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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1990)
Smoke Signals January 1990 Page 15 BANKS(Cont) tribes and Japanese businesses, and said he plans to approach NCAI leaders about developing foreign-affairs business offices in countries where trade opportunities exist. Banks, who was accompanied by a Japanese business man and a Buddhist monk, appears to have completed ' the transition from red-power militant to successful entrepreneur. He and his Japanese associates arrived at the NCAI convention in a stretch limousine bearing South Dakota license plates, which remained parked outside the Sheraton Hotel throughout the week. He said Japanese business people he works with have made an extra effort to respect cultural differences they have with American Indians, and said Indians who would do business with the Japanese must exercise the same sensitivity. "We need to learn the protocol," he said. "For example, the Japanese concept of time is very high stress. But they (Japanese entrepreneurs) take Indian time very seriously." In his travels through Asia with his Japanese associates, Banks said they encountered "Mongolian time," in which Mongolian people changed without notice not only the time, but the date, of a meeting to which the entourage had traveled. "We almost felt like we should apologize for being early," he joked. Banks said more than 800 corporations in the United States currently are owned by Japanese businesses, and Indian tribes are in a key position to develop their own resources in cooperation with Japanese entrepreneurs. "THE MOVE TO CREATE REVISIONIST AIM HISTORY" By Laura Waterman Wittstock One of the more curious strategies taking place recently has been the attempt to change the history of the American Indian Movement. To be sure, from time to time there have been those who came forth to volunteer that they were the true founders of AIM or that they had long suppressed information on some arcane facet of AIM's birth and development. These have usually been attempts to discredit the current leadership or to lessen the importance and contributions AIM has made over the last 21 years. But all of this just seemed to be a part of the normal historical flow of events in the Minnesota Indian Community. Some have felt it necessary to gain their place in the community by tearing away at AIM and its leadership. But these people have come and gone, come and gone. Their stamina and methods are usually as ethereal as their presence over long periods of time, and they tend to fall into three distinct categories of individuals: a. ) Clcary identifiable Indians who choose the strategy of comparing what they do as good and what AIM does as no good; b. ) Those calling themselves Indians but having uncer tain claims to Indian identity and who attack as a strat egy for taking the focus away from their own inadequa cies; c. ) Those non-Indians who have a financial andor political stake in the affairs of the Indian community and who try to sway opinion and divert funds. Those in the middle category do doube harm to the Indian community by their masquerade and their continuing need to maintain a place in the affairs of the community. Their paranoia drives them to see what isn't there and their jealousies provoke them to attack Indians through "disclosures" to the non-Indian sector funder, authorities, political bodies, and the press. Other than those who choose to be non-ethnic, Indians attract the largest group of pretenders among people of ' color as a whole. Individuals, for whatever personal reasons of need, come into the Indian community and assume Indian identities. Some announce it right away upon arrival, stating which tribe they are supposed to belong to and the circumstances under which they are not enrolled. The story of being adopted is a common reason given for lack of a clear Indian identity. Others come into the community and gradually say they are Indian or they don't give a specific tribe, but they allow the Indian identification to be assumed by others and do nothing to refute it. They wear Indian jewelry. Their accents become pronounced. They spend a lot of time at cultural events. They marry Indians and have Indian children. All three categories of individuals have been present in the Indian community for a long time. Their behavior is predictable but unfortunately, some of them make their marks and spend their careers in anti-AIM activity. Like lamprey eels, they are tolerated up to a point, so long as they do no critical harm. This docs not dismiss every criticism of AIM and its leadership as unfounded. Over time there have been . upheavals within the AIM ranks and deserved con demnation or unworthy behavior. There have rip-offs, poor leadership, personal misconduct, and failure to act. Like all important movements in history, AIM is made up of many different people who can act in less than ideal fashion. Many of the harsher judgments that have led to reforms have come from within the ranks. The heart of AIM-dedication to helping the Indian commu nity and recognition of a continuing need for spiritually -has beat steady and true over the 21 years. But now there seems to be an attempt to show that AIM is a liability to the continued development of a well-known American Indian organization and that Clyde Bcllcourt, AIM's leader, is a liability to raising funds. It is said that funders will not give to an organiza tion that knowingly affiliates with him and AIM. If this were true, we would certainly have one of the more spectacular cases of conspiracy on our hands. The funders are not known to be so well organized and united. The needs of the community are huge and the cost of providing the necessary services is very high. Everyone knowledgeable in the public and private sectors know this. AIM's leadership and its collegial body have worked hard and long to bring the resources necessary into the Indian community to help meet those needs. The list of AIM founded and assisted organizations is impressive: - Heart of the Earth Survival School - Red School House - The Legal Rights Center - American Indian OIC - MIGIZI Communications, Inc. - Little Earth of United States - AIM Patrol Excluding Little Earth, the operating budgets of these organizations total over $5 million per year. Conserva tively, they serve 5,000 individuals per year. As organi zations, they have matured over a period of years from 1972 to the present. As its 1989 ceremonies, for ex ample, the American Indian OIC school of business graduated its 2,000th student. While bringing public attention to the needs and rights of Indian people, AIM has successfully become an ; overseer of programs that deliver needed services in the community. The leadership of AIM has done something few movement leaders have succeeded at: making that important transition from activism to sustained develop ment of the community's strengths. This AIM has ac complished through design of its own programs but also through helping other organizations come into being and flourish. The strategy has been straightforward: get the resources needed and direct programs from the perspective of self-government to empower the commu nity. As a group, the AIM affiliated organizations are the largest employers of Indians in the State of Minne sota. The rule of Indian employment and self-governance predated any governmental imperatives. AIM has always had its detractors, but even among these ranks, few have attempted to erase AIM from the history of an organization or have said that this impor tant presence drives money out of the community. Quite the opposite is true and has been for 21 years. But it is also true that we need to remind ourselves of one of the important sources of our own significant strength from time to time. ii . .w t iaiX-W ...ww. v. Z V V ,' I-..T i .a m Administrative Assistant Jackie Colton.
