 by Jonathan Doll June 22, 2004
Yup`ik, Harold Napoleon's excellent paper titled, Yuuyaraq:the Way of the Human Being, lists seven rights for Alaska Natives that would bring equity in Alaska. They are the rights to: self government, to create and enforce ordinances, to establish courts, to perform and even profit from subsistence activities without government interference, and to tax exemptions as experienced by all other Native Americans. I fully agree with him. The state of Alaska should really have to ask Alaska Natives for the permission of using high stakes testing rather than the other way around where people have to petition that the state remove such high stakes. A year after the 1964 earthquake, a village chief was utterly sick of nonNatives coming in and trying to "fix things". After enduring a year of partial fixes, lies, and red tape, the chief finally had enough. His words are as appropriate today as they were then. He said, "We are going to declare a three-month vacation and none of you white folks come. Jonathan Doll, M.Ed.
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