A President’s Indian Valedictory

‘Together, we’ve strengthened your sovereignty’

Bottom Line: Barack Obama, Native Americans’ greatest friend in the White House in a generation, took a well-deserved victory lap last week—and unveiled some final grand gestures.

At the conference, the president accepted a traditional blanket and the cedar hat of National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby (right).

Alex Hamer

Politicians make big promises to get elected. Getting them to deliver on those promises can be hard.

Over the past eight years, however, Indian country has learned that Barack Obama is not a typical politician. He has delivered on many pledges he made when he first ran for president eight years ago, as well as on many others he made once in office. He has taken the time to understand the issues facing countless Natives across North America and has opened his heart to them as well.

This was clear at Obama’s eighth—and final—Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference, convened on September 26 in Washington, D.C. The conference is a legacy of a vow the president made during a visit to the Crow Nation in May 2008—to host an annual summit where tribal policy toward Indian country would be set.

Obama’s final summit was bittersweet, and it was marked by a series of major announcements:

• The White House unveiled a major review and enhancement of overall action for Indian Country in general.

• The Interior and Justice Departments announced a $492 million payment among 17 tribes to settle longstanding disputes over the mismanagement of natural resources and other assets.
• The White House hosted the second annual Tribal Youth Gathering as part of the Generation Indigenous (Gen-I) movement, whereby hundreds of Native youth have worked with federal agencies and officials to enhance their leadership skills.

• The administration approved the first phase of the Navajo Nation’s request to implement an alternative system of accountability for schools.

These initiatives brought home the outreach and empathy that this White House has brought to Indian country over eight years. That spirit was exemplified by the 2014 visit that President Obama and his wife, Michelle, made to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Nation, where students spoke of how alcoholism, poverty and suicide had scarred their lives. Both the president and the First Lady cried that day, with Obama later saying that these young people were “carrying burdens no young person should ever have to carry.”

The visit, the Washington Post noted, “spurred Obama to tell his administration to aggressively build on efforts to overhaul the Indian educational system and focus on improving conditions for Native American youths.”

When the president took the stage at his last tribal summit last week, National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby wrapped him in a traditional blanket, then took off his cedar hat and placed it on the commander-in-chief’s head. With a huge smile, Obama tipped the hat to the crowd.

“What a kind gesture,” he said. “I’m also very glad that you also have a blanket for Michelle so she doesn’t steal mine. She would, too. I’m just saying.”

Obama then reviewed eight years of accomplishments. He spoke of the restoration of 428,000 acres of tribal homelands, the $1.9 billion Cobell Land Buy-Back program, and the reauthorization of VAWA.

“Together, we’ve strengthened your sovereignty, reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act so that tribes can prosecute those who commit domestic violence against women in Indian Country, whether they’re Native American or not,” he said. “We’ve worked to ensure your right to equal justice under the law, and given more power to tribal courts and police.”

He also spoke of how the government would continue to invest in clean energy, maintain the push to get rural communities high-speed Internet access, keep focused on affordable healthcare for Indian country, and affirm the permanent reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

His administration, Obama added, had invested in job training and tribal colleges and universities, and had worked to return control of Indian education to tribal nations.

“As we prepare our young people for the demands of a global economy, we’re also teaching them their own language and their own culture,” he said. “Because we believe that all our Native youth deserve a future as bright as any American child, without having to leave the land of their fathers and mothers. That’s what’s driven our work.”

Interrupted several times by bursts of applause and laughter, he said, “Today, the most important thing I want to say is thank you. After almost eight years as your president, I have been so privileged to learn from you and spend time with many of you. My trips to your nations and communities are days that I will never forget.”

When Obama was first running for the White House, Lindsay Early of the Comanche Nation wrote to him, explaining that she had screamed with joy while listening to him speak. He hearkened to that letter last week.

“Lindsay,” he said, “I want you to know that I heard you. I didn’t forget you. And I want everybody in this auditorium and all the folks back home in your respective communities to know that this whole time, I’ve heard you. I have seen you. And I hope I’ve done right by you. And I hope I’ve set a direction that others will follow.

“Thank you all for your partnership. Thank you for this journey.” http://bit.ly/2dFc9q9

Is This Really Consultation?

‘We should have an opportunity to have a say’

Bottom Line: The Dakota Access project has raised larger questions about the federal tribal consulting process and longstanding tribal treatment—as a recent congressional forum demonstrated.

Giving testimony at the forum were (l. to r.) Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II, Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier, Lakota elder Faith Spotted Eagle, Apache Stronghold founder Wendsler Nosie Sr., and youth representative Gracey Claymore.

