Native teen speaks out to spur sensitivity
A 17-year-old member of the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz on Thursday asked that the Oregon Board of Education require high schools to avoid mascots offensive to Native Americans
Hold it right there. Are all Native Americans (a loose term in my book) offended by the same thing? Every single one? Or does this kid want mascots that offend him banned?
Brad Victor, an Indian Education Programs specialist with the Oregon Department of Education, said he admired Butler's "courage to personally face the state board of education." Victor said 16 Oregon schools use Native-themed mascots whose behavior and dress are offensive.
Thankfully we have Victor at the ODE to step in a qualify what's offensive. So that's two people...
Do these people not realize that naming a team the "Braves" is actually a compliment? A symbol of strength and power could only offend the sissified "boys" that our public schools have created.
26 comments:
EVERYTHING IS OFFENSIVE TO SOMEONE
I am so tired of this "pc" society i could puke (sorry that's offensive)I once saw a sign in a park that said, no parking, no camping, no fires, and hand written under it said "no fun". Thats whats really wrong here today
Sioux, important confederacy of North American tribes of the Siouan language family and of the Plains culture area. The Ojibwa word for the group, rendered into French by early explorers and traders as Nadouessioux, was shortened to Sioux and passed into English. The Sioux generally call themselves Lakota or Dakota, meaning “allies.” The seven tribes fall into three major divisions: the sedentary and agricultural Santee; the Nakota; and the warrior and buffalo-hunter Teton.
The Sioux were first noted historically in the Jesuit Relation of 1640, when they were living in what is now Minnesota. Their traditions indicate that they had moved there some time before from the northeast. They were noted in 1678 by the French explorer Daniel Duluth and in 1680 by Father Louis Hennepin in the Mille Lacs region in Minnesota. They lived on small game, deer, and wild rice, and were surrounded by large rival tribes. Conflict with their enemy, the Ojibwa people, forced the Sioux to move to the buffalo ranges of the Great Plains.
In the mid-18th cent., having driven the Cheyenne and Kiowa out of the Black Hills, the Sioux inhabited the Northern Great Plains and the western prairies-mainly in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and up into the bordering provinces of Canada. As they became adept buffalo hunters, the tribes grew and prospered. By 1750 the Sioux comprised some 30,000 people firmly established in the heartland of the northern Great Plains. The Tetons, numbering some 15,000, were the most populous of the seven tribes, and the Oglala Sioux, the largest group of the Teton, numbered some 3,000. They dominated this region for the next century.
II. The Struggle Against U.S. Encroachment
The Sioux fought on the side of the British during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. In 1815, however, the eastern groups made treaties of friendship with the United States, and in 1825 another treaty confirmed Sioux possession of an immense territory that included much of present-day Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Wyoming. In 1837 the Sioux sold all their territory east of the Mississippi River to the United States; additional territory was sold in 1851.
At this time a pattern of assault and counterassault developed as settlers pushed forward onto Sioux lands. The first clash was in 1854 near Fort Laramie, Wyoming, when 19 U.S. soldiers were killed. In retaliation, in 1855 U.S. troops killed about 100 Sioux at their encampment in Nebraska and imprisoned their chief. Red Cloud's War (1866-1867), named after a Sioux chief, ended in a treaty granting the Black Hills in perpetuity to the Sioux. The treaty, however, was not honored by the United States; gold prospectors and miners flooded the region in the 1870s. In the ensuing conflict, General George Armstrong Custer and 300 troops were killed at Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, by the Sioux chief Sitting Bull and his warriors. After that battle the Sioux separated. The massacre by U.S. troops of about 150 to 370 Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in December 1890 marked the end of Sioux resistance until modern times.
III. Way of Life
The basic social unit of the Sioux was the tiyospe, an extended family group that traveled together in search of game. The Sioux nature leaned toward extremes. For example, infidelity in marriage was punished by disfigurement; an infraction of hunting regulations led to destruction of tepee and property; mourners inflicted slashes on themselves during burial ceremonies. The Sioux believed in one all-pervasive omnipotent god, Wakan Tanka, or the Great Mystery. Religious visions were cultivated, as in the frenzied ceremony of the ghost dance.
Of the 103,255 Sioux in the United States and Canada in 1990, most lived on reservations in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Nebraska. They retain their language and its three principle dialects.
The Sioux have been active in the modern Native American civil rights movement, seeking restoration of their land base and the institution of a modernized form of traditional life. They have been particularly involved in the American Indian Movement (AIM), a civil rights group that has actively protested government treatment of Native Americans since the late 1960s. In 1973 AIM, in concert with a group of Oglala Sioux who were angered by reservation abuses, seized the town of Wounded Knee for 71 days and demanded a United States Senate investigation into Native American living conditions. The occupation lasted 70 days, during which about 300 persons were arrested by federal agents. In 1979 the Sioux were awarded $105 million for the taking of their lands, resolving a legal action begun in 1923, although the money was never accepted as a land subsitute.
Today they constitute one of the largest Native American groups, living mainly on reservations in Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana; the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota is the second largest in the United States. Many are engaged in farming and ranching, including the raising of bison. The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux have a large casino on their reservation in Minnesota, but Oglala efforts to establish one at impoverished Pine Ridge have met with only partial success. Indian Country Today, a successful Native American newspaper, was started at Pine Ridge in 1981; it is now based in Rapid City, S.Dak. In 1990 there were more than 100,000 Sioux in the United States and more than 10,000 in Canada.
