Thanksgiving: Bring back the politics of inclusion

Painting by Brownscombe showing early Thanksgiving in America

Today the United States celebrates Thanksgiving and reflects upon its past.  It recognizes the welcome early settlers had from Native Americans and how they prepared a feast to share in recognition and respect for one another in the politics of inclusion.

All of this is a good example for today's Thanksgiving and also for the nation's future, when we can welcome others, strangers to our country with the same embrace those early settlers had when they arrived in America from  many of the Native Americans, who put down fears and suspicions in order to make new friends.  They did this  when like today times were hard, food in short supply, and there were worries about the risks and dangers each new day would bring.

Let us then today in the America of 2014 greet those who are different from us with love and harmony, instead of the suspicion and rancor that comes from fear, generated by those who seek power for themselves rather than community harmony and progress for us all.

Let's remember what truly made our country great and that can protect and shelter it tomorrow and for every day to come and that is love and respect for each other.  Let us open the doors of our homes to welcome friends and strangers alike today and as long as our nation lives from this day forth.  And bring back the politics of inclusion.

Happy Thanksgiving from Carol Forsloff, Publisher and our guest writers.

Prayers, preachers and packin': Is this the vision of Christ?

Louisiana not only has liberal gun laws, but it's a place where you can take a gun to church. So while a high school in Washington state bemoans the violence of another school shooting, what does it mean when faith-talking conservatives praise gun-toting laws for Sunday worship protection?

Louisiana passed a law allowing guns in church several years ago. It did so as it has a popular foundation of support from a state where Second Amendment rights are as critical to the culture as are the Ten Commandments. Governor Bobby Jindal, whom few may know well outside Louisiana, outside of television images about the oil spill along the coast, advocated, supported and signed the bill into law.

The Ten Commandments, however, were modified by the words of Jesus Christ.  One might wonder when weapons are forged for violent response in places known as God's house rather than the rational and peaceful ways the ways of Christ proclaimed.

In the Old West gunslingers were supposed to check their guns at the door.  These days guns may be hidden from view, then taken into church without worrying about being checked by anyone.

And while guns are celebrated by the National Rifle Association, and are being taken to church, mental health experts remind us it is the verbal atmosphere of praising guns that allows violence to breed. Perhaps in that sense it isn't guns themselves. Instead it's the constant barrage from apologists who take extreme positions when it comes to guns.  Automatic rifles are seen as the best for hunting deer.  Those who argue about any type of restriction for guns are mocked even as multitudes of gun-lovers, and their lobbyists, continue to assert that it isn't guns who kill but people.
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This reporter conducted a survey of preachers in Natchitoches, Louisiana five years ago.  The survey found that most of the ministers contacted across Protestant groups either collected or just owned guns.  The Catholic Church in the main part of the city responded to the survey by stating that at no time did the priest in charge have a gun on the premises.

The violence of the gun remains a symbol of Western expansion, part of the symbolic takeover of the country, a country whose land was wrested from Native Americans as the expansion grew particularly great after the Louisiana Purchase.. Settlements developed with gun protection in Arizona and Oregon, where the Lewis and Clark trail ended.

The gun is glorified in stories, and by the media, and its rights are consistently upheld at election time, even as school shootings continue every year and as the number of guns in the United States continues to grow.  This is true in spite of the fact that in the small towns of Oregon, in the 1940's and 50's when hunting for deer was particularly an activity involving men whose families ate the meat brought home.  And in a town like La Grande, Oregon where almost every man had a rifle locked up and where every man's son was taught to hunt with their fathers, no school shooting was front page news.  Guns are as American as apple pie, but they were not talked about for defense but for hunting game.

In the wake of Washington State's misery, as the most recent example of a school shooting, it is likely, sadly too, that the gun-owning politicians will likely condemn the violence as an isolated thing and continue advocacy of guns even within the church. Oregon will continue to display its gun shops proudly on main thoroughfare and offer gun shows alongside car shows as entertainment.
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The saddest commentary of all in the public pronouncements of guns is that in the place where Jesus is to dwell as the head of the church, the gun can go to the altar in the pocket of the
supplicant while on knees bended in prayer. It is a symbol of the violence available anywhere, in a shopping mall, at a school, and even in a church where parishioners brandish weapons with pride as they pray for protection---or to shoot straight.

Native Americans: A guidebook to peaceful understanding through healing stories

[caption id="attachment_21620" align="alignleft" width="262"] Chief Davis of Louisiana[/caption]

Carol Forsloff---One of the valuable lessons from Native Americans are the stories, which they believe helps maintain culture and promotes healing, something which other groups could use for binding people in good ways to traditions, beliefs, experiences and good relationships.

