Kawlija
Shared on Mon, 04/23/2007 - 19:14My federal employer, ever since the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, has allowed Native American employees to grow out their hair as is customary with the men of my culture. I already new several officers from across the country who had shoulder length hair or longer. To my utter shock, when I submitted my request for this workplace accommodation, I received the following message [through channels]: …this waiver unfortunately, must be supported by some sort of certification from a tribal official attesting to the cultural significance of the length of men’s hair for your people. That’s what I was told verbally and below is the only written guidance I was provided:
“As to documentation, if as I suspect this waiver will be based on cultural
tribal considerations, a statement should be submitted from a tribal official
about the significance of the hair style/length/adornment. Could you
emphasize to Officer Davis that to receive full consideration of his waiver
request he would need to submit a statement from a tribal official?”
WTF?! I have to have a tribal official write a note to inform them that this is a common practice among Natives?! I suspected they didn’t want to document this to me directly because they didn’t want an EEO complaint filed against them so I was informed of this secondhand. This is the government and they didn’t want a paper trail? Hmm.
As you can imagine, I had a variety of things to say upon being informed of this but thought better of it. Like a good company man, I wrote to my tribal council and asked for this [silly] letter. I knew I wouldn’t get a response and I didn’t. (This was despite having a first cousin on the tribal council. Ha! If I really wanted, I could have gotten a letter from them that said anything I wanted it to.)
I waited 30 days before submitting a second request sans the tribal certification. As you might imagine, I used those 30 days to craft the letter that follows to my agency. The manager that requested the certification apparently only speaks governmentese, so I replied in kind with some legalese he might understand. See if you can read between the lines:
Dear Sir:
It should not come as a surprise that asking for specific, detailed information on Native American religious and cultural practices would result in a somewhat lengthy dissertation on the subject. With that in mind, the material presented herein was kept to a minimum but with a concentration on several multifaceted, salient issues.
Religious freedom is an emotional and sensitive issue. Historically and constitutionally, the paths of those who worship in an unorthodox fashion have been strewn with hardship and harassment. When the complexity of a religious issue is compounded by the fact that it involves unfamiliar practices, such as are found within traditional Native American religious and traditional practices, the burden of substantiating these cultural attributes can be heavy. In attempting to accommodate Native American traditional and religious interests, the government and its employees are faced with numerous questions that have not previously arisen in conjunction with religious practices.
Perhaps the biggest complication is that tribal religions and cultural practices for the most part, do not have institutional structures comparable to Christian churches, Jewish temples and other organized religions. Religious freedom is an autonomy that most people living in the present take for granted. For most it is a right that they have never had to question. For example, if a westerner wants to practice Catholicism, study the Koran, or even master the art of Zen Buddhism he or she is free to do so without suffering any consequences. This is not true for the American Indian.
Religious freedom has become more of a gift given to the Indians from the United States government rather than a birthright. In the last two hundred years, the white mans’ desire to assimilate the Indian in to their own culture by refining them through religious persecution can be well noted from the times of the early Spanish settlements all the way through the arrival of the French, English, and ultimately the colonization of the Americans.
All four above mentioned groups, with their own religious beliefs, felt that to educate the Indians upon their “God” was an equitable rationalization for taking Indian land, leading to the absorption of the American Indian into the dominating cultures which surrounded them. As a result of the paternalistic attitudes brought with the European colonizers, the Native American religions were forced by law into partial extinction.
The American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 (A.I.R.F.A.) was created to protect the religious rights of American Indians living under the oppression of western society. For Indians, religious freedom can be seen as their life-blood. It is not a practice seen as a duty they must fulfill to be granted passage into a “heaven” by congregating into a sacred church on Sunday. Religion is their way of life and without it they lose their heritage and ultimately their true identity as a unique and individualistic culture.
Indigenous cultures, not only in the United States but around the world, are often perceived as remnants of primitive life that should be abandoned for assimilation in today’s modern society. The United States historical suppression upon the traditional “pagan” religious ways of the American Indian can be traced back all the way to the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Although the immigrants came to this land in search of religious freedom and base their nation upon it, they were reluctant to see the hypocrisy of their own actions. One need look no further than the Constitution itself to find this to be true. Within the First Amendment of the United States Constitution it clearly states that, “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and should have ruled out the need for the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978.
