving their fate, may have contributed to what would eventually become a deadly situation. Instead, most media coverage of the story treated Thornton as your typical disgruntled employee with psychological problems. Then, 24-48 hours later, it was out of the news cycle completely as the country moved on to more pressing matters such as renegade flight attendants.

Nevertheless, there were brief moments when it looked like the racism issue might be addressed, but those moments usually ended with someone suggesting that if Thornton really was experiencing racism, it would have been addressed by the appropriate company and/or union representatives. To many observers, the thought that he may have actually raised the issue with someone who did not take his complaints seriously seemed out of the question. Perhaps we should consider for a moment what would have happened if Omar Thornton had shared his frustrations with Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

SCHLESSINGER: Hello, Caller. Welcome to the show.

THORNTON: Hi, Dr. Laura. I’m having an issue with some of my co-workers who make racist comments.

SCHLESSINGER: Well, can you give me an example of a racist comment? ‘Cause sometimes people are hypersensitive.

THORNTON: OK. The other day they called me the N-word. They said “we need to get rid of that N-word”.

SCHLESSINGER: So what? Black guys say “ni****” all the time. Turn on HBO, listen to a Black comic and all you hear is “ni****, ni****, ni****”.

THORNTON: But these co-workers aren’t comics. They drew pictures of a noose.  A noose!

SCHLESSINGER: I’m sure they were just trying to be funny. If you’re that hypersensitive about color and don’t have a sense of humor, you shouldn’t get a job at a predominantly white company.

THORNTON: You sound like them.

SCHLESSINGER: Don’t take things out of context. Don’t NAACP me.

THORNTON: Whatever. I’ll just have to figure it out on my own. [Click] [Dial tone]

In spite of all of the attention being paid to Dr. Laura’s use of the N-word, I actually believe that was the least problematic aspect of her rant. What’s more important than the one word that she repeated eleven times is the overall racial perspective that she demonstrates in sentence after sentence; paragraph after paragraph. In Dr. Laura’s world,

• If you complain about racism you are “hypersensitive” and you have a “chip on your shoulder”;
• Racism no longer exists because we have a Black president who was elected by Whites. In fact, Blacks are more racist than Whites, which is the only reason Blacks voted for Barack Obama;
• Ongoing discussion of racism is the result of Black activists seeking to “demonize” Whites.

The sad reality is that there are a lot of folks who agree with Dr. Laura’s racial perspective, and it’s a perspective that is embedded in systems and institutions all around this country. Many Black employees have lost discrimination cases over the past two decades because judges have essentially said that they were being hypersensitive. The election of President Obama has led several cities and states to try to eliminate affirmative action programs. And notions of Black racism and “reverse discrimination” have reached a point where it’s now easier for a White plaintiff to win a discrimination case than it is for a Black plaintiff. Just ask the city of New Haven, which lost a major Supreme Court case last year to White firefighters claiming discrimination.

In short, the beliefs and propaganda expressed in Dr. Laura’s ignorant rant make it increasingly difficult to deal with the realities of structural racism. Instead, we can all criticize her use of the N-word and then pat ourselves on the back as if we’ve dealt with the problem.

Having said that, I must say that Dr. Laura did make an important point with which I agree. At one point at the end of her tirade, after declaring that Black efforts to “demonize Whites” have grown, she concludes, “it’s all about power.” And although her remarks both during her rant and in the days following suggest that she’s in a dreadful state of denial about who actually has power in this society, her observation is relevant nonetheless.

Yes, Dr. Laura, it is all about power, and those who have power will always view those without power as being “hypersensitive”. More importantly, Frederick Douglass’ words from more than 150 years ago still ring true today: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

We who believe in justice must continue to demand a discussion on race that goes beyond the N-word and that fully explores the issue of structural racism. Otherwise, we will continue to see more Dr. Lauras…

…And perhaps more Omar Thorntons as well.

###

From the moment Dr. King stepped onto the national stage during the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, until he fell to an assassin’s bullet in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968, political conservatives despised him. In the South, they hated him for trying to end de jure discrimination, and outside of Dixie, they loathed him for trying to end de facto discrimination. As the leading voice of the civil rights movement, Dr. King represented everything that political conservatives opposed.

In the 1980s, political conservatives began to embrace Dr. King, turning to him for moral cover as they waged war against affirmative action and other race-based efforts designed to remedy past and present racial discrimination.

Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, which he delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington, was the key to their about-face. During Dr. King’s most famous speech, he articulated his dream of a colorblind society, one in which his children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Political conservatives latched on to Dr. King’s speech, trumpeting his words as evidence that he opposed race-based solutions to race-based problems when in fact he supported them vehemently. Indeed, they re-wrote history – their own history and that of the civil rights movement – as they endeavored to preserve the last vestiges of white privilege.

Today, political conservatives, led by media showmen such as Glenn Beck, are once again turning to Dr. King to deflect charges of racism as they advance their agenda by questioning, among other things, the legitimacy of the nation’s first black president. To mask their own racism, they have turned history on its head, bastardizing Dr. King’s dream.

Political conservatives are not the heirs to Dr. King’s legacy, and to suggest otherwise is not just fanciful, but farcical. Unfortunately, too many Americans don’t know enough about history to separate fact from fiction.

My idea was to explore two basic questions. First, what lessons from the Indian Health Service ought to be a part of the national health care reform debate? And, second, what is the impact of health care reform on the Indian Health system? (I’ll write about that next week.)

