{"id":2327,"date":"2020-10-07T18:09:07","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T23:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=2327"},"modified":"2020-10-07T18:10:11","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T23:10:11","slug":"doug-george-kanentiio-the-tragic-legacy-of-ruth-bader-ginsburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2020\/10\/07\/doug-george-kanentiio-the-tragic-legacy-of-ruth-bader-ginsburg\/","title":{"rendered":"Doug George-Kanentiio: The tragic legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg"},"content":{"rendered":"\"supremecourt\"\r\n
Flowers, signs and other tributes for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg are seen outside of the U.S. Supreme Court on September 19, 2020. Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Iroquois<\/div>\r\n
A Tragic Legacy<\/div>\r\n
By Doug George-Kanentiio<\/div>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nPerhaps it is not that the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hostile to Indigenous people but that in her legal career they had no presence, no bearing. They were, as she is cited in writing, advocates for a distinct status which was “rekindling the embers of sovereignty that long ago went cold<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.”\r\n

<\/P>\r\nJustice Ginsburg was a rightfully praised defender of human rights and specifically those of women. She wanted them to enjoy full equality under American law and to brush aside those elements of discrimination which qualified their constitutional rights. She had difficulty in accepting the historical fact of aboriginal separation and the claim that a group of “Americans” would not only assert their independence but seek redress for the theft of their lands based upon the enforcement of treaty law<\/a>.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nGinsburg would have a difficult time with the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois) Confederacy since it specifically rejected U.S. citizenship, refused to endorse the suffragette cause in that it sought the right to vote, waged an ongoing struggle to compel individual states and the federal government to abide by their treaties and to have all levels of American government refrain from exercising any jurisdiction on its territories.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nTowards the end of her career as a Justice she did become more sensitive to Native issues and supported the recent McGrit v. Oklahoma<\/em> ruling which affirmed that indigenous people living on their treaty lands<\/a> in eastern Oklahoma were exempt from state laws.\r\n

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