2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Supporters - Please read my post [View all]jwirr
(39,215 posts)like the passage of the TPP if he gets this deal settled before the election? Is opposition to a bill that will raise the price of medicine to the point that the people in the poorer nations will not be able to get them seen as a sign of hatred toward him? How do we handle a difference on issues with him?
And I will say that while economic justice cannot totally change social justice I have watched it turn our reservation into a respected business and employer of all people in the community that used to just shuck us off as worthless. And being shucked off began in kindergarten. We were seen as not worth bothering with.
A funny example: we used to be known by the junk cars parked in our yards because we could not afford to buy good ones and we could not afford to get rid of them. Sometimes we did not even get them home before we had to junk them. Today we are the ones driving the good cars around and people see us in a whole new way. When we go to the dealership today we are welcome - we are no longer seen as the easy mark to make a fool of. They welcome us because we are there to do business. And they want us to come back.
Housing could be another example. Many of our members are now living off reservation in the towns. We are an active part of the community and we know our neighbors and they know us. Our children play with their children. Before we could afford non-tribal housing we were seen as "them". Now we are part of the community.
Employment has also been change by our economic success. In the 60s I knew two Natives who had jobs off the reservation in white owned businesses. Today that has changed because we hire all races in our businesses and also because we are no longer seen as useless. They no longer say that they are not hiring the minute we walk into the door. We spend money in their businesses and they hire us in turn.
So economic justice does help to change things. Just not all things. It is going to take more than economic justice to change things like police violence and hatred.
So yes at this minute in time with more than 560 killings of unarmed black persons mostly for small offenses social justice is the most important issue of our time. For God's sake it cannot actually wait for a new president to take office - something needs to be done NOW because by the time another president takes office in 2017 that number will double. So yes, Black Lives Matter. This issue needs to be dealt with NOW.
I was glad to see the article regarding MO and Ferguson yesterday that did indicate that something is being done now. That needs to be done in a whole lot of other communities as well.