Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Today, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced additional steps to help ensure consumers who are seeking health insurance through the Health Insurance Marketplace smoothly transition to coverage that best fits their needs. HHS continues to look for additional steps to take to make this process easier for consumers.
The steps taken today include:
Requiring insurers to accept payment through December 31 for coverage that will begin January 1, and urging issuers to give consumers additional time to pay their first month’s premium and still have coverage beginning Jan. 1, 2014.
Giving people enrolled in the federal Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) the chance to extend their coverage through Jan. 31, 2014 if they have not already selected a new plan. PCIP is a transitional bridge program that provides people with health conditions who could otherwise be shut out of the insurance market or charged more because of their pre-existing condition quality, affordable health insurance until options become available in the Marketplaces. The additional month gives this vulnerable population additional time to enroll in a plan and ensure continuity of coverage.
Formalizing the previously announced decision giving individuals until December 23, instead of December 15, to sign up for health insurance coverage in the Marketplaces that would begin January 1.
Strongly encouraging insurers to treat out-of-network providers as in-network to ensure continuity of care for acute episodes or if the provider was listed in their plan’s provider directory as of the date of an enrollee’s enrollment.
Strongly encouraging insurers to refill prescriptions covered under previous plans during January.
“We are providing additional flexibility to consumers across the country to ensure they have access to coverage options that begin on January 1, 2014,” said Secretary Sebelius. “The Department is committed to providing consumers with the information they need to pick the coverage option that works for them and their families.”
Other ways the administration is working to provide consumers with a smooth transition to coverage include:
Working with health insurers on options to smooth this transition such as allowing people who come in after December 23 to get coverage starting January 1 or sooner than February 1;
Working with insurers and consumers to make sure that they know whether their doctor or prescriptions are covered before they choose a plan, and how to get care they need during the transition (e.g., receiving a drug not covered by your plan if your doctor deems it medically necessary);
Educating consumers who recently received cancellation notices about the possible option to extend their old policy or enroll in a new plan; and
Continuing outreach to consumers who began the application process through the Marketplace and experienced technical difficulties.
HHS is committed to meeting consumers where they are in the health coverage process, helping them access and shop for quality, affordable insurance.
Consumers with questions are encouraged to call the call center at 1-800-318-2596 or visit HealthCare.gov where they can Find Local Help.
A Houston-based energy company that has faced ferocious resistance from a Mi’kmaq-led coalition is ending its shale gas exploration work for the year, says Elsipogtog War Chief John Levi.
Levi said Friday that the RCMP informed him that SWN Resources Canada is ending its exploration work, but will return in 2015.
Levi said SWN and its contractors would be picking up geophones from the side of the highway today. Geophones interact with thumper trucks to create imaging of shale gas deposits underground.
“They are just going to be picking up their gear today,” said Levi. “At least people can take a break for Christmas.”
Demonstrations against the company escalated this week. Demonstrators twice burned tires on Hwy 11 which was the area where SWN was conducting its shale gas exploration.
SWN could not be reached for comment.
SWN obtained an extension to an injunction against the demonstrators Monday after arguing it needed two more weeks to finish its work. In its court filing, SWN claimed it needed about 25 km left to explore.
Levi said the Mi’kmaq community, which sits about 80 km north of Moncton, will be there again in 2015 to oppose the company. Levi said SWN will be returning to conduct exploratory drilling.
“We can’t allow any drilling, we didn’t allow them to do the testing from the beginning,” said Levi.
Levi said word that SWN is leaving is no cause for celebration just yet.
“We went through a lot,” he said. “We need some time for this to sink in and think about everything, think about what we went through…People did a lot of sacrificing.”
When Native hip hop act LightningCloud, which consists of MC Redcloud, Crystle Lightning, and DJ Hydroe, won the East vs. West: Battle for the Best contest back in March, the true prize was the chance to record a track with hip hop mastermind Timbaland. As a producer, Timbaland has been responsible for chart-topping hits by Justin Timberlake, Nelly Furtado, and Aaliyah, and left his mark on instant hip hop classics like “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” by Jay-Z and “Get Ur Freak On” and “Work It” by Missy Elliott.
The fruit of the LightningCloud-Timbaland sessions is “Sake Bombs” (available as a free download at LightningCloud’s SoundCloud page) — here’s the official video:
The clip was filmed at The Gas Lamp restaurant in Long Beach. To stay up-to-date on LightningCloud’s further adventures, visit facebook.com/LightningCloud1491.
Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Paul Ryan and Patty Murray, budget buddies.
By Ben Adler, Grist
Congress can often seem hopelessly anti-environment, what with right-wing Republican extremism, the power of extractive industries in both parties, and the rural bias of the Senate. This week is a partial exception, so savor it.
On Tuesday night, House Budget Chair Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his Senate counterpart Patty Murray (D-Wash.) struck a deal to fund the government through Sept. 30, 2014, and reverse some of the painful spending cuts from sequestration. The Bipartisan Budget Act does not specify how much money would go to each government program, only that $63 billion that would have been cut from federal discretionary spending over the next two years will instead be replaced thanks to some increases in fees and some cuts from other areas such as federal employee pensions. About half of the spending will go to defense, and half to domestic agencies, including environmental programs. If it passes, it will be up to the House Appropriations Committee to determine exactly which program gets what.
Environmental organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council are issuing statements celebrating the good news. “This is a positive first step in undoing some of the damage to national parks, clean drinking water, air pollution monitoring, and other environmental priorities,” says Alex Taurel, deputy legislative director for the League of Conservation Voters.
The celebration could be premature, though. The bill may not even pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Conservatives were objecting to the deal before it had even been made, and anti-government zealots on the far right, such as the Ron Paul–affiliated Campaign for Liberty, are coming out against it.
And if it does pass, environmentalists will still have to pressure congressional appropriators to restore funding to important environmental programs. The wish list is long. Sequestration cuts have made it more difficult for state and local governments to monitor and maintain air and water quality. The Clean Water State Revolving Fund, for example, is an EPA program that gives grants to states to lend money to localities that need to make capital improvements to their drinking-water or wastewater-treatment facilities. Sequestration cuts have meant that governments are putting off these essential investments. Scott Slesinger, legislative director at NRDC, says restoring those funds and making sure that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has adequate funding are top priorities. A blunt instrument such as sequestration can be very bad for NOAA because some years it needs to make a big expenditure, such as launching a new satellite, that will pay off over many years thereafter. But a hard, low cap on that year’s NOAA appropriation means it won’t have money for other programs.
Other environmental lobbyists point to clean air monitoring as an area where they hope to partially reverse sequestration. “A big area people ought to be concerned about is air pollution,” says Taurel. “A ton of money comes from the EPA and goes out to states to measure levels of smog in the air to tell people if it’s a code red day, or code orange day, and old people, kids, and people with respiratory problems need to stay in.”
Some environmental programs are likely to fare better than others. The EPA, for example, is a terrible bogeyman in the eyes of Republicans, so it may not see much additional funding. Interior Department programs, such as national parks, are less politically polarizing.
“You’ll have hopefully less closures at national parks in 2014 than you saw in 2013,” says Taurel. In addition to national parks and monuments being closed during the recent government shutdown, many were closed during portions of the year due to lack of funds. “One message from the government shutdown is that the public cares about public lands, especially national parks,” says Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club lands protection program. “So in theory you would see some of those cuts restored if Republicans are looking at public opinion.”
Why the conditional? Don’t all politicians care about public opinion? Well, many congressional Republicans do not. This is a caucus that rejected gun-control measures with 90 percent public approval in the wake of a massive school shooting. House Republicans are mostly just concerned with winning over the most radical elements of their base, in order to stave off primary challenges and then coast through the general election in their safely Republican districts. But there is not an anti–national parks lobby, much less one with the awesome power of the National Rifle Association, so there is cause for hope.
Some of the $63 billion is coming from oil and gas leasing. Of course, it would be better if no such drilling occurred at all, but it was going to happen anyway. The proposed budget deal would approve a treaty between Mexico and the U.S. to divvy up offshore drilling lease revenue from the GuIf of Mexico, which would add money to the treasury. Other components of the deal, such as limiting interest payments to oil and gas companies that overpaid on leases and eliminating federal assistance for deepwater oil exploration, are actually good, if minor, steps toward removing our enormous subsidies for fossil fuels. On the other hand, the deal does not eliminate tax subsidies for the oil industry, as President Obama has requested.
