2010 RESOLUTIONS,RESERVATIONS AND INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

Dear Members

I hope all of you had a good holiday with family or friends as i did. The time given to us to share with our loved ones is truly a gift from our creator and the bounty given to us by Mother Earth.
In this new year i see many opportunities that must be seized upon to create our own conditions of the manufacture of a future as we see and not as one some governmental unit deems "well good enough" as evidenced by the representation we see from our Minnesota Legislature and Tribal leaders who have co-mingled in the form of Gambling to deny the basic truth to be told and recognized that Native Peoples in our State suffer some of the most indelible Poverty and Human suffering that goes on as a matter course. All this in a multibillion dollar gambling Industry here in Minnesota.

What can we do about all this, many of us have asked ourselves and come away thinking how do you grasp the very air around us ,we know it exists but cannot change the results of generational by -products of institutional racism that Anishinabe people became cursed with when they were forced onto RESERVATIONS, not for their benefit but for someone else s. The very word R-E-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-O-N irks me because what it represents and just like the vote that these politicians rely upon from the DFL party to sidle up to our leaders and say we will hang some Anishinabe words around town and build you a treatment center in Cass lake and you just keep handing me money so we keep the Minnesota taxpayer uninformed as to the true nature of the political cover-up that is occurring right under all Minnesotans noses. And of course the Profits from our Gambling Casinos and the hopes of so many, who do not make a livable wage while working for "Their" Casino rake in this revenue so Mobsters can take the cream right off the top while tossing out the very nature of what this gambling dollar was supposed to do. Which is to create a spiritual foundation of recovery and rehabilitation for Us.

This past year has been a difficult one for myself as i have had to weigh the decisions i have made to bring our initiative to some level of recognition which over fifty now of us have signed up and recognized the need to collectively bargain with a system, so convinced we should stand back and watch as double digit un-employment continue off and on Reservations ,without so much as a peep from our Tribal Leaders.

What have i accomplished for this organization is in the form of effort, the court case we have against the City of Bemidji , Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development and Kraus-Anderson is about to go into its first round of deliberations which are the result of the claim that AFFIRMATIVE ACTION LAWS REGARDING PUBLIC FUNDED PROJECTS WERE DENIED TO US . These Laws are to give minority "protected Class" workers on State and Federal projects the right to participate by statute in the expenditure of publicly funded monies.
The main reason for lack of enforcement of these laws is a precise representation of Institutional Racism ,because when a State legislator asks for a "Indian vote" and fails to enforce AFFIRMATIVE ACTION as both MARY OLSON Senator dist 4 and rep. JOHN PERSELL dist 4 did when asked many months before this landmark project here in Bemidji started, to do something ,anything to assist this organization to enforce this LAW,They did absolutely NOTHING!

I have made a request in person to the Bemidji Mayor and City Council at the truth in taxation meeting asking to be a representative for minority concerns on the Bemidji Regional Event Center "Advisory Task Force" which i have not received a reply to date. Without someone there to assist in the enforcement of Affirmative Action and Community Development for our Anishinabe people, we will be left out in the cold. I really hope these people understand when we can send our Beautiful young people down there to show this community how our youth are also a representation of wellness within our people .

Enbridge pipeline project has not called us once to make good on a claim to be a fair and equal opportunity employer, being we submitted over 50 applications which have not been given a fair opportunity. The reason for this is they believe that by hiring "Indians" through the Reservation TERO Departments,they have fulfilled their Affirmative Action Prerogatives. Contractually they are required to do this and i have heard reports from union officials and other Native workers they were NOT allowed to have UNION membership while working under this "agreement". This project goes right through the City of Bemidji and County which gave them land to use for their operation making it a Publicly funded project which we will get to later,believe me.

One of our members this year bought a used car from me when i placed an ad in the paper and when she and her daughter both employed in the local Casino Industry came to purchase it we had a long talk about her cash flow or lack of it while employed at one of these "clip-joints" and she was driving thee most unsafe vehicle i have ever seen or driven because i traded her what cash she had on hand and that old wreck for my used yet safe equipped car. During the course of the transaction i had asked her to consider joining THE NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN LABOR UNION 12, which she and both her daughter signed up immediately when she realized what we are trying to do for ourselves and i made her a promise , i will not give up fighting for her rights as a hard working woman and with many years to show for it albeit the most important part of our mission A FAIR LIVABLE WAGE.

Gregory W. Paquin