George Will: The blood-stained Indian Child Welfare Act

The Washington Post ^ | September 2, 2015 | George F. Will

[EveningStar]

“It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”

— Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts

Sordid, always. And sometimes lethal, as some Native American children could attest, were they not, like Declan Stewart and Laurynn Whiteshield, dead. They were victims of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which as construed and applied demonstrates how identity politics can leave a trail of broken bodies and broken hearts.

[PGR88]

my close friends (a childless, middle-class white couple) adopted a baby girl who is at least 25% native American. The birth-mother, for reasons I now suspect approximate those you outline below, left her home and travelled 500 miles to have the child, and immediately put it up for adoption with the Catholic Agency in our town.

They did not meet the mother, and only know she was quite young, didn’t want to identify the biological father and wanted to be as far away from “the tribe” as possible. Both Will’s article and your comments give some clarity to her decision.

The child is now with kind, church-going parents, who have the ability to provide for her and with an extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins who will give her the most stable and living family imaginable.

[kearnyirish2]

Indians are destroyed by the same policies that destroyed blacks; if they so choose, they may live an unproductive life of leisure which often results in destructive behavior.

Cut the money off, and both could grow up and share fully in the American experience. In fact, before the payments to the “wards of the state” and the War on Poverty, I’d say both groups HAD shared more fully (if not perfectly) in that experience; both have been reduced to childlike dependence since.

[IwaCornDogs]

This article, while interesting, seems to come out of left field in relevance to the order of the day.

The case he is referring to is from 2013. Am I missing something?

Strange ... is he going to link this to the birthright citizen debate in someway, or did he just wake up this morning and decide to care about Indian children?

Thanks in advance ~

[gaijin]

Saturday Night Live Spoof:

George Will “Being & Becoming”

(baseball knowledge game show)

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xi2oyv_being-becoming-george-f-will-s-sports-machine_shortfilms

[IAMNO1]

I agree. An imperfection on my part, but I feel greatly for the Native Americans, not as much for the African Americans, at least past the early days of their exploitation. The African Americans should have assimilated by now. There is resistance. The Native Americans we've treated as a separate race. There is resistance too. I don't know about the Native Americans fate had we not kicked their collective butts and taken their lunch money, but for the African Americans, we brought them to a land where they eventually could have had far great opportunities (than in their homeland), but it still has not materialized. I believe both groups need to harden up and become part of the greater collective of the US people, not its perpetual victims. As always (though I'm speaking more in the old pre-socialist days), the American people are a generous lot and will do that to help those truly in need. This is the kind of dialog and discussion that needed to be aired with our 1st black president, not the cr@p that has occurred. What a d@mn wasted opportunity. I bet had Herman Cain been elected President, the dialog would have been far more restorative and productive.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

It turns me off to see the fake dance regalia, all the dayglo dyed, machine stitched crap. Someone has obviously watched too many movies.

[lentulusgracchus]

George will - he used to be somebody, didn’t he?

Yeah, about 20 years ago, before he started kissing up to ABC and guesting on George Stephanopoulos's Klinton propaganda operation there.

But look, see what he wants to write about now? Not the Iran deal, not electoral politics. He slips into a library down the hall and studies up on ..... something that isn't an issue and won't kill 20,000,000 Americans in their beds because John Kerry and Barack Obama thought they could hang with the lying rug merchants of the Armpit.

[lentulusgracchus]

This article, while interesting, seems to come out of left field in relevance to the order of the day.

See my last. Will is hiding from the headline issues because practically anything topical he might write about would showcase his loss of any claim to be "conservative" on any of a number of issues, thus eroding his franchise as "the honest conservative" working in a liberal news wirehouse.

[kearnyirish2]

You’re right; Herman Cain doesn’t buy into the victim nonsense (especially after fifty years of de facto reparations which caused much more hard than good).

[trebb]

George will - he used to be somebody, didn’t he?

He lost his mojo years ago and is now flailing around trying to regain it - one wrong turn after another.

[archy]

Will is dead to me. He has been for years.

He's not a real big fan of *Howling Wilderness* Jake Smith, either. Can't imagine why.

[Lurker]

Wow. Never heard that story. What a nutball.