It is also worth putting the budget deal in its larger, lamentable, context. This is not so much progress as it is a partial reversal of a terrible regression. The sequestration cuts in the Budget Control Act of 2011 were supposed to be so draconian that it would force the two parties to reach a big bipartisan agreement to reduce long-term deficits. The whole premise was half-baked, since at a time of fitful economic growth, high unemployment, widening inequality, and record-low interest rates on federal government borrowing, our focus should be on stimulating growth through more deficit spending, not less. Stronger growth would also reduce budget deficits in the future through higher tax revenues and lower mandatory spending on poverty-relief programs such as food stamps.
Instead of pushing hard for stimulus, Democrats caved to Republicans’ economically illiterate anti-deficit hysteria. And then they found that Republicans were unwilling to make a deal that involved any additional tax revenue, thus dooming the efforts to find a grand bargain and locking in the sequester cuts. We also suffered through a government shutdown caused by Republicans’ irrational demands that President Obama and the Democratic majority in the Senate accede to their entire agenda, as if Mitt Romney had just won the election. Both the sequester and the shutdown adversely affected virtually every environmental program. This deal between Ryan and Murray is the outgrowth of those two catastrophes, and an effort to avoid their repetition.
“We passed the political hurdle where we’re finally starting to push back against the sequester, which is great from our perspective,” says Manuel. But the 2011 budget bill locked the sequestration levels in for 10 years, making them the new baseline from which future government funding levels are negotiated. Every effort to restore or increase funding is now a huge uphill climb. “The harm is still being done,” says Taurel, “because the sequester remains in place.”
Ben Adler covers climate change policy for Grist. When he isn’t contemplating the world’s end, he writes about cities, politics, architecture, and media. You can follow him on Twitter.
Chanel hit Dallas yesterday, staging a Texas-centric fashion show for its pre-fall collection — which included Native American headdresses to accompany the “cowboys and Indians” theme. Cue the controversy.
While Karl Lagerfeld has yet to face a full-on backlash, Twitter has already begun to buzz with commentary about Chanel’s controversial decision to send the headdress down the runway. “Can’t wait for the think pieces on that Chanel Native American headdress,” one user noted.
Now, as the skeptical reactions to Chanel’s headdresses on Twitter suggest, the industry is conditioned to anticipate this kind of fashion misstep. But the backlash thus far against Chanel seems to pale in comparison to previous instances — perhaps there are those fashion fans who believe that, in this case, showcasing a Native American-inspired headdress is acceptable. What’s your take on the catwalk homage?
Three men are charged with theft for stealing $125,000 worth of copper wire from Seattle City Light by posing as native American charity workers. (AP file)
Totally gullible, ridiculously politically correct or some combination of the two? When it comes to Seattle City Light, KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson argues both in a scam involving some supposed Native American charity workers and the theft of 21 tons of scrap copper.
King County Prosecutors have now charged three men for the brazen theft. And it’s not just what they took but the way they got it that has Dori and a lot of other people scratching their heads.
Charging papers say two of the men showed up at City Hall in April clad in full Indian garb, claiming to be “Chief Little Bear” and “Joe Wolf” – tribal members they said were running an arts and crafts program for disabled Cherokee kids, the Seattle P-I reports.
The men – whose actual names are Michael George and Jim Costa – managed to talk their way into a meeting with City Light Superintendent Jorge Carrasco.
The suspects displayed copper bracelets, necklaces and other trinkets, and asked Carrasco to donate copper to their charity.
A police report says when asked for a business card, the men instead claimed they had a bus full of disabled children circling the block and needed the wire right away. So rather than vetting them further, Carrasco approved a donation and another City Light executive met them at an Industrial District storage lot and pointed out 100 pounds of copper wire they could take.
The men returned later on with a couple of rented trucks and loaded them up with far more than just 100 pounds of wire. The scammers managed to take off with 42,500 pounds of scrap wire worth $120,000.
City Light spokesman Scott Thomsen tells the P-I all the stolen wire was ultimately recovered in Fort Worth, Texas, where it had been shipped.
“Unfortunately, we were victimized by these con artists,” Thomsen says. “These guys are professional at this.”
Needless to say, Dori has no sympathy for City Light.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You fell for this and you’re assigning the blame to the fact that these guys were professional con artists?” Dori says.
“We can’t even get politicians on our air to talk to me, and because we have a culture at city hall, and everybody is so politically correct down there, they start falling all over themselves.”
Producer Jake couldn’t agree more – once he stopped laughing at the absurdity of the situation.
“This isn’t an Ocean’s 11 scenario. They just walked in with a headdress and a fake name and got them to give them everything.”
