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Speaker 1: Campsite Media. I made my final trip out to see

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Speaker 1: Derek last February, in the dead of winter. By that point,

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Speaker 1: he'd been in court battles for almost six years, just

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Speaker 1: hemorrhaging money to legal fees, and his future in NASCAR

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Speaker 1: was totally up in the air. He went from racing

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Speaker 1: at the highest level of the sport with a whole

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Speaker 1: team of people changing his tires and filling his tanks,

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Speaker 1: to being suspended and having a bunch of leftover race

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Speaker 1: motors sitting around in his garage covered in saran wrap.

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Speaker 1: But a freshly built motor is a terrible thing to waste,

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Speaker 1: So Derek dropped those NASCAR V eights into old shitty beaters,

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Speaker 1: put studs in the tires, and got back into a

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Speaker 1: time honored mohawk tradition, ice racing on the St. Lawrence River.

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Speaker 1: All right, So down the morning and we are at

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Speaker 1: Hornwa Marina. We're here to race, baby, and it's it's

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Speaker 1: fucking cold out here. It's negative too, but luckily there's

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Speaker 1: a high of seven, so I think we'll be all right.

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Speaker 1: The whole thing is frozen over. It's gotta be a

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Speaker 1: hundred cars out here, motorcycles at TVs, trucks, race cars,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, we're here to see Derrick Rice. Let's gonna

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Speaker 1: find him. We got a bunch of all beat up

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Speaker 1: race cars, steel side and steel reinforced painted like old

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Speaker 1: NASCAR cars. I'm in all, Kevin baby, we're racing. Boogie

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Speaker 1: boogety boogety. What's going on, same ship, different pile. So

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Speaker 1: what's your schedule today? Well, they got they got through

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Speaker 1: the bikes, the four wheelers, then the motorcycles, and then

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Speaker 1: it's um, the front wheel drive studied class. Then they

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Speaker 1: have rubber class of small cars, and then I think

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Speaker 1: it's the outlaw class with the studs B eight and

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Speaker 1: then it's the rubber after that. So I'm meeting right now.

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Speaker 1: That's where we're going. We're heading now, and then uh,

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Speaker 1: then they're gonna start. That's found. I don't festival, no

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Speaker 1: idea what they're talking about talking about one car, one trailer,

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Speaker 1: no spectators in the pitcher, something like that. Okay, let's

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Speaker 1: go race. We're here today Tebruary. We're gonna have some

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Speaker 1: races going on today. This is my bar off the

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Speaker 1: driver at ninety nine. Tell me what can factor race car?

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Speaker 1: Drill running bolt, that's right, Baby. We're the first podcast

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Speaker 1: to be painted on the side of a race car.

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Speaker 1: Eat Your Heart Out Radio Lab from Campside Media and

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Speaker 1: Dan Patrick Productions. This is Running Smoke. I'm Roger Gola

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Speaker 1: and this is episode eight Riding the Edge. The big

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Speaker 1: irony of Derek's case is that if he'd just taken

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Speaker 1: a deal from the prosecution when he was arrested, he'd

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Speaker 1: probably already be out of jail by now. Like all

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Speaker 1: the other guys that there was what forty forty or

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Speaker 1: fifty at them, they all took deals, they all already

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Speaker 1: did their time. They're own and they're just going on

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Speaker 1: with their life. And I mean it's gonna be five

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Speaker 1: years now in April. I'm still fighting. This hasn't been easy,

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Speaker 1: let me put it that way. It causes a lot

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Speaker 1: of friction in the house. At one time we were

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Speaker 1: I was, you know, going to court five days a

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Speaker 1: week for it was almost two months straight. It's taking

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Speaker 1: a toll. I mean, it's taken a toll on my family,

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Speaker 1: my kids, you know, my wife, Hunter the same thing,

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Speaker 1: his wife, you know, his kids. Everyone just wants it over,

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Speaker 1: you know. After delays caused by COVID, Derek's constitutional challenge

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Speaker 1: was finally slated to be heard in the fall of

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Speaker 1: The mere fact that this case had made it to

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Speaker 1: the docket was extraordinary. Steve Bonspiel of the Eastern Door newspaper,

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Speaker 1: I'm actually surprised that Derek's case has gotten as far

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Speaker 1: as it has, because usually Canada doesn't want it to

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Speaker 1: go further because they don't want to set that jurisprudence.

