Texas Civil Rights Review

“Did you know the name ‘Texas’ comes from a Caddoan Indian word?” asks the Native Languages website. “It is a Spanish corruption of the Caddo word Taysha, which means ‘friend’.”

“Friend” is what Caddoans called the early Europeans in a typical sign of indigenous hospitality.

With this heritage in mind, we are taking some interest in events in South Dakota, where the Republic of Lakotah last month repudiated all its broken treaties with the USA.

Weighing heavily on the side of bad faith is a 1903 Lone Wolf ruling by the US Supreme Court which placed all tribal affairs under Congressional sovereignty.

As Kevin Gover recounted on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, failure is the appropriate term to use when it comes to the history of official dealings with Indigenous Indian peoples.

Gover himself was one of several federal officials held in contempt by a US Court for “destroying documents in a landmark suit filed by American Indians.” The Cobbell case alleges that the US government has for the past century mismanaged funds held in behalf of a half million indigenous people. And so far, the courts seem to agree.

The plain truth is that European peoples have not been “friends” to the indigenous populations, even if we call ourselves Texans today.

So the developments in South Dakota bear serious reflection.

We like the feisty statement of solidarity issued by the Mohawk Nation News.

And we recommend serious consideration of the recent UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

These materials remind us that whenever we hear calls to “restore the US Constitution” we are hearing from a very particular center of historical recollection. If the US Constitution is one’s vehicle for progress, then the Republic of Lakotah reminds us that there are traditions of justice that still need starting.

–gm

See also: Ron Garmon’s report in LA City Beat.

Washington (NNPA) – Money that normally goes to African-American grass-roots groups with

a proven track record of successfully turning out the Black vote is being diverted this year to White-

managed “527 groups” that feel they have a better knowledge of how to turn out the African-American

vote than experienced Blacks, a miscalculation that some experts feel could cost Democratic nominee

John Kerry a victory on Nov. 2. [SF BayView.Com]

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
by permission

This week I interviewed Corinna Spencer-Scheurich, an attorney with the South Texas Civil Rights Project. STCRP has offices on Cesar Chavez Road in San Juan, behind the historic farm worker (UFW) hall, and is always doing something to help the poor and stop injustice here in the Rio Grande Valley.

Braune: Counselor, I understand that you have been to court this week on an important issue. Some of your clients who have purchased property in the colonias have later found out that there was some nasty catch in the contract process. (Frankly, my wife and I bought a house a few years ago and it was a complicated and tiring process, and I can see how someone could sign something they shouldn’t sign, if that is the problem.) Anyhow, do tell us a bit about what is happening to these families in the colonias.

Spencer-Scheurich: When the families go in to sign the closing documents, they get all the normal paperwork that gives them title in their name and gives the seller the right to foreclose if the families don’t pay. Here’s the problem: Included in the paperwork, is a Warranty Deed transferring title back from the buyer to the seller.

So the same day the families get title to the property and become owners, they sign title back to the sellers unconditionally. The families walk away thinking that they are buying the property, when really they own nothing. The sellers keep this second title document from the families in their files and use it whenever they want to kick the buyers off the property as easily as evicting a renter. The sellers are getting away with avoiding the foreclosure laws designed to give a level of protection to the buyers.

Braune: It seems to me like a clear injustice.

Spencer-Scheurich: Yes. Families sign the documents because the seller exploits an imbalance in education and knowledge. First, many of the buyers don’t speak or read English. They are depending on the seller to translate. Also, many of these families are first generation Mexican-American, with little familiarity with how the American property laws work. And the paperwork is difficult; even I had a hard time navigating and understanding all of the documents that went along with the purchase of my house.

Finally, if families ask about the Warranty Deed that they are signing, they are reassured that the document won’t be filed unless they are behind on their payments. The problem is that title is effective the moment it is signed and delivered. A signed title can sit in a drawer for decades and then be used to prove ownership as if it were signed the day before. The situation is a ticking time bomb that could deprive people of land that they have paid on for years and leave them with little recourse.

