NATIVES, ISSUES AND RADICALS  has appeared as NATIVE PEOPLES AND THE LEFT  in the Spring 2002 issue of DIALOGUE AND INITIATIVE -- official journal of Committees of Correspondence for Socialism and Democracy [CCDS].

NATIVE AMERICAN STRUGGLE: ONE CENTURY INTO ANOTHER   [HUNTER GRAY / HUNTER BEAR]

I come out of a racially and culturally mixed background. My father was an essentially full-blooded Indian [Micmac/St. Francis Abenaki/ St. Regis Mohawk] and my mother was an Anglo from an old Western American “frontier” family. Our identity has always been on the Native side. I grew up in Northern Arizona and Northwestern New Mexico where our family was extensively involved in Southwestern social justice campaigns and has always had a very close involvement with the regional Indian nations.

I state categorically that, while certainly very cognizant of the broad, multi-victim effects of racism and cultural ethnocentrism and all of the other poisonously anti-people knifing isms -- and, very much aware also of all vitally necessary human rights activism and movement on those critical fronts -- I have always seen the social class dichotomy and its interactive dynamic of struggle as the only fundamentally enduring -- long haul -- river of progress. The one area of exception in this hemisphere, both conventional and unique, are the Native tribal nations where the basically classless social structures and the essentially communalistic cultures -- generally land-based and, in the United States and Canada, usually treaty-fortified -- continue to command the primary national identification/commitment of the Native people. This deeply rooted “distinctive” situation may not always be obvious to non-Indians, but the primary identification with one’s tribal nation and the continuation of the respective tribe’s traditional structures and its basic culture do stand as a very enduring reality.

There are almost 600 tribal societies in the United States which are rightly perceived by their members, though not by most Anglos, as sovereign nations. About two-thirds of our people are from “Federally-recognized” tribes, covered by treaties and/or other special Federal ties, and hold about 55 million acres of reservation land. Also, 40 million acres have been set aside for Alaskan Natives under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. If physically resident on their Indian lands, Federal Indians are eligible for Indian trust services [such as they are]: health, education, welfare, socio-economic development, criminal justice. Mostly in the East, the other one-third, through historical and social circumstances, are not Federal Indians, receive no special services from that perspective, and in most cases have no reservation land. In a few instances, they may receive minimal Indian services from the state in which they reside. “Urban Indians” -- more than half of all U.S. Native Americans -- receive virtually no Federal Indian services, even if they are from Federally-recognized tribes.

Despite several centuries of physical genocide, forced removal and relocation, and attempted socio-cultural genocide [all of this designed to secure remaining Indian land and resources]; despite racism and cultural ethnocentrism; despite the pressure of the urban/industrial juggernaut, so many of whose values run counter to those of the Indians; despite mixed-blood and bi-culturalism -- Indian tribal nations, Indian cultures, and Indian people are very much around. The commitment to a cohesive family and clan, to one’s tribe [essentially one big family], remain strong as do the basic values inherent in tribal cultures: strongly religious; a pervasive identification with the whole Creation; no coincidence or happen-chance in the Universe; an essentially communalistic view of land use; democracy; egalitarianism; classlessness. And, very much under-girding and pervading the ethos of all tribal cultures is the ancient and enduring principle of tribal -- or mutual -- responsibility: i.e., the tribe has an obligation to the individual and the individual has an obligation to the tribe; if these two conflict, the tribal perspective prevails; but there are always clearly defined areas of individual and family autonomy into which the tribe cannot intrude.

Euro-American theft of Native land and disruption of the traditional tribal economies, coupled with consistent governmental failure to live up to solemn treaty obligations [part of the “Supreme Law of the Land”], created a perpetual economic depression for Indian people long before the Industrial Revolution. As a people, Native Americans have been consistently characterized by the highest unemployment and the worst economic deprivation, the poorest health conditions and the lowest life expectancy. The great social upheavals of the 1960s, which had numerous Indian ramifications -- Wounded Knee in 1973 and many other examples -- saw some promising legislation and hopeful policy trends. But beginning with Reagan and the cruel forces around and behind him, much of this slowed, dried up. Although there has since been spotty progress on a few fronts, the promising momentum of more than a generation ago has not -- in the context of continued minimal appropriations and budget cuts -- returned.

