Ron Hart is a racist

A few days ago I criticized Ron Hart's column about Indians. It was mostly about how soft-hearted liberals are giving destructive gambling to Indians, so I wasn't too hard on him. Turns out there's more to the story.

I came across another version of Hart's column. The previous version was the same except it omitted the last four paragraphs. These paragraphs are pretty bad. I assume some editor wisely cut them to make Hart's column less offensive.

Here's what we missed before, along with my comments:

Ron Hart:  Betting on tribe's land grabJust walk through depressing places like Indian casinos or an inner-city housing project and see what happens when we issue a perpetual victims excuse to a group and blindly throw tax money at them. It only works for the Democrats, who rely on their "victim" votes.If you see people playing the slot machines by rote rather than enthusing over poker or blackjack, it may bother you. So what? The casino isn't where Indians live, it's where they work. No way is it equivalent to an inner-city housing project.

The correct comparison would be to an Indian reservation, obviously. Go study a reservation before and after a casino has lifted its people out of poverty, Hart. Unless there's no difference, your asinine argument fails.

Worse is Hart's use of the "perpetual victims" claim. This implies that Indians are pretending to be victims to get rich from casinos. That they have no real reason to complain.

In reality, Americans are still victimizing Indians in many ways: broken treaties, budget shortfalls, court decisions, environmental harm, racial discrimination, etc. It's not "playing the victim card" if you're an actual victim. It's called demanding justice, something minorities have had to do for centuries.

Also, Hart repeats the lie that Democrats, not Republicans, are responsible for Indian gaming. Again, it was a bipartisan initiative passed during the Reagan era. And the dumbass seems unaware that George W. Bush was president for most of the last decade. Talk about your mindless conservative Obama-bashing!

Indians didn't try hard enough?!No doubt the Native Americans lost some land, but you know they really should have spent less time consumed with maize and more with the advantages of gunpowder. If they did not want to be on the Atlanta Braves baseball jersey, they really should have fought harder.Whoa...here's the most racist part of Hart's screed.

Indians lost some land? Yeah, like the entire North and South American continents. Except for their limited ownership of mostly small reservations, they suffered the greatest land loss in human history.

Hart may not think Indians were merciless savages, but he thinks they were uncivilized incompetents. To keep his liberal/Obama/Indian falsehood going, he paints them as nature-worshiping, veggie-eating weaklings. They lost not because their foes were greedy, rapacious, and dedicated to their genocidal aims, but because they didn't try hard enough.

It's your classic blame the victim strategy. Indians got what they deserved for being "primitive," so we have nothing to apologize for. They fought and lost against something or someone, but the anonymous aggressors aren't the problem. The Indians are because they got in the way of progress. They didn't vanish as they were supposed to.

Here's a clue, idiot: The Indians fought back with guns as soon as they obtained them. They almost staved off the Nazi-style white-led holocaust at several points. Most observers considered them too strong and dangerous as a race, not too weak and mild. The Indians eventually lost because of disease and the Euro-Americans' propensity to lie, cheat, and steal, not because of their own failings.

If Hart's paragraph doesn't sound awful to you, try saying something similar about blacks:No doubt the African Americans lost some freedom, but you know they really should have spent less time consumed with lion-hunting and more with the advantages of gunpowder. If they did not want to be slaves and welfare queens, they really should have fought harder.A columnist who said that would soon find himself out of a job. But it's okay to say the same things about Indians. People really believe Indians were primitive savages, so they don't consider this a racist attack.

Apologizing is for sissies?At least non-Native Americans have shown them respect by naming every golf course where the land was taken from the Indians after them. Shinnecock, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Seminole, etc., remain a homage to the Native American where much wampum is exchanged after Nassau bets.Hart uses a phony "honor" argument and the wampum stereotype to minimize the racism in his previous paragraphs.Always punctual and in perpetual apology mode, Congress read a resolution they passed regarding the Indian tribes "for past transgressions of war upon" them for some reason at the Congressional Cemetery. I trust when Congress was there, they took note of the 535 open political graves awaiting them.Obviously the US apology to Indians bothers Hart. How dare we show weakness by apologizing to a lesser race! Only women and gays say they're sorry!

I'm not sure what his final line about the 535 graves means, but it sounds bad. Does he really think Americans will remove everyone from Congress because of their votes on the US apology? Or their votes on Indian gaming? If that's what he thinks, he's even stupider than I thought. No one knows or cares about the apology; they aren't going to vote because of it.

When Indian gaming was taking off 7-8 years ago, we used to see a lot of these bigoted screeds against Indians. They've tapered off in recent years. But Hart has made a valiant try to stoke the flames of hatred. Too bad for him that some editors recognized the racism in his final paragraphs.

For more on the subject, see Marino Attacks Pequots and Wampanoags and The Facts About Indian Gaming.

Below:  A similar view of Indians.