This post adapted from my personal blog, The Wayward Episcopalian, and personal correspondence.

Last Sunday's New York Times included an important OpEd about a little known and gravely overlooked subject that affects millions of Americans. One of my favorite Dartmouth professors, Bruce Duthu, penned an article about the astronomical rate of rape in Indian country, and proposed some solid solutions. One in three Indian women will be raped at some point in their lifetime, and the fault is partially that of the United States Supreme Court for denying Indians criminal jurisdiction over all persons traveling or living in Indian Country (the legally and culturally accepted term, so no PC worries). And unfortunately, those who do have jurisdiction - the feds - don't act.

I am planning on doing an independent study with Prof. Duthu next year about this very topic, making it one of the two largest projects I've ever tackled. Duthu's Native Americans and the Law class is one of the best courses I've had yet; he is one of the best professors at Dartmouth (he also teaches at Vermont Law), and his word on these issues is gold. Here is an excerpt from the OpEd, with background information below:

One in three American Indian women will be raped in their lifetimes, statistics gathered by the United States Department of Justice show. But the odds of the crimes against them ever being prosecuted are low, largely because of the complex jurisdictional rules that operate on Indian lands. Approximately 275 Indian tribes have their own court systems, but federal law forbids them to prosecute non-Indians. Cases involving non-Indian offenders must be referred to federal or state prosecutors, who often lack the time and resources to pursue them.

The situation is unfair to Indian victims of all crimes -- burglary, arson, assault, etc. But the problem is greatest in the realm of sexual violence because rapes and other sexual assaults on American Indian women are overwhelmingly interracial. More than 80 percent of Indian victims identify their attacker as non-Indian. (Sexual violence against white and African-American women, in contrast, is primarily intraracial.) And American Indian women who live on tribal lands are more than twice as likely to be raped or sexually assaulted as other women in the United States, Justice Department statistics show...

Even if outside prosecutors had the time and resources to handle crimes on Indian land more efficiently, it would make better sense for tribal governments to have jurisdiction over all reservation-based crimes. Given their familiarity with the community, cultural norms and, in many cases, understanding of distinct tribal languages, tribal governments are in the best position to create appropriate law enforcement and health care responses -- and to assure crime victims, especially victims of sexual violence, that a reported crime will be taken seriously and handled expeditiously.

But Prof. Duthu isn't one to just list problems and spread doom and gloom. Please, read the whole thing.

I forwarded this information out to several dozen people. To give you some background information on the issue, here is the response of a beloved and wonderful HS teacher of mine up in Idaho, and my reply to him:

This is really interesting and disturbing.  It appears to be a by-product of the Indians' long-established self-jurisdiction.  It's the same thing that allows you to buy "real" fireworks on the reservation, but not five miles away on non-Indian land.  It's probably too easy and obvious to ever be considered, but it seems that the Indian gov't and the feds simply have to agree that certain crimes will be prosecuted by the feds, regardless the race of victims and perpetrators.  That line about lacking time and resources bothers and confuses me.  Do they lack time and resources to investigate and prosecute the same offenses when they don't involve Indians? A related question... is whether the Indian officials (or the culture, in an informal way) choose to ignore/allow this crime.

Me:

I'm a Native American Studies (double with Government) major, and did a bit of study with Prof. Duthu on this subject last summer. The problem comes from a 1978 Supreme Court decision [Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe] that denied Indians criminal jurisdiction over non-Natives on Native land. I read the decision, and it makes no legal sense. If a Montanan commits a crime in Idaho, Idaho arrests him. If an American commits a crime in France, France arrests him. Since the Indians are sovereign over their reservations (per the Constitution, treaty agreements, prior Court decisions, and basic legal logic), you would think they'd have that same jurisdiction. Though most scholars agree, the Court didn't.

