Message from Pequotland

I find this letter to the editor of Capitol Weekly to be especially poignant. The writer is from Connecticut, home of the so-called Pequots and the largest casino in the world - Foxwoods. Connecticut is where it all started - where the huge loophole in the law was created for all these 'tribes' to get their own casino - following the blueprint created in Connecticut by the Pequots. An excellent book - Without Reservation by Jeff Benedict - details the convolutions within our government that created the debacle of Indian casinos.

Letter to the editor
By Capitol Readers (published Thursday, January 10, 2008)

Dear Editor,
With all this money being spent by tribes lobbying for a vote outcome, it’s time to revisit this concept of creating these “tribal nations” based on the theory that they are perpetually poor and “in need.” Firstly, we’ve all known many neighbors who were 100 percent U.S. citizens before a tribe was created for them to join, thereby allowing them to claim they were due to be exempt from the laws (they previously followed) because they had been discriminated against.

Give me a break! Many groups try for decades to find one shred of evidence that they are not part of the mainstream. When the BIA (who always wants to increase its authority) ignores reality and grants federal recognition, we hear how we “owe” these folks money, land, tax exemption, you name it, because of … discrimination. Yet the mainstream have always seen them as part of the country and it is the “tribal members” themselves who work so hard to discriminate themselves from the rest — in order to get their hands on our tax dollars.

When people have to prove a racial distinction in order to own and operate certain businesses (tax-exempt casinos), we had better review our founding documents. We had better realize that a government cannot have a treaty with its own citizens.

Betty Perkowski,
North Stonington, Conn