Lenape Indians ask Pennsylvania for recognition

[Kevin Rocap]

Dear friends,

This is an interesting, relatively sympathetic news article in the
Philadelphia Enquirer.

On top of the struggle of neo-colonialism and Indian rights, there also
seem to be several intriguing levels of either well-crafted or telling
discourse running through this piece.

First, and not to be too obvious, one would expect Clymer's position to
be totally untenable (though obviously it isn't): the withholding of
recognition from American Indian tribes for fear of what they might
legitimately and legally do with that recognition (i.e., establishing
Indian gaming).

Then we have the discourse that it is external non-Indian investors who
would dupe the newly recognized American Indian groups into gaming and
then rob 'em blind (even if they themselves claim not to be interested -
but, of course, so what if they were interested, it really should have
no bearing on recognition).

This neo-colonial, paternalistic palaver employs an apparently
unchallenged logic that it is fine to withhold group rights (easily
extensible to individual rights) out of a hypothetical fear of the "bad
decisions" people might make that could be detrimental to themselves and
others. Further, it claims that Clymer has the sensibility, that by
implication the Lenape's lack, to see how the newly-recognized tribe
would be duped.  The racism is palpable.

But, interestingly, the Lenape, or this Staff Writer, don't overtly
challenge the racism of Clymer's position, but go out of their way to
express the Lenape's own willingness to sign away a right to pursue
Indian gaming. The overt claim is that the Lenape's are not interested
in gaming anyway (and here I would imagine it is, in part, a political
discourse that emerges since publicly opposing the prospects of gambling
besides, perhaps, being the current actual position of the Lenape's
likely works to appease some of whatever constituency Clymer is
representing or catering to).

It apparently remains to be seen how authentic and adamant Clymer's
position will be, which is ostensibly based on his research into how
gambling tears up families, etc., as the pressure mounts to increase
gambling as a revenue source for the state.

Further, it is claimed that state recognition is likely not needed for
federal recognition which raises questions about other possible motives
for not wanting to grant state recognition that may not be referenced by
any of the discourses in this article.

There is a claim that Clymer has a reputation for "principled stances"
suggesting that his espoused concerns about gambling are authentic (not
mere political rhetoric).  But again, then what is the "principle" that
informs his willingness to deny a group their legitimate rights
(gambling aside)?  If he is "principled" it seems those principles are
fairly selective and self-serving, or at least serving of select,
non-Lenape interests.

And then, who is Venables?  It seems amazing to me that a senior
lecturer in Cornell's American Indian program would suggest as the
article claims that "any group that began its push for recognition in
recent years should raise suspicions."  Certainly there should be
concern about and strategies for addressing non-Indians vying for
recognition (and if that is his concern, I would share it), but it seems
to me there could be all kinds of reasons that legitimate claims were
not made until recently (e.g., fear of racist reprisals or hostility,
the drain of time and energy consuming political battles, like this
current one, etc.).  His seems like an excessive generalization for
someone supposedly professionally-versed in and committed to American
Indian issues.

Then, of course, there is the compellling discourse around Ruth's early
opposition then conversion to seeking state recognition, with its own
principled, common-sensical viewpoint challenging why the Lenape's
should make the legitimacy of their group identity contingent upon
recognition by any external state or "lawmakers."  It seems as though
Ruth has been able to separate out the internal integrity of the
identity issue from the entitlements that come with state recognition.

Still this curious line in the article: "The opponents say they must
protect the public interest [by implication exclusive of the Lenape's
own espoused interests] against groups that may not even be true tribes
[this use of the word "even" I think belongs remarkably honestly to the
sentence, but certainly exposes the concern about illegitimate tribal
claims as a likely pretext for the more primary political power
struggles, which include gaming and likely unnamed other issues].

This is really a quite stunning article and political artifact, imho, on
many fronts.

In Peace,
K.