Autonomy

When I first heard about that Seattle thing they were calling it an "autonomous zone", and I liked the sound of that.  By the time I looked it up yesterday they were calling it an "occupied protest zone", and I didn't like the sound of that.  

Of course it's not exactly the same thing, but I still think there is something to be learned from Northern Michigan's experience with our local Native American Indians.  I once read somewhere that the official government definition of the modern reconstituted Indian tribes is "sovereign dependent internal nations".  The problem I have with that is the words "sovereign" and "dependent" contradict each other.  I think the word "autonomous" more correctly describes their legal status.  While it's true that the state government has no jurisdiction on tribal land, the federal government certainly does, and the tribes have control over their local affairs.  Sounds like autonomy to me.

Tribal Indians are both American citizens and citizens of their so called "sovereign" tribe.  They vote in federal elections and also elect a tribal chairman and board of directors.  I'm not sure if they also vote in state elections, but I know that only card carrying tribal members get to vote on their tribal government.  The tribe itself decides the criteria for membership, which usually involves tracing the applicant's ancestry back to a member of the historic tribe.  Last I heard, the Sault Band of Chippewas had stopped accepting new members.  The only way you can become a member now is by being the child of a current member.  You don't have to live on the reservation to be a member, but you have to be a member to live on the reservation.

In my proposed Black Autonomous Zones, Black people and White people would be free to come and go as they pleased.  I think the boundaries should be clearly marked but not fenced or barricaded.  Whoever you are, you would be subject to Black law while you're in a Black Zone, and the regular law while outside of it.  Anybody not willing to accept that should stay on their own side of the border. The Black zones would have their own local government and police force.  Other services like fire protection and utilities would be negotiable.  Smaller zones would probably contract with the adjacent municipality for this stuff, but there would be nothing to prevent them from generating their own locally if they could afford it.  

This brings us to the question of funding.  The Indians have been quite successful with their casinos, but I'm not sure how many more casinos the market will support.  The Black zones could be allowed to "capture" a portion of local taxes like the downtown development authorities do in Michigan, but I'm not sure if that would be enough.  Indians have a long history of communal property ownership, but I don't think the Blacks do.  Let me think about this one for awhile and, of course, I'm open to suggestions.