Indian Child Welfare Act

People are very confused over this law. It has been called a "antiqued law" and it should be "abolished" some call it racist because it only covers American Indian children.

First, this law was enacted in 1978, hardly the "old law" that those who wish to abolish it want the public to believe.

Is the law racist? Well, this law is supposed to protect any parent who is enrolled in a Federally Recognized tribe, and the child must be enrolled or eligible for enrollment for this law to effect them. But deeper, the law will cover any parent or family when the child qualifies as a ICWA law. So if one parent is enrolled, and the other is not Indian at all, the non Indian has rights that are protected by ICWA. I hardly see this as being "racist".

Why was the law enacted? For many decades, Indian children were being removed from their parents, family, and tribe. It was believed to remove the "savage" from the "Indian" and make them a "human" because Indians were not viewed as being civilized. Some might not believe this, but I live in the central part of this country, and know kids who do not believe Indian people even exist! It is not just children, but there are adults who believe that Indians ride horses as transportation and they still live in tepees.

Recently on the Dr. Phil show, California attorney Johnston Moore was there with his two adopted sons, he shows his sons sitting there, holds up a photograph of a Indian boy dressed in a traditional outfit, and asked the audience "Do these boys look like this?" That alone was such a racist demonstration it made me want to dress those two boys in a traditional outfit and say "Why yes, they do look like that!" Mr. Moore went on to state he took those two boys to the reservation in Kansas where they come from, as he sat on the show, he asked the boys "Do you want to live like that?" The boys said "NO!" and what is sad about that, is he is insulting the very DNA that is inside those two boys. He put emphasis on how "bad" it is to be Indian. In viewing that, I felt for those two boys, I do not understand how this man, who claims to love those two boys, could do that to them.

If Mr. Moore's adopted sons had been back, would he have taken them to a former plantation, shown the photos of slaves, and slave cabins, asked them if they wanted to "live like that" ?

ICWA can be a complicated law, if we want it to be, but it is not as complicated as some want you to believe.

The ICWA law was enacted in 1978 when Congress recognized that American Indian children were being removed from their families and tribes at an alarming or an unusually high rate. Several reports have cited as many as 25-35 percent of all Indian children were adopted out of their families mainly to non-Indian people. Children who were removed got no relief in the courts, judges were quick to sever parents rights to their children for any reason they could find. The attitude was "Kill the Indian, save the child"

Today, I look around at people who want to be Indian, who want to be Indian so badly they pretend, they make up their own tribes, and they try to get recognition... why do they want to do that? Is it because we have our culture, our traditions?

Indian people believe that our elders and our children come first. These are not "our" children. They do not "belong" to us, WE "belong" to them. Everything we do, is for the future of our children. Our family relations are something most people cannot understand. Example, when my father was killed, my uncles stepped into his place, he became our father, my great uncle was our grandfather, we were never without a adult figure to help us from our youth, and currently into our adult years.

No one can understand our life unless they share it with us. Only then can they understand the ways of a Native person, and to that, I welcome anyone to learn, it really is not difficult at all, in fact, you might find a peace entering your soul that you never knew was there before.

Please do not buy into the bad medicine Dr. Phil, Mr. Moore and so many others want you to believe about the horrible "savages" who need our children "saved". Our children are our future, without them, there is no future, not for me, not for you, and certainly not our children.

I like so many others, will fight with all I am, and all I will be, to protect my children, my grandchildren, and future generations. That is what Indian people are about. It is not us, it is every generation to come.

Here is some fact checking to the Dr. Phil show.

http://www.nicwa.org/documents/DrPhilICWAFactCheck_001.pdf