amazing!

NIMBYs BTFO.

Good.

Imagine trying to argue that an Indian tribe isn't "Indian." What lawyer thought that argument was going to go anywhere?

Well it's not much, but hopefully it helps.

So, Taunton casino soon ?

From the article

> The definition of “Indian” under the Indian Reorganization Act is: "[1] all persons of Indian descent who are members of any recognized Indian tribe now under Federal jurisdiction, and [2] all persons who are descendants of such members who were, on June 1, 1934, residing within the present boundaries of any Indian reservation, and shall further include [3] all other persons of one-half or more Indian blood," according to the department. 

But also

>"The record in this case reveals the government’s systemic, decades-long policy of forcibly dissolving Indigenous tribes and cultures by coercing children to assimilate into what the government defined as “white” society," wrote Kelley. "The Carlisle School, funded by Congress for the purpose of separating Indigenous children from their families and indoctrinating them in accordance with the government’s policy, was an essential component of this system."

Essentially the plaintiffs tried to make the argument that the Mashpee didn't fit into the narrow definition provided by the 1934 law dictating what an "Indian" is.

Judge comes back and says we have a clear cut record of the government forcing the tribe to integrate into society. We know that the government considered them "indians" at the time because otherwise they wouldn't have forced them to assimilate.

Ah, I see, thanks. I can see why they thought they could make that argument based on a narrow reading of the law even if logically it would be pretty ridiculous to tell the Wampanoag they aren't a tribe.

But yeah, feels like a stretch even so considering how they were treated by the government.

Good.

The US has violated pretty much every treaty with every Native group. Glad to see the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe get at least a little bit of justice here

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I'm fairly certain the Mashpee are a bit unique among tribes in the US in that the integration forced on them was somewhat "succesful".

They were given a town as a Christian Praying Tribe, so they didnt live on a reservation under federal jurisdiction. Many intermarried and had children with white people so the " more than one-half blood" metric didnt explicitly apply to them all either. Their traditional customs were largely wiped out.

But this was done before 1934, so they weren't on the list that was made when the law was passed.

It's like the government decided the tribe was fully "integrated" by the time they defined what an "indian" was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashpee_Wampanoag_Tribe

Taunton casino coming soon can’t wait!

I'm not sure if this plan is still in the works, but the securing of land in Taunton was at one time intended to allow opening of a casino, whose revenue would then fund development of a stronger Tribal government, including functions like fish and wildlife management and others.

Glad to hear that the tribe got its status recognized, it was long overdue. That being said I'm not a fan of building a casino right in the middle of Brockton, Taunton, New Bedford, and Fall River. All of these towns have struggled after de-industrialization and it can be a tough life when vice industries come in to prey on that desperation. But that's the way the cookie crumbles I guess. It does seem strange to frame this as a NIMBY issue when that's usually focused on housing development, this is a casino after all.

Of course, assimilation and integration are just euphemisms for cultural genocide.

I do wonder where the balance of justice will be found. The "lucky" tribes getting to run casinos while the rest live in poverty definitely ain't it.

The whole "casino" thing came about during the Great Recession as a way to create jobs in a struggling region. I do wonder if the plan will get the same level of enthusiasm it got in 2009.

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The article says part of the fight was to stop the plans of a $1 billion dollar casino. So I would assume that's still in the plans.

It's full steam ahead. Mass has 1 more casino license to dish out and pretty sure it's going here

NIMBY is anything that someone doesn’t want in their back yard. Bike paths, dispensaries, power stations, country club expansion etc, etc.

I know they had right of first refusal when they were giving them out.

Who wouldn’t want a casino next door? Luddites.

The irony is that the term luddites came from workers banding together to destroy machines that were replacing their jobs. Its understandable when you consider those workers needed those jobs in order to pay for things like housing and food. This casino was first proposed during the great recession because the machines and manufacturing had all been offshored and people were desperate to create jobs of any form. Somewhere along the line we've learned to ignore the worker's legitimate concerns about putting food on the table and only see things from the perspective of the factory owner who doesn't give a damn about anything but their bottom line.