The relatively recent development of casinos -- over three hundred of them -- in Indian country is often seen by outsiders as much more of a positive and beneficent economic phenomenon than they are; the cold reality is that, while the casinos have helped the economic picture of the tribes involved to some extent -- but not all that much -- they have also engendered no small amount of corruption, skim-offs from outsiders, and much venomous intra-tribal factionalism. In addition, since tribes are not covered by Federal labor laws, it’s been very difficult for almost all tribal casino employees to unionize -- and pay and conditions are often extremely poor. And, further, however slowly, the states themselves are beginning their own legalization of non-Indian casino gambling.

Whether Federally-recognized or not, reservation or urban, the Native American situation is characterized by severe economic marginality and frequently outright desperation. Unemployment on the reservations, always high, is now -- depending on the particular setting and circumstance -- between 50% and 90 %. Urban Indian unemployment stands between 50% and 60 % -- with many additional people working only part-time at odd jobs and day labor. The average life expectancy for an Indian person is, depending on whichever of the current estimates, 6 to 10 years below that of other Americans -- with the Native health situation marked by, among other things, the highest diabetes, tuberculosis, alcoholism, and suicide rates in the U.S. The death rate for Native people via alcoholism is seven times the national average. And alcohol also frequently figures into the extremely high Indian suicide rate which is almost 75% above that of all other races -- and 2-3 times higher than the national average for Native males in the 15-34 age range.

To some extent, the extremely deplorable Native situation is part of the overall commission/omission campaign against Americans of “the fewest alternatives.” But in the case of the tribes on some western reservations, the special motivation is obviously to force these tribes, whose land includes very substantial “energy resources,” into collaboration with the thoroughly exploitative oil and mining corporations. This tactic has old roots. A half century ago, the generally Eastern-owned oil and mining corporations, utilizing their considerable influence with the ever-obliging U.S. Department of Interior [which contains the Bureau of Indian Affairs -- committed in theory and only partially in fact to the protection of the interests of the Federally-recognized Native people], began to systematically maneuver their way onto Indian lands. As the 1950s progressed, the corporations -- whose royalties to the Indians have been modest at best [even despite the more recently-secured tribal right of taxation of non-Indian, on-reservation business enterprises] -- entrenched themselves in Indian country with uranium as a major target. They mushroomed like the clouds produced by their explosive offspring at Desert Rock, Nevada, a prime nuclear site -- whose “peace-keeping” activities were officially proclaimed around the globe with as much vigor as the solemn assurances given the curious but uneasy local residents. The fall-out from Desert Rock, eventually leaving a trail of death in Northern Arizona and the southern portions of Nevada and Utah, has affected Anglo, Indian, Chicano; and has struck down rancher, farmer, soldier, herdsman, hunter, and worker. This particular situation and the great anger emanating from it has never been really publicized.

Much less known nationally, always, has been the predominately Native situation on and immediately adjacent to the reservations. Many, many hundreds of Indian uranium workers -- mostly Navajo, as well as some Laguna tribesman in north central New Mexico -- have now died because of both the inherently and insidiously destructive nature of uranium and the corporations’ lack of meaningful safety procedures. Given the remoteness of much of the Navajo country especially -- it is bigger than the state of West Virginia with relatively few roads -- it is likely that the death count is considerably higher than any formal records indicate.