In some ways the first question is the most difficult because of its complexity. The “story” of the Indian Health Service told in Congress and by news organizations is primarily the story of how the government runs a health care delivery system.

Sometimes that even reflects a positive message.

“It may come as a shock to many that when I compare the private insurance industry to the Indian Health Service, VA, Medicare and Medicaid, it is the private insurance industry that is the worst,” writes Dr. Richard Anderson in the Cody Enterprise. “The reason for this is that when compared to government agencies, insurance companies are not in the business of providing health care benefits as much as the denial of such benefits to make a profit for shareholders. That’s why government agencies have much lower overhead and are more efficient in delivering services.”

Far more often, however, the story is about how government fails as a provider. A recent post on KevinMd.com is an example of that narrative: “So, if you’re in the camp that supports a Medicare-for-all-type solution to our health care woes, consider how that same government, whom you’re entrusting to be the single-payer, has neglected the Indian Health Service.

What’s interesting to me about both these posts is that they were written after Congress enacted health care reform legislation. We’re still fighting over a law that already passed (and, as I have written before, one that will be impossible to repeal until at least 2012).

But this narrative – Indian Health as a single-payer (success or failure) – misses the complexity. It’s hard to find many news stories at all that describe the role of Indian Health Service as a partner and funder of tribal, non-profit and urban health care organizations. Even though that activity represents more than half the IHS budget.

That’s why I would change the name of the Indian Health Service. It’s no longer a “service,” it’s a system. And in the coming decades I believe the IHS will provide even fewer direct health care services, while continuing to grow in areas associated with funding or the support of medical innovation and practices.

So what are some lessons from the Indian Health System that ought to be a part of the national health care reform debate? Three quick ones:

• A demonstration of what it takes to support and operate a rural health network, even in remote locations, using practices such as telemedicine;
• Experiences with an early implementation of an electronic record system for patients, information that will be valuable as other providers move away from paper records;
• Searching for a financial model that is frugal, yet fully funded. Neither the IHS (nor any private or government provider) has discovered the right balance. Not yet, anyway. But the topic should be a part of the discussion.

But perhaps the most important lesson is the Indian Health system’s history with the care and management of chronic diseases, especially diabetes.

Diabetes is the most expensive disease in America. It’s the fifth leading cause of death, surpassing AIDS and breast cancer combined. It represents nearly a quarter of all hospital spending and as much as one out of five health care dollars are spent on caring for someone with diabetes.

Unfortunately this epidemic is not news in Indian Country. American Indian and Alaska Natives are three times more likely to have diabetes than the white population (and four times more likely to die as a result).

Because of these grim statistics, the Indian Health system has much practical experience in disease management. For example the Special Diabetes Program for Indians supports community-directed programs, ranging from increased training to “best practices.” Over the decade the program reports a reduction in mean blood sugar levels of 13 percent in IHS patients as well as reduced LDL (or bad) cholesterol and significant reductions in protein in urine (a sign of kidney dysfunction). There are also promising statistics on fewer cases of end-stage kidney disease and other complications.

The diabetes crisis is not over – but Indian Country’s experiences could be helpful to the larger debate showing the importance of education and community-based efforts.

Additional resources:

New England Journal of Medicine: Article by Surgeon General Regina Benjamin on “Finding My Way to Electronic Health Records.

http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=3736&query=home

Financial Times: New report shows diabetes costs $83 billion a year in hospital bills.

Black raw diamond
Flowing unchecked deep beneath
Middle Eastern lands
Will be the end of us

Addicted to the pleasures
Of easy living, not thinking about the
Price paid in sweat, tears and
Blood

Like heroin, crack cocaine
Attracts users laying their souls bare
Before the lure of temporary pleasure
A sure path to death in more ways than one

Guileless souls hungry
Greedily consuming without thinking of costs,
Pollutants searing ever widening gaps in
Ozone up high

We mindlessly like sheep follow blindly
Into resource wars
Listening to cleverly disseminated disinformation
Misinformed about the truth

Political leaders in their thirst for power
The almighty green
Sellouts
Forked tongues alluding to peace

Subliminally speaking in voices
Of illusion and delusion
Bring nothing but disillusion
Deceit and confusion

No voice of reason to bring us home to
Truth
To balance back to basics
To centeredness

Only Black diamond raw
Raw Black diamond
Flowing unchecked
The end of us as we know it

Caribbean black living
Isolated in white suburbia,
My white neighbor smiles
But not with her eyes

Hides so as not to speak; I accept
Why?

To be accepted,
To be liked
To be respected

To be liked?
Yet I am rejected,
Sincere smiles, conversations,
Emotive hand-waves saved for

Those who look
Like her; she is safe
Looking further a field
In white suburbia,
My neighborhood much of
The same

White on white smiling genuine
Together
While rosy cheeked babies
In dew-filled suburban sunlight walk by

But me — I am
Alone
With my black child

On the periphery
Of some silent club, clan
Cult, alienated, clothed in my blackness
In white suburbia
Looking for a better life, a brighter
Future for my family,
Growing cynical feeling weary,
Tired, depressed, repressed
Don’t want to explain
My dreadlocks,

My thick lips, multi-colored hair
Barrettes, afro-centric apparel,
Cobalt blue Volkswagen Passat
Just don’t
Want to explain