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Speaker 1: If whether he wins or loses, especially if he wins,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna set up other cases for the future. And

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Speaker 1: and they're gonna know that they can't just you know,

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Speaker 1: attack and and target just because they think it's wrong.

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Speaker 1: You know, he will set a jurisprudence. He will set um,

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Speaker 1: you know, an example that I can go to court

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Speaker 1: and beat the government and everything. If he wins, every

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Speaker 1: single tobacco case is going to use him and and

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Speaker 1: and you know, every single person who is gonna argue

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Speaker 1: on our side is gonna say, hey, he beat them,

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Speaker 1: and here's why and here's why it applies to us.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, the risks were very high.

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Speaker 1: If Derek lost, it could mean empowering law enforcement and

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Speaker 1: regulation on a big chunk of the Mohawk economy. It

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Speaker 1: meant putting fundamental rights at risk of being struck down

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Speaker 1: by the Canadian government, which is exactly why the Mohawk

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Speaker 1: Nation Council of Chiefs have been trying to get Derek

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Speaker 1: to drop his case for months. When that failed, the

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Speaker 1: chiefs dispatched their lawyer and sent him to court with

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Speaker 1: a formal request for intervention. The Mohawk Nation wanted to

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Speaker 1: make sure they had a seat at the able and

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Speaker 1: that they would be able to protect some of their

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Speaker 1: rights if Derek lost the case. When I talked to

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Speaker 1: him about their current approach, it's it's not about supporting Derek,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's about ensuring that Indigenous rights are are supported,

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Speaker 1: I guess you could say, or are argued. So even

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Speaker 1: within that, you know the context of having them in

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Speaker 1: the trial, it's it's not exactly an ally, you know,

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Speaker 1: having an ally next to you. It could end up

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Speaker 1: being because they're fighting the same fight, but they're they're

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Speaker 1: kind of you know, adversarial, so you know, all that

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Speaker 1: stuff like doesn't necessarily add up to a unified approach

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Speaker 1: to fight for individual rights or Indigenous rights. I should say, really,

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Speaker 1: I I don't know what what position there's there at

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Speaker 1: right now, whether it's going to help me or if

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Speaker 1: it's going to hurt me. Um, we still don't under

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Speaker 1: stand what they're what the fight is, you know, like

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Speaker 1: they said, it's it's a it's the whole nation's fight.

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Speaker 1: But are they still are they helping me? Are they

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Speaker 1: basically throwing me out to the wolves, you know, take

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Speaker 1: a deal or or nothing. So I don't know if

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Speaker 1: they're hoping I'm gonna I'm gonna win this or already

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Speaker 1: hoping I'm gonna lose this. It was a question I'd

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Speaker 1: had for a long time. Is the Mohawk Nation standing

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Speaker 1: for or against Derek? I needed to know what the

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Speaker 1: Council of Chiefs had to say, and that's coming up

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Speaker 1: after the break. Well, my name is guyand with the

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Speaker 1: Wolf Clan of the anordignation of the Hooded Shawnee. My

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Speaker 1: name is also Paul Williams, and I practiced law working

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Speaker 1: for Indigenous Nation. The Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs or

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Speaker 1: m n c C has a very complicated history, and

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Speaker 1: there's a few debates over the providence of its authority.

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Speaker 1: But the long and short of it is that the

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Speaker 1: m n c C is the highest traditional authority among

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Speaker 1: all Mohawk territories. So when you look at all treaties

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Speaker 1: and documents that Mohawks signed with the French and British governments,

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Speaker 1: you're essentially talking about the same political entity, and Paul

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Speaker 1: Williams now represents their interests in Derek's constitutional challenge. After

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Speaker 1: the Nation Council became aware of the notice of constitutional question,

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Speaker 1: it took several steps because it really didn't want to

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Speaker 1: see all these rights at stake in court. It basically

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Speaker 1: felt this is a matter between nations, which is to say,

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Speaker 1: between the Canadian State and Mohawk governments. So the first

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Speaker 1: thing that the Nation Council did is direct me to