"In the mid-18th cent., having driven the Cheyenne and Kiowa out of the Black Hills"
Okay, now wait just a minute here. I thought Europeans were the only ones with aspirations of empire, who drove others out of their native territory. Those friendly, understanding "Native Americans" would never have done such a thing.
From the article :
"... Just last year, students at Enterprise High School in northeastern Oregon got their school board to eliminate the school nickname 'Savages' and replace it with 'Outlaws.' "
So "Outlaws" is better?? Well, I suppose illegal alien families would like it.
I find Che Butler's first name offensive.
Most of us (excepting for some diversity embracing Portlanders) find that flatulance is offensive.
Should that be banned as well?
SITTING BULL
IN MEMORY©
by Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner
Mrs. Fanny Kelly was taken captive in July 1864 by a war party of Hunkpapa Sioux in Wyoming. During most of the five months she was held prisoner, Mrs. Kelly stayed in the lodgings of Sitting Bull, the famous leader "as a guest," of his family, "and I was treated as a guest," she wrote.
"He was uniformly gentle, and kind to his wife and children and courteous and considerate in his [interactions] with others. During my stay with them food was scarce more than once, and both Sitting Bull and his wife often suffered with hunger to supply me with food. They both have a very warm place in my heart." This surprising warm friendship with a woman who had every reason to hate and fear him, characterized Sitting Bull's interactions with whites. A teacher and missionary among Sitting Bull's people, Catherine Weldon, once described him,
"As a friend...sincere and true, as a patriot devoted and incorruptible. As a husband and father, affectionate and considerate. As a host, courteous and hospitable to the last degree."
The Ashcroft family, white settlers who lived nearby, valued Sitting Bull as "one of their oldest friends." They often told the story of how, on one of his frequent trips to buy produce and chickens from Grandmother, he stopped for potatoes.
"Grandfather was busy and did not want to take the time to dig them, so his daughter Ethel, ten years old, slipped away and dug a half-sack of potatoes and dragged them up to the house for Sitting Bull. He was so pleased that he promised her a pony, and soon a little bay horse was delivered to her. He was named 'Two-John' and she had him until she was married to Jack Jacobs in 1896."1
Yet when Sitting Bull was killed on December 15, 1890, newspapers throughout the nation echoed the Minneapolis Tribune whose one regret was that he "should have been hung higher than Hamar [Hamar should read Haman. Haman was the villain of the biblical story of Esther who was hung on a specially prepared gallows 50 cubits (a measure of length approximately equal to the length of a forearm) high.] and with less ceremony than is observed by a Texas lynching party towards a horse thief." 2 As the press whipped-up hatred of the Indians, the fact was lost that Sitting Bull had been residing in friendship and peace with his white neighbors, with his only "crime" taking part in a religious worship, the Ghost Dance, labeled the "Messiah craze" by the press.
His greater "crime," of course, was that he was "an obstructionist, a foe to progress." "Progress" was defined as white settlement on Indian land, and the previous year the Dakota (Sioux) Indians had received enormous pressure to approve the sale of one-half of their remaining land. Not all accepted.
According to United States law (as expressed in the Treaty of 1868) the signatures of 3/4 of the adult males of the Sioux nation were required before land could be sold. Sitting Bull resisted. He "never signed a treaty to sell any portion of his people's inheritance, and he refused to acknowledge the right of other Indians to sell his undivided share of the tribal lands," according to his friend, Catherine Weldon, who contended that Sitting Bull was killed in order "to silence exposures which he could have made." There was enormous double-dealing to expose, including the doctoring of census records to reduce the number of Indians required to sign, and the gathering of signatures illegally to reach the necessary number.
Mrs. Weldon was not alone in her belief that Sitting Bull had been silenced. In the New York World on December 21, 1890, Rev. W.H.H. Murray charged, "The land grabbers wanted the Indian lands. The lying, thieving Indian agents wanted silence touching past thefts and immunity to continue their thieving."
The World's editor interjected, "Mr. Murray's characterization of the killing is sustained by the report sent yesterday by Corporal Gunn, of the Eighth Cavalry. The affair is one which should receive a searching inquiry. As it stands now it was organized butchery, and one of the most shameful incidents in our 'century of dishonor' towards the Indians."3
Sitting Bull's death was a political assassination by the United States government, insisted the head of the Nebraska National Guard, General Leonard Colby, who wrote that there was an
"understanding between the officers of the Indian and military departments that it would be impossible to bring Sitting Bull to Standing Rock alive, and even if successfully captured, it would be difficult to tell what to do with him. It is therefore believed that there was a tacit arrangement between the commanding officers and the Indian police, that the death of the famous old Medicine man was much preferred to his capture, and that the slightest attempt to rescue him should be the signal for his destruction." 4
To have him killed by Indian police allowed the government to avoid responsibility in the matter.
Sitting Bull, like Martin Luther King, was a man of vision. "The great hope and purpose of his life was to unify the tribes, and bands of the Dakotas, (Sioux) and hold the remaining lands of his people as a sacred inheritance for their children," wrote his friend Catherine Weldon. "This fact," she maintained, "made him unpopular with all who saw in his policy and influence obstruction to their selfish schemes, hence they demanded his removal."
