Black Elk Speaks!
The press release announcing last Wednesday's lawsuit filed by the Shinnecock Nation of Long Island felt like a blast from the past. The mid-1970s, to be exact, back when the American Indian Movement was at its peak, and considered enough of a threat to require a vast FBI operation that, among other things, killed 64 Indian activists and railroaded Leonard Peltier into a life sentence.
These days, Native American politics-or at least that part of it that makes the headlines-is more about Blackjack than the Black Panthers, and so the eco-militant tone of the Shinnecock announcement hit like an anachronism.
"For generations, our people have witnessed the destruction of our hills and waters from overdevelopment and pollution," declared a tribe spokesman. "We have been good neighbors to the very people who stole our ancestral land for their own financial gain. This claim is not about what we want, but what is rightfully ours. It is about what is owed to the Shinnecock after hundreds of years of lies, broken promises and exploitation."
The reality, it turns out, is less than tear-jerking. According to Newsday, Gateway Funding Associates, the company bankrolling the Shinnecock suit, is headed by two Detroit-area investors with a history in casino development. While disappointing for those who might be tempted to romanticize the Shinnecock, the justice demanded by the suit doesn't depend on the imagined nobility or purity of the tribe. The original Americans, the Shinnecock have kept up with the times and remain as American as ever. So why shouldn't they try to get theirs by any means necessary?
The lawsuit is the largest land claim in history, seeking ownership of more than 3600 acres of ancestral land in tony Southhampton, much of it currently used for two exclusive golf courses and mansions for the likes of Billy Joel and Hilary Swank. Always a sucker for the underdog, we're finding it hard to get too worked up defending the ownership status quo in Southhampton, even if the Shinnecock just want their own mansions on the reclaimed land.
As is to be expected, the local media is taking the lawsuit about as seriously as it does demands for slave reparations. But unlike slave reparations, the Shinnecock suit has been met with some pretty over-the-top racism. Over at the Post, the same keyboard-punching baboons that brought us "The Arafat Lady Sings" caption beneath an image of a mourning Sufa Arafat, had the following to say:
The Southampton-based Shinnecock Indians yesterday fired the first arrow in their battle to reclaim ancestral lands-filing a federal lawsuit seeking the return of 3,600 acres of prime real estate "stolen" by the state a century and a half ago.
Why not just toss out a few "fire water" jokes and a Go Go Gophers reference along with the arrow?
And before accepting the use of "stolen" in quotation marks, it's worth reviewing the specifics of the case. The 1859 document that transferred ownership of Shinnecock land from the tribe to a group of investors is unlikely to hold up in court. Of 21 supposed Shinnecock signatures on the document, 10 are signed "X." The name James L. Cuffee appears twice; the name Wickham Cuffee also appears as Wicks Cuffee; while other names belong to minors, non-members and the dead.
We realize the Shinnecock don't have a chance, but we're rooting for them anyway. Their victory just might result in some blackjack tables, and the truth is we've never cared much for Hilary Swank.