Tulalip News

Gyasi Ross, Indian Country Today Media Network

I know this is sorta late—two weeks, to be exact—and that pop culture topics du jour tend to last only a few days. Modern day pop culture existential question: If someone gets killed on Twitter and it’s no longer trending, did it really happen?

I don’t know; that’s above my pay grade.

Still, one of my friends—a short Lakota woman—texted me right after the Seminole County jury acquitted George Zimmerman of all charges in the brutal killing of Trayvon Martin and asked, very appropriately, “How come the Native community is not outraged about this?”

I never responded—I’m sorry, Kim. But I was too caught up in emotion right after the verdict to really elicit a proper response. So this is my attempt to give a few rambling, stream-of-consciousness thoughts on the Trayvon Martin tragedy. Native media responses to pop culture phenomena like Martin (“Native media responses” must necessarily be separated from “Native responses,” because I find that most Native people who write in Native publications are very separated from the Native world that I live in, communicate in and work in every single day), and why we have a vested interest in partaking in the larger conversations like those surrounding the Martin tragedy.

THOUGHTS ON THE TRAYVON TRIAL

I’m conflicted. As an attorney I have to acknowledge that George Zimmerman getting acquitted was the correct legal result. In fact, this case probably should have never gone to trial. The way the Florida’s self-defense laws are written (and the barbaric “Stand Your Ground” law, which the defense chose to forego yet was clearly always there in the shadows), it essentially gives a license to kill as Zimmerman had “no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force” as long as he reasonably feared for his life or great bodily harm. The only thing left to show is that he was reasonably afraid—in the dark, on your own property, that’s pretty easy to do.

Legally, it was the correct decision.

Yet, as a father of a young man of color, I have to acknowledge that I think George Zimmerman should be hung. As an uncle and mentor to many, many boys of all colors, I have to acknowledge that I’d have to fight the compulsion to hunt this man down, rightly or wrongly, if he stole their young, vibrant lives like he did to Trayvon. There’s a mother and father who will never get to love, embrace, scold or chastise their precious boy again. He was 17, but as any parent knows, they’re always your baby.

George Zimmerman brutally and unnecessarily killed someone’s baby. And that’s unforgiveable.

NATIVE MEDIA RESPONSES TO THE TRAYVON TRAGEDY

The Native media responses to the Trayvon Tragedy, and other “non-Indian events” that profoundly affect Native people are very, very few and far between. And not necessarily for the right reasons. I saw a couple of stories by Native authors—one by Ruth Hopkins another by Jacqueline Keeler—that passionately talked about it. They are both mothers and I think that parents think about the loss of a child and are prompted to action. I also saw one from Oliver Semans who did a really good job of connecting how this case affects Indian country. But for the most part, if you scan the latest headlines of any of the Native publications, you’d pretty much think that this travesty didn’t happen. In fact, if someone were to look at a good portion of Native media they’d think that renaming the Redskins or mascots or hating Johny Depp’s rendition of Tonto were the top priorities to most Native people.

Outsiders looking into Native media and seeing those things—Tonto, mascots, etc—would likely say, “Gee, that’s all Native people have to worry about? I guess those casinos are working and their lives are pretty damn good. We have to worry about getting killed and the recession—all they have to worry about is Tonto.”

The truth is that most Native people don’t care about that stuff. When I’m at home on the reservation, no one talks about these things. When I’m at pow wows or on the canoe journey, no one asks me about these things.

They are academic issues; ultimately it’s good that someone covers them, but they are not conversations that come up regularly within Indian country despite appearances to the contrary.

On the other hand, the Trayvon tragedy, unfortunately, hits much closer to home than those first-world problems. Like Trayvon and countless other young black men, our young Native men are literally dying, likewise falling victim to the presumption that brown men are always criminals, always doing something wrong. White supremacy. A few names come to mind—John T. Williams, Jack Keewatinawin, Daniel Tiger, Christopher Capps, Clinton Croff, AJ Longsoldier, the list goes on and on—their major crime was being Native. That’s why they are dead. Like Trayvon—he’s dead because he was black.

I read someone say that Native people’s “Trayvon Martin moment” was the recent Baby Veronica case. That statement is an insult to the dead and a curse to the living. Thank God that Baby Veronica is still alive—she is still with us, and that means that there’s still an opportunity for better outcomes. Trayvon Martin was brutally killed and unfortunately, there can be no good outcomes from it. Native people legitimately have many, many Trayvon Martin moments—we do not need to make them up. Do some research on any of the cases above—our people are getting killed out there.

To us within Native media: we should bring more attention to the tragedies that happen within our communities. They’re there. It’s up to us to bring those stories to light like the Black community did with Trayvon.

To our non-Native allies: there are a couple of legitimate reasons why there has been no critical mass of responses from the Native community—the “why should we” reason.

1) First, Native people have very little reason to have any amount of faith in the judicial system. From constantly seeing non-Natives acquitted for killing Native people (see the above names and multiply that by 1000), to the very foundational law of this Nation (read Johnson v. M’Intosh or Cherokee Nation v. Georgia or In the Courts of The Conqueruors by Walter Echohawk to begin to understand the profound lack of faith that Native people have and should have in US courts), we are used to getting screwed by the courts of the conquerors.

So why be outraged? In fact, it would be stranger for a Native person to expect a GOOD outcome from these courts. Unlike Black folks, Native people do not have a Brown v. Board of Education to hang our hopes on. These courts have been bad to us since day 1.