As a result, jurisdiction over non-Natives was turned over to the feds. When an Indian rapes someone on a reservation, the Indian cops can bust him, but not when the rapist is white or Latino or black or whatever. No, Indian officials certainly don't ignore these crimes, but the Supreme Court stripped them of the authority to do anything about it. Only the feds have jurisdiction, yet the Justice Dept. rarely gets involved if there's no confession. They follow through on BIA claims at a lower rate than any other agency. It's no secret, then, that anyone not enrolled in a tribe can literally get away with murder in Indian Country, which is why, unlike the nation at large, the majority of rapes of Indian women are by strangers rather than acquaintances, and by men of different races.

Why are the feds so indifferent? Part of it is the FBI's narrow focus on corruption, immigration, and terrorism, giving other issues the short end of the stick. I doubt racism is a big issue here; that comes more into play at the local level. The only realistic solution is for Congress, which through legal quirks does have the ability to overturn this SC opinion, to give Indians the same jurisdiction over their sovereign territory that counties have over theirs, and to help tribal police the same way COPS helps city police.

And as far as the sale of fireworks goes, the same thing happens with some state boundaries. You can't buy "real" fireworks in Massachusetts, but drive five miles to New Hampshire, and there you are. That's just the reality of states' rights and federalism, which is actually a three-tiered system that includes the tribes, not just state and federal.

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On a related note, you may have heard about legislation recently introduced by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, aimed at increasing law and order in Indian Country. Duthu wrote his OpEd several months ago and the Times only just published it, so it doesn't mention the bill, which was introduced a week or three ago. I haven't read the text of Dorgan's legislation yet, but from what I've heard, it would give the feds a mandate and the resources to fill that mandate, which is better than the status quo but doesn't do anything about jurisdiction or sovereignty. In other words, it doesn't do nearly enough, and I am worried that it might make passage of further legislation more difficult. Normally I don't take the purist side in arguments of purism vs. pragmatism, but the small political power of the American Indian lobby makes this a special case, I think.

Update, August 18, 10:00AM: Trond Jacobson made an insightful and informative comment below that I hope you will all read. I am sticking its full text after the jump; here is the original link. I don't agree with every little nuance, but that's not what's important; I thank Trond for providing a wonderful historic understanding for this issue. I wasn't sure I could boil down history's complexities so didn't try; he tried and won.

My jaw dropped when i read this and I am just at a loss for words, so Im just going to post this article by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post.

Here's the joke in question from 1986:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, `Where is that marvelous ape?'

The MEDIA's complicity in McCain's sexism is absolutely horrendous. The bile that comes out of this man's mouth, and the media has yet to cover one bit of it. Even THE MCLAUGHLIN GROUP of all people, including mclaughlin himself thinks McCain is the media darling. For god's sake, he had a BBQ with the Associated Press, who we've just found has been in very friendly correspondence with Karl Rove, telling him "Keep up the fight"! And Obama didnt get any standing ovation at the AP conference invitation, in fact, the presenter called him "Osama" and it just looked so intentional. McCain meanwhile got a minutes-long standing ovation, and Liz Sidoti of the AP brought him donuts "with [his] favorite, sprinkles".

Anyways, I hope nobody minds that i posted this, but this is essential reading. If anyone has a problem with me not writing my own opinions, I understand and will delete this.

There's been handwringing about Senator Obama's opposition to the recent Supreme Court decision denying the death penalty for child rapists. The senator's opinion on this ruling is entirely consistent with his previous statements. Here's one documented by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life:

http://pewforum.org/religion08/compare.p hp?Issue=Death_Penalty

Obama says the death penalty "does little to deter crime" but he supports it for cases in which "the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage."

So, since child rape (as opposed to the rape of grown women or men) is so reviled by the community, the death penalty is to be imposed...even though it doesn't work.

Am I missing something here?

From MakeThemAccountable.com

PUMMELING MAMA
By David Podvin

The police officer put a gun to the driver's head and demanded that she orally copulate him. To avoid being murdered she complied, after which he provided the choice of victimized silence or fatal reprisal. The woman tempted fate by contacting the district attorney, who used DNA testing to contradict the officer's denial that any sexual contact had occurred. During the prosecution's case the accused was proven to have told one self-incriminating lie after another. The defense attorney then played a familiar trump card, labeling the victim a woman of easy virtue "with whom sex was always an implied option". It took the jury of eleven males and a female less than two hours to acquit.

