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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Supreme Court Case That Could Break Native American Sovereignty
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/scotus-native-american-sovereignty-brackeen-v-haaland/672038/In the sprawling federal lawsuit Haaland v. Brackeen, a handful of white foster parents, among other plaintiffs, are asking the Supreme Court to overturn a law called the Indian Child Welfare Act. ICWA was created in 1978 to prevent family separation in Native communities. When the law passed, about a third of Native children had been removed from their families. But in the lawsuit, far more than the future of Native children is at stake.
When a Native child is up for adoption, ICWA prioritizes placing that child first with relatives, then other members of their tribe, and then other Native families. These placement preferences, the non-Native foster parents claim, give them fourth-tier status. Their pro bono lawyer Matthew McGill told the Fifth Circuit that this was all because they are not and cannot be, because of their race, Indian families. (Notably, in two of the three underlying custody cases, the non-Native foster parents won custodywhen blood relatives also wanted to raise the children.) Citing the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the plaintiffs claim that ICWA violates their constitutional rights by discriminating against them.
What makes the case tricky is that many people in the United States think of Native Americans as a racial group. But that is not how American law works. Under federal law, tribes and tribal citizens are not a racial group, but a political one. Accordingly, ICWA applies only to Native children who either are enrolled in a federally recognized tribe or are eligible based on a given tribes citizenship requirements. Just as certain laws apply to me because I am a citizen of the United States or a resident of Oklahoma, certain laws apply to me because Im a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Those laws flow from the treaties signed between my sovereign Indigenous nation and the United States, established through the same constitutional process the U.S. uses to sign treaties with Britain or Japan.
The oral arguments are being heard right now: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/live.aspx
cilla4progress
(24,776 posts)Based in international law..treaties.
People will sue for anything.
Haven't we decimated their communities enough?!
2naSalit
(86,802 posts)Is a creature of considerable age and complexity. Tribes and their reservations are sovereign nations, yes they can be US citizens and vote but they are their own nations situated within the US.
cilla4progress
(24,776 posts)Very special status. As deserved!
cbabe
(3,551 posts)From the article:
A host of federal statutesincluding on land rights, water rights, health care, gaming, criminal and civil jurisdiction, and tribal self-governancetreat Native Americans differently based on this political classification. In this light, I fear that the Brackeen lawsuit is the first in a row of dominoesif the Court strikes down ICWA, everything else could soon go with it.
Bayard
(22,163 posts)Children were abducted, and their Native identities stomped out with brutality and Christianity. This would be just the modern day equivalent.
And the implications for other issues could be enormous. We've already broken enough treaties.
I once had to explain to a sibling's spouse, not an American, what the whole Native American issue was about. The way I put it was that this is America's dirty secret that nobody is supposed to talk about, you know, like the nazis. This person was from Germany and was absolutely astounded that I would say such a thing. They were fully invested in our PR scheme abroad.
Then I sent them some literature, it really opened their eyes.
cilla4progress
(24,776 posts)he avers that Hitler got his genocide concept and strategy from the genocide - and land grab - of Americans v. Indigenous native peoples!
Doc Sportello
(7,529 posts)He was always one of my favorite Native American thinkers and writers, and opened this white guy's eyes to our country's treatment of Natives.
2naSalit
(86,802 posts)But I had some good materials from my cultural Anthropology classes that were helpful and succinct, I thought.
The one that I can recall at the moment was, The Weiser Indians, author - Corless printed in the 1990s.
I thought it was a quick read and very informative about tribes that you don't hear much about but have a large population in the Rocky Mountain states and were among the first tribes to enter into treaties with the US. I am acquainted with a number of descendants of the people in this book having lived in SE Idaho for some time.
There is quite a bit of literature out there, I wouldn't be the best person to ask regarding which would be better than another at this point. Thirty years ago, maybe, but now, ha!
Doc Sportello
(7,529 posts)Especially with Custer Died for Your Sins and God is Red. I think he went a little far afield in later years.
I took NA literature courses in college many years ago and have continued to occasionally read both fiction and non-fiction over the years. My favorite of all-time is N.Scott Momaday, a Kiowa who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his novel House Made of Dawn and is retired after teaching at Stanford and and the University of Arizona. Just a great, lyrical writer. I am currently re-reading The Way to Rainy Mountain, my favorite of his all-time. Just a great, lyrical writer. One of the closest I've read to Faulkner, albeit with shorter sentences.
2naSalit
(86,802 posts)He was in the process of becoming persona non grata when I was in school so we were discouraged from giving him too much weight at the time. I had such a heavy class/work load that I was a little relieved that I didn't have another long trail to follow. By the time I had leisure time for reading I was busy with current issues with the tribes I was involved with locally.
Solly Mack
(90,787 posts)sarisataka
(18,779 posts)Doesn't stick their collective head up their ass.
And definitely hoping they don't use the historical record as a guide...
That would be the final betrayal and essentially turn the Native Americans into a conquered and fully subjugated people.