I understand you , try to
Understand me

Holding my pain
Told to ignore
Internalized age-old beliefs, as I cause
People to downcast their eyes
As I walk by, people who clutch handbags when in
Black male presence

Told to ignore ‘It’ when I see
‘It’ when I feel
‘It’

My African-American
Brothers and Sisters
Accustomed to,
Desensitized from

They already know
‘It’
Will never change

White friends sympathize
Try to empathize
Try to see my side
But unless they Feel ‘it’
They can not know
A Caribbean Black
Living isolated in white suburbia

My white neighbor smiles
But not
With her eyes

Originally published on the Foreign Policy Journal

Israel has been subject to some bad publicity recently. In 2008-09, it launched a brutal military campaign in the Gaza Strip that killed over 400 Palestinian children. In May, 2010, bumbling Israeli commandos murdered nine nonviolence activists on the relief flotilla Mavi Marmara. It only got worse for Israel when it was revealed that soldiers stole and sold personal items such as laptops from the ship. Last week, former Israeli soldier Eden Abergil posted photos onto Facebook showing her preening in front of blindfolded and despondent Palestinian prisoners, in some instances mocking those prisoners with sexual undertones. The photos were part of an album entitled “IDF—the best time of my life.”

While Abergil’s pictures may not seem as abhorrent as the Gaza and Mavi Marmara brutality—Abergil, for her part, described her behavior as nonviolent and free of contempt —all three actions are intimately connected. First of all, we must dispel the notion that Abergil’s photos are nonviolent. As with the Abu Ghraib debacle, a sexualized and coercive humiliation is being visited on the bodies of powerless, colonized, and incarcerated subjects, which by any reasonable principle is a basal form of violence. There is also the obvious physical violence of Palestinians being bound and blindfolded, presumably in or on their way to prisons nobody will confuse with the Ritz Carlton.

More important, these recent episodes merely extend an age-old list of Israeli crimes and indignities that illuminate a depravity in the Zionist enterprise itself. What is noteworthy about Israel’s three recent escapades is that more and more people are starting to pay attention to its crimes and indignities. In so doing, more and more people are questioning the origin and meaning of Zionism—that is, the very idea of a legally ethnocentric Israel.

I would like to address this piece to those who have undertaken such questioning or to those who are prepared to initiate it. I would urge you not to limit your critique of Israel only to its errors of judgment or its perceived excesses; it is more productive to challenge the ideology and practice of Zionism itself. There is no noble origin or beautiful ideal to which the wayward Jewish state must return; such yearnings are often duplicitous mythmaking or romanticized nostalgia. Zionists always intended to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, a strategy they carried out and continue to pursue with horrifying efficiency.

Likewise, Zionism was always a colonialist movement, one that relied on the notions of divine entitlement and civilizational superiority that justified previous settlement projects in South Africa, Algeria, and North America. Zionism, by virtue of its exclusionary outlook and ethnocentric model of citizenship, is on its own a purveyor of fundamental violence. The bad PR to which Israel sometimes is subject today is a reflection of changed media dynamics, not a worsening of Israel’s behavior.

The 2008-09 Gaza invasion, the attack on the Mavi Marmara, and Abergil’s Facebook photos aren’t anomalous or extraordinary. They are the invariable result of a Zionist ideology that cannot help but view Palestinian Muslims and Christians as subhuman, no matter how ardently its liberal champions assert that Zionism is a liberation movement. Zionism has the unfortunate effect of proclaiming that one group of people should have access to certain rights from which another group of people is excluded. There is nothing defensible in this proposition.

Here, then, are four reasons why Americans (and all other humans regardless of race or religion) should oppose Zionism:

1. Zionism is unethical and immoral: Because Zionists claim access to land and legal rights that directly obviate the same access to an indigenous community, it operates from within an idea of belonging that is cruel and archaic. Israel bases its primary criterion for citizenship on religious identity. Imagine having your religion on your driver’s license. And imagine having limited access to freeways, farmland, family, education, employment, and foreign travel because the religion by which the state has chosen to identify you is legally marginalized. Such is the daily reality of the Palestinian people.

2. Zionism is racist: This claim isn’t the same as saying that all Zionists are racist. I would make a distinction between the categories of “Zionist” and “Zionism.” However, inherent in the practice of Zionism is a reliance on racialist judgments about who can fully participate in the benefits and practices of a national community. Many Zionists view themselves merely as supporting freedom and safety for Jewish people. I would suggest that people who identify themselves as Zionist look more closely at the ideology they support. Such freedom and safety, both of which are in fact mythologies, come at the direct expense of people confined to Bantustans and refugee camps.

3. Zionism contravenes the geopolitical interests of the United States: Many Americans have heard former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert boast that he once pulled George W. Bush off the dais while Bush was giving a speech, or more recently current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing that “America is something that can be easily moved.” Israel costs the United States billions of dollars in direct aid and in bribe money to Jordan and Egypt for their docility. Israel also is the main reason for disgruntlement about American foreign policy in the Arab and Muslim Worlds. I raise this point with some hesitation because I believe all citizens of the United States should challenge and not celebrate American geopolitical interests. I would also point out that Zionism’s narrative of salvation and redemption resonates deeply among Americans because of the United States’ origin and continued presence as a nation of settler colonists. In the end, America itself needs to be decolonized and the vast sums of money that support the imperial projects Israel so brazenly exemplifies need to be directed toward the well-being of those who pay the government its taxes.

