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Do Native Americans Face Discrimination in the Labor Market?

12/05/2013 Huffington Post

Since the start of the Great Recession in 2007, Native American employment has been lowest in the regions where white employment has been highest. In my research in 2009 and 2010, I found that while whites were doing relatively well in terms of employment in Alaska, the Northern Plains, and the Southwest, Native Americans were doing rather poorly in these very same regions. I also noted that these were the regions where the proportion of Native Americans was relatively high in relation to the proportion of non-Natives. These findings raised the question of whether racial discrimination might play a role in the high level of joblessness among Native Americans.

In a labor market free of racial discrimination, one would expect whites and Native Americans to have somewhat similar outcomes, not starkly divergent outcomes like we see in Alaska, the Northern Plains, and the Southwest. These divergent outcomes are the first suggestion that racial discrimination might be at play.

Additionally, sociologists have long argued that the relative size of racial groups can influence the amount of conflict or competition between groups. If a minority group is very small, the group is less likely to be threatening to the dominant group. But a larger minority group, which can potentially pose a challenge to the dominant group’s control over resources, can lead to increased prejudice and discrimination against the minority group. The fact that Native Americans are doing worse in the labor markets where they make up a larger share of the population also suggests that racial discrimination may be an explanation.

While my prior research was suggestive of anti-Native American discrimination in the labor market, it was far from conclusive. This year, I have had the opportunity to take a deeper look at the issue. (The complete report is forthcoming at epi.org.) I was able to use data that allowed me to go beyond region and to examine employment rates by state. I was also able to take into to account the effect of other factors that might contribute to racial differences in employment rates.

The Native American-white employment rate gap once again pointed to states in the Northern Plains as well as the adjacent upper, western Midwest region. The biggest gaps were in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. Arizona and Utah, in the Southwest, also showed rather large employment-rate disparities.

An employment-rate gap can be the result of differences in age, educational attainment, as well as a host of other factors between groups. A stronger case can be made that racial discrimination is at play if one controls for the effects of these other factors. I was able to control for differences between the white and Native American population distributions in age, education, state of residence, reservation residence, marital status, disability status, and other factors. I still found that Native Americans had a significantly lower odds of being employed than whites after all of these factors were taken into account.

And once again, the Northern Plains, upper, western Midwest, and Southwest states stood out as being particularly bad for Native Americans looking for work. The worst states were, in declining magnitude of the disparity, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, Utah, and Arizona. While this research still does not prove that racial discrimination is the cause of these disparities, it does raise the issue of discrimination as a more serious possibility.

Native Americans have suffered a long history of racial oppression in this country. While some Americans are eager to declare that the United States is now post-racial, the social scientific data continues to suggest otherwise. Joblessness continues to plague Native Americans. There is much that we need to do as a country to address this problem. Sadly, it appears that one important step may be to simply provide Native Americans with same opportunity to work as we do whites.

Follow Algernon Austin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EconomicPolicy

BIA: Who’s your leader? C&A per cap checks on hold

December 4, 2013

By LENZY KREHBIEL-BURTON, Native Times

CONCHO, Okla. – Thanks to their tribes’ protracted leadership dispute, Cheyenne and Arapaho citizens will not be getting their December per capita payments on time.

According to a letter obtained by the Native Times on Nov. 26, the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ agency office in Concho denied a drawdown request by the Janice Prairie Chief-Boswell administration from two of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ trust accounts. Among the withheld $3 million in lease funds are $1.6 million in oil and gas leases that provides an annual December per capita payment for tribal citizens.

“Regrettably, the Concho agency cannot honor your request for federal action as of this date because the agency does not know with certainty the identities of the validly seated governor, lieutenant governor and members of the legislature for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes,” agency superintendent Betty Tippeconnie wrote in the letter, dated Nov. 21.

The tribe has been dealing with a constitutional crisis for almost three years, with both Prairie Chief-Boswell and Leslie Wandrie-Harjo each claiming to be the legitimate governor. The two women ran for office and were inaugurated together in January 2010, but their alliance dissolved within a year over a series of allegations. Since the women’s political partnership fell apart, each has formed her own government, claiming to be the legitimate authority over the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. Boswell and her supporters are working out of the tribal complex in Concho, while Wandrie-Harjo and her government is based out of nearby El Reno, Okla.

