What’s next in Indian Country #2

I thought I should follow up the last blog post, a musing—and hope—that there will be Natives sprinkled across government no matter the new regime. And I should have added that the sprinkling will be in local and state as well as the national government, and that the watering of Native knowledge and values will continue to go beyond government.

Why?

The fine work of the Biden appointees in high positions will leave a mark. Many Natives they brought into government and programs they started and fostered will still be here. Read Rich’s Post →

Good news in Indian Country

I hope everyone saw President Biden’s passionate apology to Native people for the awful, almost 100-year, practice of boarding schools. They were another misguided attempt to deal with what became known as “the Indian problem.” Which might be translated as removing the original peoples from their lands. It couldn’t be solved with diseases, displacement, treaties and wars, so legislation and forced assimilation became the answer. And breaking the generational chain of passing language and culture from grandparents to parents to children to grandchildren was the boarding schools’ weapon.Read Rich’s Post →