There was never an official investigation into Sitting Bull's murder, nor have the assassination charges been disproved. Reverend Murray believed that a day would come when Sitting Bull would be revered for the visionary man of peace that he was:
"I read that they have buried his body like a dog's," Rev. Murray wrote, "without funeral rites, without tribal wail, with no solemn song or act. This is the deed of to-day. That is the best that this generation has to give to this noble historic character... Very well. So let it stand for the present. But there is a generation coming that shall reverse this judgment of ours. Our children shall build monuments to those whom we stoned and the great aboriginals whom we killed will be counted by the future American as among the historic characters of the Continent." 5
Who knows? Perhaps Reverend Murray was right, and as the world grows more enlightened, we may one day celebrate Sitting Bull Day as we now do Martin Luther King Day.
Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner, a Research Affiliate at the University of California, Davis, and Aberdeen native, has just completed the third volume of her Daughters of Dakota series: "Stories of Friendship between Settlers and the Dakota Indians" with guest editor, Vic Runnels. The Ashcroft story is from that book.
Footnotes:
1. Sally Roesch Wagner, Daughters of Dakota II: Stories from the Attic. Carmichael, CA: Sky Carrier Press, 1990, p. 166.
2. Minneapolis Tribune. cited in Robert C. Hollow, "The Sioux Ghost Dance of 1890." The Last Years of Sitting Bull. Bismarck: State Historical Society of North Dakota, 1985, p. 43.
3. Bland, p. 27.
4. Colby, "Sioux," p. 151.
5. Bland, p. 27.
Daniel - Has it ever occurred to you that that native americans, whose culture was virtually rendered extinct, might like to have some say over when and how they are "honored"? If Native Americans prefer that this "honoring" not take shape in the form of a high school mascot, why should that wish not be respected?
While I agree that this PC crap has gone wayyyyy overboard, perhaps some might agree with me that the team name "Washington Redskins" is indeed offensive.
Being of Scottish decent I am offended by the nicknames Scotsmen, Highlanders and Celtics.
Let me see, I was a Grant high school "General", we contested against the Jefferson "Democrats,"
The Marshall "Minutemen," The Wilson "Trojans," the Cleveland "Indians," the Madison "Senators," and others.
Should Notre Dame now become the "Fighting Anglo Non-Saxons?" How about those Miami "Pool-Toys?" Or the Denver "Hobby-Horses?" The Los Angeles "Conscientious Objectors?"
The Portland "Trail Mixers?"
My advice to the young and oh-so-thoroughly-offended "Native American" young man: get a life. Pronto, (insert rhyme-of-choice here).
Neonleon - you miss the point. It's as simple as asking the group after which your team is named (after all, it's just a game): "Does our masoct offend you?"
If yes, get a new mascot!
How Eisenhower solved illegal border crossings from Mexico
By John Dillin
WASHINGTON – George W. Bush isn't the first Republican president to face a full-blown immigration crisis on the US-Mexican border.
Fifty-three years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into the White House, America's southern frontier was as porous as a spaghetti sieve. As many as 3 million illegal migrants had walked and waded northward over a period of several years for jobs in California, Arizona, Texas, and points beyond.
In the Monitor
Friday, 12/08/06
President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents - less than one-tenth of today's force. The operation is still highly praised among veterans of the Border Patrol.
Although there is little to no record of this operation in Ike's official papers, one piece of historic evidence indicates how he felt. In 1951, Ike wrote a letter to Sen. William Fulbright (D) of Arkansas. The senator had just proposed that a special commission be created by Congress to examine unethical conduct by government officials who accepted gifts and favors in exchange for special treatment of private individuals.
General Eisenhower, who was gearing up for his run for the presidency, said "Amen" to Senator Fulbright's proposal. He then quoted a report in The New York Times, highlighting one paragraph that said: "The rise in illegal border-crossing by Mexican 'wetbacks' to a current rate of more than 1,000,000 cases a year has been accompanied by a curious relaxation in ethical standards extending all the way from the farmer-exploiters of this contraband labor to the highest levels of the Federal Government."
Years later, the late Herbert Brownell Jr., Eisenhower's first attorney general, said in an interview with this writer that the president had a sense of urgency about illegal immigration when he took office.
America "was faced with a breakdown in law enforcement on a very large scale," Mr. Brownell said. "When I say large scale, I mean hundreds of thousands were coming in from Mexico [every year] without restraint."
Although an on-and-off guest-worker program for Mexicans was operating at the time, farmers and ranchers in the Southwest had become dependent on an additional low-cost, docile, illegal labor force of up to 3 million, mostly Mexican, laborers.
According to the Handbook of Texas Online, published by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas State Historical Association, this illegal workforce had a severe impact on the wages of ordinary working Americans. The Handbook Online reports that a study by the President's Commission on Migratory Labor in Texas in 1950 found that cotton growers in the Rio Grande Valley, where most illegal aliens in Texas worked, paid wages that were "approximately half" the farm wages paid elsewhere in the state.
Profits from illegal labor led to the kind of corruption that apparently worried Eisenhower. Joseph White, a retired 21-year veteran of the Border Patrol, says that in the early 1950s, some senior US officials overseeing immigration enforcement "had friends among the ranchers," and agents "did not dare" arrest their illegal workers.
Walt Edwards, who joined the Border Patrol in 1951, tells a similar story. He says: "When we caught illegal aliens on farms and ranches, the farmer or rancher would often call and complain [to officials in El Paso]. And depending on how politically connected they were, there would be political intervention. That is how we got into this mess we are in now."
Bill Chambers, who worked for a combined 33 years for the Border Patrol and the then-called US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), says politically powerful people are still fueling the flow of illegals.