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Speaker 1: write the lawyers for Derek White and Hunter mon Tour

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Speaker 1: and say please don't make these arguments. And they wrote

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Speaker 1: back and said we're going to make the arguments. The

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Speaker 1: chiefs talked it over at length, because every step up

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Speaker 1: to that point was an attempt to avoid becoming involved

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Speaker 1: in the court case and to have the matters dealt

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Speaker 1: with outside courty. There's no room for other people in

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Speaker 1: the ring. Despite all the attempts that the Mohawk Nation

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Speaker 1: made to stay out of the courts and keep Derek

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Speaker 1: and Hunter out of the courts. In the ends, all

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Speaker 1: those efforts failed. Derek and Hunter were going to fight

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Speaker 1: this thing, and the chiefs had a tough choice to

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Speaker 1: make stay out and let Derek roll the dice with

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Speaker 1: their rights, or do something unprecedented, enter a court system

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Speaker 1: that was counter to their traditions and take a public stance.

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Speaker 1: After much deliberation, they asked Paul Williams to make a

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Speaker 1: formal request to intervene in the case. What is so

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Speaker 1: remarkable about this case that demanded such op precedentsed action.

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Speaker 1: It's remarkable because so many rights were being put at

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Speaker 1: risk all at once. And my reaction was that they

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Speaker 1: had placed virtually all the hoodren of Shawny aboriginal rights

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Speaker 1: and treaty rights on the line in the case without

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Speaker 1: any authorization from any hoodn of Shawny government. And my

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Speaker 1: reaction was, this is the wrong case to test all

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Speaker 1: the rights, and because the rights are fragile, when really

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Speaker 1: needs to build beginning with the most obvious and sympathetic cases,

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Speaker 1: the ones that are least threatening to Canada. Derek White

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Speaker 1: and Hunter Montour were charged with six to need other

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Speaker 1: people who all pleaded guilty number of them were Hell's Angels.

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Speaker 1: There wasn't just tobacco involved in the case. There were firearms,

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Speaker 1: they were drugs. Another mark against derek case was the

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Speaker 1: fact that he had already been found guilty by a

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Speaker 1: jury of defrauding the federal government. It wasn't exactly the

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Speaker 1: community's best foot forward in terms of making a Native

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Speaker 1: rights case, but Paul felt that Derek was forcing his hand.

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Speaker 1: He made a formal request to the judge presiding over

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Speaker 1: the case asking for the Mohawk Nation to be represented

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Speaker 1: in the proceedings, which would allow it to have similar

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Speaker 1: privileges as the prosecutors and the defense. They could present witnesses,

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Speaker 1: cross examined, and make their case before judge. And surprisingly,

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Speaker 1: the judge agreed and the Mohawk Nation was given status

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Speaker 1: as a full party intervener. Now they had a seat

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Speaker 1: at the table. And that's that's sort of what's remarkable

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Speaker 1: that the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs was allowed to

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Speaker 1: intervene at all. It's the first time in Canadian law

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Speaker 1: in this case the Nation Council became a full party.

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Speaker 1: And the fact is it's the first time a traditional

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Speaker 1: indigenous government has been recognized as such as well. The

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Speaker 1: Nation Council's involvement in the case right from the start

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Speaker 1: was damage control. It was how do we minimize the

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Speaker 1: potential damage to this this court could do. I think

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Speaker 1: that's the way the Nation Council continues to perceive it.

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Speaker 1: Not our court, not our judge, not our law. One

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Speaker 1: has to be really careful going into court paror to

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Speaker 1: what's happening is you're you're ending up with people with

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Speaker 1: a large amount of money, Individuals with a large amount

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Speaker 1: of money willing to risk everybody's rights to protect themselves.

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Speaker 1: This was the theme that kept coming up in the

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Speaker 1: course of my entire reporting, attention between the rights of

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Speaker 1: an individual and the rights of a collective. Yes, Derek

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Speaker 1: has rights as a mohawk person, but does that mean

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Speaker 1: he's allowed to gamble with the rights that all mohawks

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Speaker 1: share to defend himself. To Paul Williams, that's a fundamental

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Speaker 1: question of what it means to be mohawk in the

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Speaker 1: first place. What is the relationship between individual rights and

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Speaker 1: collective rights? Who beginning with your name, your name doesn't

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Speaker 1: belong to you. It belongs to your klan family. Somebody

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Speaker 1: carried that name before you, somebody will be given that

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Speaker 1: name after you. That is your your identity is linked

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Speaker 1: to a collective group of people, and they are responsible

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Speaker 1: for you and you are responsible to them. For example,

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Speaker 1: in Moawk, you don't say my name is such and such,

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Speaker 1: you say young Pits. They call me such and such.

