Institutionalized Racism

Hi Friends
I think I'll talk about institutionalized racism. Examples abound.
School boards around the country have removed Tom Sawyer from the school shelves because of the "N" word appearing in print...yet nothing is said about the term Injin Joe, and in the fly leaf of this classic novel is a short afterward by George P. Elliott that states " Injin Joes depravity is satisfactorily explained by his race, he reappears in town where he is wanted for murder, by a sort of divinely retributive accident he dies with suitable horribleness:"

You have got to wonder why then isn't this derogatory term ever cited when all those politically correct people are pulling these unsavory novels from school shelves??
Even when the media of today focus on racist behavior it seems not to see the racism directed towards native.

Not long ago on one of those current affair shows the media was up in arm over the young singer Miley Cyrus and her friends making "Asian eyes" by pulling their eyes long with their fingers. In that very same clip there was a friend of hers in the same shot doing "war whop motions and using their fingers to approximate feathers" ( no one in the media reporting this bad behavior noticed... only the Asian eyes.)

Each year at Halloween the costume shops are full of native costumes with war paint and tomahawks etc. and this is just good fun. Let some one say they want to dress like any other culture though, and then you become the racist. This is institutionalized racism.

Racism that is so prevalent as to not raise an eyebrow. So common as to not draw attention...even in a media story about racism...

We as a community have lost too many women to this evil, too many young men to this evil,and disheartened too many youth to this evil.
The jails and graveyards are filling up at an alarming rate.

I think its odd to say the least that even "new Canadians" ( immigrants) are mis-informed about the tax free status of 1st. nation people yet. The Government issued citizenship tests make sure to point out the tax exempt status of the First nations, but not why we have it. Nor do is it made clear that this is not all First Nation peoples rights. All this land is still un ceded, its a treaty right. I view the tax free status as kind of like a rental income.

The double wampum treaty states that we were to share the land, each traveling on our own journey not
interfering with the other. We all know how thats going.

I've mentioned before that I do not live on reserve but still do reside in my traditional territory...yet I still pay income tax, sales tax and the gst,(soon to be harmonized, because the provincial gov. wasn't fiscally responsible) as do all off reserve native people,and not one word about it from our leadership. The AFN or the chiefs and councils (who by the way receive pay out from the provincial and federal governments, based on their populations),the majority of nearly all reserve populations are off reserve. Yet we remain under serviced and on some reserves unwelcome.

Can you practice racism against your own? We did with the enfranchised women, we do with their children and we continue to do so with their grandchildren.

Even the membership codes are discriminatory as I pointed out. The word membership implies it...meeting certain criteria, paying dues etc. Semantics suggests that citizenship ( a member of a nation) is a much more inclusive term, and that is institutionalized racism.
regards Debra