Federal law gives the Prairie Chief-Boswell administration 30 days to appeal the decision to the Southern Plains regional office in Anadarko or it will become final.

The Prairie Chief-Boswell administration did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement posted to her Facebook page, the other claimant governor urged her counterpart to negotiate a compromise in order to have the per capita payment funds released.

“All of us members need those per capita monies,” Wandrie-Harjo wrote. “We have suffered enough.

“Boswell needs to swallow her pride for the well-being of the members and meet w ith me and the BIA to get this per cap out or she needs to step down so the BIA and I can get the money out to the members.”

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court affiliated with the Prairie Chief-Boswell administration has not handed down a decision in either pending appeal of the tribes’ Oct. 8 primary election. The justices heard appeals from former governor and disqualified gubernatorial candidate Darrell Flyingman and tribal member and employee Joyce Woods on Nov. 15 and initially announced that a decision would be handed down within 10 days. No verdict had been announced by press time.

Judge approves auction of sacred Hopi masks

By THOMAS ADAMSON, Associated Press

December 6, 2013

PARIS (AP) — A judge has ruled that the controversial sale of 32 Native American Hopi masks can go ahead next week.

The Hopi tribe had taken a Paris auction house to court Tuesday to try to block the sale, arguing that they are “bitterly opposed” to the use as commercial art of sacred masks that represent their ancestor’s spirits.

Corinne Matouk, a lawyer who represented the Drouot auction house said the law was on their side.

“In French law there is nothing stopping the sale of Hopi artifacts.”

Pierre Servan-Schreiber, the Hopi’s French lawyer, said it is “very disappointing” and said he would explore options including seeking help from U.N. cultural organization UNESCO.

The “Katsinam” masks are being put on sale by a private collector on Dec. 9 and 11, alongside an altar from the Zuni tribe that used to belong to late Hollywood star Vincent Price, and other Native American frescoes and dolls.

The tribe has said it believes the masks, which date back to the late 19th and early 20th century, were taken from a northern Arizona reservation in the early 20th century.

In April, a Paris court ruled that such sales are legal, and Drouot sold off around 70 Hopi masks for some 880,000 euros ($1.2 million) despite vocal protests and criticism from actor Robert Redford and the U.S. government.

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Thomas Adamson can be followed at Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

Native Americans of Arizona knew the power of solar energy

In Canyon de Chelly, Ariz., Navajo people used the sun's energy in their vernacular buildings. — In Canyon de Chelly, Ariz., Navajo people used the sun’s energy in their vernacular buildings.

By Staten Island Advance
on December 06, 2013

CIRO ASPERTI, AIA STATEN ISLAND CHAPTER

Staten Island, N.Y. — It is possible to live in a building that is less dependent on oil delivered energy.

In principle, the form of a building and its composition can capture a great deal of solar energy; adding, foremost, comfort to our daily routines and reducing fuel consumption.

The solar radiation allowed into the building can be managed to immediately, or at a later time, warm spaces in a way that hot air systems or water filled radiators cannot offer economically, or environmentally.

Passive solar energy is not new. In fact, it has been used throughout history. Native Americans in the canyons of Arizona would use the southern cliff exposure of a canyon to heat their adobe buildings cleverly placed in caves just so that the low winter sun angle would soak them with sunlight while the summer angle would be higher and therefore missing the buildings.

Tracking the sun was part of life; many activities were dependent on the seasons and the sun path. Civilizations worshipped the sun for its power to generate and sustain life.

Although the reverence toward our star is not the same, the beliefs of earlier man still hold: A building is a receptor of energy and light. Its orientation is the most important factor to observe when planning a house. A properly oriented south facing wall will, with sufficient fenestration, allow solar energy to enter the building envelope and warm the interior.

To control this energy, storing heat for night use or limiting its entry in summer months requires the use of materials with great mass and canopy systems that block sunlight from entering into window openings.