Reparations are a slippery slope...

I've never actually seen a slippery slope. Just an excuse for people who don't want to do the right thing. It's literally an argument of "even though we all agree it's a good thing to do, we shouldn't do it because later we might do something that we don't do agree it's good".

Is it the right thing? Why should descendants of people who were wronged be entitled to special rights? Why don't other people who were wronged get special rights? Like... all the millions of descendants of slavery? Their slave great-great-grandparents were even promised "40 acres of a mule" and never got it.

Generally though it just seems like an error in public policy to be rewarding people of the present (who did not directly suffer any harm) by taking from other people (who are not directly responsible for the suffering of those people in the past). Is that justice? It doesn't feel like it.

Teach about the past so it doesn't happen again in the future, sure, but it's an endless rabbit hole if you start trying to turn past grievances into present property rights. It's monetizing the ghosts of the past.

I agree with your literal definition of NIMBY but also find it weird to be used to describe someone not wanting a casino built in their neighborhood. Like opposing new housing is imo purely selfish but I think there are reasonable objections to a casino

I agree with your literal definition of NIMBY but also find it weird to be used to describe someone not wanting a casino built in their neighborhood. Like opposing new housing is imo purely selfish but I think there are reasonable objections to a casino

Alot has changed since the entire concept was voted on, including Covid, several other casinos establishing themselves first, and legalized sports betting. I'm pretty sure there will no longer be a 300 room hotel, concert venue, shopping plaza, and waterpark, and would assume this means a scale back on the casino size as well.

So the government can do heinous things, and as long as they wait long enough to admit it was wrong, nothing can be done about it? Sounds like quite the loophole to me.

This is more to do with the legal right of Indian tribes though— there's an enormous amount of land that legally belongs to various tribes due to treaties which are still in effect. The government has been illegally violating these treaties for centuries, in some cases.

Eh. NIMBY is someone who agrees it should be build somewhere, but not in my back yard. Someone who doesn’t want it built anywhere, I’d say, is not a NIMBY.

> So the government can do heinous things, and as long as they wait long enough to admit it was wrong, nothing can be done about it? Sounds like quite the loophole to me.

Yeah, that's how time works. Unless you can re-animate the dead you can't give them back what you stole.

The policies which created racial inequality were practiced well into the 20th century. There are still people alive who were stolen from their families and forced into boarding schools. This isn't old history

Due to the phenomenon of generational wealth, the descendants of people who were wronged in the past are indeed still suffering as a result of those wrongs.

More specifically, NIMBY is a pejorative used to pressure homeowners into allowing construction near their homes which they otherwise would not allow. It’s no different from calling someone a pussy because you want them to do something risky and they’re scared.

So whether it’s low income housing, a casino, or a power plant, it’s important to recognize that anyone using a pejorative to pressure you into agreeing with them is not your friend and probably not well informed on the subject being discussed.

Yeah, except that selfish, entitled NIMBYs have spent decades blocking adequate housing from being built in this state, and now we have a housing crisis.

It has nothing to do with being scared.

It’s “I got mine, fuck everybody else” selfishness.

That would be a BANANA

build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything

That's true but inheritance and generational wealth are real things in our modern society. If we want to make things equal we can either remove wealth inheritance rights from everyone or we can try to compensate the decendants of people who were wronged in the past. Anything else would be treating certain groups as second class citizens.

You sound like you’re more upset than articulate. Your emotions are valid, but your message is just emotion.

I'm not a fan of it either, but the gambling genie was out of the bottle a long, long time ago.

Multiple casinos already nearby, scratchers, lotteries and keno everywhere you look, and now mobile app sports gambling, among everything else. Either get rid of all of it or let the tribe share in that blood money.

No, my message is absolutely accurate.