Most of these deaths have been from lung and stomach cancer -- unknown among the Indians until uranium mining began -- and now called “the sores that will not heal.” Some authorities predict that virtually all of the Native [and other workers] involved in uranium mining, milling and refining will eventually die from those or closely related causes. The very air over much reservation land has been poisoned by uranium and other energy industries. The random dumping of uranium wastes has produced dangerously high radioactivity levels in Indian water supplies -- killing people, livestock, and wildlife. The life-span of uranium’s “ghost dance spirit” ensures that this multi-faceted ghoulish legacy will last for several thousand years. In related catastrophes, coal mining carves the earth and erodes most lungs; hard-rock metal mining gnaws all lungs and vitals and its smelters and refineries destroy any vegetation.

Meanwhile, despite the profound contradictions and spasms within the capitalist economic system, the expansion efforts of the mining and other resource corporations continue. Increasing Native opposition to this deadly incursion has mounted steadily with some people feeling that resource development should be very carefully done under the communalistic auspices of the tribes themselves and others being against any mining whatsoever.

And, in the waning days of the already blood-dimmed 20th Century, a new front opened: The Federal government began pressing many tribes -- with great intensity -- to serve as dumping grounds for deadly nuclear waste. This is being resisted by Native people and their allies with rapidly mounting and sharply increasing vigor and militancy.

From Native American perspectives, these basic issues stand very much to the fore -- issue/goals which warrant the full support of every person of good will and certainly every person of the Left:

Federal adherence to treaty and related obligations. Treaties between the United States and the Indian nations are, however occasionally mangled by the Federal government, part of “the Supreme Law of the Land” -- completely in the context of Article 6, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Although Congress ended treaty making with the tribal nations in 1871, the hundreds of treaties then in existence continue with full legal validity.

Federal protection of Native land, water, and other natural resources -- and substantial Federal funding to build back the badly shrunken reservation land base.

Federal recognition of the non-Federal tribes. This was supposed to have been effected by the 1921 Snyder Act which guaranteed Federal Indian services to all Native Americans in the U.S. -- but the Act’s coverage and Indian services were restricted immediately to only those Federally-recognized Indian people resident on reservations.

Removal of the Bureau of Indian Affairs from the Department of Interior [perennially dominated by the corporations] and its elevation to cabinet status. The B.I.A. is presently under very heavy fire from the tribes and their advocates for massive mismanagement of Native trust funds and the mishandling of other trust responsibilities.

Substantial Federal funds for Indian-controlled and Indian-directed programs -- in the areas of health, welfare and education, among others -- on reservations, in non-reservation rural settings, and in urban areas. The 1975 Indian Self-Determination Act involving Federal reservations is a promising first step.

Substantial Federal funding for tribally-owned and tribally-controlled development of natural resources and other economic programs.

Correction and reinterpretation of the 1988 Indian Gaming Act in such a fashion as to allow tribes to operate their casinos without non-tribal -- e.g., state -- interference. As it stands, the Act and a subsequent 1996 Supreme Court decision [Seminole], force tribes to reach agreements with states, thus undercutting Worcester v. Georgia [1832], the key [Cherokee Nation] case blocking state jurisdiction over Indian tribes.

Establishment of full tribal civil and criminal jurisdiction on Indian lands. Most of this is now held by the Federal government.

Cessation of Federal and state attacks on Native activists and immediate freedom for persons such as Leonard Peltier.

Elimination of racism and cultural ethnocentrism wherever they may exist. These are critical issues for Native people in any setting but are frequently -- and often brutally -- to the fore in police, employment, housing, and education situations involving urban Indians.

None of these, and other necessary measures, will come into existence easily. The enemies of the Native American people are many indeed: the corporations, much of the national government regardless of administration, state governments almost totally, and a plethora of Anglo “back-lash” organizations. These latter are essentially racist groups [mostly but not exclusively in the West] which seek to end the Federal obligation to the Indian tribes and, as examples, prevent anything which would be, from an Indian standpoint, relatively successful land-claims settlements -- as well as ending the protection of treaty-based Native hunting and fishing rights. And, in the final analysis, the basic goals of all of the enemies of the Indian people are -- as always through the bloody, genocidal centuries -- Native land, Native water, Native natural resources.

