N.Y. School's Iroquois Flag Stirs Protest

[durutti]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=8&u=/ap/20031030/ap_on_re_us/iroquois_flag

LAFAYETTE, N.Y. - Flying the flag of the Iroquois Confederacy outside LaFayette Junior-Senior High School was supposed to promote racial sensitivity and cultural diversity.

But not everybody is happy about the move.

"School officials say it's to create integration. What it accomplishes is segregation. It makes the Indians a special class. It makes our kids separate. I thought we were all Americans," said Jean Schneible, who collected more than 100 signatures to protest the flag raising planned Nov. 12.

Superintendent Mark Mondanaro said the opponents are a small minority of the town's 5,000 residents.

"This has to do with cultural diversity, about respecting differences, about honoring our history. This community shares a unique relationship with the Onondagas," Mondanaro said.

LaFayette, 10 miles south of Syracuse, borders the Onondaga Indian Nation, still the spiritual center of the ancient Iroquois Confederacy that once covered upstate New York.

[La_Serpiente]

1. This is hypocrisy

Native Americans have also been a part of this continent history. Don't give me that "We're a Judeo-Christian nation crap". Native Americans were here A LONG TIME before Europeans and Christianity and this is a cultural issue, not a religious or racial one.

[DarkPhenyx]

6. Actually we aren't a Judeo-Christian nation.

The Tripoli Treaty stated that quite specifically and in very plain language. This is the document they keep forgetting about when they make assinine statements about the US being a "Christian Nation".

[BringEmOn]

19. Yes, it is a cultural issue

to the Native Americans and enlightened members of the community. Unfortunately, my guess is that it is a "religious" and thinly veiled racial issue for the small minority of protesters.

I grew up in a bordertown, probably similar to Layfayette. We also had a small minority of right wing fundie nuts, John Birchers, and other haters, who would have reacted in a similar fashion. They were always anti-Indian on every issue, especially tax issues. They believed that Indians shouldn't be allowed to vote on school levies, because there is no tax base on the reservation. Although, the school received federal impact aid for the students from the reservation at the rate of 125% of state funding (the same impact aid is paid to schools with students from military bases and other federal properties). A few years ago, the Indian parents pulled their kids out of the school and bussed them to other schools...along with the impact aid monies. I wonder how they like paying higher taxes to run their school? Maybe, they believe that the "ethnic cleansing" was worth it.

[DarkPhenyx]

2. He has a point.

I don't entirely agree with him, but Mr. Schneible does have a point.

[WindRavenX]

3. Which point?

As long as the American or Canadian flag is flown, what's the big problem? :shrug:

[DarkPhenyx]

5. It does tend to create an environment where...

...groups are "seperated" and made "special" instead of bringing all people together and making us "one". Now...that being said I will point out that I am part Lakota. I am proud of that part of my heritage, just as I am proud of my Irish side, and my Spanish side, and...oh, BTW, I'm a mutt. :)

Cultural identity is something that should be taught at home. Pride in ones background can only be properly taught by those who share the background.

Yes, I now we have to teach children about all the people that make up we Americans. Doing it w/o splitting us up into smaller and smaller groups is a fr better way of doing it though. Do I knwo the best way to do that? No. If I figure it out though I'll be sure and let ya'll know.

[DivinBreuvage]

16. Well said, DarkPhenyx

I'd agree that the right thing is to focus on the fact that all of us are American citizens, that every one of us is a member of the national community, and that none of us can be excluded or marginalized. I think one of the most dangerous things that can happen to us as a nation is to lose the sense that we really are a community: that something that hurts one group of people is in the long run going to hurt you too, whereas working to make America a freer, safer and more prosperous place for everyone is going to result in long-term benefits to you. This is in no way incompatible with celebrating and being proud of your personal heritage. But I think there's an increasing tendency in America today to want to exclude, to pursue your own advantage without any consideration whatever for the impact your actions may have on somebody else. This is the attitude that breaks through in such as comments as "Why should I have to pay school taxes, I don't have kids!" or "Why is this guy so upset about the fact that his vote wasn't counted?"

I'm not sure if the tendency can be reversed. Maybe America is just too big, or maybe we're too overpopulated, or maybe modern life is just too isolating (who here hasn't heard the lament that small-town America is gone, that no one knows their neighbors anymore or can do business with a handshake?) Maybe we as a nation have gotten too prosperous, greedy and selfish. When I get in this type of mood I wonder if the nastiness in America today isn't just a temporary aberration but a natural social evolution that is not going to go away until national deterioration and suffering has killed it off.

Françoise

[bleedingheart]

4. How about flying both the Iroquois flag and the US flag?

compromise is always a good idea....unless its compromising with *...then I don't agree

[Scott Lee]

7. No Confederate flag then, either!

"What it accomplishes is segregation. It makes the Indians a special class."

How is this argument going to play down south of the MASON DIXON line, in regards to their near sexual need to fly the stars and bars?

[DarkPhenyx]

8. Spoken like a Northerner.

saying that Southerns have a "near sexual need" to fly that flag is like saying that all Americans love war and were screaming to invade Iraq. Only the loud bastards that make it on TV want it flown. Most people down here couldn't give a flying fuck.

[Bandit]

17. " It makes the Indians a special class."

Wake up!!! They are a special class. There have been numerous treaties written with different native tribes and they are the supreme law of the land and are being ruled binding even today. American Indians have dual citizenship and are allowed to have seperate nation status. The 1924 Indian Citizenship act is being ruled null and void by courts around the country. Good or bad I haven't a clue :shrug:

[NashVegas]

9. Mixed Feelings

Flying the flag for diversity's sake is silly.