2) The other “why should we” is that there was no larger response from the Black community, the Hispanic community, the progressive community when that long litany of names, above, were killed by law enforcement for being Indian. So there is a sense of “Why should we contribute to this larger group of concerned citizens of color that doesn’t care about us?” Non-Native allies, you should help champion this message-it will help create this larger sense of community.

Not saying that this mindset is “right,” but it’s certainly understandable.

3) I suppose a third “why should we” reason is that, for the most part, Native people simply do not have the capacity to deal with someone else’s heartache. We have our own. Lots of it. If an entire block of houses are burning, everybody should absolutely help one another escape the fiery inferno. At the same time one could be excused for trying to make sure that his own family escaped the flames first.

All of our blocks are burning. It’s not that we don’t care—it’s that Native people, like others, have to save ourselves first.

But we are not isolated. It does not benefit us to simply put our collective heads in the sand and pretend that the Trayvon Tragedy or any of these larger pop culture movements do not affect us. They do. The Native media has to connect the dots and start working with other communities of color to stop our people from getting killed. That means stop pretending that these are isolated incidents and not things that we have to worry about.

Gyasi Ross is an enrolled member of Blackfeet and an activist, attorney and author.

Adrian Jawort, Indian Country Today Media Network

The program manager for the Department Of Interior Land Buy-Back Program (LBBP) for Tribal Nations, John McClanahan, felt the heat as the frustration of Natives boiled over Friday, July 26 at the offices of the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council offices in Billings, Montana.

Leery of a federal one-size-fits-all approach of how copy.9 billion of Cobell LBBP money allotted will be spent to purchase buy-back lands, tribal representatives from the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains areas grilled McClanahan and the BIA about the lack of transparency and cooperation between the DOI and tribal nations thus far. An estimated 70 percent of the fractional buyback acres are located in these areas.

As a result, the MT-WY TLC propose that Congressional legislation is needed to halt the DOI from holding primary purchasing control of buyback lands as well as halt bureaucratic fees that would total $285 million. It was the U.S. government that mismanaged the funds in the first place.

Frustrated with bureaucratic foot dragging, the MT-WY TLC plan to secure a meeting with President Barack Obama and Senate Committee on Indian Affairs before the November midterm elections in order to obtain Congressional support.

McClanahan tried to alleviate fears that the last year hasn’t been time wasted and they weren’t trying to push tribes aside. Bureau of Indian Affairs Director Michael Black and the BIA’s Rocky Mountain Deputy Regional Director Darrel LaCounte were also present to address grievances.

“One of the main things we’ve heard over the last couple of years of planning is tribal involvement is important,” McClanahan says. He addressed other widespread concerns he’s heard like map access of potential private land that could be bought, appraisal information, and accounts that gain interest rates for individual tribes as it waits to be spent.

“We’re trying to start out a program where everything can be balanced. We can’t work with everyone right at once, but we hope to ramp it up so we can work more tribes at once sooner,” McClanahan says.

Fort Belknap representative Donovan Archibald says he’s proposed three detailed plans to the DOI after initial implementation plan meetings were held earlier this year, but never received responses.

He told the BIA and DOI officials, “We’re the key players. You guys are working for us. If we get a contract from the government, we have to submit a proposal of what we’re going to do and that includes a plan and a budget. But you’re contracting our dollars that were awarded to us.”  He notes the DOI plans to hire 100 new people to do jobs a lot of tribal members could do themselves. “We want to see a plan or budget to see how we’re going about this.”

McClanahan said many new staff members were hired to handle the mass amount of land cost appraisals. “Some tribes are interested in doing appraisals, and others aren’t,” he said. “But we just want to make sure we’re ahead of the game.”

Archibald said Fort Belknap Assiniboine-Gros Ventres Tribes have already been purchasing land for decades, and even bought 450 acres since March with the tribe’s own money. Cobell money that is supposed to be in the tribe’s possession would’ve come in handy. He also said with the salary of one DOI/BIA official with no knowledge of reservation lands, one could hire several local people on a poverty stricken reservation.

“I have 4.5 million dollars worth of sales in applications right now, and a lot of those are already appraised,” he adds. “We have our own land department and procedures and everything is legally approved by the bureau. We could be buying land right now, and so could a lot of other tribes like the Blackfeet and Northern Cheyenne. I don’t understand why we have to wait for you guys to catch up while we could be doing it.”

“We just want that reciprocal respect we’re affording the federal government,” Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribal representative Tommy Christian says. Although Christian understands the DOI and BIA needed to protect their interests based on regulative authority, they shouldn’t patronize tribal integrity and authority while having the audacity to call them sovereign.

“That’s the part of oppression we’ve been dealing with for years, and we need to get over this. You guys got copy.9 billion dollars to help us address these problems, but you’re just giving us a little bit here and there and there to satisfy an administrative process that’s totally ineffective to us. So when I say we need to ‘come to a level playing field,’ understand where I’m coming from.”

Christian said tribes didn’t want to fight the BIA or DOI, they just wanted to make the process easier for all involved. The MT-WY TLC statement says a tribally driven process “will be a real and true step towards self-determination and a fitting legacy for Elouise Cobell.”

Perhaps venting the sentiments and concerns for all the involved tribes at the meeting, Archibald said in regards to the DOI and BIA’s perceived over involvement, “It’s the same old rhetoric: play ball with us, or you’re not going to get your money.”