During the 1950s, however, this "Good Old Boy" system changed under Eisenhower - if only for about 10 years.
In 1954, Ike appointed retired Gen. Joseph "Jumpin' Joe" Swing, a former West Point classmate and veteran of the 101st Airborne, as the new INS commissioner.
Influential politicians, including Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D) of Texas and Sen. Pat McCarran (D) of Nevada, favored open borders, and were dead set against strong border enforcement, Brownell said. But General Swing's close connections to the president shielded him - and the Border Patrol - from meddling by powerful political and corporate interests.
One of Swing's first decisive acts was to transfer certain entrenched immigration officials out of the border area to other regions of the country where their political connections with people such as Senator Johnson would have no effect.
Then on June 17, 1954, what was called "Operation Wetback" began. Because political resistance was lower in California and Arizona, the roundup of aliens began there. Some 750 agents swept northward through agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions a day. By the end of July, over 50,000 aliens were caught in the two states. Another 488,000, fearing arrest, had fled the country.
By mid-July, the crackdown extended northward into Utah, Nevada, and Idaho, and eastward to Texas.
By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 illegals had left the Lone Star State voluntarily.
Unlike today, Mexicans caught in the roundup were not simply released at the border, where they could easily reenter the US. To discourage their return, Swing arranged for buses and trains to take many aliens deep within Mexico before being set free.
Tens of thousands more were put aboard two hired ships, the Emancipation and the Mercurio. The ships ferried the aliens from Port Isabel, Texas, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, more than 500 miles south.
The sea voyage was "a rough trip, and they did not like it," says Don Coppock, who worked his way up from Border Patrolman in 1941 to eventually head the Border Patrol from 1960 to 1973.
Mr. Coppock says he "cannot understand why [President] Bush let [today's] problem get away from him as it has. I guess it was his compassionate conservatism, and trying to please [Mexican President] Vincente Fox."
There are now said to be 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the US. Of the Mexicans who live here, an estimated 85 percent are here illegally.
Border Patrol vets offer tips on curbing illegal immigration
One day in 1954, Border Patrol agent Walt Edwards picked up a newspaper in Big Spring, Texas, and saw some startling news. The government was launching an all-out drive to oust illegal aliens from the United States.
The orders came straight from the top, where the new president, Dwight Eisenhower, had put a former West Point classmate, Gen. Joseph Swing, in charge of immigration enforcement.
General Swing's fast-moving campaign soon secured America's borders - an accomplishment no other president has since equaled. Illegal migration had dropped 95 percent by the late 1950s.
Several retired Border Patrol agents who took part in the 1950s effort, including Mr. Edwards, say much of what Swing did could be repeated today.
"Some say we cannot send 12 million illegals now in the United States back where they came from. Of course we can!" Edwards says.
Donald Coppock, who headed the Patrol from 1960 to 1973, says that if Swing and Ike were still running immigration enforcement, "they'd be on top of this in a minute."
William Chambers, another '50s veteran, agrees. "They could do a pretty good job" sealing the border.
Edwards says: "When we start enforcing the law, these various businesses are, on their own, going to replace their [illegal] workforce with a legal workforce."
While Congress debates building a fence on the border, these veterans say other actions should have higher priority.
1. End the current practice of taking captured Mexican aliens to the border and releasing them. Instead, deport them deep into Mexico, where return to the US would be more costly.
2. Crack down hard on employers who hire illegals. Without jobs, the aliens won't come.
3. End "catch and release" for non-Mexican aliens. It is common for illegal migrants not from Mexico to be set free after their arrest if they promise to appear later before a judge. Few show up.
The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
FILED: May 20, 2004
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON,
Respondent on Review,
v.
DANIEL PAUL MIGLAVS,
Petitioner on Review.
(CC C000009CR, C000111CR; CA A111137 (Control), A111138; SC S50279)
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted March 3, 2004.
Garrett A. Richardson, Portland, argued the cause and filed the brief for petitioner on review.
Jonathan H. Fussner, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause for respondent on review. Julie A. Smith, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief. With her on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General.
Before Carson, Chief Justice, and Gillette, Durham, Riggs, De Muniz, and Balmer, Justices.**
DE MUNIZ, J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment of the circuit court are affirmed.
*Appeal from Washington County Circuit Court, Timothy P. Alexander, Judge. 186 Or App 420, 63 P3d 1202 (2003).
**Kistler, J., did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case.
DE MUNIZ, J.
The issue in this criminal case is whether a police officer lawfully engaged in a precautionary patdown (1) of defendant in accordance with the officer safety rule set out in State v. Bates, 304 Or 519, 747 P2d 991 (1987). Because there were multiple charges against defendant arising out of separate police patdowns and a subsequent search of defendant's residence, we first set out the procedural history in some detail.
Defendant was charged with two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm based on evidence uncovered during a patdown (the patdown at issue here) conducted in August 1999. Defendant moved to suppress the evidence that the police discovered during that patdown. Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied defendant's motion to suppress that evidence.
The same indictment also charged defendant with two other counts of unlawful possession of a firearm as a result of evidence uncovered in a patdown that the police conducted in September 1999. Defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of that patdown, and the trial court granted that motion.
Finally, the police executed a search warrant at defendant's residence in December 1999 and seized evidence that led to defendant being charged separately with seven other weapon and drug-related crimes. Defendant moved to suppress that evidence as well, and the trial court denied that motion.
