Writing For My Life

I wish that I could get things off of my mind. My first thoughts upon waking, go to the politicized SCOTUS and the matters that are coming before it. Like the Indian Child Welfare Act and the possibility of that legislation being found unconstitutional and Native children being once again removed from their families, their tribes, their language, their culture, and so much more to be placed with White families again where they will lose all sense of who they are. That would be wrong on so many levels. White people took Native children away from their families from the time that we arrived on these shores. We wanted to whiten these children. It wasn’t until 1978 that the ICWA was passed giving Native people the rights that they should have had all along. I know I am repeating stuff from my last post. But it means that much to me.

I had a letter published in the Detroit Free Press concerning the Moore v. Harper matter. It was the second one that I wrote. I just fear SCOTUS giving state legislative bodies rights that were not conferred upon them by our founding fathers. Our founding fathers did not trust state legislatures, nor do I. We all see how they gerrymander maps to split Black/POC voters up so that they don’t have a voice or pack them into one area so they have a limited voice. Or they crack and pack the other party for the same reason. It doesn’t matter who controls the legislature, both parties are guilty, though I dare say when it comes to suppressing the vote of POC, republicans are worse.

Now my mind is on the potential rail road workers strike. The matter is before Congress. I have written my letter to my representatives in Washington, DC and I will probably make calls before I go to bed. The workers are asking for a pay increase, sick leave, scheduled days off, and better working conditions. The Rail Road Barons are getting rich off of the backs of labor and treating them unfairly. Why? Because they can. And they are counting on Congress to force the workers back to work or face being fired if they strike. They hope that Congress will pull a Reagan like when he fired the Air Traffic Contollers when they striked.

Maybe I need to sell my computer and shut out the world. I don’t listen to the news. I don’t watch T.V. news. I don’t read the paper. But I am involved with activism groups and I am an activist. I’m not one to stick my head in the sand, never have been. My granny was a union steward and so was I. Then I became an activist. I guess that is what happens when you care about people and want to see their lives made better or at least not be made worse by others. Like SCOTUS or big corporations. Okay, off my soap box. For now anyway.

There are political issues that have been weighing heavy on my mind and heart. I have been sick, so I guess I have had more time to think about some of the issues that I am concerned about. I had a sweet young woman come by and talk to me about the Clean Water Action committee that she is involved in. She told me that she needed some community activists to write letters to Bollin and Theis (our useless government leaders). So, I wrote one to each of them that I would have gladly sent out but she took them from me. I guess she is going to send them out herself, or take them to Lansing to our representatives’ offices.

I am trying to compose two letters to the editor. One (again) on the Moore v Harper matter that is going to be heard by SCOTUS on Dec. 6th. The other (which is being heard by SCOTUS this month) concerns the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. It was passed into law because as long as whites have been on this land we have been ripping Native children out of their parent’s arms, away from their culture, stripping them of their language, their history, and their spiritual beliefs. All so that they could be whitened.

I have friends and family who are Native. Many have a very strong resentment of whites because of the Trail of Tears, blankets infected with smallpox, stolen lands, reservations on the worst lands in America, and broken treaty after broken treaty. Oh, and let’s not forget the whitening of their children. Children as young as three and four years old were placed in orphanages and boarding schools. They died of disease, malnutrition, abuse, and neglect. They broke these little children simply to whiten them.

Finally, activists were able to have enacted The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in 1978. The Indian Child Welfare Act is a law that is aimed at protecting Native children from removal from their families, tribes, culture, language, and the preservation of tribal sovereignty. (ACLU News & Commentary Aug.18, 2022).

This law is recognized throughout this nation by Health and Human Service agencies, Courts, women’s protection groups, and child welfare agencies. But Brackeen v. Haaland is a case that challenges the constitutionality of the ICWA law. If the politicized 6-3 court sees fit to strike the law down we could end up going back 250 years in history. We are losing our rights, moving back in time. Civil Rights laws are being gutted, stripping away women’s rights as in the Dobb decision that stripped us of Roe v. Wade, and the voting rights act having the teeth ripped out of it.

It’s at times like this that I wished I had become a lawyer instead of a nurse.