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.

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