American Indian Leaders Speak to President Clinton's Advisory Board on Race Story-Date: 11:20 a.m. PST Wednesday, January 14, 1998 ------------------------------------------------------------ American Indian Leaders Speak to President Clinton's Advisory Board on Race By Kathy Lewis, The Dallas Morning News Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News PHOENIX--Jan. 14--American Indian leaders Tuesday night gave President Clinton's advisory board on race an earful about barriers that keep "our folks" from fully participating in the U.S. economy. They said racial discrimination remains and that too often only lip service is given to their sovereignty as Indian nations. "You have to start by saying: You are a government. You are a nation, not a tribe, but a nation." said Albert Hale, president of the Navajo nation. The meeting is the year's first for the panel, which Mr. Clinton formed to help spark a national discussion about racial issues. In its first seven months, the panel has faced criticism for not having more divergent views, particularly on affirmative action, and for getting off to a slow start. Indian leaders also have faulted Mr. Clinton for not including an American Indian on the advisory board. Last fall, Laura Harris, a member of the Comanche nation and executive vice president of Americans for Indian Opportunity, was named senior consultant to the board. Board chairman Dr. John Hope Franklin, an African-American from Oklahoma who also has Indian heritage, addressed that criticism Tuesday night. "We do not come out of courtesy," he said. Instead, he said, the board was there because every segment of the population should participate in the president's initiative -- and certainly the segment that had been in America the longest. Two million people identified themselves as Indian in the 1990 U.S. Census. Of those, 900,000 live on reservations. Claire Gonzales, the board's deputy director for communications, said that panel discussion participants were limited to American Indians because of their unique governmental status. A community forum will be held Wednesday after the board holds a meeting on racial problems in the workplace. The two hour-meeting began with everyone in the room at the Heard Museum facing east during an Indian prayer and each participant telling which tribe they belonged to and why that meant so much to them. During the roundtable discussion, participants were asked to give their views on barriers to American Indians participating fully in the U.S. economy and to offer solutions to the problem. "Discrimination in jobs is there," said chairman David Kwail of the Yavapai Apache Tribe and president of the Intertribal Council of Arizona. He said towns sometimes shun shopping malls built on reservations, but he said more tribes need to open such outlets, which provide jobs. He and others said transportation problems and jobs being located across town are hindrances. Too often, he said "our folks are stuck with labor jobs" even when they have the needed skills to do management and other work. Barney Botone, executive director of the Albuquerque Indian Economic Center, said he has watched racism in the work place shift from "commission to omission." Too often, he said human resource directors find excuses for not hiring American Indians. Carol Lujan, associate professor of justice studies at Arizona State University, said the disproportionate number of American Indians in the prison systems is a key problem. She cited discrimination in the justice system and pointed to cases where the accused is tried in the city rather than on the reservation. Some speakers said the lack of respect for tribes as a independent governments leads to perceptions that tribes can't accomplish things on their own or can't be counted on to pay back loans or somehow don't have to pay them. Dr. Franklin said, "I wonder to what extent you may have contributed to that perception, because there is a Bureau of Indian Affairs, there is a special relationship which places you in a position of dependency to some extent and sovereignty to some extent." He added, "There is a very serious problem of definition, of clear definition of the relationship between a tribal government and the federal government let us say." Mr. Clinton addressed the issue of tribal sovereignty Monday night at a meeting of affirmative action supporters in Washington. He said the federal government needed to focus more on tribes' economic, educational and health care issues. "We haven't quite got it down yet exactly right," he said. "but I think we're making a lot of progress." Mr. Hale and took issue with Mr. Franklin's choice of words and objected to references made to American Indians as a tribe, or as tribal governments. Mr. Hale noted that the U.S. Constitution says Indian nations are sovereign. Mr. Franklin said he was sorry if he misused the word tribe. "I know what a nation is. I know what a tribe is," he said. "And I certainly didn't mean any disrespect here." At the conclusion of the meeting, several members of the small audience were invited to speak. "What I am wondering about is when is the white man going to come and apologize?" asked Peterson Zah, an American Indian adviser to the president of Arizona State University. He said American Indians were here long before whites and others came, bringing the race issues. Staff Writer Susan Feeney in Washington contributed to this report. lf ----- Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/ ----- (c) 1998, The Dallas Morning News. 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