The court consolidated all charges and tried them at the same time. Defendant ultimately was convicted of two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm seized as a result of the August patdown and three counts of unlawful possession of a firearm seized during the December search of defendant's residence.
Defendant appealed, contending that the police had relied on the evidence that they discovered during the August patdown to obtain the search warrant that led to the discovery of the evidence seized during the December search of defendant's residence. A divided en banc Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's rulings denying defendant's motions to suppress evidence discovered during the August patdown and the December search of his residence. State v. Miglavs, 186 Or App 420, 63 P3d 1202 (2003). We allowed defendant's petition for review. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the August patdown was lawful and, therefore, affirm the trial court judgment and the decision of the Court of Appeals.
We take the following facts from the Court of Appeals majority opinion:
"Just after midnight in August 1999, Officer Brown, who was on patrol alone, saw defendant and another man standing outside a car, talking to a woman seated in the car, in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Beaverton. They were below an apartment overhang, which caused the area to be fairly dark. Because Brown suspected that all three individuals were under 18 years of age and possibly violating curfew, she approached the group. On approaching, she saw alcohol in the car. She asked for identification so that she could determine if any alcohol-related or curfew violations may have occurred. Defendant and the woman in the car gave Brown their identification, which she kept while she ran a records check on them. The other male said that he was 17 years old and gave his name and date of birth in lieu of other identification. The dispatcher reported that defendant was a possible runaway, but defendant told the officer that he had recently turned 18. He also told the officer that he lived in the apartment complex, even though his identification listed a different address. He was unwilling to tell the officer in which apartment he resided.
"Because she was on patrol alone, Brown called for backup while she was checking the ages and identities of the three individuals. Two backup officers arrived within a couple of minutes. By the time they arrived, Brown had determined that the driver of the car was 21 years old and therefore lawfully in possession of alcohol. She also had determined that defendant was 18 years old and therefore not violating curfew. Brown returned defendant's and the driver's identification to them, making no overture to cite or hold them. They were then free to go, but Brown did not expressly tell them that. They remained while Brown continued her investigation of the 17-year-old for a possible curfew violation.
"At that point, Brown was concerned for her personal safety and that of the backup officers. Defendant and his male companion were wearing distinctive clothing commonly associated with a gang called the '18th Street' gang. Typical of that gang, defendant had a shaved head and was wearing baggy tan pants and a baggy black shirt with the term '18th Street' printed on the back in large white letters. Defendant's companion also was wearing baggy gang-style clothes and had a three-dot tattoo under his eye that is associated with gang membership. The baggy style of the clothing concerned Brown because, in addition to signaling gang affiliation, the clothing permitted easy concealment of a weapon. Within the preceding year, Brown had come into contact with a similarly attired gang member in the parking lot of the same apartment complex who, on a patdown search, was found to have a weapon concealed in his waistband under his baggy clothing. Also, based on her training and experience more generally, Brown knew that members of the 18th Street gang commonly carry weapons--in particular, guns.
"One of the backup officers, Officer Cockreham, shared Brown's safety concerns. His concerns arose because of defendant's 18th Street gang-affiliated clothing, as well as the way in which defendant's shirt was draped over his waist. Cockreham had personally removed weapons from several 18th Street gang members in the same general area (i.e., along Allen Boulevard between Hall and King); one such encounter occurred 'just previously to this incident' and the weapon he found on the gang member was a gun. Brown directed Cockreham to patdown defendant for weapons. On doing so, Cockreham found a gun concealed in the waistband of defendant's pants."
186 Or App at 422-24 (footnote omitted).
In affirming the trial court's rulings denying defendant's motion to suppress the gun, the Court of Appeals majority relied on this court's earlier decision in Bates. There, this court held that
"Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution, does not forbid an officer to take reasonable steps to protect himself or others if, during the course of a lawful encounter with a citizen, the officer develops a reasonable suspicion, based upon specific and articulable facts, that the citizen might pose an immediate threat of serious physical injury to the officer or to others then present."
Id. at 524. The Court of Appeals majority began its analysis by characterizing the basis for the officers' particularized suspicion of defendant:
"The officers' safety concerns here were not stereotypical in the sense that they derived only from a generalized and oversimplified view of how all members of a broad group behave in all circumstances. Rather, Brown and Cockreham had particular training in and experience with members of a particular gang--the 18th Street gang--and its local activities. The officers, based on training and experience relating to that particular gang, knew that its local members commonly carried concealed weapons. They knew, moreover, that guns were often the weapon of choice for members of the 18th Street gang."
Miglavs, 186 Or App at 427 (emphasis in original). The court concluded that several factors contributed to the officers' reasonable fear for their safety:
"On whole, then, we have this: defendant was a likely member of not just an urban gang but of a particular gang known to operate in the area--the 18th Street gang--whose local members commonly carry guns; he was wearing clothes that could have concealed a gun; the officers had both longer-term and very recent experience with members of the 18th Street gang in the area who were armed with concealed weapons; it was late; it was dark; and defendant chose to protract the encounter with the officers. The totality of what the officers knew and the circumstances with which they were confronted went beyond a generalized understanding of the practices of urban gangs and encompassed a specific and particularized reality as to defendant and the 18th Street gang, of which defendant was a likely member."
Id. at 428. The court thus affirmed defendant's convictions.
Judge Haselton agreed with the majority, but wrote separately to clarify that the court's decision did "not authorize 'officer safety' searches based solely on a citizen's 'suspicious' appearance or possible association with a potentially dangerous group." Id. at 435 (Haselton, J., concurring). He further explained that "our holding does not write a blank check for 'officer safety' patdowns resulting from officer-initiated contacts with young men or women wearing 'gang style' clothing." Id. (Haselton, J., concurring).