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Speaker 1: That is my name exists because other people use it.

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Speaker 1: So really, from from a very fundamental societal perspective, what

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Speaker 1: you do as an individual constantly relates to the other

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Speaker 1: people you are living with as your relatives. All this

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Speaker 1: to say that there's quite a bit of daylight between

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Speaker 1: Mohawk and Canadian conceptions of how society functions, and there

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Speaker 1: might be better ways to square the two than a

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Speaker 1: case involving tobacco and organized crime. We need a conversation

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Speaker 1: with Canada about how to deal with criminal law, and

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Speaker 1: this is not this is not the way to have

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Speaker 1: that conversation. Nevertheless, in September, the judge ga in the

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Speaker 1: first session of Derek's constitutional challenge. It was held in

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Speaker 1: a small conference room with a desk for the judge

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Speaker 1: and five other desks arranged in the middle of the

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Speaker 1: room for witnesses, lawyers, and court attendants. There was no jury.

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Speaker 1: The outcome of this case would rest solely on the judge.

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Speaker 1: One by one, expert witnesses were brought before the court

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Speaker 1: to give their thoughts on everything from Mohawk grammar to

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Speaker 1: sense result treaties and archaeological records. Derek brought esteemed indigenous

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Speaker 1: scholars and leaders to the stand and the government questioned

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Speaker 1: them intense heavy debates. We reached out to the Crown prosecutors,

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Speaker 1: but they declined to comments on an open case. The

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Speaker 1: three parties made their arguments, defended their positions, and cross

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Speaker 1: examined one another, which took a larger toll on the

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Speaker 1: Mohawk Nations witnesses than Paul had anticipated. I had to

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Speaker 1: explain to people that cross examination is a stranger coming

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Speaker 1: at you in a stiff aliens setting and challenging your credibility.

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Speaker 1: You wouldn't tolerate that if if this happened in a

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Speaker 1: restaurant or on the street, and yet in court you

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Speaker 1: have to It was a foreign concept in traditional Mohawk

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Speaker 1: legal practice, where decisions are made by consensus among the

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Speaker 1: three clans. It's a system based on convincing your neighbors

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Speaker 1: of your perspective rather than proving your opponents wrong again.

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Speaker 1: It's it goes to the idea that a criminal court

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Speaker 1: really isn't the place to work these things out. After

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Speaker 1: weeks of hearing testimony and extremely drawn out closing arguments,

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Speaker 1: the judge gabbled the constitutional challenge to a close and

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Speaker 1: dismissed the room. She had heard everything she needed to

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Speaker 1: make a decision, and promised to deliver a judgment within

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Speaker 1: a year's time. We're just waiting now from from the uh,

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Speaker 1: the judge. I look at it this way. The longer

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Speaker 1: it takes, the better. I mean, if if she knew

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Speaker 1: I was guilty, she would have came back the next

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Speaker 1: day and said, you're guilty. So she's really going through this,

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Speaker 1: you know, with a with a comb basically. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if hopefully I'm phone innocent of everything, if not, they

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Speaker 1: should be probably in jail for five to seven years

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Speaker 1: or something like that. But you know what, instead of

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Speaker 1: me taking that deal, which I didn't, and if I did,

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Speaker 1: I would have been sitting in jail right now and

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Speaker 1: just thinking, you know what, maybe I could have won this,

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Speaker 1: maybe I could have beat the government for everybody. But

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Speaker 1: now we're gonna find out. They know that if this

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Speaker 1: case goes in any way our way, in any one

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Speaker 1: little part doesn't go there away. They got a whole

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Speaker 1: new story to rewrite Hunter mont Tour, who's thought this

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Speaker 1: case alongside Derek every step of the way. They'll have

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Speaker 1: to change everything and they can't do that. They can't