YouTube/U.S.Congress

Against the backdrop of the Dakota Access oil pipeline standoff, five Lakota and Apache leaders last month offered trenchant and emotional testimony before Democratic members of the House of Representatives.

Held on September 22 in Washington, D.C., the forum—conducted by a subcommittee of the House Committee on Natural Resources—was ostensibly a discussion of the federal permissions process that has yielded the present pipeline battle. But over two hours, the witnesses spoke at impassioned length about the permissions process in general, the impact of the destruction of sacred sites, and the notion of historical trauma.

About two dozen lawmakers attended the discussion, which was formally titled “Taking a Stand: Protecting Water and Native American Sacred and Cultural Sites at Standing Rock.” The effort was spearheaded by Raul Ruiz (D-California), the ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs. On the House floor the day before the forum, he sharply criticized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ approval of pipeline permits.

“The Army Corps, under the Clean Water Act, must protect our nation’s waters from contamination by conducting accurate environmental assessments,” Ruiz said. “Unfortunately, the Army Corps granted a permit based on flawed assessments, incomplete information and a willful disregard for the serious concerns raised by the [Standing Rock Sioux] Tribe and other federal agencies.”

The first witness was Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archbambault II, who emphasized that his tribe does not oppose economic development, energy independence or national security. “What we oppose is it being done off our backs,” he said. He invoked Lake Oahe, a particularly painful flashpoint for the Standing Rock Sioux, as its creation flooded traditional lands, inundated the childhood homes of tribal members, and obliterated historical and cultural sites.

“For too long, there are too many cases where tribes have been forced to give and continue to give,” Archambault said.  “Today, we pay for the Missouri River, Lake Oahe Hydropower with Western Area Power Association, so that this nation gets affordable electricity.

“We should have an opportunity in the future, no matter what, to have a say. The way we’ve been doing that is through prayer and peace. I have to share that with you because we’ve got a lot of attention, and it seems like attention only comes when there’s negativity.”

Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier—whose tribe is on record as an intervenor in the Standing Rock Sioux’s lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for approving the Dakota Access permits—expressed dissatisfaction with consultation meetings. “We come with authorities from our tribal council to negotiate,” he said. “A lot of times there are no decision-makers sitting across the table from us. They always say they’ll take it back to their superiors and get back to us, and they never do.”

Yet these authorities “check the box” that says they have consulted, he said, and consider the matter closed. He also noted that under the 1851 treaty, the Sioux retained ownership of the land; the federal government holds it in trust. “And where that pipeline is attempting to cross belongs to all the Sioux tribes.” Ideally, Frazier said, tribes would manage the projects that companies want to build across treaty lands so that federal agencies would not have to act as intermediaries.

Lakota elder Faith Spotted Eagle pointed out a specific Dakota Access bureaucratic problem—namely, the segmenting of the project for permitting purposes. The U.S. Army Corps Omaha District, St. Louis District, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service each granted its own set of permits. This procedure, she said, diluted the potential for studying the project’s overall impact.

Spotted Eagle expanded her argument to speak of historical trauma and ongoing attempts to “erase” American Indians. “The reasons 7,000 Natives have gathered [to protest Dakota Access] is because this happens repeatedly,” she said. “An entire realm of Native thought is marginalized, declared unknowable and consequently left out of every serious decision. The arrival of western Columbian philosophy on our shores brought ideas rooted in the concept of Manifest Destiny.”

Manifest Destiny, she explained, is the notion “that state and federal agencies and people that they authorize are somehow endowed with the right to take whatever was in front of them from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Pacific Ocean.” Citing examples ranging from human trafficking to climate change, she further tied what she called “biopolitical” issues to corporate control over food, water and even human bodies.

“Corporate-public partnerships have used our sacred lands and waters as dumping grounds,” said another witness, former San Carlos Apache Tribal Chairman Wendsler Nosie Sr., founder of the activist group Apache Stronghold. “The damage to our lands and our sacred sites has been in direct violations of treaty promises and trust obligations.”

The final witness, Gracey Claymore, age 19 and the delegated youth representative, was clearly choked up when she described what it meant to Standing Rock youth to embrace their cultural heritage and stand up for their rights.

“We are only coming together to protect our waters,” she said. “It’s not just the Dakota Access issue. It’s so much bigger than that. We have been saying over and over that this is not just a Native American issue, this is a human race issue. We are doing this to protect our human race, because without water we cannot survive. Without this Earth, we will not be here any more.”

In his closing remarks, Ruiz reminded the audience that three federal agencies had specifically urged the Corps to conduct a more in-depth environmental and cultural study of the areas of the pipeline. He therefore urged bold action: “Cancel the permit.” And he advocated “a full, complete” environmental impact statement. “Only then, ultimately, will the president—who I believe will take your heart with him in this decision—can make an informed decision . . . to do the right thing,” he said.

