Sometimes it is difficult to understand and empathize with another person or group regarding an incident or serious long-term predicament or injustice. To walk in someone else’s shoes, it requires personalizing the issue. With that in mind, please imagine yourself, family, friends, and all white people as victims of a very aggressive and brutal group known as the aggressors.

In this case, the white culture is viewed as an impossible obstacle to the economic and political advancement of the aggressive culture. As a result, the aggressors place very rewarding bounties on the heads of all white people for the purpose of exterminating the white culture. This is followed by the attempt to wipe out the culture. Aggressors seize the lands of the whites, who are relegated to isolated and poor reservations to live impoverished lives. White children — your children — are taken from you and placed in special boarding schools and foster homes, where they are abused. The children are forced to wear the clothes of the aggressors, and they are prohibited from speaking their native language or face severe punishment.

You and all whites live in substandard housing, and there are no job opportunities or means to improve your lives. You are subject to ridicule, name calling, and discrimination any time you leave the reservation. You cannot obtain federal funds to build needed infrastructure and fund programs to assist you and the white culture. Aggressors’ promises and treaties made with the whites are constantly violated and disregarded.

This is the case of the Wabanaki, who have little or no control over their lives and destiny.  The Passamaquoddy cannot obtain clean and safe water because they are subject to the whims of the town of Perry, which will not allocate the necessary funds to the project. The Penobscot cannot preserve the health and safety of their waters and lands because they do not have the necessary sovereignty to preserve them.

The impact of the aggressors’ policies and actions on victims is obvious. The constant humiliation, severely restricted rights, the loss of all hope, and poverty, can lead to depression, physical and emotional distress, and little opportunity for the victims to improve their lives. In the end, the immorality and cruelty of the perpetrators is not only harsh and inhumane, it also debases and dehumanizes the perpetrators.

There is nothing good, righteous, moral, or positive about denying sovereignty to the Wabanaki. To deny sovereignty demeans the people and governments of Maine. All other states have provided sovereignty to their tribes and are better off for it.

Edward “Ted” Potter of Gardiner is a member of the Racial Justice Council of the Episcopal Diocese.

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