It's been a bad month from racism

Page 6

Maybe half the Native newspaper editorials published in this country in

the last five years have detailed cases of discrimination against First

Nations people by the majority, usually referred to as "white." And

rightly so.

If anybody in or involved with Native affairs hasn't been effected by

attitude or action based on racial intolerance, he's probably been

involved for less time that it'll take to finish this column. But the

offensive attitudes reported observed in the mainstream population have

been matched by three incidents in the last week or so.

Kenneth Noskiye, a self-proclaimed "journalist", managed to get a guest

column published in the Edmonton Journal by some means or other. In the

guise, and a limp guise it is, of humor, he manages to suggest that

nobody who is not pure Indian in what he calls one of the "Real People".

Metis, non-status Indian, half-breeds and C-31ers, whom this odious man

describes as "blond people, with blue eyes" who are"out to save' their

people," are included in the barrage. They don't measure up. They're

not Indian enough.

The only saving grace is that Noskiye can't write well enough to convey

his pernicious ideas to significant audience.

A Windspeaker staffer was interviewing an individual for a story

recently when he was asked how much Native blood he had. Taken aback

for a moment, he finally answered the question to which the reply came

back: "That's enough."

Indeed. What's enough seems to be question now, in many circles. Not

to question why bloodlines have to enter into every discussion.

Is an opinion somehow more valid if it is held by a person who is 100

per cent native than if it is held by a person who is only 75 per cent

Native?

Does 25 per cent Native blood make someone more qualified than, of , I

don't know, 20 per cent? How about if there are three First Nations

involved instead of just one in a 75-per cent native?

The question of how much is enough was put into sharp focus by the

Kahnawake Mohawks' new school policy. Fifty per cent pure Mohawk blood,

analyzed over eight generations, is required starting next year to get

into the schools there. Any less, and the system there looks on the

student as a cultural pollutant.

The perpetrators of this hideous policy, and their spokespeople, will

dress this up in the guise of cultural survival, but intelligent

analysis won't be fooled.

That's want was done for years by the boors -- er, Boers -- to justify

Apartheid in South Africa. That's what was done in the American South.

That's what was done in the Canadian North not too many years ago.

There is potential for huge damage to the society which bases its

policies on racism, just as there will be damage to those discriminated

against under them.

How can any people, let alone those who govern part of a people who

have been subject to this kind of abuse for centuries, begin to

perpetrate it?

Not only do they fail to recognize in themselves the same fear and

hatred which drove the leaders of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and

other tyrannies, but they don't seem to understand history. Culture

survives in the minds and hearts of the people, not in the blood.

Another lesson of history that they may have missed comes to mind. The

people running the tyrannies aren't around any more, nor are the

tyrannies. But their cultures live on.

Either the policy or the perpetrators of the Mohawk Apartheid will be

in the garbage can of history sooner or later. Let's hope it's the

policy and it's sooner.