Opinion

Steven Newcomb: Anti-Indian federal law lacking in legitimacy

Friday, September 28, 2012

"Let me be crystal clear: The anti-Indian, federal Indian law idea-system has no legitimacy when viewed from the perspective of our original existence as the free and independent nations and peoples of this part of the world. Our peoples long predate the dominating Christian European invasion of this continent and hemisphere, an invasion that produced the system of federal Indian law.

Food for thought: The word “civilization” is a synonym for “domination.” Some months ago, I turned to my massive Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (unabridged) and looked up the word “civilization.” I found: “The act of civilizing” “esp[ecially] the forcing of a particular cultural pattern on a population to whom it is foreign.”

Hundreds of years of evidence show that “a destructive pattern of domination” was forced upon us. Thus, we are able to further clarify Webster’s by slightly modifying the above definition: “the forcing of a cultural pattern of domination on free nations and peoples to whom that domination is foreign.” Over a period of many generations, most often without noticing, we, the original nations and peoples of this part of Mother Earth, have been conditioned into a habit of obedience to the domination. It has gotten to the point that many of us no longer resist the patterns imposed on us by the dominating society of the United States."

Get the Story:
Steven Newcomb: U. S. Anti-Indian Law: A Question of Legitimacy (Indian Country Today 9/28)