Ceramic tiled floors or even concrete can absorb great quantities of sun energy during the day (thermal mass) and release it in the night hours passively repeating the cycle without failures.

Exterior canopies designed to block the summer high angle sunlight from entering, similar to American Indian canyon architecture, are a necessary feature of a passive solar house.

The building components of these homes and how they operate, are slightly different from what we are accustomed to. A basic knowledge of solar energy and its impact on buildings is probably most anyone will need to live in and operate a passive solar home. The daily heating cycles will repeat without human intervention.

Sizing of components such as windows, insulation, storage mass and canopies requires a professional. Because of their lack of moving parts, they will function for a long time without maintenance.

However, even the most well designed and properly sited solar building should not be without a conventional heating system. It will most likely be used sparingly with many savings.

The well controlled sun energy into our homes can be invigorating to its occupants. Plants, pets and ourselves enjoy time in the sun. Aside from the radiant quality, sunlight can define the space it fills, it can be filtered through drapes and glass with colored tones. Light bounces off shiny ceramic,metal and marble; it will show wood grain in furniture and blossom flowers in December.

Ciro Asperti is a member of the Saten Island chapter of the American Institute of Architects. His column appears twice each month in the Home section. Contact the organization at aiasiny.org.

Sacajawea: If Not For Her, We Could Be Saluting the British Flag

sacajawea-statue-salmon-idaho — Jack McNeel
The Sacajawea statue in Salmon, Idaho is in the ancestral homelands of the Lemhi Shoshone people.

by Jack McNeel

12/6/13 ICTMN

Few women in U.S. history have had more influence on the nation’s history than the young Lemhi Shoshone woman, Sacajawea. It’s very likely that Lewis and Clark would never have reached the Pacific Ocean had it not been for her help. White settlement would have been different. Indian wars throughout the western half of the country would have been altered. We might even be saluting the British flag rather than the American flag. Sacajawea’s role was gigantic.

Innumerable statues have been created of her, she has graced postage stamps and the copy gold coin bears her resemblance. Despite that, there is great confusion and disagreement about this remarkable woman. No photos exist of her, so images and statues reflect what their creator thinks she would have looked like. There is disagreement about the spelling and pronunciation of her name, even where she was born and certainly where she died. But there is no disagreement as to her role in U.S. history. The Lemhi Shoshone people claim her, but others disagree.

Sacajawea was 11 or 12 when she was captured by the Hidatsa. A couple years later she married Charbonneau. When he was hired by Lewis and Clark as an interpreter she was included because they thought she might prove helpful when they reached her homelands in what is now Montana and Idaho. Four years had elapsed since her capture so she was probably 16 when she joined the expedition.

Dr. Orlan Svingen, a historian, and professor at Washington State University, has worked with the descendents of Sacajawea, the Agai Dika people, since 1991. “Sacajawea, carrying a child, speaking Shoshone, talking to a Frenchman… She disarmed anybody because she was a woman with a child,” he said. “On top of that, when she came to this country (western Montana) she knew people and could speak with them.”

Perhaps her first major influence on the expedition came in early May when the pirogue (boat) she was in with Charbonneau at the helm capsized. Lewis describes Charbonneau, writing, “Charbono cannot swim and is perhaps the most timid waterman in the world.” The boat contained instruments, books, medicine, much merchandise, “in short almost every article indispensably necessary to further the views, or insure the success of the enterprise,” Captain Lewis wrote.

Sacajawea was calm despite having her newborn son with her and was able to retrieve many scientific instruments and books. Their medical supplies were lost but they were able to continue westward. Without her help, at that point, the expedition would have been much more difficult and less successful.

According to Svingen, well before they reached what is now Idaho, Sacajawea said, “This is the home of my people.” It was August 8, 1805. They soon met some of her own, the Lemhi Shoshone people. The expedition was in desperate need of horses, winter was approaching and a massive mountain range separated them from the Columbia River and the Pacific coast. With the aid of Sacajawea as both an interpreter and friend to both the expedition and the tribe, horses were obtained and a guide, an elder they called Toby, was provided to lead them over the mountains. Without the tribe’s help and Sacajawea’s assistance, this likely would have ended Lewis and Clark’s exploration.