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Speaker 1: do it that quickly. So they're going to be like,

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Speaker 1: what the f are we gonna do? Right? Literally, I

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Speaker 1: don't know what the hell is going to happen. I

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Speaker 1: don't know how big it's going to be. It seems

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Speaker 1: like it's going to be pretty big. A lot of

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Speaker 1: people are paying attention and understand what could happen when

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Speaker 1: this is over, good or bad. I don't know what

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Speaker 1: is the best case scenario for the for the Mohawk

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Speaker 1: Nation Council. Best case scenario from a Nation Council point

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Speaker 1: of view is probably the court making a decision that

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Speaker 1: would call upon the political entities Canada and Quebec to

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Speaker 1: take steps to restore the treaty relationship, including and dealing

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Speaker 1: with criminal law, to recognize a hood in a show

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Speaker 1: need judicial system a criminal justice system again because the

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Speaker 1: whole system itself isn't working. And what would be the

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Speaker 1: worst case mm hmm I'm not even going to express

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Speaker 1: any of you on that. It would give me nightmares.

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Speaker 1: Either way, it's not gonna be over because if the

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Speaker 1: government loses their appealing it, if I lose, I'm appealing it.

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Speaker 1: So this can go on for another ten years or

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Speaker 1: twenty years. Who knows. We'll make a season two, yeah,

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Speaker 1: or three or four or five. Hold on, we'll be

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Speaker 1: right back. Early on in my reporting, a came across

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Speaker 1: a book by a Mohawk scholar named Dr Gerald di

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Speaker 1: agate Alfred. There was a line in the introduction that

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Speaker 1: really framed by thinking for this entire project. I'm paraphrasing here,

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Speaker 1: but what he wrote was this, being born a Mohawk,

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Speaker 1: I do not remember a time free from the impact

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Speaker 1: of political conflict. And from what I could tell, just

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Speaker 1: about all of that conflict could be traced back to

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Speaker 1: one fundamental tension between the Mohawk Nation and a Canadian

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Speaker 1: government that doesn't fully recognize their sovereignty. That disagreement is

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Speaker 1: the basis for the simple fact of being indigenous. That

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Speaker 1: everything you do, whether you like it or not, is

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Speaker 1: a political action. Every decision you make is a stance

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Speaker 1: that you've taken. It means constantly walking a tight rope.

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Speaker 1: If you're willing to follow the rules and steer clear

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Speaker 1: of murky waters, you live a peaceful, uncontroversial life. But

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Speaker 1: if you make one slip, things can turn hot in

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Speaker 1: an instant. Derek has been walking that line his whole

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Speaker 1: life and watching him turn laps out on the ice.

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Speaker 1: Last year I got to see it firsthand. Derek is

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Speaker 1: in whole position starting up now, market car green, flag

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Speaker 1: about to drop. Ye. Derek takes an early leading around

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Speaker 1: turn one and on the inside turn and he's out

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Speaker 1: of the corner one, straining it out. It might seem

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Speaker 1: counterintuitive when we're talking about three thousand pound junkers hurtling

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Speaker 1: around an icy circle at eighty miles, but when you

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Speaker 1: get down to it, racing is a game of inches

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Speaker 1: and fractions. When you've got twenty cars all gunning for

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Speaker 1: the same first place spot, every little decision to driver makes,

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Speaker 1: every flick of the wheel and feather of the pedal

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Speaker 1: adds up, and those split seconds mean the difference between

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Speaker 1: winning or ending up in the wall. It's a delicate ballet,

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Speaker 1: dancing on a razor's edge of your grit as a

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Speaker 1: driver and the traction of your tires how far can

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Speaker 1: I go in the corner, how early can I get

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Speaker 1: on it? Where the bump set. It's just studying a

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Speaker 1: track and concentrating on it, and in each lap, you

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Speaker 1: know you'd feel a car do something a little bit different.