4. Zionism is fundamentally incompatible with democracy: Israel, as a result, is undemocratic and will be as long as it uses religious identity as the operating criterion of citizenship. We hear much in the United States about Islam being incompatible with democracy, a belief that is historically untrue and that elides the massive military and monetary support the United States provides to the assortment of dictators and plutocrats that rule much of the Arab World. Neoconservative and mainstream commentators both evoke Israel in opposition to Islam as a symbol of democratic achievement. In reality Israel performs one of the most barbaric forms of oppression today in the West Bank and Gaza Strip while simultaneously discriminating against the Palestinian citizens of Israel who constitute approximately twenty percent of the citizenry.

The alternative media engendered by new technology have allowed more people to witness the unremitting violence that has been Israel’s stock in trade for decades. Many consumers of this information and these images believe that Israel is guilty of excess when a simpler explanation exists: Israel is acting out the requisites of an exclusionary and inherently violent ideology.

These days all it takes is a little braggadocio from an ex-soldier such as Eden Abergil to so perfectly symbolize the callousness of Zionist colonization. Ten years ago, the Israeli government’s lies about the IDF killings aboard the Mavi Marmara would have been unchallenged by gruesome footage distributed through alternative news networks and social media. Nobody these days could have stopped the images of white phosphorous exploding and spreading over the Gaza Strip from being aired; Israelis themselves were foolish enough to capture Jewish children writing messages on soon-to-be-launched missiles.

Americans now have all the evidence they need for a reasonable and morally-sound conclusion, that Zionism produces a cruelty and truculence that they bankroll with their taxes and legitimize with either silence or consent. As a result, I am not arguing that Americans should reassess their level of support for Israel. I am arguing that Americans should oppose Zionism altogether. Perhaps in this way we might begin the long and difficult process of redeeming our own nation of its imperial sins.

###

Steven Salaita is author, most recently, of “The Uncultured Wars: Arabs, Muslims, and the Poverty of Liberal Thought.” Read more articles by Steven Salaita.

So who could fault the Supreme Court of the United States for looking to those towering statesmen to make sense of the United States Constitution? After all, there is no better compass than the founding fathers to point the way to the true meaning of the rights and liberties enshrined in the Constitution.

Or is there?

The challenge of living with a written constitution is to strike the proper balance between respecting the founding political vision and adapting to evolving social norms. Finding the right equilibrium is difficult because adhering too rigidly to the founding vision suffocates the possibility of accommodating changing sensibilities.

Few can resist the siren song of the sacred, almost scriptural, voice of the founding fathers. The Supreme Court is no exception—and that is precisely what threatens to stunt America’s continuing evolution toward a more just, more equal, and more perfect union. The Court’s narrow focus on America’s constitutional founding fathers obscures the importance of America’s second founding.

There have been two Americas since the country’s constitutional founding. Out of the devastation of the Civil War emerged a new republic. The United States was born anew under the banner of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a revolutionary constitutional amendment that has forever transformed the nation.

The beauty of the Fourteenth Amendment is seen in both its text and its effect. The actual text of the Fourteenth Amendment is majestic in and of itself insofar as it promises due process and equal protection under law. But its larger and more powerful meaning is evident only in its effect, which has been to change the meaning of the entire Constitution.

Here is why: the Fourteenth Amendment protects the freedoms and liberties listed in the Bill of Rights against transgressions by state governments.

Prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights constrained only the federal government. States could violate the civil and political rights the Bill of Rights purported to preserve. The consequence was to diminish those rights into no more than elusive hopes.

The Fourteenth Amendment made the Bill of Rights a charter of real rights with real bite against both the federal government and its state counterparts. What was therefore once a document of largely illusory rights cloaked in the language of federalism became a national pledge of individual and minority rights that have made America a citadel of democracy.

But that transformation did not happen on its own. It came only with the blood of hundreds of thousands who fought to turn the wrongs in America into the rights that now define it. In that sense, America owes its second founding to those who gave their lives in Gettysburg, Hardin County, Fort Henry, Vicksburg and elsewhere along the road to freedom. In a more specific way, America owes its second founding to the founders of the second America: the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Just as the Supreme Court looks to the intentions of the constitutional drafters to uncover the meaning of the original Constitution, the Court should also look to those who wrote and inspired the Fourteenth Amendment to understand the meaning of today’s modern Constitution.

Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Bingham—these and other draftspersons and drivers of the Fourteenth Amendment are Americans as great as the founding fathers. Only by learning from them may the Court help make real the promise of liberty and equality that America’s second founding augured for the nation and its people.

The Supreme Court would therefore do well to expand its sphere of constitutional authority beyond Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson and other founding fathers to also include America’s forgotten founders.

The Racial Justice Act, only the second of its kind in the United States, has given inmates sentenced to death in North Carolina a potential route to relief. As of today, 114 death row inmates there have filed motions asserting their sentences were tainted by racial bias. While the individual circumstances in each case differ dramatically, from domestic violence to at least one case of serial murders, if they can prove they received the death penalty due in part to racial bias, they will see their death sentence converted the life in prison.

If you ask nearly anyone educated in or merely informed about the practices of the criminal justice system in the United States, they will agree that there are some major racial disparities at work. From the arrest stage to sentencing, all are not treated equally within in the system. Getting the system itself to recognize this, however, and then take steps to correct it is a completely different story. Although legislation aimed at leveling the playing field is rarely written let alone passed, the Racial Justice Act managed to clear the Senate floor in, of all places, a southern state last year, making North Carolina second only to Kentucky, whose similar law is less comprehensive.