While City Light recovered the wire, Jones and Costa remain at large. Officials say they’ve pulled off similar scams around the state.
“This is what political correctness does to you. It makes you into boobs and ninnies,” says Dori. “You’re so afraid to offend that you don’t even do the slightest amount of vetting before you take people down to your secure facility because you are so desperate to help out the Native Americans and the disabled kids that you don’t even check them out?”
Tribal treaty fishing rights give Washington tribes the opportunity to weigh in on, and even block, projects that could impact their fishing grounds.(Ashley Ahearn/KUOW Photo)
About a quarter of all the coal the U.S. exports goes to Asian markets. To meet the demand, there are plans to build what would be the largest coal terminal in North America at a place called Cherry Point in the far northwestern corner of Washington state.
But there’s a hitch. The waters surrounding Cherry Point support a fishing industry worth millions of dollars. It’s also a sacred place for the Lummi tribe, whose reservation is nearby. And thanks to a landmark legal decision in the 1970s, tribes have the right to weigh in on — and even stop — projects that could affect their fishing grounds.
From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Ashley Ahearn of KUOW reports.
Coal prices are at the highest levels in months thanks to strong demand from Asian markets like China. And to help meet that demand, there are plans to build a huge new coal terminal in Washington State, at a place called Cherry Point. But the waters surrounding Cherry Point support a fishing industry that’s worth millions of dollars, and it’s a sacred place for the Lummi tribe, which has the right to weigh in on or put a stop to projects that could affect their fishing grounds.
From the HERE AND NOW Contributors Network, KUOW’s Ashley Ahearn reports.
ASHLEY AHEARN, BYLINE: Jay Julius and his crew pull crab pots up out of the deep blue waters near Cherry Point. From massive buckets on deck comes the clack and rustle of delicious Dungeness crabs in futile attempts at escape. We’re about 15 miles south of the Canadian border.
JAY JULIUS COUNCILMEMBER, LUMMI TRIBAL COUNCIL: That’s not bad.
AHEARN: Jay Julius is a member of the Lummi tribal council. His ancestors have fished these waters, just like he does now, for thousands of years. One out of every 10 Lummi tribal members has a fishing license, and the Lummi tribal fishery is worth $15 million annually.
COUNCIL: So now we’re entering the proposed area for the coal port. As you can see, the buoys start.
AHEARN: Dozens upon dozens of crab pots buoys dot the waters around us, like a brightly colored obstacle course as we approach Cherry Point.
COUNCIL: We see buoys up there.
AHEARN: If the Gateway Pacific Terminal is built, it could draw more than 450 ships per year to take the coal to Asia. Those ships would travel through this area of Cherry Point. The tribe is worried that its shellfish, salmon and halibut fishery will suffer.
COUNCIL: What does that mean to our treaty right to fish? This will be no more.
AHEARN: That treaty right to fish could play a major role in the review process for the Gateway Pacific Terminal and the two other coal terminals under consideration in the Northwest. In the mid-1800s, tribes in this region signed treaties with the federal government, seeding millions of acres of their land. But the tribal leaders of the time did a very smart thing, says Tim Brewer. He’s a lawyer with the Tulalip tribe.
TIM BREWER: What they insisted on was reserving the right to continue to fish in their usual and accustomed fishing areas. Extremely important part of the treaty.
AHEARN: Those treaty rights weren’t enforced in Washington until a momentous court decision in 1970s known as the Boldt Decision. It forced the state to follow up on the treaty promise of fishing rights that were made to the tribes more than a century before. Brewer says the phrase, usual and accustomed fishing areas, has implications for development projects, like coal terminals.
BREWER: If a project is going to impair access to a fishing ground and that impairment is significant, that project cannot move forward without violating the treaty right.
AHEARN: And in recent decades, tribes have flexed to those treaty muscles. The Lummi stopped a fish farm that was planned for the water’s off of Lummi island in the mid-’90s. The tribe argued that constructing the floating net pens would block tribal access to their usual and accustomed fishing grounds.
BREWER: And in that case, the Corps of Engineers denied that permit on that basis. There was no agreement that was bled to be worked out there.
AHEARN: But in other situations, agreements had been made.
DWIGHT JONES: My name is Dwight Jones. We’re at L.A. Bay Marina.
AHEARN: Jones is the general manager of the marina. Behind where he’s standing, Seattle’s Space Needle pierces the downtown skyline in the distance.