“This was huge!” Svingen said about Sacajawea and the tribe’s help. “This was like atomic energy! This was enormous!” Had Lewis and Clark not reached the Pacific, they would not have been able to claim the land for the United States.

Many questions will likely remain unanswered but few will argue the importance of Sacajawea to the Lewis and Clark expedition or to her impact on U.S. history.

Oglala Sioux Tribe evicting tribal ranchers to make way for bison park

December 5, 2013 Rapid City Journal

Andrea J. Cook Journal staff

Sandra Buffington has spent her life working to carve a home and ranching business out of the sparse grasslands around the South Unit of Badlands National Park.

But she and other Lakota ranchers face the possibility of losing their grazing rights to make way for a huge bison reserve planned by the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

Buffington, who is in her late 60s, runs her cattle year-round on 11,000 acres of leased land. It’s land that her father once leased. She also owns 80 acres where her home sits.

Many of the ranchers in the path of the planned reserve for a herd of 1,000 bison own small sections of land close to or adjacent to the land they lease.

The letter revoking Buffington’s permission to continue grazing also reminded her that the tribe also has the power to condemn her own land, land that has been in her family for many years.

“The land I’m leasing is what my father leased,” Buffington said.

Without the leased land, she would have to sell her cattle. A grandson’s dream of some day operating the ranch would be lost, she said.

Read rest of the article here.

Revisiting racism

Ravalli comments leave tribal elders thinking of the past

Missoula Independent

by Jessica Mayrer December 5, 2013

Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal elder Tony Incashola Sr. says that despite experiencing racism from the time he was a child growing up in the 1950s on the Flathead Indian Reservation, he couldn’t help feeling surprised by a Ravalli County official’s portrayal of American Indians during a public meeting last month as drunken lawbreakers.

“I guess I shouldn’t be,” Incashola, 67, says. “I’ve lived with that all of my life … When I was a kid, it was like standing at a department store on the outside looking in. You see the non-Indian children having fun. You felt like an outsider, that you weren’t welcome, because you didn’t dress right and you had a different color.”

Incashola, who serves as director of the Salish-Pend d’Orielle Culture Committee, has dedicated much of his life to fostering an understanding of indigenous ways. Education breeds familiarity, he says. Familiarity helps break down the fear that breeds racism. Efforts such as his are paying off. Incashola says that racism is less apparent than when he was young. That makes the Nov. 20 meeting in Ravalli County all the more troubling.

The meeting involved a discussion between CSKT delegates and the Ravalli County Board of Commissioners about how best to care for a historic Bitterroot Valley property known as Medicine Tree that the Salish have considered sacred for hundreds of years. CSKT wants to transfer the property from tribal ownership into federal trust with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. CSKT representatives stated that the 58-acre parcel is central to Salish creation stories, ones that detail how “Coyote,” a being imbued by the creator with special powers, made the land “safe for humans yet to come,” Incashola says.

When explaining the importance of such a transfer, the CSKT say that the Medicine Tree parcel provides a connection to indigenous history—a link that helps preserve a strong sense of tribal identity. The CSKT add that the transaction will help grow their land base and, therefore, give them a more powerful voice when negotiating their rights and responsibilities with government agencies.

CSKT attorney Teresa Wall-McDonald told the Independent that placing land into trust helps the tribes gain back losses accrued when the federal government opened the Flathead Reservation to non-native homesteaders in 1910. Between 2009 and August 2013 alone, the CSKT placed approximately 81,000 acres into trust.

“Part of the process of restoring our homeland includes restoring the land,” Wall-McDonald says. “It is part of rebuilding our homeland, what I call nation building.”

The Ravalli County Commission, however, has steadily opposed the CSKT’s request. Among the commissioners’ stated concerns is the loss of roughly $800 in property taxes that would result from the transfer. They also worry about the potential impacts of having a pocket of sovereign land set aside within their county, and why the tribes would want to work with the federal government rather than local. At the Nov. 20 meeting, they asked specifically if the tribes intended to erect a casino atop the parcel.

