news from around Indian Country
As
the Biden-Harris administration prepares to take power, Crosscut asked
six opinion writers to share early thoughts on what comes next.
caption: Healing
our past wrongs must begin with a thorough accounting of transgressions
committed by the Trump administration, write Fawn Sharp and Mathew
Randazzo V. (Evan Vucci/AP)
It is an existential necessity that America finally face its darkest truths and reconcile ourselves to our core values.
As Donald Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic amply proved, we
cannot treat a disease we refuse to acknowledge. Through a reckless
disregard for the truth, we become complicit in its spread.
The
574 Tribal Nations that have experienced four centuries of trauma,
genocide, rape and pillage will no longer accept lip service. Likewise,
we must relieve Black Americans of the trauma of living in a hostile
civic society defined by arbitrary state violence, mass imprisonment,
systematic voter disenfranchisement and the multigenerational
deprivation of resources from their communities.
America must draw the line with this generation to finally confront
and remediate past and present wrongs — starting with a thorough and
honest accounting of the Trump administration’s transgressions.
We can’t let this essential work be sabotaged or shortchanged by the
Washington D.C. establishment’s self-immunization from accountability.
We either establish a precedent for accountability that was lacking
after Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Iraq War and the 2008 economic crisis,
or risk inviting a more authoritarian and lawless counter-attack.
The Biden-Harris administration must take a full-court press approach
and utilize every investigatory and disciplinary tool available to the
federal government to reveal the truth, devise effective solutions,
bring the corrupt to justice and restore the constitutional balance
between the three branches of government.
We need presidential truth and reconciliation commissions on the
systemic abuses that Native Americans, African Americans and Latin
American migrants all face; congressional select committees to provide a
comprehensive overhaul of the laws restraining executive overreach,
police violence and carbon pollution; and gloves-off inspector general
and criminal investigations into the flagrant abuses of the Trump
administration and its corporate accomplices.
Truth and reconciliation is not simply a racial matter. Working-class
white families are also economically and politically disenfranchised by
the inhuman corporate machinery that controls our institutions and
toxifies our lands and food, preventing vastly popular reforms like
Medicare for All, drug decriminalization, law enforcement violence
de-escalation strategies and action on climate change from gaining
national momentum.
The Biden-Harris administration offers hope that the executive branch
will at least consider bold reforms. But passing the type of drastic
legislation necessary to put this republic on a sustainable path will
require the mass organization and activation of the public at large.
Our society and governments can no longer serve the Dow Jones
Industrial Average instead of the life, liberty and happiness of its
citizens or the indispensable health of our ecosystems.
We are the ancestors of future generations.
We cannot leave them a sick, fatally flawed society.
To heal our country we must be courageous, and boldly confront generations of injustice and exploitation.
Fawn Sharp is President of the Quinault Indian Nation and the President of the National Congress of American Indians.
Matthew Randazzo V is a former government executive who advises Tribal Nations.
READ MORE:
Indian Country reacts to Biden victory
**
**
"I
don't like hope. Hope was the last thing to come out of Pandora's box.
It's a sedative word. If we want something to happen, it's better to
pray; that way we're activating our intelligence."- John Trudell (Santee Sioux)
