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“An entry from late last May, though, was of another order: a news account of a killing in Grays Harbor County in Washington.
Jimmy Smith-Kramer, 20, and a member of the Quinault Indian Nation, had been crushed under the wheels of a pickup truck at a local campground. Another member of the tribe had been gravely injured as well. And a white man, James Walker, had been arrested and charged with having intentionally run over the two men after Walker admitted to flooring his gas pedal. The authorities claimed Walker backed over the men, then drove forward, grinding them into the ground a second time.
The leaders of the Quinault Nation had quickly issued a statement alleging that Walker and or others in his truck had used anti-Native slurs during the fatal incident. A handful of local news organizations published early accounts reflecting the concern that the killing amounted to a hate crime.
But in the year since then, the case has faded from public view, locally and nationally. It caused barely a ripple when prosecutors chose not to charge Walker with a hate crime, saying there were conflicting accounts of his possible motivations, and about who had said what, if anything, during the incident. Walker, who pleaded innocent at his May 2017 arraignment, has maintained he could not have committed a hate crime against Natives because he is part Cherokee himself.”
– ProPublica, A Killing at Donkey Creek.
“The same year the Quinault filed its anti-discrimination lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s office of civil rights to call on the agency to investigate a racially hostile environment for Native students in Humboldt County, California, where school officials allegedly abused Native students verbally and physically.
In 2017, the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes in the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana filed a complaint with both the Department of Justice and the Department of Education against the Wolf Point School District for discriminating against Native students. The complaint detailed a long history of bullying, racial slurs, and intolerance of tribal practices.
Initially, the Quinault Tribal Council had been hesitant to pursue the lawsuit out of fear that it wouldn’t produce any change. But Sharp, the current president, convinced councilmembers that a line needed to be drawn.
“We don’t want another generation to have to face what we all faced,” said Sharp. “Hate is multi-generational.””
– Mother Jones, #.
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Download the 18″x24″ poster (.pdf), Indian Country 52 #17 – Hate Crimes.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
