Guns, mascots, and casinos: Native American life in
real time
Dr Yeagley's ( a great-great-grandson to one of the Comanche leaders "Bad Eagle")
answer to the questions are along
the same lines I have been preaching for over 30 years!
The answer to this one question is spot on!
Casino's.
Although on the subject of Gun's I like to quote one
of my grandfathers answer to weapons " I do not carry a weapon, the white
people still tend to frown on us carrying them".
As for Mascots, when they were first used it was the
attitude by non natives using the word Mascot ( less than a slave).
FLORIDA, July 4, 2012 — The interview was
completed days ago, but the conversation was far from over.
"I've been trying to establish talking points
about Indians for conservative pundits for years," David Yeagley explains.
"Limbaugh, Ingraham, Hannity, they are all painfully ignorant,
embarrassed, and really don't like the subject of Indians. Then years I've been
at it, and have not been able to turn this bias around. The liberals scooped up
the Indian image, warped it into the slovenly dependent, pitiful, miserable
left-over. It suits the liberal agenda."
Doctor David Yeagley
What do you think about Indian casinos? They have
offended many white land owners, and municipalities. Are they a viable solution
to Indian financial problems? Do they provide a future of hope for Indians?
I think Indian casinos have created another bad image
of the American Indian. It is the final stage in our evolving image in America:
1) from original host, savior, and guide, we found ourselves being crowded out,
and pushed against one another; 2) we became the enemy, the warrior, the
savage. Then, after the wars were over, we were confined to land ghettos, as it
were, and were known only for slovenly, listless behavior; 3) we became the
loser, the alcoholic, the diabetic, the suicidal, and the dysfunctional; 4)
finally, we evolved into the gambler, the casino Indian - the gangster. I don't
really see this as movement in a positive direction. It is true that the
casinos have brought more economic opportunity to the tribes than anything else
- but at a price. We surrender key points of sovereignty; we surrender basically
rent our tax-free land to the syndicate, the liberal politician, and other
varieties of fundamentally lawless social entities. Furthermore, only about
half the tribes actually have casinos, and the craze for money has cause an
up-spring of a host of non-Indian people groups claiming to be Indian in order
to procure federally recognized status--in order to get a casino. Pop-up
tribes, I call them. In this sense, casinos have done more harm to Indian
identity than Christopher Columbus.
I would not, however, blame Indians for profiting from
the white man's vices. A painful reversal of circumstances, indeed, but not
really an honorable one. Perhaps a necessary one, given the circumstances.
What I suggest is an entirely different style of
Indian government, and a wholly new financial basis. When I ran for chairman of
the Comanche Nation (2012), my campaign included the initial call to sell the
tribe. Put the tribe under private ownership, and shape the economy after a
corporate model, and not by some archaic, 1934 BIA-imposed constitution which
bears no resemblance to Indian tribal process, nor accommodates natural Indian
sociology. What the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) allots our tribe is pocket
change for a billionaire like Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, Ted Turner, or even
George Soros. What is the difference if we are owned by the federal bureaucracy
or owned by a private businessman?
A private business contract would give us the
opportunity to create our own terms. Thus, private ownership would procure for
us true sovereignty. No, we would never surrender our nation status under the
United States government. We would simply divorce ourselves from government
control.
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