On August 12, 1978 President Jimmy Carter signed the bill into law. He recognized the bill’s vital justification by stating, “In the past Government agencies and departments have...denied Native Americans access to particular sites and interfered with religious practices and customs. It would now be the policy of the United States to protect and preserve the inherent right of American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiian people to believe, express, and exercise their traditional religion.” The act, Carter continued, was “in no way intended to... override existing law, but is designed to prevent Government action that could violate... constitutional protections.”
Indians are uniquein being the only group specifically identified in the Constitution, and this has meant that they have been regarded not as a racial or ethnic group like others, but as a distinct political entity or series of entities. Each tribe has specific historical relationship to the federal government, and all efforts to obliterate that relationship have been resisted. Now that unilateral termination seems to have been discontinued as a possible course of action, the most urgent task is to define how Indian communities, whether on or off reservations, can best overcome the effects of years of maladministration from outside.
Your office has requested detailed background information from at least one authoritative source on the cultural tradition relating to the hair length of Native American men. Similar situations have arisen before.
“The contemporary problem,” says Vine Deloria, (notable Native American author and historian), “is one of defining the meaning of tribe. Is it a traditionally-organized band of Indians following customs with medicine-men and chiefs dominating the policies of the tribe, or is it a modern corporate structure attempting to compromise at least in part with modern white culture?”
The definition of tribe has also been a relevant issue in recent legal disputes. The argument in the case of the Mashpee Wampanoag Indians’ claim for land on Cape Cod in 1977-78 revolved around whether they were a tribe at key points in their history. They were required to produce a chief and medicine man, as well as expert witnesses about their past. Clearly some fuller definition than this must be found, especially for smaller or less traditional groups, a definition which offers the possibility of a new relationship with white society and government.
The contemporary issue here revolves in part around the lack of exposure of the leadership of the ruling agency in this matter to American Indians and their diverse traditional culture. Many long-term employees have not previously been evaluated in regards to their “Indianness” and how this impacts their sense of self and uniqueness while they conduct themselves in the workplace.
Given the request for accommodation under the grooming standards, how much “Indianness” is considered requisite by management to allow the accommodation to be afforded to an employee who claims Native American heritage? Initially, the employee was instructed to provide proof of tribal enrollment and simply attach it to a written request to be afforded this benefit.
Had this been the sole criteria for eligibility for this accommodation, the issue would have been considered resolved by management and the employee informed that their request was approved. Management though, at least on the face of it, is reluctant for whatever reason to grant this type of employee benefit. What management may not have considered heretofore is that Indians will define themselves to themselves rather than be defined culturally by stereotypes, economically or politically by paternalistic administrations.
Whereas white majority have tended to define Indians by specific attributes and behaviour, research into groups of Indians at apparently very different degrees of acculturation has shown that the sense of being Indian, and of identifying with a continuous culture, can be just as strong amongst those with fewer of the traits that whites identify as Indian. Identity and group-identity may thus be formed from within rather than identified from outside. The various ways of being Indian should not have to include living up, or down, to majority stereotypes, and must rest on their ability to maintain or develop independently their economic, social and cultural resources.
Cultural ties, social and civic involvement, traditional and religious practices and beliefs of the employees involved is not being questioned. In fact, in many cases, management is keenly aware of the involvement of the employee in their traditional Native life. No, what’s being questioned is what specific detailed information from the Native American cultural traditions can the request of a Native American employee asking to groom his hair in a traditional manner be based on.
For a Native American employee requesting a benefit from his employer who desires not to be confrontational in this matter, the answer to that question must be as clear and deliberate. As clear and deliberate as the anticipated claim by management that this request for detailed information is not based in culturally deprived misconceptions, a lack of understanding of the issue of self-identity, or racism.