It is unjust to exploit those who are working for a better life and looking for the American Dream in purchasing their own property by setting them up to fail while taking all of their money.

Braune: How many do you estimate at this point may be affected?

Spencer-Scheurich: From our searches of public property records, we believe that all of the San Cristobal and 493 Estates colonias in rural Edinburg are affected. In San Cristobal, as many as 180 lots are affected, and in 493 Estates it is at least a couple dozen. We also believe that the developer, William Schwarz, has developed other colonias and is using the same documents.

Braune: Here’s a dumb question. When a house is bought from the developers with this contorted contract arrangement, there is no bank involved. Is that right? When we bought our house, the bank seemed to want to know every detail.

Spencer-Scheurich: That is right — no bank is involved. It is common in the colonias for property purchases to not have a title company or bank involved. The properties are owner-financed for extraordinarily high interest rates, in this case 16%. To be fair, many of the people buying would have a hard time getting traditional bank loans, but no one is such a bad credit risk that they deserve that type of financing. It makes it almost impossible for people to get ahead.

Braune: What are you trying to accomplish in the long run?

Spencer-Scheurich: In the long run, I am trying to prevent this from happening to other families. I also am blowing the whistle on this practice so that we can resolve the title problem long before this ticking time bomb blows up on the families who will struggle to pay their mortgage on time for years, just to find out that they gave away title at the very beginning. I also think that it’s time we get the legislature to pass a law that protects people from these inherently fraudulent transactions. We have seen this work for Contracts for Deed, predatory loans that have been highly regulated to protect consumers.

Braune: Thanks for this interview and the important work you are doing.

Racism is something you can count. In today’s Journal of the American Medical Association, racism in the emergency room is reduced to an “odds ratio” of .66, which means that an African American who reports pain to an emergency room doctor is less likely to be prescribed the kinds of strong pain relief given to white patients.

Does this mean that emergency room doctors are bigots? If a bigot is someone who is aware of, and who acts upon, prejudicial intentions; then no, it does not follow from the evidence that doctors are bigots.

Is the medical profession racist? If by racist we mean a detectable level of unfair treatment, then yes, it is necessarily true that the medical profession is racist, at least as far as the evidence shows.

The puzzle of course is how we can make strong claims about racism while we must discount inferences of bigotry.

The short answer for the puzzle lies in our common heritage of culture and language. For example in “The Great Debaters” we see how the poet Melvin B. Tolson is aware that his use of the word “denigrate” embeds in his own language a racist aversion to African beings. He is no bigot, but he cannot escape a common culture of racism. Even the great Tolson would have to watch himself for signs of an “odds ratio” at work in his habits.

But then it is not enough to say, well, if Tolson uses racist language, then we are all equally at fault. Because Tolson is actively working to boost the odds ratio up to one. And Tolson knows that because there are a thousand ways to do this, he must be busy at it all the time, along multiple dimensions.

Despite the fact that statistics are required skills for most college graduates today, I’m afraid to say that college level education correlates very poorly with awareness of the racism that works in terms of an “odds ratio.”

Last time I looked carefully at the numbers, resistance to affirmative action was highest among people who should know better: middle class, white, male, college educated folk. How can one understand the statistical significance of “odds ratios” in our world and at the same time oppose institutional redress in the form of affirmative action? Is it bigotry again? Denigration without reflection?

Look at Tolson’s example. Does Tolson say, “before we can begin to struggle for intellectual equality, we must first organize economic solidarity with our white brothers”? No, Tolson does not deploy the kind of logic which asserts that we can work only on one institution at a time. He would not say: “put off de-segregation in college until we have achieved equal education in K-12.” No, he’d be busy doing both at the same time.

–gm

PS: And should we not ask whether there might be some “odds ratio” at work in the critical language of Hollywood film reviews, when some directors are hailed for their “style” while others are denigrated for “formula”?