Judge Edmonds and Judge Armstrong dissented in separate opinions. Judge Edmonds asserted that the constitutional right to associate requires that the constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures apply equally to "those who belong to gangs, wear baggy gang-related clothing, or identify with groups known to be violent" as they do to others. Id. (Edmonds, J., dissenting). He opined that defendant's decision to remain at the scene after Brown concluded her investigation of him was the only fact that could have contributed to her concern that defendant might pose an immediate threat to her safety or that of others. Id. at 436 (Edmonds, J., dissenting). But that fact, Judge Edmonds asserted, was of little significance in light of defendant's cooperative attitude and the fact that Brown did not tell him that he was free to leave. Id. (Edmonds, J., dissenting). Judge Edmonds further posited that Brown's failure to direct defendant to leave indicated that she did not perceive defendant to be a greater threat at the end of the investigation than she had at the beginning. Id. (Edmonds, J., dissenting). According to Judge Edmonds, the majority's decision would permit the police to patdown "any person dressed in gang attire and present in a mall or other public place * * * even in the absence of individualized suspicion[,]" contrary to Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. (2) Id. at 436-37 (Edmonds, J., dissenting).
Judge Armstrong similarly believed that the officers' knowledge that defendant was a member of the 18th Street gang, and their prior experiences with that gang, were not "sufficient to give the officers a reasonable basis to believe that defendant was a member of the 18th Street gang who, because of that membership, was reasonably likely to be carrying a gun." Id. at 439 (Armstrong, J., dissenting). He also could not discern a difference between the officers' knowledge that defendant was a member of a particular gang that was known to carry guns and their knowledge that members of a particular type of gang carry guns. Id. at 440 (Armstrong, J., dissenting). "In either case" Judge Armstrong observed, "the state seeks to rely on a syllogism that people of a particular group often carry weapons, that the defendant appears to be a member of that group, and that it is therefore reasonable to suspect that the defendant is carrying a weapon." Id. (Armstrong, J., dissenting). He noted further, as did Judge Edmonds, that Brown did not have a reason to fear for her safety because defendant was cooperative and because Brown had not waited for the backup officers to arrive to conduct her investigation of the three individuals. Id. at 440-41 (Armstrong, J., dissenting). In Judge Armstrong's view, defendant's failure to leave when Brown returned defendant's identification was of no significance because Brown should have understood that defendant merely wished to resume his encounter with his friends. Id. at 441-42 (Armstrong, J., dissenting).
In this court, defendant relies on the dissenting opinions by Judge Edmonds and Judge Armstrong and argues that the Court of Appeals majority erred in its application of the Bates rule because Brown did not have a particularized suspicion that defendant was armed and might pose a threat to the officers' safety. He observes that, when Brown had concluded her investigation of defendant, she did not tell him that he was free to leave, from which he argues that his failure to leave should not have contributed to Brown's safety concerns. He notes further that he was "cooperative and unthreatening" and, thus, should not have made the officers feel that he presented an immediate risk to their safety.
The state responds that this court needs to decide only whether "the officers' belief that defendant might be armed and dangerous [was] a reasonable one." In its view, "the officers reasonably believed that this defendant might pose an immediate threat primarily because he had expressly affiliated himself with a particular gang, the local members of which operate in the immediate vicinity and, in the officers' training and experience, often are armed." Further, the state argues, "[t]hat suspicion was sufficiently particularized because it was based on characteristics shared by a narrow and well-defined category of persons with whom the officers had specific experiences and about whom the officers had received training." For the reasons that follow, we agree with the state.
We begin with a review of Bates. In that case, a City of Eugene police officer stopped the defendant for "'excessive vehicle emissions'" at 4:40 a.m. Id. at 521. The stop occurred in a "'high crime'" area and the officer called for assistance. Id. Two officers approached the defendant's vehicle and one officer asked for the defendant's driver license. Id. The officers noticed that there was a "television and a videocassette recorder [VCR]" on the back seat of the defendant's vehicle. Id. One officer also noticed "an object on the floorboard between [the] defendant's feet." Id. The other officer also took note of the object and "'asked [the defendant] if he would reach down and very cautiously pull that item from between his feet," so that the officer could see what it was. Id. The defendant refused and instead "reached under the seat and remained in that position" while the officer repeatedly asked him to pull the item into plain view. Id. The officer then pulled his gun and ordered the defendant to step out of the car. Id. The officer then obtained the bag from under the seat, felt something hard inside, opened it, and discovered "several rounds of live ammunition, drugs, and drug paraphernalia." Id. at 522.
The court began its analysis by noting the state's reliance on the Supreme Court's analysis of officer safety searches in Michigan v. Long, 463 US 1032, 103 S Ct 3469, 77 L Ed 2d 1201 (1983), and this court's own previous analysis in State v. Riley, 240 Or 521, 402 P2d 741 (1965), in which the court had acknowledged that "police officers are entitled to take steps reasonably necessary to their safety." Bates, 304 Or at 523. The court then held, as set out above, that Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution "does not forbid an officer to take reasonable steps to protect himself or others if, during the course of a lawful encounter with a citizen, the officer develops a reasonable suspicion" that the suspect "might pose" a danger to the officer or others. Id. at 524. The court explained that
"it is not [this court's] function to uncharitably second-guess an officer's judgment. A police officer in the field frequently must make life-or-death decisions in a matter of seconds. There may be little or no time in which to weigh the magnitude of a potential safety risk against the intrusiveness of protective measures. An officer must be allowed considerable latitude to take safety precautions in such situations. Our inquiry therefore is limited to whether the precautions taken were reasonable under the circumstances as they reasonably appeared at the time that the decision was made."
