Mainstream Media (MSM) vs Non-MSM: Dilettantes vs Substance and the Missing “Fifth W”–WHY?
The “Mainstream” vs “Non-mainstream” Media: Dilettantes vs Substance Lewis & Clark: “frontmen for genocide”
LEWIS AND CLARK TRIBUTES MUST TELL THE TRUTH LEWIS & CLARK — ON THE TRAIL: LEWIS-CLARK TRIBUTES MUST TELL THE TRUTH, SAYS ANGRY BLACKFOOT
Friday, November 24, 2000 By DEAN BAKER, Columbian staff writer
The rhetoric is still red-hot, even though two months have passed since Jim Craven fired the first verbal shots in an American Indian war of words in Clark County.
The skirmish caused Craven, a Blackfoot tribal judge, to leave a countywide committee that’s planning a 200th anniversary for the Lewis and Clark expedition visit here. Now it threatens to grow into an American Indian protest in Vancouver.
“The only thing I mind is lies and cover-ups,” said Craven, 54, a Clark College economics professor and an expert and prolific writer on genocide of indigenous peoples. He either quit the committee or was fired by the mayor depending on whom you believe.
“There will be a protest,” said Craven, saying he expects 200 Indians to show up in Vancouver to protest mistreatment of the Blackfoot and other tribal people over the past 200 years. “I promise you that.” He didn’t say when they would come.
Craven left the 20-member Vancouver-Clark County Lewis and Clark Commemoration Committee after using explosive words such as “genocide” in a speech to the committee Sept. 14. He graphically described for the committee the rape and murder of American Indians that followed closely on the heels of Lewis and Clark’s odyssey on the Missouri and Columbia rivers in 1803-1806.
After he spoke, Craven said Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard fired him from the committee, but Pollard said that isn’t so. Pollard said he asked Craven in a private meeting to tone down his language or leave the group. It was Craven’s decision, the mayor said.
Fired or not, Craven left. He said the coming of the 31 Lewis and Clark explorers marked the beginning of a campaign against his people. That’s not something the Blackfoot celebrate or describe in a polite way, he said. But it wasn’t what Craven said that was offensive, Pollard said. It was the way he said it.
“He really had two options,” said Pollard, 61. “He had to modify his behavior or he had to leave the committee.”
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