The 2023 Legislative session is shaping up to be one of the ugliest in living memory. Bills attacking Indigenous Peoples, medical privacy, LGBTQ+ children, and the poor have dominated the session. And today, in yet another show of ignorance, Republicans tabled Senator Shane Morigeau’s bill to recognize Indigenous People’s Day.
Attempts to change the name of Columbus Day have been made at the state, local, and national level for years. So today, I’m sharing a piece from Rylee Mitchell, who wrote this piece as a Teen Columnist for the Great Falls Tribune in 2017. At the time, the requested change was for “Montana Heritage Day” to replace Columbus Day, a measure which also failed. Though this piece is nearly six years old now, Montana decided again today to continue honoring the rapist and genocidal murderer, Christopher Columbus.
This piece was written by Rylee Mitchel and published by the Great Falls Tribune on February 27, 2017.
“Columbus Day or Montana Heritage Day — the name of the holiday might not mean much to you, but to me, as a Native American, it matters quite a lot.
And it’s not just the name of the holiday but also how we teach Native American history in our schools. Learning about Columbus Day involves taking 10 minutes to go over the day he reaches America and how he sailed the ocean blue in 1492 in search of gold, spreading Christianity along the way. Then we jump to Thanksgiving and then to Lewis and Clark with nothing in between. No discussions about boarding schools, wars or mass killings. Native American history gets left in the past.
Let’s not forget that Columbus paved the way for the wicked and cruel murder and rape of the indigenous people.
We are people who don’t deserve to live in the Europeans’ shadow. We deserve to have our stories told in the history books just like everyone else.
By not properly educating people about Native American history, it makes them much less likely to relate to us and understand us. They think we aren’t like everyone else.
But why?
Because of the color of our skin? Because we should be on a reservation?
Ignorance leads to name calling like redskin, Pocahontas and war heads. We aren’t depicted as real people in pictures, just as fictional characters.
“All that Native Americans gave us was land and diseases.”
“Native Americans killed us, like the holocaust.”
“God gave the Indians Europeans to help them.”
I heard all these comments and more when we talked about Native Americans in class last year.
Native Americans still deal with the mass killings of the past. The times when the men went to get food and came back to find all the women and children killed and the camp burned. We deal with the history of boarding school rapes and abuse and the sterilizing of Native American women.
Our tribal members still must cope with all these things, and the drinking that can come with it. We are still getting hurt, stereotyped and treated like we aren’t human. We are lucky we are still here.
Changing the name of this holiday would give a voice to Native Americans and represent a step forward to understanding our culture. We deserve for our history and stories to be told in schools. Education leads to more understanding and fewer labels and stereotypes.
We are human. We deserve to have our story told.”
Rylee Mitchell is an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Montana. Rylee is from Great Falls, Montana. Rylee is currently studying Civil Engineering at Montana Tech in Butte, Montana.
The great thing about human beings is that we learn from past mistakes. Unless you are Governor Greg Gianforte and his Republican allies in the legislature. As the Governor rolls out his package of tax cuts, and legislators clamor to get on board, it seems that no one remembers the 2003 Montana Legislature and Senate Bill 407, Judy Martz’s big tax cut plan that failed to deliver on its promises.
But before getting into the lessons from Senate Bill 407, let’s refresh ourselves on the economic theory that is driving Republicans to promote big tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s called “trickle down” economics. The idea is to give tax cuts to wealthy people who will then hire more people and pay more taxes which will lead to a better world. It turns out that cutting taxes on the wealthy just allows them to put more dollars into things like stock buybacks, offshore accounts, and other financial mechanisms that simply make them richer and do little for community investment. Even though most economists have debunked “trickle down economics,” Republican politicians cling to it as an article of faith and continue to promote it.
Now, back to 2003 and Senate Bill 407. Judy Martz was the Governor, and Republicans held majorities in both houses of the legislature. Then as now, Republicans were supremely confident that tax cuts result in increased revenue by stimulating growth. So they passed significant reductions to capital gains taxes and the income tax rates paid by wealthy individuals.
Specifically, SB 407 reduced the tax rate on top income earners (that’s tax speak for rich people) from 11% to 6.5%. It also created a 1% tax credit for capital gains income (that’s tax speak for money people make selling things like stock and real estate). Sounding familiar? Gianforte is proposing to reduce the top income tax rate along with giving a tax credit to people paying capital gains taxes.