Id. at 524-25 (emphasis added). See also State v. Amaya, __ Or ___, ___ P3d ___ (April 29, 2004) (same).
The Bates court concluded, however, that the officers had exceeded the permissible bounds of the rule. Id. at 525-26. It reached that result by assessing the significance of each factor that the officer identified as contributing to his conclusion that the defendant posed an immediate threat. Id. The officer testified that the vehicle's out-of-state license plates, the time of day, the high crime area, the defendant's appearance, the fact that there was a television and a VCR on the back seat of the defendant's vehicle, and the fact that the defendant did not comply with the officer's instruction to pull into plain view the item that he could not see fully, all contributed to his concern about the defendant's possible dangerousness. Id. at 525.
This court, however, concluded that none of the identified factors, even when considered collectively, supported a reasonable suspicion that the defendant posed an immediate threat to the officers' safety. The court observed that the suspicions of the officer who ordered the defendant out of the car
"may have been an excellent guess–-the kind resulting from a sixth sense that many officers develop over the years. But, again, there is no objective quality to them that entitles them to any weight, either individually or collectively, in the constitutional calculus. Neither the hour nor the 'high crime' nature of the area tells us whether this defendant is likely to be a criminal, unless there is some reason to think that everyone driving in that particular area at that time of night is up to no good[.]"
Id. at 526 (emphasis in original). As in Bates, our inquiry in this case is limited to whether the precautionary patdown was reasonable under the circumstances as they reasonably appeared at that time.
Here, the officers testified that the following factors contributed to their determination that defendant might pose an immediate threat to their safety: (1) defendant "was wearing bagg[y] tan pants and a black bagg[y] shirt that had '18th' written on the back of the shirt in large white letters[,]" (3) which the officers associated with the attire of 18th Street gang members; (2) the young man with defendant also had a gang-related tattoo consisting of three dots in the shape of a triangle that Officer Brown knew meant "'[m]i vida loca'" or "'my crazy life' in English" and his shirt also had the number 18 on it; (3) both defendant and the man with him were wearing, "untucked[,]" "extremely bagg[y clothing that] could easily conceal weapons"; (4) the officers knew that 18th Street gang members operated in the vicinity of the encounter and that they carried guns; (5) Officer Cockreham personally removed weapons from several 18th Street gang members and had, just previously to this incident, had removed a gun from an 18th Street gang member; and (6) neither defendant nor the woman in the car chose to leave after Brown returned their identification.
Before evaluating the factors described above, we first address defendant's argument that his cooperative attitude and lack of suspicious behavior was sufficient to dispel any concerns that the officers had for their safety. Defendant is correct that those circumstances must be considered in the overall assessment of the reasonableness of the officers' decision to engage in the patdown. However, defendant's attitude and demeanor are just two circumstances that the officers and, ultimately, this court must consider in determining whether the totality of the circumstances justified the decision to engage in a precautionary patdown. See State v. Ehly, 317 Or 66, 83, 854 P2d 421 (1993) ("totality of the circumstances" are considered in determining whether officer's suspicion was reasonable). As we now explain, those countervailing circumstances, considered in light of the totality of the circumstances, are not sufficient to dispel the reasonableness of the officers' particularized suspicion that defendant might have posed a danger to their safety.
Under Bates, a limited precautionary patdown is authorized under Article I, section 9, only when the initial contact between the police and the individual is lawful. Here, defendant concedes that Brown was engaged in a lawful contact with defendant. Brown had approached the vehicle to investigate possible curfew, and later, alcohol violations. She requested defendant's identification and, upon concluding her investigation, promptly returned defendant's identification to him. In other words, as noted previously, the police contact was not initiated solely (or at all) because defendant and his companion were wearing gang attire.
Next, Bates requires an evaluation whether the factors that the officers claim supported their belief that defendant might pose an immediate threat to their safety are sufficiently particularized to defendant as required under Article I, section 9. This court repeatedly has explained that a person's appearance alone never can support a reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity. See State v. Valdez, 277 Or 621, 628, 561 P2d 1006 (1977) (explaining that "shined shoes, sharp clothes, neat 'Afro' haircuts and people who stand and stare at officers" cannot say much about those people engaging in criminal activity); Bates, 304 Or at 525 (explaining that fact that defendant was "an 'Indian' with long hair and beard" wearing black leather jacket could not support reasonable suspicion to believe that he was dangerous). A police officer's suspicion must be particularized to the individual based on the individual's own conduct. State v. Stanley, 325 Or 239, 245-46, 935 P2d 1202 (1997); Bates, 304 Or at 525; Valdez, 277 Or at 628. Regardless of the officers' belief that gang members wear baggy clothing, that type of clothing alone could not support a reasonable suspicion that defendant posed a risk to the officers' safety. That is, nothing about such attire alone could tell the officers anything about defendant, except that he liked to wear baggy clothing. Nevertheless, a particular style of attire may be a circumstance that, when considered in the overall context or totality of the circumstances of a police-citizen contact, contributes to the reasonableness of an officer's safety assessment.