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Speaker 1: The tires is wearing out, you know, you change, you

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Speaker 1: pick up points, and then you drive the racetrack so

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Speaker 1: much not so much the race car. There's just some

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Speaker 1: people that just have a natural ability to go, and

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Speaker 1: they don't have any give an damn, you know, if

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Speaker 1: h they don't care if they wrecked, they don't care

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Speaker 1: if they run over something there just after. I think

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Speaker 1: it's when you go past your limits. The people that

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Speaker 1: are able to save their cars and not do it,

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Speaker 1: that's the difference between making them good or great. A

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Speaker 1: lot of really good drivers over the years seem to

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Speaker 1: have a some kind of a sense of balance. You

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Speaker 1: can sort of feel that line between sliding and sliding

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Speaker 1: out of control, you know what I mean. And the

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Speaker 1: guys who sort of are able to flirt with that line,

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Speaker 1: uh longer than the next guy maybe are successful at it.

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Speaker 1: Holding out way in front number nine nine running smoke.

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Speaker 1: After decades of racing, Derek knows just how far you

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Speaker 1: can drive into a corner. He knows how to feather

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Speaker 1: the pedal to stay out of the wall when you

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Speaker 1: get back on the gas, and how much the back

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Speaker 1: end can slide before the front starts to go. His

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Speaker 1: racing style is a methodical and assertive He knows where

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Speaker 1: the limits are and pushes them farther and farther until

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Speaker 1: he's right up on the line between chaos and control.

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Speaker 1: And in that way, racing is a pretty good metaphor

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Speaker 1: for what life is like as a Mohawk, or really

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Speaker 1: any indigenous person in the modern world. It means navigating

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Speaker 1: a system that is built on your land but which

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Speaker 1: excludes you, and weaving your way through legal loopholes and

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Speaker 1: physical boundaries. It means sitting down and gritting your teeth

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Speaker 1: when you can't win, and standing up to fight when

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Speaker 1: you can't take anymore. It's a fine art that forces

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Speaker 1: you to constantly assess your nerve and how far you're

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Speaker 1: willing to take it. And oftentimes it's those people who

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Speaker 1: know exactly where the edge is and stick their toe

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Speaker 1: across that line anyway that end up making a difference.

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Speaker 1: We are part of a long line of people now

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Speaker 1: who have refused to surrender, and that will find creative

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Speaker 1: ways to continue to survive. Dr Alfred the Mohawk scholar

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Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier because resistance is this constant process and

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Speaker 1: when you're born into that, it shapes your personality and

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Speaker 1: it shapes your outlook on the world. And I think

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Speaker 1: that as a as a mohawk person um in gotten Waga,

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Speaker 1: there's there's something that is infused into your character, and

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Speaker 1: that that thing is that idea of the responsibilities you

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Speaker 1: carry as a Knya Cahaga or as a as a

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Speaker 1: as a negative person, which is to not let them win.

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Speaker 1: You have to find a way to really breathe life

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Speaker 1: into that Mohawk nationhood and push back against the people

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Speaker 1: that are trying to snuff out our fire. Lap in

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Speaker 1: second to last place, stretching it out, just digging through

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Speaker 1: the corners, last lap right here, right here, taking it on.

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Speaker 1: Derek White, looks like you picked up pretty good. That's

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Speaker 1: fast running smoke is lucky chime, but yeah's running pretty good.

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Speaker 1: They have their hands fully try to catch me. And

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Speaker 1: one question I've been done to ask you do you smoke? No?

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Speaker 1: I don't, all right, running smokes. A production of Camp

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Speaker 1: Site Media, Dan Patrick Productions and Workhouse Media. The series

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Speaker 1: was written and reported by me Roger Gola. Our producers

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Speaker 1: are a Leah Papes, Blaine Gerbig and Julie Dennishet. Our

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Speaker 1: editors are Michelle Lands and Emily Martinez. Sound designed and

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Speaker 1: original music by Mark McAdam, additional sound and mixing by

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Speaker 1: Ewen Lyon from Ewan. Additional reporting by Susie mccarthney. Our

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Speaker 1: executive producers are Dan Patrick, Josh Dean of Camp Said Media,

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Speaker 1: Paul Anderson, Nick Minella and Andrew Greenwood for Workhouse Media.

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Speaker 1: Fact checking by Mary Matthis and Angelia Mercado, artwork by

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Speaker 1: Polly Adams, and additional thanks to Greg Horne, Johnny Kapman,

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Speaker 1: Sierra Franco, Elizabeth van Brocklin, and Sean Flynn