America: Come for the Civil Disobedience, Stay for the Thunderdome

During the early days of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, when police departments were freaking out and the White House was clearing a churchyard with smoke grenades and batons, I was reading a book about American Indian law, and I was struck by some unfortunate similarities between what I read on the page and what I saw on the screen.

On Twitter I shared this image with the caption, "America: Come for the Civil Disobedience, Stay for the Thunderdome." In retrospect, though, the image is perhaps more like a scene from the Roman Coliseum than a Mad Max movie. Demonstrators were more like Christians being thrown to the lions than they were like Mel Gibson fighting Tina Turner's goons.

Mad Max: Police Academy?

At the same time, I was reading about a Supreme Court case, United States v Sandoval (1913), in Walter Echo-Hawk's book titled In the Courts of the Conqueror: The 10 Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided. With that case, and several that Echo-Hawk relates to it, the U.S. government claimed broad guardianship authority over American Indians, authority it did not claim over other Americans. He wrote:

Big Brother can and did "do things" to Indians as their "guardian" that it could never do to regular citizens (202).

That guardian authority included the imposition of some religious beliefs and the denial of others (Native religious practices were explicitly outlawed well into the 20th century); control of property and financial transactions; and unilateral law enforcement and judicial processes.

This guardianship was based on the false assumption that American Indians were inherently inferior to white Americans and needed their guidance, as if they were children. It was also based on the assumption that the guardians were free of any repercussions for harming their wards. (Echo-Hawk demonstrates how this guardianship authority was repeatedly used to abuse rather than protect American Indians.)

I thought of this as I saw police officers swinging batons like baseball bats against unarmed, non-violent demonstrators in downtown Los Angeles. And when I saw a police officer using his shield as if he were Captain America and a photojournalist were Thanos. I thought of it when I saw an armored personnel carrier rolling through a Philadelphia neighborhood.

@ryanvizzions

The militarized police response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations were very familiar to Indian

Country. In 2016, we all saw the response to water protectors trying to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on unceded land belonging to the Great Sioux Nation. South Dakota brought armored cavalry to confront unarmed civilians. The water protectors were attacked by dogs, doused with pepper spray, and blasted with a water cannon on a freezing night. 

I do not know how much of the nation was outraged by the events at Standing Rock. President Obama delayed the construction of the pipeline, but he did not intervene in the violence, saying he would "let it play out for several more weeks," as if the opposing forces were equal in strength and legal justifications.

I think it was easy for many Americans to watch the events and remain unmoved. The events were happening on a fairly isolated reservation, so there were no traffic jams nor curfews to inconvenience people not directly involved. Many viewers may have been undisturbed also because this was a confrontation they were accustomed to: the Cavalry vs. the Indians. Even if their sympathies were with the Native people, they were accustomed, through national mythology, to understand Indians as potential enemies. That is the slippery slope in the guardian relationship between the federal government and Native communities: some times there was little difference between being a ward and being a prisoner of war.

But the violence at the Black Lives Matter demonstrations took place in the center of the nation's largest cities, not on the faraway Great Plains. I thought of this notion of abusive guardianship when I read about curfews that were declared 10 minutes before they were enforced, and when I read about groups of demonstrators who were not allowed to leave public spaces and who were then arrested for violating the curfew. Demonstrators were shot directly with rubber bullets (not how they were intended to be used) and hit with gas canisters. Limbs were broken. Eyes were damaged.

I asked at what point did the police gain such authority over U.S. citizens? When were they given the authority to injure people who were not violating a law and who were not threatening other people? Citizens are not given the authority to protect themselves against this violence. Would the police wield pepper spray with such nonchalance if they knew there was a good chance someone would spray them back? When were they given authority to swing their batons at people's legs simply for "crowd control"?

When did we surrender the right of self-protection?

How were people so easily transformed from citizens to enemies?

A legal scholar can probably tell me when this state of affairs evolved, and I assume it is involved with the concept of "qualified immunity," so perhaps my question is more "why?" or "how?" What is the legal reasoning behind the government declaring that demonstrators have surrendered their right to assemble, their freedom of speech, their freedom of movement, and their right to protect themselves?

And why should we let this continue?

To me, the assumption being made is similar to that articulated in Sandoval. People voicing their displeasure with the government are being considered (without legal or formal declaration) inferior to other citizens and surrender, like minors or children, many rights to their self-declared guardians.

Viewed in the light of an abusive guardian relationship -- the assumption of inferiority and the removal of Constitutional rights -- I think most Americans would agree that it is time to reconsider the authority that federal and state governments claim over their citizens.

+ + +

American Indian Studies has important lessons for all U.S. citizens because it considers some fundamental questions of interest to everyone. In this case, what does it mean to be a citizen? What is the right relationship between a person and their government? What responsibilities does the citizen have to their government and their government to them?

It is useful for them to study cases in which the government has for so long denied its obligations and disregarded the rights of individuals. It is useful for them to see how arbitrarily and self-servingly the federal government has conducted its relationship with Native nations, and for them to consider the possibility that their government could do the same with them.

A big reason people in Indian Country were so happy with this week's decision in McGirt v Oklahoma was that the Supreme Court simply followed the rules. It offered simple, clear interpretations of the law and honored a treaty the U.S. government had signed. Indian Country expected the usual contortions of legal and moral reasoning from the Supreme Court to justify the continued dispossession and abuse of Native people. When that did not happen, Native people were elated. The court decision was good news, but its reception is sad, really. It is a commentary on how rare "doing the right thing" can be.