by Doc » Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:08 pm
This topic has been done before...I think by 47 degrees...so since he's chimed in so will I...
The Quinault (along with several other coastal tribes) are the original inhabitants of that stretch of coastline and these tribes were "rich", meaning that they had sufficient food and necessities so that they could produce a rich cultuaral tradition...
Upon introduction to Europeans and later Americans...their culture suffered similar devastation that native cultures suffer on nearly every continent...
If this wasn't enough, they were herded together with the other tribes and crammed onto reservations as a whole...I don't know the specifics but they were forced to cede vast territories to the US Govt. prior to the Civil War...officially somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000,000 acres...and understand, this was for the right to be recognized as a rez...the rez today is about 200,000 acres plus, much of it land purchased adjacent to the rez by the tribes...yes, private property.
The rez was managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs which historically is a corrupt agency and was not interested in the Quinault's well-being, but with lining their own pockets through timber sales and handing down rulings and land reassignments that benefitted the US Govt. primarily...same old story.
The rez was clearcut and it's lumber sold off in huge swaths with little of the profit going to the tribes...and added benefit was the decine of habitat for salmon and other wildlife on the rez...the BIA realloted the lands to individual tribe members to make them into farmers...in a land unsuited to farming...the result was that many of the inhabitants left the rez in order to survive, you know...earn a living.
I guess the F*#k You comments bandied about regarding this is appropriate considering that the Govt has been F@#king the native peoples hard for well over a 100 years now...I guess I just don't understand the logic that surfers (or anyone else) is somehow entitled to access the beach on what is in essence a sovereign nation...a country within a country...
47 says it's a racist policy...and certainly there is racism in much of it...I think their distrust of caucasians in general and active protection of their territory is the result of the racism they've experienced over time...a racism that was backed up with officially sanctioned guns, disease and outright theft of their wealth...their racism lacks this power...a surfer might get an @ss-kicking if he broke their rules and then the @ss kickers probably would be incarcerated for a few years...pure speculation, who cares?
There is a continued effort to undermine Oregon's beach access policy that goes on continually...stay focused on what's going on with that...that's funded by wealthy land owners that would love to keep scruffy surfers off the beach in front of their mansion...not a disenfranchised people trying to protect what's rightfully theirs...
Just my opinion.
Doc
"If you don't surf...don't start".