Talk:Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968

Error
I won't bother to correct this, because I believe the world is better served when Wikipedia remains riddled with errors, which tend to expose to true subject matter experts the more subtle errors of analysis that define this tome. However, to clarify matters, the second section of this article is wrong and it misrepresents source material.

The article says "Progress within tribal communities gave way to differences in religion among tribal members and the rise of tribal casinos. Even though both signified a step in the right direction for American Indians, religion brought friction between tribal members and building tribal casinos initiated quarrels over who would manage each casino, what would be done with the profits, whether to serve alcohol in the casinos and environmental issues. Without an established individual rights system within the tribal government, many tribal members were treated unfairly and many scandals occurred within the tribes"

As authority for that claim, the "Enotes.com" writings of Stephen Russel. Never mind that someone's personal notes put up on the Web don't comprise reliable source material. If Mr. Russel is a reliable source on this subject, we must reconcile the headline loosely plagiarized into Wikipedia from his notes (Russel: "EVENTS LEADING TO THE ACT", Wikipedia:"Events Prior to the Creation of the ICRA") Russel and the Wikipedia writers who source their content on his undated, unpublished writing each assert that the development of tribal casinos predated passage of the Indian Civil Rights Act, and imply that tensions related to casino management contributed to the development of the Act.

Mr. Russel's confusion on the matter is evident in that he writes about how casino-regulatory issues "have" affected Indian communities, and in that he places the claim under a subhead classifying his present-tense references that sugggests things that "have" happened now "had" happened in 1968. Wikipedia editors compound the error by replacing Russels statements about things that "have" happened at some time prior to him writing the notes (which is obviously after 1968 when the ICRA was passed) with an assertion that those things "had" happened prior to 1968, as his subhead wrongly infers.

Indian Casinos did not exist at the time Congress adopted the Indian Civil Rights Act. The first high-stakes bingo operated on a reservation was opened 11 years after the Indian Civil Rights Act was adopted. Gambling in California By Roger Dunstan About 10 years later, 100 tribes had bingo operations, but still, the spread of casinos didn't start in earnest until the mid 1990s, after the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act created a stable legal framework within which tribes could woo investors. The claim that Indian Gaming in the 1960s somehow contributed to the passage of the Indian Civil Rights Act demonstrates a lack of regard for this particular area of law, and a general indifference toward the sort of truth and accuracy scholars demand of published work.

What's more, nobody who has contributed to this article has the authority to write about what is "a step in the right direction for American Indians." Like thousands of people who came before, Wikipedia has apparently yet to learn that it is not the arbiter of what is best for American Indians. Likewise, nobody writing Wikipedia is qualified to define what is "progress" for American Indians, except in the strictly academic sense in which the direction of progress is otherwise defined and "progress" is but a measure of movement in an otherwise defined direction.

Seth Moreland (talk) 00:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)


 * ===Mos errata===

The article states "Before the Indian Civil Rights Act, a tribal member's dislike of a legal decision made by the tribal government was dealt with in one of two ways; either the tribal member had to accept the decision or he/she had to leave the tribe." This might or might not be based on the http://www.enotes.com/major-acts-congress/indian-civil-rights-act casual source material] referenced as the online notes of an unidentified author. However, even if the author were a published researcher, it represents a gross insult to the historical judicial systems of American Indians. At what point does a "legal decision" of a tribe require either acceptance or a person leaving the tribe? Which is to say, when did a member have to accept or leave? The false dilemma precludes ongoing discussion, lobbying tribal leaders for change after a decision was made, or even changing the leadership through lawful election, which has been the practice of many if not most tribes since they were asked to adopt constitutions under the Indian Reorganization Act 0f 1934.

The normal course of events within a tribe might be different that that stated here in Wikipeda and we have no historical material to suggest the most likely outcome (not included in the false dilemma of accept-or-leave) would not be to continue discussing the matter within the tribe. Recognized history shows us that tribal populations have maintained ongoing dialogue, capable of changing a tribes direction, prior to passage of ICRA in 1968. Did ICRA improve recognition of human rights to publiclly redress greviences among tribes? Maybe, but it did not bring the voice of reason to tribes for the first time. Tribes had long maintained such problem solving methods. This article only tells us about the ones that sometimes did not work.

Seth Moreland (talk) 01:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that this page needs considerable work for accuracy and clarity. Broadcaster101 (talk) 06:13, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Good Lord! Replacing the article with this talk page would be a massive improvement! I got as far as "Long before Indians were recognized by the U.S. government as independent nations, the Bill of Rights was created in order to legally bind the federal and state governments." What? I'm pretty sure Indian tribes were recognized as independent nations long before the U.S. government was recognized as an independent nation! Puddytang (talk) 21:08, 13 March 2014 (UTC)