The passing of this Act required lawmakers to not only admit race was a factor in some death penalty cases, but also that protective measures should be taken to prevent it from being a factor in the future. Governor Bev Perdue said at the time, “the act ensures that when North Carolina hands down our state’s harshest punishment to our most heinous criminals, the decision is based on the facts and the law, not racial prejudice.” Perhaps not surprisingly, the vote to pass the Act was not completely overwhelming with 25 in the legislature voting for and 18 voting against the measure.

Although the Act was passed a year ago, it is once again making headlines and stirring controversy among opponents. The comments on local news sites are overflowing with statements about “just desserts” and “eye for an eye”. But what they fail to realize is that only a very small fraction of murderers are ever sentenced to death. It is saved for the worst of the worst, the particularly heinous and grizzly crimes. Using skin color to determine just how heinous a crime is plainly doesn’t make sense. However, it seems that’s exactly what’s happened in some cases.

A study released last month revealed that in North Carolina, someone accused of killing a white person is about three times more likely to be sentenced to death than one whose victim is black. A previous study, in 2001, found that number to be even higher at 3.5. You don’t have to do a scientific study to see that these cases, with white victims, are also far more likely to get greater media coverage and more community outrage overall. In addition, 31 of the 159 death row inmates in North Carolina were sentenced by all white juries, a throwback to trials nearly a century ago.

No one is challenging the convictions of these death row inmates. While statistics may show that the likelihood of an innocent on death row is highly plausible—that isn’t at issue here. What is at issue is fair treatment within the justice system. So, when people question why 114 inmates have challenged their sentences, the answer is quite simple: they are fighting for their lives in a system that may not have valued them equally.

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Elizabeth Renter is a writer who studied criminal justice at Bellevue University in her home state of Nebraska. She’s worked in case management for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services and as a probation/parole officer in North Carolina. Now, she works to affect change through her writing with Change.org. She also blogs for several defense attorneys.

Obama’s characterization of Americans of African descent as “mongrels”, germinated in response to a question spawning from the show’s executive producer and co-host Barbara Walters, in which the Head of State was asked to expound upon an issue regarding his ethnicity.

The President’s use of the term “mongrel” in describing African Americans, registers as a technically adequate expression, as it defines an individual in possession of genetic matter from more than one racial group.  However, the word “mongrel” – historically used by white supremacists opposed to miscegenation – functions, more commonly, as an expression employed by dog handlers in classifying a specific species of canine.  Consequently, such peculiar phrasing on the part of the President has resonated among many within some African-American quarters as a great affront.

That Obama, then, in the next sentence suggested white Americans are too of a “mongrel” class – thus broadening the application of the term – functions not to diminish this reality.

It is not within the history of white Americans they have been classified among the beasts that inhabit the Earth as have black Americans since the arrival of the first enslaved African on these shores.  The White American has largely enjoyed a station of abundant privilege, in the face of an African-American people, that have struggled unceasingly to have their complete humanity recognized.

The fact that President Obama is of partial African ancestry does not function to psychologically prohibit such an inherently offensive statement from projecting from his person, as the source of his part African identity – Barack Obama Sr. a native of Kenya – held no significant position in his life as a parental figure and or caretaker.

Obama was raised by grandparents of another race in lands physically and culturally far removed from the overwhelming majority of black Americans.  Resultantly, the infusion of ethnic sensibilities, relative to an African-American population which descends from a people historically dehumanized by an unrelenting oppressor never initially developed within the psyche of our nation’s 44^th President.

Obama was not brought up by those who emerge from a people enslaved for centuries in which opposition to this abominable institution invited the unforgiving sting of the whip or terminal force of a noose.

Obama was not nurtured by those whose heritage encompassed the incessant lynching of its men for the slightest perceived offence leveled toward a white woman.

Obama was not reared by those whose lineage consist of a people existing in an era in which, for any of its members, to stand in the name of the slightest semblance of justice, induced the presence of hooded riders in the night – a collection of profoundly racist American citizens committed to the practice of terrorizing and ultimately slaying any black individual who would be so bold as to challenge white authority.

Obama was not trained by those whose legacy recognizes a heritage in which its population was deemed so socially unacceptable; the larger society constructed a separate and grossly inferior society in which this people – by law – would be forced to function within – an act of social control designed to keep white citizens from having to engage the black masses in any manner that would constitute a state of equality.

Obama was not instructed by those whose history bespeaks the inability of its members to assemble in mass, vote or seek redress within an impartial justice system – an American court system, historically designed to uphold the tenets of white supremacy in leveraging its power against those persons of a darker complexion.

Obama was not directed by those whose descendants were denied basic human rights in which their ability to secure adequate housing, food supplies, medical attention or an education was often rendered nonexistent, as it lay in the hands of a thoroughly tyrannical ruling class – a governing body, largely supported by citizens acutely indoctrinated with a religious theology which proclaimed the existence of such an apartheid state, a manifestation of divine providence.

Lastly, Obama was not guided by those whose history bears the mark of having been perpetually excluded from the ranks of those for whom a society regards as fully human and thus by implication was – and is often still  – reduced to the grade of that of an animal in the minds of many of its members.

