Rights panel: Diné must lead fight
By Erny Zah
Navajo Times
WINDOW ROCK, July 29, 2010
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"I hope this is not a band-aid," said Larry Anderson (Fort Defiance) about the 88-page report, titled "Assessing Race Relations Between Navajos and Non-Navajos: A Review of Border Town Race Relations."
The report distilled comments taken in 25 hearings involving more than 400 people who testified during a nine-month period ending in September 2009. The hearings were held throughout the Navajo Nation and in towns that border the reservation.
The hearings were intended to gauge race relations primarily in off-reservation communities, where racially motivated ill will continues to erupt on a fairly regular basis, and most Native Americans say they feel stigmatized by some business owners.
"It appalls me in the day of the 21st Century that we are still looked at as people who don't pay taxes," said Jonathan Nez (Shonto).
He recommended that the commission explore options to help off-reservation businesses learn about Navajo culture. He offered the idea of a certification system so that businesses that want to understand Navajo thinking can educate their workers and then be recognized for their effort.
Another delegate said discrimination is not confined to border towns, nor does it just involve whites looking down on Natives.
"Discrimination happens here on Navajo," said Benjamin Curley (Ganado/Kinlichee).
Not all of the delegates who wanted to speak were given the floor, including one of the three holdout votes, Elmer Milford (Fort Defiance).
Milford said he voted against the report but only because he had missed hearing a sizable portion of it and does not believe in casting a vote if he is unfamiliar with what he is voting for.
Milford said he was in the legislative office helping one of his constituents during the report presentation.
Commission Chairman Duane "Chili" Yazzie said the commission heard tales of many types of discrimination.
The report includes summaries of each of the hearings, including the names of those who testified.
Sandra Wilson, whose testimony is summarized in the report, is identified as an Anglo whose Navajo husband was murdered. She told the commission that police closed the investigation into her husband's killing after making only a cursory effort to find the killers. The prime suspects were white, she said.
Wilson testified during the Flagstaff hearing in December 2009, according to the report.
Among its findings on border town violence against Navajos, the report stated, "The most vulnerable Navajo is generally older, possesses little or no education, is physically challenged, on a fixed income, indigent and with inadequate transportation."
The commission examined the reasons Navajos usually don't report discrimination they may be enduring. These include being embarrassed, fear of retaliation, or being unaware of resources available to them.
The report states that the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission needs to forge agreements with neighboring communities in which there is a mutual commitment to helping Navajo people who feel they are being discriminated against.
The commission also called for an agreement with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission "for the purposes of establishing a Tribal Employment Rights Office."
Commission Executive Director Leonard Gorman said the council's approval of the report opens the door to the next stage of action.
"I think that establishes the next step, a jurisdictional issue," Gorman said, adding that he wants the office to go beyond making recommendations and instead take a role in enforcing anti-discrimination standards.
But he acknowledged that race relations could take generations to resolve, saying that some of the work his panel is doing to settle current human rights issues could very well be some of the same issues his grandchildren face.
"It's that big of an issue," Gorman said.
