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.