Indian Time - A Voice from the Eastern Door

Letter to the Editor

Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Good Standing Policy: a Form of Internalized Oppression

The MCA Good Standing Policy requires that all community members are in good standing with their financial responsibility to loans, rent, fines and other types of service accounts with MCA.

It is understandable that this would be required of the membership. When a young mother is denied access to adequate housing due to an unpaid traffic fine, I personally have difficulty with the issue.

Is it better for MCA to deny her and her children a safe and secure environment for her to live in with her children? Or is it better for her to live in an unhealthy environment and be subjected to mold and the illnesses that come with the mold? I do not believe that she should have to jeopardize her family in this manner.

At the least, this is another form of internalized oppression. Internalized oppression is when our leaders use their authority or power over us. Why are we doing this to ourselves? I believe that everyone in the world should have a safe and secure environment to raise their family in.

Another incident happened when one of our elders was getting some work done to improve the conditions of his home, to make his home safe and secure for him. Shortly after the work began, an Akwesasne Police officer showed up and stopped the work on the senior’s home due to unpaid traffic fines.

If you have unpaid traffic fines off of the territory, are you penalized from receiving housing assistance of any type? Why should our members be subjected to inadequate housing for themselves due to unpaid traffic fines?

There are many families on the territory that are living in sub-standard housing or are living with family members and what are we doing as a collective to remedy the situation? These same families are also having difficulty feeding their families. Having food banks and soup kitchens would assist these families. There should be food banks and soup kitchens in each portion of the reserve. I am making this comment due to the price of gas to get from one sector of the territory to another. If you do not have enough money to feed your family, then you will not have money to go from one sector to another to avail yourself of a food bank or soup kitchen.

It is a recommendation that I have had since the protest of 2009 when we were feeding whole families at the Akwesasne People’s Fire. It is not something that is discussed and it should be. It is needed in all of the districts including the southern portion.

Some of our people are hungry every day of the year and not just at Christmas time. I admire all of the volunteer work that goes into the Christmas season fund raising but we should be making sure that all of our people are fed throughout the year!

Cordially,

Beverly Pyke