Similarly, clothing that announces a gang affiliation does not, by itself, give rise to the kind of individualized suspicion of a safety threat required under Article I, section 9. However, officers reasonably may draw inferences about human behavior from their training and experience. See Stanley, 325 Or at 246-46 (in officer's experience, people who commit robberies often are armed); Ehly, 317 Or at 80-81 (in officer's experience, drug users often are armed). In this instance, the officers knew from training and recent personal experience that the gang identified on defendant's shirt operated in the immediate vicinity of the contact and that members of that gang carried weapons. Furthermore, one of the officers recently had removed a gun from one of the members of that gang. Under those circumstances, the officers' safety concerns regarding defendant were not based solely on generalized or stereotypical information about gang behavior but, instead, were sufficiently particularized, based on specific training about and recent personal experience with a narrowly identified group, viz., members of the local gang to which defendant and his male companion proclaimed their allegiance and which operated in the area where the officers encountered defendant.
Finally, in addition to defendant's self-proclaimed gang membership and the officers' training and recent experience with other gang members, there are other factors that contribute to the reasonableness of the officers' safety concerns. First, the contact with defendant and his two companions occurred at a late hour in a darkened area in the general vicinity where one of the officers recently had encountered armed members of the 18th Street gang. Defendant was uncooperative during the initial investigation when he refused to reveal the location of his residence in the apartment complex. See Amaya, ___ Or at ___ (refusal to leave purse-like bag in vehicle when requested to do so was one factor that heightened officer's safety concern).
Second, although defendant was free to move from the immediate area after his identification was returned to him, he chose to remain in the area near where the police were conducting an ongoing investigation. When defendant remained in that close proximity to the officers, the officers' safety concerns reasonably were heightened because the officers needed to focus their attention on defendant's companion and were not able to watch defendant as closely as they could before that time. As this court explained in Bates:
"A police officer in the field frequently must make life-or-death decisions in a matter of seconds. There may be little or no time in which to weigh the magnitude of a potential safety risk against the intrusiveness of protective measures. An officer must be allowed considerable latitude to take safety precautions in such situations."
Bates, 304 Or at 524 (emphasis added).
Here, the combination of factors that the officers identified were sufficient to give rise to a reasonable and individualized suspicion that defendant might have posed a safety threat to them. That individualized suspicion justified the limited precautionary patdown of defendant that occurred in this case and did not violate defendant's protection against unreasonable search and seizure under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution.
The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment of the circuit court are affirmed.
1. Our use of the term "patdown" is intended to mean "an external patting of a person's outer clothing," as described in ORS 131.605(3).
Return to previous location.
2. Judge Edmond's concern notwithstanding, this case is not about whether Article I, section 9, would allow the police to patdown a known gang member in a public place for the sole reason of performing a patdown for weapons. Among other differences, the patdown in this case occurred in the context of a lawful police investigation and took place at night in the general area where one of the officers had recently encountered an armed member of the same gang.
Return to previous location.
3. Officer Cockreham testified that defendant's shirt "actually said '18th Street' on it[.]"
To hell with political correctness. To hell with the liberal softies. Our future will be led by a bunch of softies that cannot any longer defend for themselves. Much less, cannot any longer take responsibilities for their own actions. Political correctness is DESTROYING our lives and our future.
And to hell with people offending people. A good example is if an atheist is offended, we must take care that we don't offend an atheist. But is perfectly acceptable to offend Christians. What the hell is wrong with people these days? These politically correct nutjobs need to get their heads out of their spineless asses! Good grief!
daniel, I think you need to limit the length and number of posts in some way, especially from "anonymous". As for renaming the team, why not just call them the "White Men?" Sure, they may not all be white, but then the "Braves" weren't all Indians either, were they?
Daniel, I have to say that some of the your posters need to get their own blog if he or she insists on writing a "novel" in your comments. It's free! Just sign up at www.blogger.com. I agree with "dchamill's" complaint at 6:07 a.m.
The article posted above about Eisenhower and illegal aliens is a good read. It tells about Operation Wetback, in the 1950's :
"By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 illegals had left the Lone Star State voluntarily."
So -- enforcement of the law is itself a deterrent.
(But posting a link to good articles would be a better way to go. And posting the entire contents of copyrighted articles calls for comment control.)
Are the Scots going to get offended next? How about the Saxons, or the Vikings?
Is Steelers offensive to steelworkers?
Should the beaver and duck populations be outraged?
Why is it only offensive to Native Americans?
Where is this coming from?
Are the Scots going to get offended next? How about the Saxons, or the Vikings?
Is Steelers offensive to steelworkers?
Should the beaver and duck populations be outraged?
Why is it only offensive to Native Americans?
Where is this coming from?
http://www.amity.k12.or.us/Schools/AHS/index.html
Two things come to mind when I read this:
1. Does the kid find the Chemawa Indian School Braves offensive?
2.I graduated from Amity High School (nickname: Warriors). NO ONE COMPLAINS ABOUT OUR "WARRIOR HEAD" MASCOT. (well, expect for the kid mentioned in the post)
It's like the one person who complained about the Christmas trees in Sea-Tac Airport. Now the Christmas trees are gone. One person! What a bunch of politically correct dumbasses. These politically correct nutjobs need to get their heads out of their asses now!
Do you think Sea Tac will return the Christmas trees if thousands of Christmas tree supporters complain? Probably not.
In the politically correct bullshit world, minority rules. I guess the majority will never have a say anymore. Grrr!
Post a Comment