JONES: L.A. Bay Marina is the largest privately owned and operated marina on the West Coast. We have about 1,250 slips.
AHEARN: The marina was built in 1991 after a decade of environmental review and haggling with the Muckleshoot tribe. The marina is within the tribe’s treaty fishing area.
JONES: It was contentious, I guess, would be the right word.
AHEARN: Could they have stopped this project from being built?
JONES: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely they could’ve stopped it.
AHEARN: But they didn’t. Instead, the tribe negotiated a settlement. The owners of L.A. Bay Marina paid the Muckleshoot more than a million dollars upfront. And for the next hundred years, they will give the tribe eight percent of their gross annual revenue.
JONES: Anybody in business can tell you that eight percent of your gross revenue is a huge number. It really affects your viability as a business, so…
AHEARN: What would you say to companies that are trying to build a coal terminal?
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: I’d say good luck. It’s a long road, and there will be a lot of cost and the chances are, the tribes will make it – will probably negotiate a settlement that works well for them and will be – not be cheap.
AHEARN: SSA Marine and Pacific International Terminals, the companies that want to build the terminal at Cherry Point, have lawyers and staff members trying to negotiate a deal with the Lummi. But Jay Julias, a Lummi councilmember, laughs when I asked him how he feels about the company’s efforts to make inroads with the tribe.
COUNCIL: I say they’re funny, but I think they’re quite disgusting. The way they’re trying to infiltrate our nation, contaminate it, use people – it’s nothing new.
AHEARN: SSA Marine declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story. But they emailed a statement. It says: We sincerely respect the Lummi way of life and the importance of fishing to the tribe. We continue to believe we can come to an understanding with the Lummi nation regarding the Gateway Pacific Terminal project. For HERE AND NOW, I’m Ashley Ahearn in Seattle. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
The House on Wednesday unanimously passed a bill by Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Westville, to authorize construction of a memorial to Native Americans on the grounds of the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in Washington.
“I have heard from people I represent and from outside our district that the construction of this memorial means a great deal to Native Americans who served this nation and to their families,” Mullin said. “It is important that we properly honor these brave soldiers and tell their stories for generations to come.”
Mullin’s bill allows the Smithsonian museum to raise money for the memorial; no taxpayer funding will be used.
“With the recent presentation of the Congressional gold medals to tribal code talkers, it is an appropriate time for a renewed focus and gratitude toward Native Americans who served America in our war efforts and protected our freedoms,” said S. Joe Crittenden, Deputy Chief of the Cherokee Nation and a U.S. Navy veteran from the Vietnam War. “We applaud Congress for taking the necessary steps to truly honor our warriors and the sacrifices Native families have made to defend this great country of ours.”
Mullin, a Cherokee, is one of only two Native Americans. The other is Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, a Chickasaw.
“Throughout my life, I have always been proud of my Native American heritage,” Cole said. “I am very pleased that the legislation brought to the floor by Congressman Mullin will help facilitate construction of a memorial honoring Native Americans who served our country on the battlefield. It is only right to recognize and remember the significant contributions of those Native American warriors who served our country on the battlefield with great skill and bravery, and there is no better place than the National Museum of the American Indian.”
Tribal leaders praised the passage of H.R. 2319 and its significance to Native Americans.
“We take great pride in the long history of Native American service in the armed forces of the United States,” said Chickasaw Governor Bill Anoatubby. “We owe all these brave men and women a debt of gratitude for what they have done to protect our freedom and our way of life. This memorial is one way we can express our appreciation for their service and sacrifice.”
“Congressman Mullin understands how we as Native People revere our warriors,” said John L. Berrey, Chairman of the Quapaw Tribe. “His dedication to Native Americans is truly from the heart. As the Chairman of the Quapaw Tribe we are honored to have Mullin as our representative.”
“The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma applauds the passage of Representative Mullin’s bill, honoring the dedication and sacrifice of Native veterans,” said Choctaw Chief Gregory E. Pyle. “H.R. 2319 authorizes the Native American Veterans Memorial for tribal veterans from all tribes and all wars. Some of these warriors were fighting for our country before they were even recognized as American citizens. I am very pleased with the passage of this bill and very proud of all the Choctaw veterans and the many other Native soldiers who will be represented by this memorial.”
In a few short hours here in Irvine, California, Cirque du Soleil, Totem, performers will charge onto their stage with dramatic makeup, costumes and music.