90% of the things that NIMBYs whine about, especially when it comes to new housing construction are complete and utter bullshit, and just boil down to “I feel entitled for my neighborhood/town to never have to change… I got mine, fuck everybody else.”

Agreed, for the record I'm in the get rid of it all camp. I have nothing against the tribe and the arguments against their recognition were flimsy at best. Just disappointing to see how normalized gambling has become. Vices are fine when they are treated as a luxury, but I grew up in the area and I know what the unfortunate reality is. There will absolutely be kids in the surrounding towns that get stuck in the poverty cycle because their parents are addicts. That's just how the world works and it's sad to see us washing the blood of the past off of our hands with the blood of the future.

I mean maybe you’re speaking to a different audience, but from my perspective your message seems heavy on expletives and short on the sort of cause-and-effect I’m used to, i.e. the reason you are incorrect is because of x,y,z

I doubt you care to talk more, but for posterity I will ask a few questions that I’d expect you to share.

To what degree do homeowners owe a duty of support to non-homeowners in their pursuit of homeownership?

Do you want to live in a society where a younger version of yourself could no longer buy a home?

How does it make you feel to see other people enjoy the financial and physical security of owning their home?

“To what degree do homeowners owe a duty of support to non-homeowners in their pursuit of homeownership?”

Nothing. But they are entitled to their property and nothing else. Purchasing a property doesn’t mean your neighborhood is suddenly frozen in time from that point onward, and you are entitled to never have your neighborhood change. So no, you don’t get to tell everyone else what they can and can’t build on their property.

So if a developer wants to buy up some lots and build some higher density housing because there is extreme market demand for it, tough luck. If one does’t want their neighborhood to ever change, they can feel free to purchase every lot in the town. The “neighborhood character” of your neighborhood was once just forests and cornfields. Why was it okay to ruin that “neighborhood character” to build your neighborhood, but once you purchase property, suddenly now everything must remain frozen in time?

“Do you want to live in a society where a younger version of yourself could no longer buy a home?”

That’s exactly where we are heading because of all the “I got mine, fuck everybody else” NIMBYs block more housing from being built.

“How does it make you feel to see other people enjoy the financial and physical security of owning their home?”

They are welcome to enjoy that. But nowhere does their deed say they are entitled to never have their town or neighborhood ever change.

It was also supposed to generate traffic for the nearby mall to help it stay open, but that's gone now too.

Usually they don’t give a crap if it gets built, and if they say they do it’s just for appearances and to distract you from their NIMBYism.

I can confirm that, as of June 2022, the casino plan is still on. I was briefly involved with the project at that time. The plan has changed from the original idea though - now it’s a one-story building instead of a huge hotel tower.

The whole blood quantum thing is racist as fuck, and it’s good to see a number of Native tribes saying “fuck that” to it. Hopefully more follow

I’m not a fan of casinos either. But like, the Mashpee Wampanoag, along with other Native tribes, were nearly exterminated in a campaign of genocide.

If this is what it takes for them to see any reparations, I’m all for it.

Never in the history of ever has being called a NIMBY caused anyone to change their mind.

That makes a lot of sense. A good deal of research has been done on the existing casinos in MA and one finding is that it’s mostly local/regional patrons who drive there and then drive home. There was a thought at one time that a ton of tourists would come from all around to gamble in MA. What they’ve been more effective at is recapturing the spending of people who would have otherwise traveled out of state to gamble.

Indian has a statutory definition.
However unjust that definition may be, and that is the basis of the argument.

Many Maine tribes fail at the definition, by not residing in a Federal Reservation in 1934 and by having diluted genetic heritage

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Really, really happy for the Mashpees prevailing in this decision. I used to work for a shellfish company that had a whole sale contract with them. Their growers were super, super friendly and would bring me with them out to their grants just to show me around when I was there just to meet them at a beach parking lot for a pick up. If you like oysters and ever see First Lights around, they are from the Mashpees and are of the highest quality.