The
July Seventh Coalition put out an interesting
information sheet dealing with the issue of
racism and the
protest against the
Makah's
right to
hunt.
It turns out that the
anti-whaling protesters raised
race based
hostility towards the
Makah in their
effrots to be the
Protector class of the
whales. These groups,
liberal conservation groups who claim to be
liberal thinking
individuals, used the same tactics they claim to be
morally repugnant when used
against them.
Some of the specific instances looked into were:
The attack of two Makah men on a ferry by anti-whaling protesters. They were beaten while being called "red savages" and "killers". This happened while the media was reporting on the whale hunt on the nightly news. One of the Makah ended up in a wheelchair.
The Muckleshoot and Payallup tribal schools had to be evacuated after anti-whaling related bomb and death threats.
In the town of Port Angeles Native Americans were being refused service at many businesses without regard to their views on the hunt.
Anti-whaling activists are made statements on TV and in print demonizing the Makah as "murderers", "degenerates", "buffoons", "cowards" and more all without regard for the individual's view on the hunt but as a race.
These two statements below are from the information sheet in regards to the activists response to their racist actions against the Makah people.
"None of the anti-whaling organizations have publicly condemned these attacks or distanced themselves from the racism that was justified as a response to Makah whaling."
" At least one organization (the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) joined forces with Republicans such as Representative Jack Metcalf and Senator Slade Gorton, both of whom have
fought Indian treaty rights for over twenty years while being actively hostile to conservation
in the Pacific Northwest. As a result, some of the same anti-treaty rhetoric (e.g. that Native
Americans pay no taxes of any kind) found its way into the whaling protests."