Like all humankind, Native Americans have resisted tyranny and exploitation. Crushed militarily, resistance has continued to the present moment -- and will certainly continue all the way through: Pan-Indian [inter-tribal efforts] which began in the very early 20th Century; mounting and increasingly creative litigation thrusts; militant grassroots protests -- e.g., anti-river dam campaigns in the ’40s and ’50s, fishing rights campaigns from the ‘60s onward, Wounded Knee in ‘73, continuing anti-uranium and anti-nuclear movements, and much more.

Although most Native Americans were not granted citizenship until 1924, the right to actually register and vote remained generally very much inhibited -- via terror and fear, literacy tests and related devices, and even some state laws explicitly preventing Native voting in state and local elections -- until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. This opened the door to widespread Native voter registration and political action. However, there is still much Indian wariness of voting in the “white man’s elections” and, other than a few geographical areas -- most notably parts of Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico, and South Dakota -- the Indian vote in state and Federal elections is often relatively small. And it is generally hard for any Indian candidate to draw much Anglo support. The Democratic party has more Native support than the Republican -- but most Indians are not especially enthusiastic about either.

What about socialism and related radicalisms?

Both the Industrial Workers of the World in the 1910s and 1920s [its martyred Cherokee executive board member and organizer, Frank H. Little, lynched at Butte in 1917, should always be well remembered]; and its radical relative, the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers [Mine-Mill] in the Rocky Mountains following World War II did have very substantial grassroots Indian involvement. Significantly, each of these visionary organizations was characterized by minimally rigid ideology, a vigorously democratic ethos, and an extremely strong and tangible commitment to full rights for all minorities.

But, frankly, there really hasn’t been much effort on the part of American radical organizations to do more than pay lip service to Indian rights. Too often when they’ve tried to do more, they’ve failed to understand [or even try to understand] the uniqueness of the Native aboriginal/legal situation as well as the primary commitment to tribe and tribal culture and overall Indian identity. Some non-Indian radicals and reformers [not all by any means] impress Native people as being too similar to the wrong kind of Christian missionaries: ethnocentric and dogmatic, self-righteous, and sweetly conniving. Indians need dependable and supportive non-Indian allies.

In fairness, it has to be conceded that Indian people are sometimes too reluctant to listen to worthwhile ideas if they come from non-Indians and are frequently too wary of entering into association with them. Many fear that alien ideas and associations could somehow threaten one’s aboriginal identity. Growing numbers of Native people, however, are becoming aware that that essential of tribalism -- “an injury to one is an injury to all” -- has to be extended to the dispossessed of all humanity and that loss of socio-cultural identity will not occur in the framework of healthy political association and coalition. The multi-ethnic anti-nuclear direct action groups, involving many Indians especially in the West, represent a significant step -- as does the consistently on-going inter-tribal and multi-racial international effort to secure freedom and life for Leonard Peltier. The Nader/LaDuke 2000 campaign did stimulate significant Indian interest and support since it conveyed clear empathy with the Native situation and Winona LaDuke is, of course, a Minnesota Ojibway.

Non-Indians certainly need Indian allies. Whether radicals or reformers, the non-Indians ought to be aware by now that it takes much more than mechanical arrangements and presumably altruistic politicians to build and maintain bona fide humanistic socio-economic democracy -- especially in a predominately urban/industrial context. They can learn much from the First People about faithful commitment to economic communalism, to equalitarian democracy and classless societies, to a practical recognition of the spiritual foundations and interdependence of every component of the Creation -- and to a very fundamental ethos which, despite all of the surrounding temptations and vicissitudes, continues to produce far more Native people whose primary commitment is that of serving their communities rather than simply serving themselves. All of this should be of considerable help in steering through the political, social and technological storms now sweeping across our country and the world from the Four Directions.