Consider that in the wake of Native American employees across the country having attempted to avail themselves of the accommodation under the grooming standards, they have communicated among themselves, the progress of these requests. In discussing this issue, no one has come up with a single case of a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Asian, African, or Hispanic-American having to substantiate their traditional, religious or cultural background and values in order to avail themselves of any ethnic or religious accommodation in the workplace. (You’ll acknowledge that consideration is commonly provided for employees who ask for time off for religious or cultural events and celebrations, or that permission was granted to wear a yamulka in the workplace, for instance, commonly without having to establish a cultural link to obtain this benefit.)
Anthropologists suggest that there is no such thing as "race" or a "human race type." What is commonly called racism is actually cultural markings of and assumptions about "the other". Physical traits and "race," change individuals into "us" and "them". We deal with others along such divisions, and assume certain characteristics-negative or positive-about these groups.
American Indian and Alaska Native people experience racism in many of the same ways as other minority groups: prejudice and discrimination because of racial distinctions and color. But Native Americans can also experience an added prejudice unique to them: Being Indian involves not only race, but also being part of the political and governmental unit of a tribe, pueblo or village. Therefore, racism as experienced by Native Americans involves what may be called a form of "nationalism", or the failure of the dominate society to recognize the sovereign powers of Indian governments.
The National Council of Churches and others define racism as prejudice plus power. Racism is the intentional or unintentional use of power to isolate, separate and exploit others, based on the unexamined assumption of the other's inferiority. Racism may be used to impose one group's cultural heritage on others, or used by institutions to reward and penalize. Racism is enforced and maintained by social, educational, legal, cultural, political and economic standards which are defined and controlled by the dominant culture, and is used by the majority to deprive a group of people, such as Native Americans, of their rights.
This conversation could spiral ad infinitum into racial stereotyping in sports and media and it’s prominence in today’s society, but we’ll leave that aspect of this discussion to the National Coalition Against Racism In Sports and Media. See their website for the Native perspective on this issue. http://www.aimovement.org/ncrsm/
Having mentioned media though, be it movies, television, books, photography or other representations and depictions of Native Americans, wouldn’t you agree that it is widely accepted that the Indian males are always seen in long, shoulder-length hair? How can it be possible that anyone in this country would claim to not be aware that Native American males with long shoulder-length hair (or longer) is a socially accepted norm for the culture? I could offer any number of stereotypical depictions of Indians from sports and media or simply offer an Indian head nickel for you to examine.
Some exploration of the issue of traditional culture and the prominence of the long- haired Native American males that may provide some background on the current application for accommodation, are those cases where long hair became an issue at school. See below for the applicable portion of the case and this link for more.
There was an opinion voiced by school officials that allowing petitioners to wear their hair in an Indian manner while restricting the hair length of white students would somehow be 'disruptive,' in that an 'integrated school system cannot countenance different groups and remain one organization.' But as we noted in Tinker, this Court long ago recognized that our constitutional system repudiates the idea that a State may conduct its schools 'to foster a homogeneous people.' Id., at 511.
In Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 402 , the Court said:
'In order to submerge the individual and develop ideal citizens, Sparta assembled the males at seven into barracks and entrusted their subsequent education and training to official guardians. Although such measures have been deliberately approved by men of great genius, their ideas touching the relation between individual and State were wholly different from those upon which our institutions rest; and it hardly will be affirmed that any legislature could impose such restrictions upon the people of a State without doing violence to both letter and spirit of the Constitution.'
And in Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 603 , we stated that:
"The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools.' Shelton v. Tucker, [ 364 U.S. 479 ] at 487 [, 5 L.ed.2d 231]. The classroom is peculiarly the 'market-place of ideas.' The Nation's future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth 'out [414 U.S. 1097 , 1101] of a multitude of tongues, [rather] than through any kind of authoritative selection."
The effort to impose uniformity on petitioners is especially repugnant in view of the history of white treatment of the education of the American Indian. In the late 1800's, at about the same time that the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 fragmented Indian tribal land holdings and allotted land to individual Indians with the effect of breaking up tribal structures, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) began operating a system of boarding schools with the express policy of stripping the Indian child of his cultural heritage and identity:
Such schools were run in a rigid military fashion, with heavy emphasis on rustic vocational education. They were designed to separate a child from his reservation and family, strip him of his tribal lore and mores, force the complete abandonment of his native language, and prepare him for never again returning to his people.