Behind-the-scenes and inside the “Village on Wheels” as it’s called, there is a flurry of activity.
Look above and you’ll see trapeze artists perfecting their moves.
Down below, artists stretch on thick gymnastic mats and tell jokes, while others visit the medical tent to soothe their muscles through massage.
The makeup team is busy painting faces as costumes are being rounded up by the performers.
At the makeshift lounge, there are couches and a flat-screen tv, where performers can watch the previous night’s show and make the necessary notes.
It’s all in a day’s work at Totem, Cirque du Soleil’s show about the evolution of humans.
We caught up with one featured Latino-Native American performer, Eric Hernandez, the show’s Hoop Dancer. Hernandez hails from Covina, California, so Totem’s show this week is a homecoming of sorts for Eric.
Eric has been hoop dancing since he was 10 thanks to his uncle Terry Goedel, a world champion hoop dancer.
And although Eric never imagined he’d being hoop dancing for a living, one look at his performance and you can see why Cirque du Soleil came calling.
MAHWAH, N.J. — The past week has been unsettling for the Ramapough Mountain Indians, who live on this northern stretch of the Appalachian Mountains that overlooks the Manhattan skyline and wealthy parts of Bergen County. The new movie “Out of the Furnace,” featuring a star-studded cast that includes Christian Bale and Woody Harrelson, also features numerous negative references to the Ramapoughs. They include a fight-ring subplot.
Keith Van Dunk, 27, a member of the tribe, took a break from feeding the chickens at his father’s house up on Stag Hill here on Sunday morning and gestured at the surrounding woods.
“You see any fight ring up here?” he said. “Absolutely not.”
Tribal leaders and local elected officials held a news conference last week, speaking out against a film that they claim portrays them as trashy backwoods bumpkins involved in drugs and violence. One Ramapough henchman in the movie even bears Mr. Van Dunk’s last name.
The references constitute a “hate crime” that has “stained the community and stirred up animus” by increasing marginalization and stigmatization, said the Ramapoughs’ chief, Dwaine C. Perry, 66, in an interview.
In the past few days, he said, there had been several instances of Ramapough students in local high schools being picked on by classmates who had seen the film, including one case in which a teacher had to intervene.
At a showing of the movie last weekend, someone hurled slurs at a Ramapough woman in the theater, he said. There was also a fight at a local mall that tribal members said was stirred up by the film.
“The film contains ugly stereotypes that stain you for life,” Chief Perry said. “The undertones are racist and personal. It’s a hate crime when you look at the psychological impact on the kids.”
Contacted for comment, the film’s production company, Relativity Media, released a statement saying that the film is “entirely fictional” and not “based upon any particular person or group of people.”
“As is the case with most films, the filmmakers conducted research and drew upon their own personal life experiences in creating an original screenplay, and the story and the characters are entirely fictional,” the statement read.
Scott Cooper, who directed the film and co-wrote the script, was unavailable for comment Wednesday night. But a Relativity Media spokesman said that John Fetterman, mayor of Braddock, Pa. — the other main setting in the film — had nothing but praise for the way the movie portrayed Braddock. Mr. Fetterman called it a respectful depiction that was “eloquent, forceful and honest,” in a guest column he wrote for Variety magazine.
Several characters in the film have last names that are prevalent Ramapough names, including De Groat and Mann. The film was not shot in the area, but the Bergen County Police Department is portrayed as the local authority.
Mr. Van Dunk said he refused to buy a ticket to the film, but he consulted the IMDB website and saw that several cast members were listed as “Jackson White.”
The term “Jackson White” is a slur used by outsiders to deride the Ramapoughs, Mr. Van Dunk said, referencing the tribe’s descent from Native Americans, whites and runaway slaves who settled in the mountains in the late 18th century. The term dredges up decades of a long, ugly history of discrimination and marginalization.
“To me, it’s like calling a black person the N-word, and my father is black,” said Mr. Van Dunk, who works for a moving company in Hackensack. “In high school, kids would call me a Jackson White in the hallway, and if I stuck up for myself, they’d say I’m living up to the stereotype.”
Before the opening of the film, which was the third-grossing film in the country last weekend, The New York Post published an article saying that it depicts the Ramapoughs as “New Jersey hillbillies.” The article characterized tribe members as unsophisticated, intermarrying types who are ridiculed, who hunt and eat squirrels, and who drive all-terrain vehicles on dirt roads.