While Obama’s early development – in some manner – was influenced by forces varying significantly from those of most black Americans; reason would suggest the leader’s scholarship affords him the intellectual awareness to understand the subtle comparing of an African-American people to that of a canine sub-species represents an insult to the group.

Obama’s keenly perceptive speech, given during the Democratic primaries, regarding the politics of race and its damaging effects on the welfare of the American public – to include  black citizens – bears witness to this proposition.

In light of this reality, it may be suggested, that perhaps Obama’s phrasing in response to Walter’s potentially divisive question represents a tactic.  A strategic approach, in which the “taboo” subject of miscegenation, is in jest, dismissed through the indirect framing of the issue within the context of interspecies dog breeding.  A calculated maneuver designed to avoid inspiring vexation among segments of an American public, often proven, psychologically incapable of rationally engaging the matter.

Such an interpretation of the President’s behavior is supported in the fact Obama has on more than one occasion, regarded himself as a “mutt” when addressing the issue of his racial identity.  A conceivably humorous expression designed to “play down” this perennially contentious issue.

In employing such an approach on “The View” however, Obama for the first time included an entire black American people, many of whom were bound to find some level of irreverence in the subtle analogy.   However, a population composed primarily of ardent supporters, subsequently more likely to excuse such an extraordinarily distasteful use of language.

While Obama in some measure surrendered the dignity of an African-America people in making his insensitive remark, such phrasing exacts a far less personal toll on the leader himself.

As a function of Obama’s cultural upbringing and socialization within societies essentially void of an African-American presence and attending experience, those profoundly unique sensitivities this group possesses find virtually no residence within the psychological schema of this nation’s President.

In addressing the issue of race, Obama has seemingly chosen to take the path of least resistance.  The President has elected to engage in a veiled form of gamesmanship in attempt to contend with an American public still unable to emotionally grapple with this often explosively polarizing topic.  Obama’s political maneuvers have unfortunately now come at the expense of the African-American community.

A black people in jeopardy of losing their identity with every move.

Have we all gone insane?  How could such a proposal produce such polarization?

Conservative media and conservative ideologues are skillful at manipulating the issue and preying on our prejudices for political advantage.  On August 14, the Drudge Report’s top headline was the Islamic greeting, “As-Salamu Alaykum,” with a skillfully selected photograph of President Obama above it, and a link to this story about mosque proposal.   Matt Drudge is not merely a news aggregator selecting links for his readers; he’s a master narrator.   Without typing a word, he influences our perception of the world through the ways in which he selects, frames, and organizes information.    From the Islamic greeting to the choice of photographs, Drudge is creating a master narrative or, at the least, feeding conservative and radical narratives about the President and our world.

The story, the image, and the headline play directly into two radical, right-wing narratives about the President.    The first is the so-called ‘birther’ idea that President Obama isn’t American, and was born outside of the United States.   Recent polls show that 27% of Americans think this is ‘probably or definitely’ true, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.   The second is the idea that President Obama is Muslim.  Another Time poll shows that 24% of Americans believe this.    Even if the reader doesn’t subscribe to either idea, Drudge’s presentation feeds the less radical, core idea that underpins both narratives: that President Obama is not really ‘one of us,’ that he might not be a ‘real American’ in some cultural sense, that there is something ‘vaguely foreign’ about him.

It is no secret that conservatives have long deployed cultural wedge issues (guns, abortion, gay marriage, etc) to divide the electorate.   Researchers have shown that the electorate cares primarily about three things: 1) the economy, 2) security (foreign policy), 3) ‘values’ issues.   While Democrats may have the advantage in any given election cycle on the first two issues, conservatives have long used cultural wedge issues, or the ‘values’ basket, to polarize the electorate, and reduce the salience or significance of other issues.   President Nixon’s ‘Southern strategy,’ rousing white resentment to busing and civil rights, is a well-known example.

Immigration has proven to be a much more difficult cultural wedge issue for conservatives, given the rapidly growing Latino electorate, but they sense that they have stumbled upon a new, winning issue with the mosque controversy.   But it is an issue that manipulates our worst impulses and prejudices.   A recent poll shows that many Americans harbor prejudice against Muslims, with nearly a third of the nation saying that Muslims should be barred from becoming President, and nearly that many saying that Muslims should be ineligible to sit on the Supreme Court.  The mosque controversy plays upon the idea that 9/11 was a skirmish in the ‘clash of civilizations,’ and that “Islam in any form may be incompatible with the American way of life.”

Drudge didn’t have to editorialize to make this point.  In fact, such right-wing appeals are most effective when they are subterranean, left as an implied suggestion.    In Drew Westin’s book, “The Political Brain,” he repeatedly makes the point that – when it comes to issues like this — our conscious values are our better angels.    In other words, the prejudicial, ‘us vs. them’ appeals are most potent when they remain covert.   Once exposed as bigotry, they lose much of their power.   Our better, rational values kick in.

The case against the mosque proposal relies on the flimsiest of logic, some sort of implied, unproven and unsubstantiated guilt by association between the sponsoring American Islamic organizations and the terrorists that committed the atrocities of 9/11. [2] That would be like arguing that we shouldn’t allow the construction of a Christian Church near the site of the Oklahoma City federal building or the site of the 1996 Olympic bombings in Atlanta, since Timothy McVeigh and Eric Robert Rudolph were both influenced by radical Christian organizations.

President Obama’s articulation of the freedom of religion and private property are the obvious applicable principles here.   Upon rational reflection, I struggle to see how the question of whether a mosque should be near ground zero is even an issue at all.   And yet, most Americans, in poll after poll, seem to be divided or oppose the mosque proposal.

