Paulla Dove Jennings and Randy Noka write
Westerly Sun opinion pieces countering recent anti-Narragansett media blitz by
the Charlestown Citizens Alliance
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| Narragansett/Niantic tribal elder Paulla Dove Jennings, who is also curator of the Tomaquag Museum |
One of the Charlestown
Citizen Alliance’s (CCA) favorite ways to fire up its base it to draw on widespread
opposition to a casino in Charlestown[1]. However,
the CCA also uses fear of a casino to justify opposing any project, however
meritorious, the Narragansett Indian Tribe proposes, according to tribal council
member Randy Noka and tribal elder Paulla Dove Jennings.
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| Narragansett Tribal Councilor Randy Noka |
Noka noted that
the Sun editorial took the one-sided facts presented in the July 27 story to
chastise the Tribe for failing to complete the tribal elderly housing project
that was the focus of long-running litigation by Charlestown and the state
against the Tribe[3].
Noka told the Westerly Sun that comments[4] by “Indian
hater Joe Larisa[5]” that the
tribe’s long-stalled low-income elderly housing project was a front for the
tribe’s desire to build a casino was just “fear tactics and
propaganda…It’s always some kind of negative position against the tribe. It’s
‘us against them. As long as the tribe is held down or there’s no benefit to
the tribe, it’s good for the rest of us.’ The tribe and a casino are always
given in the same breath.”
Tribal elder
Paulla Dove Jennings was even more blunt in calling the CCA out. In a letter to the
Sun, she called “their attitudes (Larisa and the CCA)…wicked prejudices” that reminded her of the practices of the Ku Klux Klan.
She specifically challenged the CCA to explain why they only seem
to oppose a Narragansett casino, no matter where it might be. She asked the CCA
to explain its silence about the state’s two existing non-Indian gaming
facilities, especially now that those operations are seeking to expand into full casinos.
Ms.
Dove Jennings also held out a plea for reconciliation to the CCA, writing “the Creator… will forgive your angry, racist rants…As
Princess Red Wing once said, ‘If you want peace in your heart, you’ve got to
lay aside your prejudices or you will never have peace.’”
I
spoke to Tribal Council member Randy Noka at the Tribe’s
ninth anniversary memorial of the infamous “Smoke Shop Raid.” He told me the Tribe wishes, above all else, to be allowed
to carry on with projects that will provide the tribe and its members with
economic self-sufficiency and that all the talk about a casino in Charlestown
was a smokescreen to keep the tribe impoverished.
Noka
made basically the same
statement to the Westerly Sun calling the
anti-casino “propaganda, tax-payer funded fear tactics.”
It
should be noted that Randy Noka and Paulla Dove Jennings are on opposing
political sides within the Tribe. However, in their separate
statements, they both drew essentially the same conclusions from the Sun’s July 28
article and August 1 editorial.
[1] The
“Voice of the CCA” Mike Chambers wrote
recently to claim that town Democrats like to create what he calls
“hobgoblins” – phony or trumped up fears. But I think Chambers is actually projecting
the CCA’s standard practices.
The CCA’s six year history has been one of
setting up these “hobgoblins” and then campaigning against them. Examples
include the CCA crusades against the Tribe, “greedy developers,” Chariho
schools, families with children, senior citizens who own cats, etc. If you look
at the CCA’s priorities set by their Steering Committee, they are defined more
by what they hate than what they care for.
[2] Which is
very unusual since the article was written by Chris Keegan, one of the Sun’s
best and most experienced reporters who has covered tribal issues for a number
of years.
[3] Council
member Noka castigated the Sun editors for their one-sided coverage and pointed
out that many of the reasons why the elderly housing project was never
completed lie with roadblocks put up by the state and by Charlestown.
[5] Former
East Providence Mayor Joseph Larisa has been on the Charlestown pay-roll for
several years as its Special
Counsel on Indian Affairs. Larisa’s principal role has been to oppose
anything the Tribe wants to do, whether it’s in Charlestown or elsewhere.
For
example, when the Tribe attempted to negotiate with Governor Lincoln Chafee to
take over the financially troubled Twin River slot parlor in Lincoln, Larisa
was among the first to jump in to oppose the tribe.
He did that even though it was in
Charlestown’s self-interest for the Narragansetts to buy Twin River. That would
have provided a permanent solution to Charlestown’s fear of gaming here in
town. Charlestown has paid the ethically
challenged Larisa around a quarter of a million dollars to fight the Tribe.