Later during the same meeting, Ravalli County Planning Board Chair Jan Wisniewski warned commissioners of the CSKT’s request, saying that American Indians have a history of using trust lands as a refuge to “get drunk and try and run back into the reservation so they don’t get caught,” according to meeting minutes.

“The county cannot go into that sovereign nation to apprehend the drunken Indians,” he said. “So the jails are full of Indians (sic) which cost us tax dollars. One jail in particular (Havre?) had a count of 58.”

In response to Wisniewski’s testimony and the behavior of the Ravalli County officials, Bitterrooter Pam Small posted an online petition demanding that the commission apologize for the county’s “cultural insensitivity and ignorance” that garnered nearly 500 signatures.

Such criticism helped persuade the commissioners on Nov. 27 to issue an apology to the tribes. Roughly 20 Bitterroot residents attended the meeting, with many of them verbally lashing out at the commissioners, characterizing the county’s overall treatment of the CSKT as “paternalistic” and akin to “an inquisition.”

“The whole tone of this meeting was confrontational,” former Ravalli County attorney George Corn said. “They were grilled by your attorneys … At best it was denigrating. At worst, it implied racism.”

In response to the onslaught, county commissioners say that the Nov. 20 discussion was taken out of context—that they were only attempting to evaluate all possible outcomes that could result from the transfer. “It was in no way condescending or adversarial,” Commissioner Jeff Burrows said last week, before the commission voted to hand-deliver an apology to the tribes.

Wisniewski’s legal advisor, Robert C. Myers, echoes the commissioners when maintaining that his client’s statements were taken out of context. “We don’t know yet fully what was actually said,” he says. “People hear what they think they hear.”

For Incashola, the issue comes back to education and respect. For instance, he says the thought of the tribes placing a casino on Medicine Tree is preposterous and reflects a misunderstanding of the importance the CSKT place on preserving their culture.

“I think the county commissioners don’t understand,” Incashola says.

The whole back and forth leaves him weary.

“I get so tired of trying to defend my identity, to try to defend my values,” he says. “I feel that what happened in Hamilton is just plain ignorant.”

Incashola says his elders, who faced the worst kind of racism, taught him that there are more good people in the world than bad. He takes some comfort in that thought. In light of what transpired in Ravalli County, however, Incashola isn’t confident that racism will ever completely disappear.

GOP has slim, but possible, chance to win House seat

December 5, 2013

By Jerry Cornfield, Herald Writer

It’s been 33 years since voters chose a Republican governor in Washington.

But it’s been even longer since a member of the Grand Old Party got elected from the 38th Legislative District to the House of Representatives.

You have to go back half a century to find the last one — Jack Metcalf, a Whidbey Island Republican who won a House seat when the district’s boundaries encompassed parts of Snohomish and Island counties.

With any luck, Republicans could end their losing streak next year in a district now centered in Everett and includes Tulalip and a sliver of Marysville.

A vacancy in the state House is creating the potential opportunity. Democrat John McCoy of Tulalip moved from the House to the Senate last month and seven people want his old seat.

June Robinson, Jennifer Smolen, Deborah Parker, Ed Triezenberg, Kelly Wright, David Simpson and Ray Miller are hustling up support from Democratic precinct committee officers who will vote out their top three choices Tuesday. Sometime in the following week, the Snohomish County Council will appoint one of them.

All seven are respectable members of the community with solid Democratic credentials and similar philosophical approaches to governing.

None of them are political rock stars and most are not widely known among voters. Whoever is appointed will need to squeeze out every ounce of advantage from their incumbent status to retain the job in next fall’s election.

As a newcomer, they’ll be politically vulnerable. Any vote they take, bill they introduce, utterance they make could find its way into the campaign. As a latecomer, they will be unable to fund raise during the 2014 session, while any Republican challenger can.

Those are small factors in Republicans’ favor. And they may not be the only ones.

Voters in the district may be less enamored with embracing all Democrats for office after seeing two of them, County Executive Aaron Reardon and state Sen. Nick Harper, resign in disgrace this year.

And if Republicans field a candidate with a strong resume and ample campaign billfold — something they’ve not done in recent years — victory isn’t beyond grasp.

