AKLEG Day 30: 'On the topic of pain'

In explicitly recognizing that Black and brown lives matter, the hope is that we can, as a society, start acting like it.

Good afternoon, Alaska.

In this edition: At a hearing about tribal justice in the House Tribal Affairs Committee last week, extreme-right Rep. Sarah Vance took it upon herself to scold presenters on tribal justice and the missing and murdered Indigenous women epidemic for leaving out white women. She’s since offered an apology of sorts, but the whole ordeal and the doublespeak in the apology highlights exactly why the fight for justice for Alaska Native women is so critical.

Current mood: 😞

‘On the topic of pain’

Sunrise in Bristol Bay (Photo by Drew/Adobe Stock)

Last week, the House Tribal Affairs Committee held a hearing on tribal justice and the ongoing struggle Alaska Native people face in seeking justice. Alaska Native women are murdered at a rate 10 times higher than white women in Alaska, according to statistics at the hearing, and more than 80% of those women have suffered violence at some point in their lifetime. It was a stark reminder of the unjust and inequitable delivery of justice for Alaska Native people—highlighted by headlines from an ongoing trial where a man is accused of targeting and brutally murdering two Alaska Native women—but outlined efforts to change that paradigm.

But for far-right Homer Republican Rep. Sarah Vance—a legislator who once took to social media to berate students over the letters they sent—the hearing struck a nerve.

“What I hear in this committee is that Alaska Native women feel it’s exclusive to your experience, because it sounds exactly what I’ve heard of white women in my community,” she said. “It’s the same thing, but what I continue to hear in this committee over and over again is if you’re the only one.”

Vance struck a defiant and scolding tone with the presenters, admonishing them for leaving white women out of the presentation on tribal justice.

“I ask that when you come and present that you remember you have white sisters who are going through the same thing,” she said. “And they don’t feel they have justice either.”

A video clip of her comments circulated over the weekend, as did the in-committee response from Fairbanks Democratic Rep. Ashley Carrick, who took issue with the suggestions that this issue is the same for white and Alaska Native women.

“I take some exception at the idea this presentation is excluding white women,” Carrick said. “As a white woman from urban Alaska, I can’t say how much it hurts my heart to hear about the disparity. While the suffering is the same for the victims, the causes of that violence are not the same, the response to that violence is not the same, and the justice for the victims is not the same. Until it’s the same, we have a lot of work to do.”

During Monday’s floor session, Vance offered an apology of sorts. She called her comments “less than gracious” and said it wasn’t her intention to minimize the issues facing Alaska Native women or their voices.

“What I should have said is that evil does not discriminate,” she said.

You can find the video here, but it wasn’t the most convincing apology I’ve heard. Beyond the tone, many people have pointed out it included a lot of “All Lives Matter”-adjacent language that suggests she’s still not getting the point. Part of the reason why “All Lives Matter” is such an insulting response to “Black Lives Matter,” or the missing and murdered Indigenous women movement, is no one with any authority has been saying white lives don’t matter. What we do have is a system that has regularly demonstrated that Black and brown lives don’t, whether it be through police shootings, suspicious deaths written off as suicides or slaps on the wrists for white attackers.

In explicitly recognizing that Black and brown lives matter, the hope is that we can, as a society, start acting like it.

Anyway, as if to highlight the insincerity of the statement, Rep. Vance followed up her comments by complaining to Alaska’s News Source about a news release by the House Minority with comments from Rep. Carrick and Fairbanks Democratic Rep. Maxine Dibert, who is Alaska Native, asking for an apology.

“My goal is to bring healing and justice to all Alaskans in humility and respect,” Vance said. “It is sad that the actions of the minority prove they are not interested in working together for that cause.”

They were asking for an apology, and Rep. Vance responded by claiming they didn’t care about the issue. And, for the record, here’s what Rep. Dibert said that was apparently so offensive to Rep. Vance’s sensibilities.

“As the only Alaska Native woman in the legislature, knowing my native sisters are disproportionately affected by these high rates of violence within Alaska and other states cuts me to my core,” she said. “These women are on the forefront and are who we should be devoted to protecting. These are Alaskans, not just statistics.” 

A forceful repudiation of Vance’s comments came from the House Tribal Affairs Committee chair, Rep. CJ McCormick, a Bethel Democrat who caucuses with the majority. He noted that legislators last year tried to divert funding away from an investigator for missing and murdered Indigenous women cases and into election fraud investigations. He recalled how, during a pause in that debate, he spoke to a woman whose sister had been working to get justice in a sexual assault case for two years only to see the charges dropped.

“The systems we have in place in this state further victimize our victims, and frankly, the systems we have are inequitable,” he said. “The fact of the matter is rural Alaska is disadvantaged. The fact of the matter is it is harder for people in rural Alaska to get justice. If a woman is in a domestic violence situation in a village, they have nowhere to go. So, oftentimes, they have to return to the home of their abuser. They don’t have the same resources.”

With emotion welling up throughout the speech, entitled “On the Topic of Pain,” McCormick apologized for getting frustrated and sad about the situation but said it’s critical to understand that not all things are equal in Alaska’s criminal justice system.

“I would be remiss if I did not speak to the pain that our communities must endure and the responsibility that we have — that we’re currently failing — to provide these necessary services to people to end the pain, the pain that has been going on for far too long,” he said. “I am very glad to see the progress being made, but we are not here to sit and rest on the progress that we have made. We are here to make a difference and serve the people who have been silenced for so long.”

And some background

It’s not the first time Vance has grabbed attention like this, particularly around the issue of sexual assault and violence. A longtime supporter of far-right Rep. David Eastman’s membership on the House Judiciary Committee, Vance blocked a change in the law that would have barred private and religious schools from hiring someone who sexually abused a minor, matching the existing rules for public schools. Last week, she also voted against a measure that would have raised the age of consent in Alaska from 16 to 18.

Stay tuned.