The mosque controversy is yet another reminder of a hard lesson: the political brain is not a rational, logical organ.   It’s high time we called out those who would prey upon our prejudices, and manipulate us for political advantage.

[2] Sarah Palin said: ““Mr. President, should they or should they not build a mosque steps away from where radical Islamists killed 3,000 people?”

Image by PPCC Antifa via Flickr

The banner says “No justice. No Peace.”

We think we know what it means — that we who want justice are willing to fight for it.

The words have a deeper meaning, of course. They are intended to remind us that that it is an impossibility to have a peaceful society as long as there is injustice, because inevitably those who are oppressed will rise up.

As slogans go, this one is pretty clever, so clever, in fact, that it’s easy to get caught up in the words and forget to think about what they actually mean.

What is it that we really want when we say we want justice?

A year ago I would have easily answered “true equality under the law” — as opposed to our current criminal (in)justice system, in which race clearly plays a major role.  More to the point, I would have said that I wanted the determination of guilt and the administration of punishment to not be correlated to race or any other demographic characteristic.

Today, I’m no longer satisfied with that.

For those of us living in the United States, “doing justice” is mostly synonymous with administering punishment.  We may not literally follow the Biblical edict of “an eye for an eye”, but most of us still believe that “the punishment must fit the crime”.  Indeed, many of us would be hard pressed to even come up with an alternative justice system.

Yet alternatives abound in the form of restorative justice.

There are many restorative justice systems. The one I’ve been studying is Restorative Circles (RC), a system developed by Dominic Barter in the shanty towns of urban Brazil and now spreading across the world as a means of promoting and facilitating social justice, group cohesion, resilient relationships and personal healing.

Restorative Circles provide a way for individuals and communities to handle conflicts, including racial conflicts, compassionately rather than punitively, as well as to heal and learn from these conflicts.  These days when I say I want justice, this is the kind of justice system I have in mind — a system that values everyone’s needs and is designed to address those needs without either blame or compromise¹.

To the uninitiated, restorative processes may appear idealistic and naive. After all, they reject the two core aspects of the traditional justice system: the assignment of blame and the administration of punishment. Instead, the goal of the Circle is for the parties involved in the conflict to first gain mutual understanding of the others’ experiences and needs and then to restore or build a mutually satisfying relationship.

Talking is involved, so is listening. Lots of listening. But it’s a decidedly different type of talk than people usually engage in², and it’s not just talk.

The restorative process is designed to lead to voluntary (and they really are voluntary!) acts offered to repair or restore the relationship. The two words are not synonymous. Reparative acts have to do with compensation — paying for a broken window is a reparative act — while restorative acts are those whose value is largely symbolic, a heart-felt apology may qualify, or a basket of vegetables from one’s garden, or an invitation to dinner. It’s certainly not surprising that people prefer to have both, but it turns out, Barter explains, that if they can only have one, there is a strong preference for acts that are restorative.

And yet, restorative processes aren’t, at the heart of it, about apologies or even about restorative acts more generally. They’re about mutual understanding and connection. Too often racial conflict is addressed with (legitimate) accusations. Denial ensues. Feelings are hurt. At the end, no one feels good about what happened.

Restorative processes offer an alternative, one that connects people by allowing them to not just understand each other but experience each other’s humanity.  That’s why restorative acts are offered. That’s why they are experienced as restorative.  There is nothing like it in our current ways of doing justice.

In his trainings, Barter weaves in multiple examples from a variety of contexts. In one, a masked thief enters a small convenience store and robs the owner at gunpoint. He is apprehended a short while later and agrees to a restorative process. In that process, he explains that he did what he did because he was pressured to do so by a gang in order to demonstrate his commitment. The store owner shares how, weeks later, he still felt traumatized by the incident. It takes more than an hour to work through the nuances of understanding each other. When they finally reach the action phase of the process, the store owner offers the would-be-thief a job in the store.

Skeptical? I was too. And I wasn’t about to be be convinced by testimonials and personal anecdotes.  I wanted hard data, and I knew how to find it.  What I found was one empirical study after another that demonstrated the effectiveness of restorative systems. Indeed, a review of research on restorative justice across multiple continents showed that restorative systems reduce recidivism in both violent and property crime in comparison to traditional justice systems and provide a variety of benefits to the “victims”, including improved mental health and greater satisfaction with the justice process (Sherman & Strang, 2007).

Such a profound process should be difficult to facilitate, intimidating to even contemplate. It isn’t. Part of the reason is that Barter has whittled the RC process to the bare essentials, which are few and relatively easy to learn, if not master. Another part is that Barter encourages a minimalist approach. “When I facilitate a circle,” he says, “I intensely desire everyone’s well-being and that’s why I try to do nothing to help them.” The statement seems paradoxical, but Barter is making an important point: The power of RC rests in the process, and it is the structure of the process that creates change, not the facilitator, whose job is merely to create and hold the space for the process to unfold.

Barter says the facilitators he enjoys observing most are those under the age of 10. Why not? In Dominic Barter’s world, schoolchildren spontaneously break out into a restorative circle during recess. It seems downright inconceivable at first, but after a few days with Barter, the message sinks in: Facilitating a circle is child’s play. Anyone can do it.

Given the level of conflict and injustice in our world, I wish everyone would.