But the real story about SB 407 is just how wrong the projections of the effect on public services and state revenue turned out to be. It ended up costing more than its promoters promised. . .lots more. In 2011 the Department of Revenue conducted an analysis of the fiscal impact of SB 407. Among other things the analysis concluded that the cut in income tax turned out to cost more than three times the projections during the 2003 legislature. The cost of the capital gains tax cut was double the projections. That meant much less money available for schools, local governments, and basic public services. Not surprisingly, the analysis also showed that the beneficiaries of these tax cuts largely turned out to be rich people.
So, here we sit in 2023, just like 2003. Republicans control both houses of the legislature and the Governor’s Office. And just like 2003, these politicians seek to cut taxes mostly on rich people. But there is a big difference as well. In 2003 the state was facing a budget crisis. Thanks to Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act, in 2023 we have a big budget surplus and, along with that, we have the opportunity to invest in our institutions and infrastructure. While rural nursing homes are closing across the state, while the State Hospital is crumbling before our eyes, while cities and counties are struggling to make ends meet, while schools are hard pressed to find qualified staff, why would we make it a priority to give tax breaks to the wealthiest among us before those problems are addressed? The answer from the Republicans is, “Just be patient. It will all trickle down.”
Ken Toole was a member of the Senate Tax Committee in 2001, 2003, and 2005. He served as the vice chair in 2005. He served on the Public Service Commission from 2007 to 2011. He was also the President of The Policy Institute, a private group which conducted research on economic issues including taxation.
In all seriousness, how do you celebrate Columbus Day? Do you take advantage of a big mattress sale? Do you walk into a random person’s home, set up shop, rob and exploit them?
What’s that? Oh, you don’t celebrate. Unless you are part of the problematically named Knights of Columbus, chances are Columbus Day means absolutely nothing to you. In fact, besides the sing-song “Back in 1492,” you probably don’t ever give much thought to Columbus.
But Indigenous People of the Americas do. Seeing the name pop up on the calendar every year is a stark reminder that upholding American mythology is more important than the actual history. More important than recognizing how today’s struggles that our communities face are the direct result of colonization and attempted genocide.
Now, Google is free so I will not lecture you with the laundry list of atrocities committed by Columbus and his men that were sanctified by the Doctrine of Discovery. But 500+ years later, we know and can do better. It’s time to shift the narrative perspective and amplify the voices that have been silenced or talked over. Let’s celebrate the contributions, resiliency, and beauty of your Indigenous neighbors, friends, and relatives.
Please join me in emailing or calling your legislators today and ask them to support SB 141. Mitakuye Oyasin. We are all related.
Tawny Cale is an enrolled citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a resident of Great Falls, MT.
“We do not allow children to make many kinds of unhealthy decisions, such as smoking, drinking, child pornography, sex with adults, and illegal drug use.”
That’s how Senator John Fuller opened his promotion of his bill at the hearing for SB99 on Friday: by equating gender transition with child porn and statutory rape. Got to protect the kids from pronouns and porn!
It went downhill from there.
My friend and I had driven through a snowstorm that day from Belgrade to Helena to join the many doctors, therapists, trans and Two Spirit folks, and parents of trans kids to voice our opposition to the bill. It’s a bill that would make it illegal for us to seek gender affirming care for our kids. A bill that would insert the state between our families and our providers, designate evidence-based practice as “child abuse,.” It would even make it illegal for our kids’ teachers to use their names and pronouns if such things didn’t match their genitals.
We sat and listened to the line-up of proponents. These included many religious right-wing organizations, such as the Montana Family Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, Restore Liberty, Moms for Liberty, and the Family Research Council. There were several out-of-state professional “detransitioners” who travel around and warn about the regrets of transitioning. There were chiropractors, a physical therapist, someone from New York who claimed to have a PhD in psychiatry, and a lot of angry, disgruntled parents and grandparents, some from Montana, some from other states.
They didn’t even pretend that parental rights applied to this topic. They all flat-out stated that parents of trans kids don’t have the same rights as everyone else. That they were singling out gender-affirming care as the One Terrible Thing that medical consensus, science, and best practices get utterly wrong. This is the hill their fanatical parental rights movement dies on. Fuller even stated, as did others, that the state needs to protect kids from “their parents’ influence.” Because surely parents like me are chomping at the bit to force our boys to be girls and force our girls to cut their hair and change their names. (Maybe they should turn the spotlight on their churches before going after us if they’re worried about “parental influence.”) I’ve never seen these rabid parental rights zombies state that the government needs to protect kids against their own parents before, and I grew up in the fundamentalist homeschooling world that invented anti-government parental rights fanaticism.
