Buffy Sainte-Marie Calls for Repeal of Doctrine of Discovery

Democracy Now interview here. An excerpt:

"The most important thing — the most important missing element, I think, in world understanding of Indigenous people has to do with the fact that Indigenous people in this world suffer from a handicap that others don’t have to face. And it has to do with the Doctrine of Discovery, which is a 15th century papal bull. Think of it as a bulletin from the pope saying what God really wants. And what this thing says, the Doctrine of Discovery, it says that explorers coming from inhabited lands were instructed by the pope to invade, capture and subdue the inhabitants and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to appropriate to himself and his successors all of their lands, kingdoms, possessions and goods, and to convert them to his use and profit. And please, don’t say, 'Oh, this is over. That’s the 15th century,' because it’s still on the books in U.S. law, Canadian law today. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg used it to defeat the Oneida Tribe in 2005. So the Doctrine of Discovery is still a real living reality in the lives of Indigenous people throughout the world that has been colonized."