Much of it will depend on what happens in Everett, where the largest chunk of the district’s voters resides.

While Everett voters only seem to send Democrats to do their bidding in Olympia, they are not afraid of electing Republicans to the nonpartisan City Council.

Scott Bader proved it last November when he defeated June Robinson for a council seat by roughly 1,800 votes. Though there was no “R” next to Bader’s name or “D” next to Robinson’s; one didn’t have to work very hard to find out what political party each associated with.

It was an impressive performance in a presidential election year. Democrats turned out more voters than Republicans and outspent them to make sure everyone knew the names of all the Democrats on the ballot.

Still, in numerous Everett precincts, Bader received as many votes as McCoy did in his legislative race.

Campaign strategists view such ballot behavior as an opportunity to snare votes from the less partisan members of their opponent’s party.

Republican Party leaders may see this as one more selling point to those they’re recruiting to do battle for the seat in 2014.They’ll need a few as they know history is not on their side.

Political reporter Jerry Cornfield’s blog, The Petri Dish, is at www.heraldnet.com. Contact him at 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.

South Africa begins life without Nelson Mandela

JOHANNESBURG — What next for South Africa?

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

Associated Press December 6, 2013

This racially charged country that, on Nelson Mandela’s watch, inspired the world by embracing reconciliation in all-race elections in 1994 is again in the global spotlight after the loss of such a towering historical figure. It is a time not just for grief and gratitude, but also a clear-eyed assessment of national strengths and shortcomings in a future without a man who was a guide and comfort to so many.

“It’s a new beginning,” said Kyle Redford, one of many outside the home of the anti-apartheid leader who became the nation’s first black president. “The loss of a legend is going to force us to come together once again.”

He acknowledged that there is a “sense of what next: Where do we go? What do we do? And how do we do it?”

Mandela’s resolve rubbed off on many of his compatriots, though such conviction is tempered by the reality that his vision of a “rainbow nation” failed, almost inevitably, to meet the heady expectations propelling the country two decades ago. Peaceful elections and relatively harmonious race relations define today’s South Africa; so do crime, corruption and economic inequality.

Mandela remained a powerful symbol in the hopeful, uncharted period after apartheid, even when he left the presidency, retired from public life and shuttled in and out of hospitals as a protracted illness eroded his once-robust frame. He became a moral anchor, so entwined with the national identity that some jittery South Africans wondered whether the country would slide into chaos after his death.

“Does it spell doomsday and disaster for us?” retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu asked rhetorically Friday before declaring that no, the country will not disintegrate.

“The sun will rise tomorrow and the next day and the next,” said Tutu, who like Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting apartheid and promoting reconciliation. “It may not appear as bright as yesterday, but life will carry on.”

A series of violent events since last year intensified worries over the state of the nation. The August 2012 shooting deaths of 34 striking miners by police at the Marikana platinum mine recalled, for some South Africans, state killings under apartheid. In February, a Mozambican taxi driver was dragged from a South African police vehicle and later died in a jail cell.

At the same time, tourism surged. Despite labor strife and credit-rating downgrades, resource-rich South Africa hosted Brazil, Russia, India and China at the “BRICS” summit in March. It has the biggest economy in Africa and aspires to continental leadership.

Mandela’s death will not destabilize race relations in the country, contrary to some fears, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations.

“For many years now, South Africans have got along with one another largely peacefully without Mr. Mandela having been active in the political sphere,” Lerato Moloi, the institute’s head of research, said. “In fact, Mr. Mandela’s passing may be cause for many to reflect on the remarkably peaceful and swift racial integration of many parts of society, including schools, suburbs, universities, and workplaces.”

Moloi said in a statement: “Although some of this had started to occur before 1994, as a symbol of racial reconciliation and forgiveness Mr. Mandela will be viewed by many as having played a pivotal role in creating such a society.”

Mandela’s life epitomized the fight for freedom and equality, said Human Rights Watch. It pointed out that South Africa’s education and health sectors are inadequate and the country remains divided by racial separation and deep economic inequality.

“Almost two decades into its democracy, South Africa is not the country that Mandela had said he hoped it would become,” the group said.