Mini-bio information:

Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear], who presently lives and works in Idaho, has been active in Native rights, radical unionism, and civil rights since the mid-1950s: full-time organizing and part-time teaching and full-time organizing and full-time teaching. He is the author of Jackson, Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism [under the name John R. Salter, Jr.] and numerous articles on social justice. E-mail:

hunterbadbear@hunterbear.org

My father was an essentially full-blooded Native American [Micmac, St. Francis Abenaki, and St. Regis Mohawk] and my mother an Anglo from old Western American stock. I grew up in a rough and racist quasi-frontier setting in Northern Arizona. Our identity lies on the Indian side of our family -- which has been closely involved with many Native nations -- and I’ve been privileged to work congenially, as a grassroots social justice organizer and college/university teacher, with people from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds in many parts of this country. I was in my teens when I began to read radical literature -- ranging from the I.W.W. Preamble to the Communist Manifesto and Granville Hicks’ John Reed: The Making of a Revolutionary. Aware from the outset that this all meshed congenially with that ethos of communalism and mutual responsibility inherent in every Native tribal culture, I became a life-long socialist.

I vigorously believe that Native Americans are certainly part of that great world which needs bona fide socialist democracy -- something that offers Humanity much, much more of the good things of life than capitalism ever could or would. But only a relatively few Native Americans in the United States are avowed people of the Left. Why? Let me give some thoughts -- and let me make some suggestions.

I’m the first to concede that Indian people are often too reluctant to listen to worthwhile ideas if they come from non-Indians and are frequently too wary of entering into association with them. Many Native people fear that alien ideas and associations could somehow threaten one’s aboriginal identity. But there are grounds for optimism: slowly growing numbers of Native people are becoming aware that that essential of tribalism -- “an injury to one is an injury to all” -- has to be extended to the dispossessed of all humanity and that loss of socio-cultural identity will not occur in the framework of healthy political association and coalition [e.g., the anti-nuclear struggle or the fight for Leonard Peltier‘s life and liberty.]

And non-Native radicals ought to be aware by now that it takes much more than mechanical arrangements and presumably altruistic politicians to build and maintain genuine humanistic socio-economic democracy -- especially in a predominately urban/industrial context. They can learn much from the First People about faithful commitment to economic communalism, to equalitarian democracy and classless societies, and to a practical recognition of the spiritual foundations and interdependence of every component of the Creation.

The U.S. census of 2000 indicates that 2.4 million people identified themselves as Native Americans: up 25% since 1990. This is a clear and unequivocal statement of basic Indian identity -- although almost all of these would be of some mixed [ Native and non-Native] ancestry, a very common situation throughout Indian country in this day and age. [In addition, slightly over four million other people indicated some Indian ancestry -- but this category is not accepted by many Native people as indicative of basic Native identity.]

There are almost 600 tribal societies in the United States, each perceived by its people [though not by Federal and state governments] as a sovereign entity; more than two-thirds of Native people are from “Federally-recognized” tribes, covered by treaties or other Federal ties, and hold about 55 million acres of reservation land. [An additional 40 million acres have been set aside for Alaskan Natives.] If physically resident on their Indian lands, Federal Indians are eligible for Indian trust services [such as they are]: health, education, socio-economic development. Non-Federal Indians, mostly in the East, receive no Federal Indian services and often have little or no reservation land base. In a few instances, they may receive minimal Indian services from the state in which they reside. Urban Indians, and Native people in off-reservation rural settings -- and these are now much more than one-half the total Native population in the United States -- receive no Federal Indian services, even if they are from Federally-recognized tribes.

The Native American population in the United States may be changing -- indeed, is growing with rapidity -- but some other things are certainly not changing. Indian people are at the bottom when it comes to education and income and housing and life-expectancy -- and they’re at the top in unemployment, sub-employment, and suicide.

