If it seems a bit confusing, it is. The choice is logical: Include the words to enlarge tribal authority over people who abuse Indian women on reservations in VAWA. For lawmakers, plausibility rules: If you have Indian people in your constituency, pay attention to your voters’ wishes.
The whole argument was over nothing. It should have blown over. Maybe the unrelenting heat drew the spark that broke them into a fight. My relative called her cousin to ask for help from an angry boyfriend. A family member raced to the homestead site and found herself tackled by the very same man who had threatened her cousin.
Luckily, she brought a male cousin with her and the whole thing was settled in a matter of blows. The tribal cops were called out but the offender managed to avoid prosecution. Hearing the story third hand, I learned the perpetrator was non-Native. I realized he wouldn’t have been arrested even if he was on tribal land assaulting an Indian woman. Once again, the statistics became real; non-Natives constitute 58 percent of perpetrators of violence against Indian women.
The stories are out there. Outright and irreversible violence against Native women happens every night. The skirmish made me go back and look at the pleas to rally support for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The bill’s reauthorization swings like a verbal piñata in Washington, with our bi-partisan leadership taking swipes at it from time to time.
In essence, VAWA is to violence against Indian women what anti-venin is to snakebite—an antidote. But it takes a literal act of Congress to get Indian women protection from their abusers who are non-Native. The HR 4970 version omits this and it is the one that is being held up.
We have been asked to call our representatives and congressmen to support VAWA as it was written in S.1925. This version protects Indian women from non-Native offenders in Indian Country, the way I understand it. This makes sense to me, but the arc of tribal authority over non-Natives has been very limited indeed and been set by precedent in Indian law.
It is the maze of jurisdictions that cause a kind of lawlessness in regards to Indian women and violence. In Indian Country, deterrence is non-existent. A 2006 Amnesty International report on violence against indigenous women stopped me in my tracks by a simple quote from an Indian woman survivor of abuse: “Most women who are beaten or raped, don’t go to the police, they just shower and go to the clinic.”
So while we swelter in the wilting heat (in Oklahoma, it’s next door to Hades). Much of the nation’s attention will be taken up by how to stay cool rather than practical issues like the safety of Indian women. All of this on the symbolic eve before lawmakers revisit VAWA in August.
In the meantime, tribal and non-profits that have domestic violence outreach programs will continue to battle against the tide that could be stemmed from passing the Senate version of VAWA.
If it seems a bit confusing, it is. The choice is logical: Include the words to enlarge tribal authority over people who abuse Indian women on reservations in VAWA. For lawmakers, plausibility rules: If you have Indian people in your constituency, pay attention to your voters’ wishes.
It breaks down even further as we head into the upcoming elections, since Indians are voters, removing delegates with your all-powerful singular vote is part of the answer to getting elected lawmakers to pay heed of Indian citizens. If they do not listen then remind them with a vote for their opponent.
I run the risk of being over simplistic. But I am a person of ideals. They may be unobtainable but their existence is necessary. The way I look at it is there has to be a shimmering vision of safety in the mind of the oppressed--both symbolic and literal—that could materialize through VAWA (shelters, programs, potential prosecution). For those living in the throes of domestic abuse, domination would be total without hope.