Mother Randall Is 111 Years Old and Still Waiting. Who Counts as Having Been Harmed by the State?

NPR’s Code Switch, hosted by B.A. Parker and Gene Demby, investigates the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” the federal judgment fund it drew from, and the question at the center of it all: who does the United States government recognize as having been harmed? Featuring Don Tamaki, attorney and member of California’s reparations task force; Maggie Blackhawk, member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and NYU law professor specializing in federal Indian law; and Rebecca Nagle, citizen of Cherokee Nation, journalist, and host of the podcast First America.

1. The Trump administration tried to use the same federal fund that could pay the last Tulsa survivor to compensate January 6th defendants.The $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund drew from the federal judgment fund, the same mechanism Congressman Al Green’s bill would use to pay Mother Randall. The number $1,776,000,000 was not accidental. It was timed to land weeks before America’s 250th birthday. The implied beneficiaries were people pardoned for storming the Capitol.

2. The judgment fund and federal settlement machinery were built by Native nations, not gifted by Congress.Native people had no way to sue the federal government like other Americans. They spent more than a century building the legal infrastructure to seek redress. That infrastructure is now being cited as precedent for funds that have nothing to do with Native justice. The Trump administration pointed to Keepseagle, a landmark Native farmers discrimination settlement, to justify the anti-weaponization fund. No alarm bells rang because most Americans do not know enough about federal Indian law to recognize what was being done.

3. Japanese Americans waited 46 years for a formal apology and $20,000. Black Americans cannot get a study bill to the floor.The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 passed after a 10-year movement, 46 years after the camps, and after tens of thousands of survivors had already died. HR40, the bill to study reparations for slavery and its aftermath, has never received a floor vote. Don Tamaki’s conclusion: Congress does not have the will to study what happened to Black Americans, let alone act on it.

4. The tools of oppression do not stay contained to their original targets.This is the boomerang. The military equipment from Iraq and Afghanistan ended up on American streets. Fort Sill, where Apache prisoners of war were held, became an immigrant detention center. The settlement machinery built through Native legal battles became the vehicle for a political payout. The legal architecture built around treating certain populations as outside the law’s protection does not stay in its place. It expands.

5. The question has always been who the state recognizes as having been harmed.Mother Randall is 111. The Tulsa bill is in committee. HR40 has no floor vote. The anti-weaponization fund for January 6th defendants reached $1.776 billion before anyone officially stopped it. The answer to who counts has never been ambiguous. It has always been written directly into which bills move and which ones sit.

“When it comes to Black Americans, Congress doesn’t even have the will to study what happened, let alone do anything about it. There’s a lesson in the Japanese American redress effort about the ability of America to right its wrongs. But the corollary is what’s happened to reparations for Black Americans, which still remains unfulfilled.”
— Don Tamaki, attorney, member of California’s Reparations Task Force

“Those scary things that our government has done in the past are things our government still knows how to do.”
— Maggie Blackhawk, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, NYU Law

“If they were pointing back to instances of human enslavement and saying, ‘This is why we’re doing it,’ everyone would be marching in the streets. With Native people, there’s no antenna.”
— Rebecca Nagle, Cherokee Nation, journalist and host of First America

“Lessie Benningfield Randall, Mother Randall, is 111 years old. And she is still waiting.”
— Gene Demby, Code Switch, NPR

Source: Code Switch, NPR. “Who Counts as Having Been Harmed by the State?” Hosted by B.A. Parker and Gene Demby. Featuring Don Tamaki, Maggie Blackhawk, and Rebecca Nagle.