MORE MORE MORE

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson


click to enlarge

Saw this on DailyKos

We live in a culture that condones rape as nothing more than men letting out their sexual desires, because it's part of our evolutionary psychology or something like that, you know man is the hunter and is a natural rapist. Last time that argument was brought forth to justify rape, it was rightfully attacked as nothing more than an excuse for rapists. But my friends, this is lower than low.

I was surprised how many responses I got to the article about the F/X TV show's portrayal of rape as both punishement for "insubordination" and as being enjoyed by the victim. True it's a black comedy and the victim is the perp's wife.

Here's some interesting responses generalized into one sentence each. And my own responses follow.

1. It's just a TV show lighten up.
Yeah for the most part I feel the same way too. Google "rape" unfiltered and you'll get much more powerful incentives to rape in porn sites that specialize in allegedly real or staged assaults. But I thought the writer of the article made an interesting point. Here's a horrifying crime that afflicts as many as one out of three women, a crime that often leads to murder, you'd think creative and powerful people could do more than joke about it.

2. Feminazis don't have senses of humor.
Sure we do. In fact my own jokes about rape would probably knock Dennis Leary on his ass. Like the jokes that came out of the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation only real victims can mine the blackest humor. Example: an old widow who hid in a basement during the Nazi occupation hears men run by yelling the Russians are here, hide, they're raping even little girls and old women! The widow runs upstairs and into the street yelling "where? where?"

3. Some girls think rape is hot.
This category includes rape fantasy, rape fantasy by rape victims, and the ever popular "I raped my girlfriend and she liked it." Rape is a fantasy that allows a human being to imagine any definition of dirty without taking responsibility for it. We are forced to do the thing we secretly want to. Guilt free masturbation. Actual rape victims face a crossroads. Many of us sexualize what happened to us feeling its the only way to have a good sex life. Others become celibate. And many survivors work hard to regain the more innocent sexuality they had by practicing the difference between fucking and lovemaking. But fantasy is far from reality. The reality is that the vast majority of rapes are painful horrifying experiences that leave the victim scarred for life.

4. What about men who get raped?
Prison rape is a very serious problem in our society. Prison culture in general is a terrible problem. It fosters the worst in human beings festering with gangs and extreme racism and misogyny. Rape of males outside may not be as frequent but it is surprisingly frequent. Either alot of nellie homos are running around raping straights (no) or guys twisted in the prison rape system are everywhere (yes). Men, like women are most often raped as children or in adolescence. They face an extra stigma in a macho society like ours. Like female rape victims who are dismissed as lying whores, these men are dismissed as lying fags. I think it's a mistake to talk about gender when discussing rape. Rape is rape. Something must be done to help all victims and to evolve a society where rape isn't an every day terror.

5. Why do feminazis try to force people to think like them?
Well I can't speak for all feminazis, but as for myself I figure when a society refuses to deal with the fact that one third of its members are regularly brutalized, as a survivor of such a crime it's my job to bitch about it.

I can't think of a more appropriate subject for Fourth of July weekend. Millions of Americans are victimized by tolerance for this crime. It may not be as extreme as slavery or the decimation of the Native American population, but it is in the same category of mass violence against a stereotype.

My family goes way back. We were kicked out of the UK in the late 1600s. There's a Tennessee Militia Colonel on one side and on the other a Cherokee chief on the Trail of Tears. I could be a Daughter of the Revolution if I wanted to join. But my life was at the hands of a maniac deciding if he should finish up by murdering me. What does independence mean to Mia Zapata. Was America her land of the free when she was murdered walking home from a gig?

So this Fourth of July take a minute to ask the Spirit of Liberty to bless America with her presence so a human being can walk down a street without having to worry about being grabbed by some horny maniac with a lust to kill.

The original of this cartoon:

is for sale on EBay.

Products with the cartoon are also for sale at Café Press.

A bit more on the flip.