President Jacob Zuma evoked the idea of the 95-year-old Mandela as a beacon for the ages when he announced his death on Thursday night.

South Africans, Zuma said, must be determined “to live as Madiba has lived, to strive as Madiba has strived and to not rest until we have realized his vision of a truly united South Africa, a peaceful and prosperous Africa, and a better world.”

Mandela, also known by his clan name Madiba, admitted to weakness and failings, yet rose to greatness in a way that no contemporary or successor could match.

Zuma, for example, has credentials as an anti-apartheid activist who was imprisoned with Mandela. But he and the ruling African National Congress, once led by Mandela, have been dogged by corruption allegations that have eroded support for the government. In the days before Mandela’s death, South African media were filled with reports on the alleged lavish use of state funds for construction at Zuma’s family compound.

The scene outside Mandela’s house embodied the mixed picture in South Africa, where political sparring between the ruling party and the opposition has sharpened ahead of national elections next year, the 20th anniversary of the pivotal vote in which Mandela became president.

Mourners outside the home mingled in an inclusive, celebratory atmosphere that prompted the Rev. Inigo Alvarez, a Catholic priest, to declare: “Now we experience what is South Africa, all kinds of people, all kinds of regions.”

Yet ANC activists in yellow jumpsuits pasted posters on the perimeter walls of the Mandela compound and handed out leaflets presenting the party as the heir to his tradition. In death, Mandela was still drawn into politics.

Bits ‘n’ Pieces: Nonprofit supports Native arts

December 6, 2013 By Scott Hewitt

The Columbian social issues & neighborhoods reporter

T. Lulani Arquette believes that the original, nature-based values of Native American peoples still have a lot to teach a Western culture that she said is teetering on the edge of suicide.

She’s wary of “noble savage” stereotypes, she said, but when she looks around at the degradation of our planet, she can’t help but conclude that our drive to conquer and use nature is misguided at best. “There is a more sacred view of the circle of life,” she said. For all their diversity, the original nations of North America did share that essential view.

Arquette is president and CEO of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, a nonprofit agency founded in 2007 as a sort of “Native National Endowment for the Arts,” she said. Originally seeded with Ford Foundation money, the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation meant to make its home in Portland, Arquette said, but somebody advised her to check out Vancouver. The Historic Reserve area was so full of relevant history that the foundation seemed a perfect fit there, she said, and set up shop on Officers Row until a combination of rising rent and organizational growth spurred it to move to a bigger, more practical space on Northeast 112th Avenue.

Native Arts and Cultures Foundation “traditional arts” fellow Israel Shotridge and one of his creations.

The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation aims to take on difficult problems — environmental, economic, cultural — through great artworks created by Native Americans. Since 2010, the foundation has supported 85 artists nationwide with $1.6 million in grants. Poetry and painting, film and dance, traditional and edgily post-modern — all sorts of artworks by all sorts of American Indian, Alaskan and Hawaiian artists have been produced thanks to the support of the Vancouver-based foundation.

The foundation just announced its fellowships for 2014: a total of $220,000 for 16 artists, including Israel Shotridge, a totem pole restoration artist and Tlingit Indian based in Vashon, to Brooke Swaney, a Blackfeet/Salish filmmaker from Poison, Mont.

Perhaps because there are so few Native Americans in Clark County (less than 1 percent of the population), the foundation has found precious few local artists to support. It is an ongoing supporter of downtown Vancouver’s Ke Kukui Foundation (kekukuifoundation.org), which presents an annual Hawaiian Festival in Esther Short Park the third weekend of every July. It helped Ke Kukui bring an independent Hawaiian film event to the Kiggins Theatre in November. And it has sponsored summer workshops for young people.

Arquette — a native Hawaiian with degrees in both political science and theater — said she’d love to connect more with Clark County Native American artists and cultural institutions. The foundation’s fellowships aren’t for beginners, however — they’re for developed artists who have produced a “substantial body of work” and are at the top of their game, Arquette said.

Learn more about the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation at nativeartsandcultures.org.

Bits ‘n’ Pieces appears Fridays and Saturdays. If you have a story you’d like to share, email bits@columbian.com.