What are healing stories? These are stories that build new memories, memories of good things in the midst of painful memories. For example, the Native American has suffered for many, many decades first the loss of lands, life and health during the period of American expansion and later the poverty, drugs, and human trafficking that has continued to undermine the culture and the bonding the native cultures consider important.

They honor and respect traditions, the circle of life and peaceful harmony with nature and all living things. Through their oral stories these traditions are promoted.

On the national site for the Native Americans, these healing stories are emphasized. Many people don't even know they are there, but they are written to uplift, to promote a new and revitalized view of Native American culture, that reflects their wisdom, sharing, crafts, and ideas that help children look at themselves with the eyes of pride as opposed to having feelings of shame.

Language teaching, ethnic studies divide Americans

[caption id="attachment_19638" align="alignleft" width="300"] Hispanic salesman knows English well[/caption]

Carol Forsloff----Most new arrivals to America learned English, as knowledge of their language of origin did not pass to future generations; but in modern times ethnic groups are looking to revival of language and culture as a way to bind the old and the new and help youth take pride in their ethnicity.

In Wisconsin the Red Cliff Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa tribe has received a grant for the education of their children in their native Ojibwe tongue, which they will learn from the elders of the tribe. An immersion program will be developed through the Bayfield School District with the Ojibwe language immersion Charter School which is slated to open in 2015.

This has come about in response to the fact that the native American tongue, Ojibwe, is one of those that had dwindled in users among the younger generations. This effort of revitalizing the language for cultural bonding is one that speaks to many people who seek to elicit understanding, especially if the group comes from one of those who have been oppressed by the greater culture, as occurred with the native Americans as white settlers moved onto tribal lands and moved the indigenous peoples often to reservations far away from their birth homes.

The status of the Native American may be considered somewhat different than other ethnic groups, as the Americas are their land of origin.  In other words, their languages could be considered part of the language systems indigenous to the United States.  In some areas, however, ethnic studies that focus on one particular group are being reviewed as potentially divisive. In this case the focus is not just on language but on an entire cultural group that includes history, patterns of behavior and style as well as language. Some educators are questioning ethnic studies as separating the group from the mainstream education and knowledge, especially when the orientation is specifically toward the cultural group itself highlighted as the principal students.

Much of the conversation about ethnic studies has come about follow Arizona's enactment of a law banning ethnic studies. Critics declare that the ban is part of Arizona's anti-immigration stance specifically targeting Hispanics. Others say ethnic studies tend to focus on immigrants' culture outside of mainstream America when the accent should be on learning the new culture and language as part of assimilation.

This is what the Arizona Ethnic Studies Network has to say about ethnic studies: “Ethnic studies and programs such as MAS are about equality, not divisiveness; they seek to expore the complexity of power, inequality and conflict between, as well as within, ethnic groups. We support ethnic studies in K-12 schools, university classrooms and beyond.”

The Supreme Court has upheld the Arizona law.

And despite the arguments that Latinos don't learn English enough and the proposed new immigration law requires it, research has shown they have more incentive in modern times to learn English and are doing so at a more rapid rate than past generations.

 

 

 

 

Bureau of prisons makes agreement to house Native American violentoffenders

WASHINGTON - GHN News - Much of the time the Native American communities have attempted to
handle certain offenses within the parameters of tribal law, but
recently they have reached out to the Bureau of Prisons to begin
accepting violent offenders.


The Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Prisons recently announced the

implementation of the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 by launching a
four-year pilot program to begin accepting certain tribal offenders
sentenced in tribal courts for placement in Bureau of Prisons
institutions.

The pilot program allows any federally recognized tribe
to request that the bureau incarcerate a tribe member convicted of a
violent crime under the terms of Section 234 of the Tribal Law and Order
Act and authorizes the bureau to house up to 100 tribal offenders at a
time, nation-wide. By statute, the pilot will conclude on Nov. 26, 2014.

"The launch of the Bureau of Prisons pilot
program is an important step forward in addressing violent offenders
and under-resourced correctional facilities in Indian country," said
Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli. "This is one step among many to
bolster the safety and security in tribal communities.

Under the landmark Tribal Law and Order Act
of 2010, the Justice Department will continue to work with our tribal
partners on a multilateral approach that includes better law enforcement
training, enhanced treatment and prevention programs, and improved
tribal crime data gathering and information sharing."

Tribal law specifics is outlined in part by this entry written by an attorney: Today in the United States, we have three types of sovereign entities--the Federal government,the States, and the Indian tribes. Each of the three sovereigns has its own judicial system, and each plays an important role in the administration of justice in this country. Tribal law is becoming increasingly important as more than 560 sovereign Indian nations and Alaska Native Villages exercise their powers by managing and resolving legal disputes on their lands.