Footnotes:

1. In regard to the “No Justice. No Peace” banner, in the context of restorative justice, the two concepts are not just interdependent, they are indistinguishable from each other.  That is, justice is a way of resolving conflict compassionately by addressing everyone’s needs, while peace is a way of living with conflict by engaging it effectively and compassionately.

2. Describing the actual process is beyond the scope of this particular piece, but interested readers should visit the restorative circles website.

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Now it is time for the phrase to disappear because it no longer accurately describes the Indian health system. After all, tribes or tribally authorized nonprofit agencies administer more than half of the IHS budget, through the Self-Determination Act or Self-Governance compacts.

Certainly the federal government plays a huge role in this health care delivery system – across the country. “As in all industrial nations, the U.S. government plays a large role in financing, organizing, overseeing, and, in some instances, even delivering health care,” said a report last August by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. How big are the numbers? Federal direct spending – Medicaid, Medicare & such – accounted for 33.7 percent of all health care spending. If you add in tribal, local, state and other government funding to the mix that figure reached $1.108 trillion – or about 46 percent of all health care dollars. The report said, “If tax subsidies that encourage provision of health coverage and health care are added in, the total public share comes close to three-fifths of all U.S. health spending.”

And all of these numbers are before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was enacted into law and before any implementation.

But in the Indian Health system something else is occurring: the growing role of private networks. This is not new. Dr. Everett R. Rhodes, a former director of the Indian Health Service, wrote in a 2002 article for the Western Journal of Medicine: “A shift of Indian health services to the private sector is now occurring, however, especially in western states where the majority of American Indian people live.”

Dr. Rhodes cited a variety of factors, including, “as the Indian population ages, however, the proportion of the IHS service population requiring care in the private sector will likely increase.”

The fact is individual American Indians and Alaska Natives with private insurance, Medicare, and even Medicaid, have a marketplace of medical choices. The Indian health system is just one option.

Last week, for example, the largest hospital system in the Dakotas announced a new initiative. Sanford Health hired Dr. Donald Warne, a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe from Pine Ridge and former executive director of the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board, to coordinate activities among the hospital system, the federal Indian Health Service and the 28 tribes within Sanford’s coverage region.

There will be more private interest in the Indian health system between now and 2014. One reason for that is even though Native Americans are not required to purchase health insurance; there are incentives under health care reform for individuals to do so.

The most important reason is that patients with private insurance don’t have to worry about contract health care running out of money. (This is also true for Medicaid, Medicare and other third-party insurance plans.) Another benefit: American Indians and Alaska Natives who purchase health insurance through the exchange do not have to pay co-pays or other cost-sharing if their income is under 300 percent of the federal poverty level (some $66,000 for a family of four, or nearly $83,000 in Alaska).

I think there is an opportunity here. I’d like to see a Native American enterprise selling such an insurance policy through the exchange that focuses on this unique segment of the population. It would be win-win-win. The individual would benefit with better coverage, the company could sell a policy at a profit, and the Indian health system could benefit from more third party support.

When the Indian Health Service was created in 1955 its mission and operation was a government-run medical service. That simplicity is no more.

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Additional resources:

A letter from IHS director Dr. Yvette Roubideaux to tribal leaders about activities that the Indian Health Service is undertaking to deliver the benefits made possible by the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

http://www.ihs.gov/PublicAffairs/DirCorner/docs/07-22-2010_DTLLIHCIALetter.pdf

A Kaiser Family Foundation brief that explains the concept of the health care insurance exchanges.

http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/7908.pdf

Presently, states have core standards in place to assure uniformity in the performance criteria of their high school graduates. In the past ten years, these standards have been reviewed and adjusted to comply with the criteria of the former Bush administrations’  “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB ) initiative. The NCLB program was heavily flawed, but did manage to create one direct benefit: exposure of the achievement gap . Consequently, states and local schools became more responsive to the educational needs of at-risk student populations.

The Race to the Top design also aims to address the achievement gap, but utilizes a significantly different approach. States would volunteer to participate in the implementation of standardized national educational requirements www.corestandards.org in a bid for federal money.   The presumed removal of local/state control of educational criteria has set off a firestorm of criticisms and controversy of Race to the Top. Why are so many of the stakeholders in education resistant to the concept of nationalized standards?

Much of the contempt for the notion of nationalized standards stems from the idea that its goal is not to create the “philosopher-king” student model, but rather that of the employable drone. A concern that this kind of educational reform will result in an educational system that place too much emphasis on preparing for global competitiveness. That a day will arrive when one looks into the face of young students across the country, seeing merely a future workforce, not individual students.

Some fear that it will mean the abolishment of terrific educational programs sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, and that it will also eliminate programs in the sciences and vocational education. I assert that all of these concerns are essentially baseless, as presently most states have core standards that are inclusive of these items; reason dictates that any national educational model would be inclusive also. There is no evidence to suggest that the adoption of national standards would obliterate curricula that is in place. Indeed, the idea that states could work together to create a national model from their best practices is an exciting proposition to many educators.

Nearly every developed country in the world has a form of national educational standards. It is to our advantage that students prepared in U.S. schools share a common educational experience. That may actually be accomplished with a set of uniform grade-level expectations from state to state. As long as they reflect the best-practice thinking within the core subject areas, the standards will help us be sure that what we think our students are learning will not vary wildly based on where they live. This is precisely what is meant by “closing the achievement gap” in the educational system.