Dear President Obama: November has come and gone...where is the fanfare of "Native American Month?"

I was just told a story by one of my coworkers...she'll remain unnamed at this point because I didn't ask her first but the story she told me shook me to the core AND reminded me of what we're really doing "here." My rendition of this story is sketchy because I heard it for the first time just minutes ago. Something we hear often from our longhouse is "if you don't tell the story you've heard you'll lose it" and I don't ever want to lose this.


My friends' grandma was a little girl...they were riding on horseback from one place to another and would encounter clans from time to time on their journey. They were arriving to one of these clans and as they came around the corner, they saw piles of what they realized were dogs. They kept riding and as they came across the homes, they found everyone there was dead but what was strange to them was that there were no children.

In a hopeful way, I imagine, they all thought that the children were out hiding, as my friends' grandma had been told to hide on occasion. Not true. They rounded the corner and to her grandma's horror (remember the grandma was a small girl at the time) they came across all the children - hanging dead from trees by their ankles.

I tell you this story not to horrify you, rather as a reminder for myself. This battle we fight is not against this entity or that agency...it is against the blind ignorance which rolled across our nations killing and robbing in blank rage...it's against the concept of blank rage and its to strengthen our tribes through honesty and education to wage war for generations to come against such indignities and horrific violence.


In this day and age we don't encounter young Indian children hanging from trees but we DO encounter the concept of our people as "expendable resources." We see our children exploited in much more modern and yet just as violently...to not say this would be folly indeed. We encounter our elders being abused by their own children...having their medications stolen so they have to lie in bed awake and in pain night after night...our children and grandchildren face a bleak future if we don't continue this fight...

Kind of makes my bad day seem so trite...I apologize to my elders.