The development of casinos -- over three hundred of them -- in Indian country is often seen by outsiders as much more of a positive and beneficent economic phenomenon than they are; the cold reality is that, while the casinos have helped the economic picture of the tribes involved to some extent -- but not all that much -- they have also engendered no small amount of corruption, skim-offs from outsiders, and much venomous intra-tribal factionalism. In addition, since tribes are not covered by Federal labor laws, it’s been very difficult for almost all tribal casino employees to unionize -- and pay and conditions are often extremely poor. And, further, however slowly, the states themselves are beginning their own legalization of non-Indian casino gambling.

Something else that has certainly not changed is the fact that, despite transitory periods of faint sunlight, the enduring common denominator of United States [and Canadian] Native policy is -- however veiled -- to get rid of Native people via socio-cultural assimilation; end all treaty obligations; and secure remaining Native land, water, and other natural resources.

And again, there is another unchanging dimension: that mountain of Native commitment -- of all Native people, whoever and wherever -- to a cohesive family and clan, to one’s tribal nation [essentially one big family] and to its inherent sovereignty and self-determination; and to the critical values so deeply rooted in the tribal cultures: strongly religious, a pervasive identification with the whole Creation, no coincidence or happen-chance in the Universe, an essentially communalistic view of land use, democracy, egalitarianism, classlessness. And all of this is in the context of the fundamental principle of tribal [mutual] responsibility: i.e., the society has an obligation to the individual and the individual has an obligation to the society; if these conflict, the position of the society prevails -- but there are certain clearly defined areas of individual and family autonomy into which the society -- the tribe -- cannot intrude.

And from Native American perspectives, these basic issues stand very much to the fore -- issue/goals which warrant the full support of every person of good will and certainly every person of the Left:

Federal adherence to treaty and related obligations. Treaties between the United States and the Indian nations are, however occasionally mangled by the Federal government, part of “the Supreme Law of the Land” -- completely in the context of Article 6, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Although Congress ended treaty making with the tribal nations in 1871, the hundreds of treaties then in existence continue with full legal validity.

Federal protection of Native land, water, and other natural resources -- and substantial Federal funding to build back the badly shrunken reservation land base.

Federal recognition of the non-Federal tribes. This was supposed to have been effected by the 1921 Snyder Act which guaranteed Federal Indian services to all Native Americans in the U.S. -- but the Act’s coverage and Indian services were restricted immediately to only those Federally-recognized Indian people resident on reservations.

Removal of the Bureau of Indian Affairs from the Department of Interior [perennially dominated by the corporations] and its elevation to cabinet status. The B.I.A. is presently under very heavy fire from the tribes and their advocates for massive mismanagement of Native trust funds and the mishandling of other trust responsibilities.

Substantial Federal funds for Indian-controlled and Indian-directed programs -- in the areas of health, welfare and education, among others -- on reservations, in non-reservation rural settings, and in urban areas. The 1975 Indian Self-Determination Act involving Federal reservations is a promising first step.

Substantial Federal funding for tribally-owned and tribally-controlled development of natural resources and other economic programs.

Correction and reinterpretation of the 1988 Indian Gaming Act in such a fashion as to allow tribes to operate their casinos without non-tribal -- e.g., state -- interference. As it stands, the Act and a subsequent 1996 Supreme Court decision [Seminole], force tribes to reach agreements with states, thus undercutting Worcester v. Georgia [1832], the key [Cherokee Nation] case blocking state jurisdiction over Indian tribes.

Establishment of full tribal civil and criminal jurisdiction on Indian lands. Most of this is now held by the Federal government.

Cessation of Federal and state attacks on Native activists and immediate freedom for persons such as Leonard Peltier.

Elimination of racism and cultural ethnocentrism wherever they may exist. These are critical issues for Native people in any setting but are frequently -- and often brutally -- to the fore in police, employment, housing, and education situations involving urban Indians.

Where do radicals -- the Left -- come into all of this?