As expected, proponents started pulling “stats” out of their asses and claiming heart-rending stories of pain, regret, and “body mutilation”. One professional detransitioner claimed he’s gotten more than 10,000 emails from people who want to detransition. Another dude from a Christian organization in Billings stated that the instance of girls transitioning to boys has “increased 5000% percent,”, while people from the Heritage Foundation and the other hate groups made claims that 82% of people who transition regret it. At one point my friend leaned over and incredulously whispered, “They’re just making shit up!”
I should have made a bingo card, because they hit all the same talking points: transitioning is a lucrative business, look at Sweden, kids can’t make their own decisions, they’ll never be able to have sex or make babies (lots of obsession with how kids will have sex), trans people existing is an assault on the traditional family, people can’t make decisions until they’re 25, “I wanted to be a boy, too,when I was a kid,” “My son identified as an airplane,” and “out of state interests are trying to destroy Montana families.” (Even though the majority of proponents were out-of-state activists.)
It was one and a half hours of a daunting onslaught of bigotry, ignorance, lies, propaganda, and outright hatred. One senator at the end even equated suicide with gender transitioning, stating sarcastically that he should seek “suicide-affirming care” for his son who was determined to kill himself. It was an astonishing display of vitriolic word vomit.
When opponents got up to speak, the entire energy of the room shifted. We had twice as many people and 99% were actual Montanans. We had representatives from every hospital and medical association in the state, along with doctors, nurses, therapists, endocrinologists, independent clinics, domestic violence organizations, state representatives, and so many more.
But all my love and respect goes to the trans kids and adults who stood up to tell their stories. The youngest child to speak was 13. They fearlessly told their stories of growing up trans in Montana and begged the heartless committee to not take that away from them. It broke my heart and inspired me. I stood up and asked why they think I should get rights over two of my kids but not the other two. Parents told life-changing stories about their children to senators who didn’t care, who will probably vote this bill through anyway. I actually got a photo of Senator Theresa Manzella scrolling on her phone, and Senator Barry Usher falling asleep while one parent talked about how gender-affirming care saved his child. They are ghouls with a black hole where their hearts should be.
But Montana showed up that day. From professionals to parents to friends to children, Montana showed up to passionately voice their opposition to this cruel bill that would strip life and liberty from the most vulnerable among us. Unlike the proponents who were mostly out-of-state activists loudly claiming out-of-state activists were trying to turn our kids trans, opponents of the bill were everyday Montanans like you and me, standing up for the children of Montana. And it was beautiful. We’ve got each other’s backs, Montana. “We will fight like hell,” as Rep. Zooey Zephyr stated that day. Keep showing up, keep speaking up, and never back down.
“You may legislate with hate, but we will protect each other with love” ~Keegan Medrano, MT ACLU
Recently, there has been a divisive movement spearheaded by Republicans to emphasize parental rights – especially in HB 234: Revise dissemination of obscene material to minors laws.
How about considering parental responsibility?
Simply:
Parents are responsible for being part of the curriculum development process in schools, and there is a complaint process available if a parent is concerned about a teacher’s implementation of a particular curriculum or book choice by school and public librarians. If a parent does not take the time to be aware and involved through the processes described above, then they have abdicated their rights.
Parents are responsible for knowing what their children are reading and setting the family standards for what is appropriate as children begin to select their own reading material. If parents do not supervise what their children are reading, then they have abdicated their rights.
Parents are responsible for imparting their values regarding “obscenity” to their children. They are responsible for developing open lines of communication with their children so that the children can share any concerns about what they may be learning/reading, including something that might seem obscene.
Because there are wide variations within families as to what is acceptable, particularly regarding “obscenity,” it is the responsibility of schools and libraries to provide curriculum/book selections that span those variations. It is not the school’s responsibility to cater to any one set of possible parental standards. Nor should public libraries. There are general guidelines in place to determine the appropriate age for reading material and curriculum. Public schools and libraries have a duty to follow them.
What is “obscenity”? “To see it is to know it” does not work, as seeing something like “obscenity” “lies in the eye of the beholder.” Educators and librarians are not the arbitrators of what is/is not obscene for our society.
