Re: Anson Black Calf offended by Warriors [Village News, Opinion, 11/22/07]

Anson Black Calf greatly underestimates Henry Rodriguez and his legacy. He never “took what he could get” and fought long and hard for what was right, including decades of legal battles to return the San Luis Rey River water rights and other great achievements.

The US Government used “divide and conquer” strategy against the tribes successfully only because we allowed it and practiced it ourselves. To claim one tribe’s culture, traditions, ceremonies or regalia are more sacred than another is counterproductive for civil discourse. The eagle feather is the “flag” of all North American Nations, sacred to all; no sober native disrespects the eagle.

Government policies of “Indian Removal” affected all tribes. Those effects are with us today; our problems are much bigger than offensive mascots or logos. My grandmother, along with all of the children in her Ho-chunk Village in Wisconsin, was taken from her parents and adopted out to a white family as part of the blood dilution experiment in the late 1800s, never to see her parents again, leaving thousands of descendents of these children with broken histories.

My adopted Navajo mother, along with hundreds of other “too old” unadoptable stolen children, was dumped in the desert of New Mexico to attempt to survive alone at 8 years of age, only 60 years ago.

To balance the federal government budget, Bill Clinton raided the “Indian Trust Fund” of billions of dollars, money collected from ranchers, miners and oil-men using Indian land and doled out to the Native landlords, leaving tens of thousands of Indians homeless and penniless. That money has never been recovered.

People think all Indians are casino-rich, unaware that most reservations are worse off than Third World countries with poverty, alcoholism, diabetes, addiction and abuse. Because our land, rights, even history were ripped out from underneath us.

If mainstream society’s exposure is to casinos and offenses over historically inaccurate mascots, they are unlikely to be sympathetic toward seeking solutions to the tough issues natives are forced to face. While your complaint is valid, it takes the focus off the real battle.

Bob Hayward

Native American Church