First, a revealing little story: Some years ago, in a very tough and very big-city urban context, a situation developed where racist Anglo youth gangs were attacking Native American kids -- and the predominately white police in that particular district were doing virtually nothing about it. We called a public mass meeting and demanded, successfully, that police representatives be present. A large number of people -- Native and non-Native -- came to the basement of a Catholic Church. I chaired the meeting. However turbulently, it moved along through grievances and demands -- and then, suddenly! Two non-Indian radicals arose to harangue -- not the deserving cops -- but each other: over conflicting mini-visions and perceptions of peripheral socialist ideology. With some difficulty and banging of my fist, I ended the escalating oratory and returned the discussion to the matter at hand. And, in due course, we arrived at a functional resolution of the situation -- which the police, however reluctantly, effectively honored. As we were leaving the meeting, a young Native activist asked me, “What were those guys yelling at each other about? Some religious thing?”

And I could only answer, “Pretty much.”

And, indeed, the behavior of some non-Indian radicals -- certainly not all by any means -- can easily lend toward a religiously fundamentalist interpretation!

Past relationships between Native Americans and American radical organizations and movements, although not antagonistic, have generally not been close. In the pre-World War I and post-war period, the Industrial Workers of the World, with minimal ideological rigidity and very substantial democracy; and its close relative, the Socialist Party [especially in heavily Native American Oklahoma], did have very meaningful Indian membership and support. [Always remember Frank H. Little, Cherokee Indian, metal miner, Wobbly organizer and chairman of the I.W.W. General Executive Board, mutilated and lynched at Butte on August 1, 1917, by thugs employed by Anaconda Copper.]

And, especially in the Rocky Mountains after World War II, the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers [another relative of the old I.W.W.], radical and militant, the epitome of democracy, and thoroughly committed to full racial equality, reached out and attracted many Native metal miners -- who always functioned very comfortably and loyally within Mine-Mill.

But, at the present , there are, sadly, too few Indian people in American radical organizations. The Peltier case has brought some Native activists and non-Indian radicals into quite congenial and determined association. Although hard specific data are almost impossible to come by, local reports from around the United States -- including many coming to me personally, often from former Indian students of mine -- certainly indicate that the Nader/LaDuke campaign stimulated an unusual amount of Native voting activism. I should add that the “two old parties” each have token Indian figures of sometime conspicuous presence -- the Democrats more than the Republicans -- but neither has attracted a consistently loyal Native American following. Most Indians who actually vote in mainline elections -- not a pervasive pattern at all, but a slowly growing one -- are Democratic. But that party’s position on Native issues is only tepidly better than the Republicans. [The Canadian situation is in many respects different than the one in the ‘States. In the central provinces, many decades ago indeed, activists of the well-organized and radical Metis [ off-reserve mixed-blood category] and on-reserve tribal people were much involved in the initial formation of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation which eventually, in 1961, became the New Democratic Party --of somewhat socialist perspective but presently faltering.]

Even when interested in active participation in U.S. Left organizations, Native people often encounter a kind of indifference. In a recent and probably not atypical situation, younger Anglo radicals became interested in placing a Native activist -- and member -- on that particular socialist organization’s national political commission. But other commission members, with profuse apologies, were reluctant to agree to even consider approving compensation for a small part of the Native person’s [not an individual of means] transportation from the “remote” hinterland to New York City -- site of almost all of that group’s occasional political commission gatherings. Partial travel compensation for other persons, geographically closer, has always been the general rule. The Native person was never named to the political body.

But I reiterate: We all need each other. And big things usually start with small steps on a strange trail. I think non-Indian radicals need to reach out, in personally affirmative ways, to make contact with Native American people. Without limiting the initial arena exclusively to the urban settings, the cities -- often with Indian people of many tribes represented, and generally characterized by a somewhat greater degree of acculturation -- offer some of the most promising possibilities for mutually productive involvements: urban Indian centers, protest meetings around racial and ethnocentric prejudice and discrimination issues, Native public pow-wows, Native speakers. Opportunities to assist Indian people in good causes will always present themselves -- and, furthermore, well written articles on Native issues are always helpful.