To which his colleague Raúl Grijalva (D-Arizona) added, “The agencies involved in this decision-making process in Standing Rock, they made a mistake. A big mistake. They were disrespectful, paternalistic and kowtowing to some big money special interests in moving forward with this project. They have to correct that. And they have to correct it in a respectful, meaningful way.” http://bit.ly/2d9EWoT

Room For Improvement

‘It’s time to raise Native issues to a national level’

Any Secretary of Indian Affairs, says Mescalero Apache President Danny Breuninger, should “be able to cross party lines.”

Kerri Cottle

Editor’s Note: When sworn in for his first term as president of the Mescalero Apache Tribe in January 2014, Danny Breuninger declared his priorities: enhanced communication, account-ability, long-term planning, and economic diversification. Now, in his second term, he is finding systemic barriers to these goals and is urging reforms—chiefly, the creation of a cabinet-level department devoted to Native affairs.

ICTMN recently spoke with President Breuninger in his tribal offices in Mescalero, New Mexico. His views do not necessarily represent the Mescalero Apache Tribe and/or the Mescalero Apache Tribal Council.

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Is the current relationship between the federal government and tribal governments conducive to the accountability you feel is necessary?

Under President Obama’s administration there have been advances, such as the appointment of a Senior Policy Advisor in the White House, and the appointment of many American Indians and Alaska Natives to key positions. That has been an amazing advancement.

But there’s still a lot of room for improvement. Native representation needs to be sitting at the table with the president from a position of strength and respect, from our own cabinet-level department. And tribes should be testifying on all issues that directly affect Native people before Congress about our needs in all of the many urgent areas of governmental concern—federal budgets, historic preservation, natural resources, social services, education, roads and the environment, to name a few.

Right now the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is our intermediary but often serves as a bureaucratic obstacle.

The BIA’s website says it has been “evolving as federal policies designed to subjugate and assimilate American Indians and Alaska Natives have changed to policies that promote Indian self-determination.” Is this your experience?

The BIA has a major role in the success or failure of promoting self-determination. But it’s the ever-changing presidential administrations and congressional leadership in both the House and Senate that have the greatest influence on self-determination.

Another problem is the grant process. We as tribes are competing with many other tribes and non-tribal state and local governmental agencies. Oftentimes we feel we’re not getting a fair shake, and I’m sure other tribes feel the same way.

Take, for example, a planning grant we were awarded for our sawmill that’s been defunct for eight years, which we now hope to revive. It’s a crucial economic development project we have in mind to diversify our revenue sources. The tribe owns property in Alamogordo, where we can tie into a rail spur. Our lumber products can be loaded onto rail cars and shipped all over the world. Once we restore the sawmill, I believe we’ll have all kinds of other opportunities.

But the grant we got this year is the exact same grant we did not get last year. And there’s no guarantee for next year. Let me add that we are very thankful for being awarded the grant. But this process exemplifies the challenges we face.

Why do you think you would do better with a cabinet-level department?

Because Native programs and people would be at the center of the discussion. We wouldn’t be in the position of being always underrepresented. I believe it’s time to raise Native issues to a national level and not have them tucked away in an agency whose primary mission is land management, like the Department of the Interior.

As many know, within the Interior Department, BIA sits alongside the Bureau of Land Management, Fish & Wildlife, National Parks and a few more. They’re all competing for the same dollars and I don’t believe our voices are being heard as tribal leaders. Native Americans make up one percent of the population. The cards are stacked against us. We can holler, kick and scream, but our voices can only go so far.

Who would you nominate for Secretary?

I don’t have a specific person in mind, but let me suggest some basic qualifications. The cabinet secretary should be a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe, have a formal education, be passionate about Native America, be versed in the history and struggles of Native America, and be able to cross party lines and speak to anyone at any time regarding contemporary Native American matters.

Are there existing legal instruments in place upon which you can build your case for structural reform?

On November 6, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 13175, requiring a government-to-government relationship between tribes and the U.S. That would entail having a mechanism for ongoing open dialogue and for having those needed conversations that governments have with other governments, especially those with whom they have borders and other shared interests.

President Obama has restated that same principle and has met annually with tribal leaders in Washington, D.C. I can tell you that I appreciate that. No other president in history has ever taken that kind of positive interest in Native issues before.

In my view, a new department of the executive branch devoted to Native issues with a capable leader in the cabinet seat is the most direct way to fulfill the true spirit of self-determination and a sincere commitment to a real government-to-government relationship.

Cabinet-level departments come and go, several in our own lifetimes. Creating a new one is a matter of political will. Is this an achievable project?

