It is with a heavy heart that I feel the need to comment on an apparent wave of racism, covert and overt, manifest in the Citizen’s for Windsor’s (CFW) movement against the Pomo Lytton band settling in the Urban Growth Boundary off of Windsor River Road between Starr Road and Eastside Road. I am not calling anyone in particular a racist because that is an assumption I cannot make, and yet the group’s narrative contains numerous racist messages. I will explain by putting CFW’s arguments in quotation marks.
“My family has lived here for four generations, we have rights.”
The Native Americans were here for possibly 500 generations. We all know the rest of the story.
“The Lytton band is not native to the land off of Windsor River Road.”
How could anyone possibly know this? Are you kidding me?
“Why don’t they move to the land they recently acquired on Lytton Springs Road and leave Windsor alone?”
That is an overt racism comment. It reads like, just send them somewhere else. It turns out that the Lytton Band would like to be part of a community. They would like their kids to walk to schools. Their property at 200 Lytton Springs Road is in the Healdsburg-Cloverdale community separator protected by Measure K and will not, as far as I can discover, allow for housing and subdivisions.
“The Lytton tribe is buying politicians.”
They just contributed $1,000,000 to the Windsor School District, $1,250,000 to Sonoma County Children’s Charities, $2,600,000 to Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, $400,000 to Windsor Fire Protection District, $300,000 to National Alliance on Mental Illness and $170,000 to Sonoma County Historical Society.
“They won’t let anyone other than tribal members on their land.”
We don’t know that, and even if they don’t, nobody makes the same argument against gated communities such as Lakewood or Shiloh Estates. Maybe the Lytton band will welcome people onto their land.
“They will build a casino.”
We all know that is a crazy notion. The agreement in HR 597 says the Lytton can’t build a casino north of Highway 12 in perpetuity.
“We can’t trust them to keep an agreement.”
Anyone with a modicum of American history knows it was the federal government that did not keep its promises in treaties with the Native Americans.
“There were 850 Windsor citizens at the Furth Center meeting most of whom were against the Lytton tribe.”
Actually, the number was 450. There is an epidemic of crowd exaggeration in America. Many people in attendance were not from Windsor. One non-Windsor person who spoke referred to the Native Americans as “rodents.” So, in aligning with the large crowd turnout, are you aligning also with the racists in the crowd, and if you are disavowing the racists, how many were left to count on CFW’s side?
We just don’t know.
“I am not a racist.”
If so, why did you not stand up to the racist rhetoric the numerous times it was present at CFW rallies? This is what racism looks like. It is mostly covert and most racism is publicly denied.
“We are going to run candidates against three members of the current council in 2018 to show you just how popular our message is.”
You just did so in 2016 and both your candidates lost, and yet you continue to insult the council saying they don’t represent the people. If they don’t represent the people on the Lytton issue, then how come Mayor Debora Fudge and Bruce Okrepkie, the two council representatives on the Lytton committee were re-elected?
“I am worried about all the new traffic congestion.”
There are three development projects in various stages of approval, in Windsor, that will add over 1,000 new housing units, many times the traffic that the Lytton project will add. I don’t see many CFW members at the council meetings protesting the other developments in the same concerted way.
“I’m all about the Urban Growth Boundary and protecting the rural look of Windsor.”
That’s funny. I did not see many CFW members at the council meetings when the Urban Growth Boundary was up for discussion or at the General Plan Update sessions.
As I said earlier, most of CFW members may not be racists, but they are either knowingly or unknowingly perpetuating a racist message.
We have a lot to learn from Native Americans: how to live with generosity for one. The Native Americans in this part of California held generosity as one of their highest values. I, for one, am willing to give a bit of Urban Growth Boundary in order to live in generosity with a people we have taken so much from. The generosity, at this moment in time, is more sacred than a small part of the urban growth boundary. Like many silent Windsor people I know, I welcome the Lytton Pomo band to Windsor.