Again in 1944, a House Select Committee on Indian Affairs offered the same recommendation for achieving the 'final solution of the Indian problem':
'The goal of Indian education should be to make the Indian child a better American rather than to equip him simply to be a better Indian.'
A massive study by the Senate Special Subcommittee on Indian Education, 'Indian Education: A National Tragedy-A National Challenge,' S. Rep. No. 91-501, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., reviewed this policy, which it found rooted in a 'self-righteous intolerance of tribal communities and cultural [414 U.S. 1097 , 1102] differences.' Id., at 21. The Subcommittee found that many teachers in BIA schools 'still see their role as that of 'civilizing the native.' . . . One consequence of this unfortunate situation is a serious communications breakdown between student and staff and a serious lack of productive student-staff interactions. '. . . BIA administrators and teachers believe that Indians can choose only between total 'Indianness'-whatever that is-and complete assimilation into the dominant society. There seems to be little if any understanding of acculturation processes or the desirability of 'combining a firm cultural identity with occupational success and consequent self esteem."
Native Americans have always been the disappearing minority. This great continent was ‘red’ from sea to shining sea at one time but in these modern times, we have been reduced to 1% of the population of the United States. Another fact that modern day Indians have to face is that in order to make a living and to provide adequately for their families, they are required to leave the reservation or ancestral lands and progress through the modern society and workplace, wherever that may take them.
So how does one maintain their own sense of “Indianness” in this modern society and workplace? How could one be prepared to document to any degree, what they consider their own “Indianness?” If, in order to accomplish this overly burdensome task, we had to document in detail, our social, cultural and religious ties to our own families and communities, we would be glad to do so; but, it may effectively double the amount of documentation you’re reading as a result. Who could best be the “at least one authoritative source” on our cultural traditions? It is my firm belief that the authoritative source you seek is the employee in question.
"It is about respect--respect for everybody. In our understanding, the Creator made everything. That's all we're told. He made everything. And since he made everything, then you must respect everything. That's simple. And so as I look upon you, I know the Creator made you; I know that you're equal. You're equal in every way to us. And I respect you because you are a manifestation of the Creation. But, the law says that you must respect us as well. In this basic respect is peace. That's what's called community. Unfortunately, in today's time this does not occur. And so what I am talking about now is respect for our people's ways. Our land, our language, and our culture have been taken. Don't try to take our religion. We need that respect."
Oren Lyons
Onondaga Faithkeeper
Words of Power: Voices From Indian America
Fulcrum Publishing, 1994
Background material on the foregoing was obtained at the references cited below unless otherwise cited above. All are worthy reading (and require a minimum of your time to review), versus several books we could recommend (which would require some contribution of real time on your part). In short order though, they offer a glimpse of various aspects of the current socio-cultural Native American paradigm.
Respectfully submitted,
Arizona State University
Journal of American Indian Education, Vol 11, No. 1, originally published in 1971
Search For Identity Creates Problems For Indian Students
Author: Gene Leitka
Available at: http://jaie.asu.edu/v11/V11S1sea.html
California State University, Long Beach
Native Americans and Religious Freedom
The Case for a Re-Vision of the First Amendment
Authors: Karen Rasmussen and Craig Smith
Available at: http://www.csulb.edu/~crsmith/indian2.html
Nevada State Library and Archives
Department of Cultural Affairs
The People: Native American Legacy
The Weave of Deception: Why Stereotypes Have Developed With Ideas On How To Alleviate Them
British Association of American Studies
Modern Indians
Author: David Murray
BAAS Pamphlet #8, originally published in 1982
The Pluralism Project
Research Report
Native American Religious and Cultural Freedom: an Introductory Essay
Native Peoples’ Traditions
Author: Michael McNally
Indian Law Resource Center
Racial Justice Lawyering on Behalf of Indians and Other Indigenous Peoples
Author: Robert Coulter
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Submitted by CrypticCat on Mon, 04/23/2007 - 20:40
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