OTOH, as a product of the NYS public school system, and born and raised upstate .... Why should an Iroquois flag (if there really was such a thing and not some latter-day invention) only be flown on tacky tourist shops?

[goforit]

10. Did you all know that the Iroquois were the authors of the UN???

The Iroquios would gather the heads of all tribes to
knock out disagreements or antimosities between warring
tribes.
This is where Teddy Rosevelt got his idea for the
United Nations!!!!
He worked with several of the Iriquois to set this up.

Just a little trivia.

[vernon_nackulus]

11. Related article

I'm not sure how I feel about this, but Robert Jensen, a Sioux
from ND has an interesting perspective:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=30&ItemID=4412

...Estimates of the pre-contact indigenous population vary,
but at the time there were approximately 15 million people
living north of the Rio Grande, the majority in what is now
the United States and perhaps 2 million in Canada. By the 1900
census, there were 237,000 Indians in the United States. That
works out to an extermination rate of 97 to 99 percent. That
means the Europeans who came to the continent killed almost
all the Indians. It is the only recorded genocide in history
that was almost successful.

...If Germany had won World War II, it would be equivalent of
contemporary Germans naming a university team the Jews and
using a hook-nosed caricature. I do not mean that
hyperbolically. In heated debates, people often compare
opponents to Nazis as an insult. This isn't an insult. It's an
accurate comparison.

[Muddleoftheroad]

14. Exaggeration

Whether I agree with the base number or not, you seem to expect that people understood the germ theory of disease, which they did not. European diseases took a devastating toll on the Native American population. It was horrible, but you can't blame the Europeans for it.

[Jose Diablo]

15. Actually it Was intentional

From Laurie Garrett's "The Coming Plague" on page 625 note 23 references W. M Denevans, "The Native Population in 1492" with this statement:

"Smallpox may have been the most useful weapon of biological warfare in world history. European colonialists repeatedly took advantage of the special susceptability of the AmeriIndian population, deliberately spreading the deadly virus among Indians who were successfully defending their rights to the lands and resources of the Americas. For example, in 1763 Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander in chief of all British forces in North America, was having great difficulty controlling the Pontiac Indians in the western territories. At Amherst's insistence, blankets innoculated with live smallpox viruses were distributed to the Pontiac, obliterating the tribe. The deliberately induced epidemic quickly spread to the northwest, claiming large numbers of Sioux and Plains Indians, crossed the Rockies and inflicted huge death tolls among Native Americans from southern California all the way north to the Artic Circle tribes of Alaska. This devastation was cited in the official WHO history of smallpox: Fenner, Henderson, Arita, et al., (1988), op. cit."

To quote part of the previous message:
"It was horrible, but you can't blame the Europeans for it."

I believe Commander Amherst was a European was he not? In this case I think it is safe to say we can blame a European.

But this was long ago and best to remember, we are different people now. We are Americans and Native Americans are part of us now.

It is important to remember the past and not hold myths about the past.

[demdave]

20. "this was long ago and best to remember, we are different people now"

Soooooo... Sir Jeffrey Amherst is one of those "Europeans" in 1763 just like those "Europeans" of 1492, 271 years apart, but we, only 140 years out from 1763, are somehow different people because of the span of time. What did you do, adjust for inflation?

[vernon_nackulus]

22. Not that long ago...

I've read several times about battles between 'wild' Commanches and whites in Texas in the early 1900s.

As for disease, there wasn't much assistance, if any, from Uncle Sam, in dealing with any disease or famine.

[Jose Diablo]

23. Actually

"but we, only 140 years out from 1763"

It is 240 years ago, but why argue over a hundred years.

The point is it was a far different time, with both sides locked in a death struggle. The Europeans had just come from a life where if the king wasn't killing them, the church was. Life was brutal, average lifespan was what, 45 years? Infant mortality, well who knows. Starvation was real, cholera, malaria you name it. The population pressure from Europe made life cheap, notwithstanding the churches proclamations.

The purpose my post was to point out that today we can live in peace. We could have probably lived in peace then also. But today, more than anytime in history, it is posible to solve the problems peacefully. Will we? I doubt it, it is a hope though.

Was it right to do what Amherst did? I don't think so, but how can anybody judge with todays standards what happened then.

I have ancestors from both sides of the struggle. There was slaughter on both sides.

[BringEmOn]

18. It would be interesting to know

just how many schools in upstate New York have Native American mascots, and have various caricatures of Indians on flags and banners hung in their gymnasiums and other sports facilities. Why is that acceptable?

[newyawker99]

21. Hi vernon_nackulus!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Kinkistyle]

12. Uh, whats the big deal?

The "Americans" took these lands from the Native Americans by massacring them and forcing them to assimilate into Western Culture. We fly the conquering "American" flag all over the place with pride. Where do the Native Americans get to fly their flags? The Indian Nation? Oh thats right there IS no Indian Nation. We wiped it off the map.

Flying their flag is like applying Neosporin to someone we just dropped a bomb on. Its like the least we can do.

[roguevalley]

13. The framers of the Constitution used that as a model for America.

It has a special place in our history and should be flown
everywhere. Besides. Given the rational that this flag
'divides' us, that can be applied to everyone who flies their state flag. A New York flag doesn't apply to me, an Alaskan. A
specious argument designed to shroud racism.