Here now is some very friendly -- comradely -- advice to non-Indian radicals:

Don’t see Native Americans as one monolithic group. Although there certainly is a basic Native racial togetherness, remember that there are literally hundreds of distinct tribal nations -- each with its own unique culture and ethos. Recognize, too, that there are many degrees of acculturation [but not assimilation.] Be aware, also, that there are many different factions in any tribe.

And: “Not all Indians these days look like Indians.” The generally mixed-blood situation has produced many Native people who don’t fit the grand old face in the old American nickel. But it certainly doesn’t mean they are any less committed to tribe, culture, and race -- and, frequently, militant activism.

Genuinely accept and respect the socio-cultural validity of the tribal societies and cultures. Each has its own origin, vision, history and destiny. Avoid ethnocentric terms like “primitive” and “civilized,” recognizing that almost all Native people do not think in traditional “western” linear terms [are much more “circlic/cyclic.”] But, although change comes slowly in the Indian cultures, it does come in its own way and, in the last analysis, on the terms of the people. [A pickup truck, used by the Navajo for purely Navajo purposes, is called a “Navajo Cadillac.”]

Religion pervades -- usually in a non-pretentious and almost always non-sanctimonious fashion -- every Native American culture. Regardless of one’s view of “religion,” it -- or the lack of it -- should be up to the individual. As a life-long working organizer and teacher, I can’t think of anything more counter-productive in any setting -- Native or otherwise -- than cutting at someone’s religious beliefs.

Go rather easy on the intricacies of radical ideology -- especially at the outset of a relationship. Native Americans are going to be much more impressed with a person’s individual commitment to people and demonstrated service than they are in one’s ability to quote the great socialists. I’ve talked socialism to all of my students, Native and non-Native, over many, many years indeed -- and likewise to my organizing constituents -- but I always take it in at a deliberate and steady pace. And this approach builds an understanding in a step-by-step fashion. With Native people, the basic communalism -- the mutual responsibility -- of the tribal cultures is the obvious context in which to discuss socialist vision and practice. And, in due course, there’ll certainly be many Native people who’ll join Left organizations and participate vigorously and effectively within them.

Recognize that Native Americans, like all people, are very much committed to making the decisions that affect them. Self-determination is something Indians hold as critically important.

Don’t stereotype. Most sensitive non-Indians are certainly not going to demean Native people. But, on the other hand, don’t exalt us, either. People are very much people indeed.

Be a good listener. [The art of listening, to which we all pay lip service, is of course ’way too rare -- but it’s within the reach of everyone!] Recognizing that there is a lot of downright hokey stuff floating about, learn all you can about Native Americans: histories and visions, centuries of Euro-American genocide and attempted genocide, massive Anglo theft of land and resources, frequently totalitarian Federally-imposed “educational” systems visited upon Indian youth, the vicious governmental and corporate efforts to “terminate” treaties and tribes and people, the great and enduring Native persistence and commitment through all of these blood-dimmed centuries.

Here are a few helpful books:

Ward Churchill, ed., Marxism and Native Americans [Boston: South End Press, 1989.]

Barbara Graymont, ed., Fighting Tuscarora: The Autobiography of Chief Clinton Rickard [Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1984.]

Hazel W. Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan-Indian Movements [Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1971.]

Laurence M. Hauptman, The Iroquois Struggle for Survival: World War II to Red Power [Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1986.]

James S. Olson, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Indian Civil Rights [Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1997.]

Susan Power, The Grass Dancer [New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994.] [Fiction]

Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior, Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee [New York: The New Press, 1996.]

Steve Talbot, Roots of Oppression [New York: International Publishers, 1981 and 1985.]

We all need each other. And we can all learn from each other. We all need socialist democracy and a world in which -- to state that essential ideal of Native tribalism -- we develop people who serve their communities rather than simply serve themselves. All of this is as inextricably bound together in our human destiny as fused copper wires.

Hunter Gray 2000 Sandy Lane Pocatello Idaho 83204  -- hunterbadbear@hunterbear.org

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