The Cherokee Nation recently decided to limit its membership to people who can prove they have Indian blood. This strips of their citizenship rights about 2,800 African-Americans who are descendants of slaves once owned by wealthy Cherokees. Those rights include access to health care clinics, food distribution for the poor, and assistance for low-income homeowners.
The Cherokee first agreed to grant the Freedmen equal rights in a treaty signed with the U.S. in 1866, following the end of the Civil War.
This is an awkward subject.
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/19/140594124/u-s-government-opposes-cherokee-nations-decision
“The first time I really experienced [racism] was when I got famous and went to America and people would challenge me like I don’t understand how it works or like, ‘Oh, you’re Canadian. You’ll never understand the Black American struggle,'” he said. “That was the first time I had ever gotten challenged. If I ever feel like an outsider it’s usually because I’m not American.”
Christopher Ranch, which grows garlic on 5,000 acres in Gilroy, Calif., announced recently that it would hike pay for farmworkers from $11 an hour to $13 hour this year, or 18%, and then to $15 in 2018. That’s four years earlier than what’s required by California’s schedule for minimum wage increases.
Ken Christopher, vice president at Christopher Ranch, said the effect of the move was immediately obvious. At the end of last year, the farm was short 50 workers needed to help peel, package and roast garlic. Within two weeks of upping wages in January, applications flooded in. Now the company has a wait-list 150 people long.
“I knew it would help a little bit, but I had no idea that it would solve our labor problem,” Christopher said.