I don’t see why not. It makes so much sense. If the federal government is to ever fully live up to and honor its government-to-government relationship and treaty and statutory obligations with tribes, then this is the right thing to do.

Is there a wrong waiting to be righted?

I see Native Americans today as an invisible part of the U.S. population. The situation that has unfolded on Standing Rock Sioux Reservation is a classic example. I don’t believe any of the three major TV networks reported from Standing Rock about the pipeline construction. It angers me when I see political polls on TV. Never ever is there a poll number for Native Americans and whom they support. It’s as if our numbers don’t count.

In the census, we used to have to check the “Other” box. We weren’t even counted. Now we’re counted but our numbers are small. So what if we don’t have the numbers or the largest donors to parties and PACs? The important thing is we are citizens of the United States. We’ve served in every war and still do today. We are the First Americans.

We as Native Americans must continue to speak out; it’s not that we want anything special. We just want what’s fair and due us—respect, dignity, our own language and heritage, and to maintain our traditional ways of our culture.

Is Indian country ready to let go of the “devil it knows” and fast-forward its own evolution?

That’s a good question. There’s some comfort in what’s familiar and I’m sure some may be opposed to change. Certainly we can continue down this well beaten path. But if we don’t call for change, at the end of the day we will only continue to perpetuate the status quo and allow ourselves to be cast aside and accept the kind of attention and services we now receive. http://bit.ly/2dCzusQ

How Did I Miss That?

The Hillary Clinton topical ointment meme, alcohol and Indians on two continents, and the ever-evolving Godzilla

Eric Trump said his father has “gone from just about nothing” to become as rich as he is. Donald Trump himself has stated, “My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.” This is a reality check akin to Mitt Romney suggesting that a student complaining about student loans should borrow $50,000 from her parents and start a small business—and come back to school after the business is rolling.

“The kid,” my Cousin Ray Sixkiller laughed, “probably hopes his daddy will start him out with a similar small loan.”

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Stephen Colbert, who is playing himself on TV these days, claimed that Hillary Clinton was so ready for the first presidential debate that “her new nickname is Preparation H.” The evidence is how she “soothed the Bern” in the Democratic primaries.

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For those who like a beer with their burger, The Washington Post warned that the Indian state of Bihar is getting serious about alcohol prohibition. Since April, 14,000 people have gone to jail and 43,000 gallons of booze have been seized. All adults in a family can be prosecuted if one of them drinks. Homeowners can be arrested if a tenant drinks. An entire village can be fined if somebody in the village has a still.

The Danish firm that brews Carlsberg built a new bottling plant in Bihar in 2012 and the 600 workers from that plant are now out of work. Conferences and upscale weddings have moved elsewhere and bootlegger prices are triple what legal prices were. “We have to create spies and informers among the communities,” said Manu Maharaj, a senor police officer. “Only then will prohibition be successful.”

Cousin Ray was in rare snarky form: “Like it was in the U.S. or like it is on Indian reservations?”

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The Post also commented on a review of the new Godzilla movie, quoting Mark Schilling of Japan Times as calling its tone one of “soft nationalism.” The U.S. does not come off particularly well and the military hardware is deployed by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces.

The original Godzilla was an unfortunate byproduct of atomic testing that played on the Japanese anxieties from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The latest version mines anxieties from Fukushima Daiichi. In the review, we learn that Japanese has a way with neologisms like many American Indian languages; one such expression literally translates as “zone that is difficult to return to.”

In Japan, the new film is coining money as Shin (“New”) Godzilla. It will be released in the U.S. next month as Godzilla Resurgence.

I caught Cousin Ray pondering again the disappearance of an animal common in our childhood. He was wondering if the success of Godzilla would help him raise the money to shoot his script about the Southwestern U.S. It’s called Revenge of the Horny Toad.

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The Cherokee Phoenix reported that the Cherokee Nation is in negotiations with the Oklahoma Historical Society to buy Sequoyah’s home, a one-room log cabin once occupied by the man who invented the Cherokee syllabary. Oklahoma has cut funding for the Historical Society by 40 percent in the last eight years.

Sequoyah’s invention caused literacy to spike among Cherokees and by the time of the Trail of Tears more Cherokees could read and write than could the settlers waiting to take Cherokee land.

Sequoyah went west in advance of the Trail of Tears and built the cabin that would be his home from 1829 until his death in 1843 while on a trip to Mexico to persuade Cherokee refugees to return to Indian Territory. The cabin was designated a National Historical Landmark of the U.S. in 1965.

Cousin Ray noted that the Oklahoma Historical Society was spending $100,000 a year to maintain Sequoyah’s home. And he had to wonder: How could Sequoyah afford to live there? http://bit.ly/2dBDfCw