Amplifying Native Voices: Challenges and Opportunities in Journalism

This is the native vote, native voice Podcast. I'm Sean Griswold. We recorded this conversation on the weekend before Thanksgiving, a colonial holiday that will be ripe for plenty of discussions about what is going on in this world. I've been asked several times since the election what my thoughts are on sovereignty. Will it be protected? Will we still have it to exist in this country? The conversation with Levi richer gets into our views on sovereignty, moving forward into 2025 and how Native people in the in the United States will continue to exert its sovereignty with another Trump administration. Now, before we get to that interview, I want to read from an essay I wrote for New Mexico PBS, where I was asked that same question, what will happen to sovereignty. You can read the entire piece at New Mexico, pbs.org, or native news online. The article is titled, riding the sovereignty train, or how Ozzy Osbourne shaped my metaphorical views on being sovereign. Tribal sovereignty will continue to ride alongside the US in a train headed toward a familiar and uncomfortable tunnel. What comes when the light returns is unknown. Well, we don't know. We cannot report that ignites the discomfort that burns from the familiar track that will be another Donald Trump presidency. Sovereignty is not a word Trump mentioned during his campaign. He did not speak to the government's responsibility to provide health care, education, self governance and protections of culture to millions of tribal and US citizens. He did not speak to Native people about a specific legacy of harms caused by the United States and its policy makers in Washington, DC, nor about the degradation of life willowed for genocide survivors, many who are part of tribal governments now responsible for charting a path toward growing the sovereignty their relatives took to stop war, a demand that now has them in place to make difficult choices on how to continue existence with the colonizing government. Sovereignty is a lean toward freedom. It's all actually very populistic. Think about it. And for a man who ran on the message of the most exceptional American freedom ever evangelized, energized by his desire to remain free from a federal corrections program. I think it fits into his soul, at least. That is what the native people who have the Trump administration's ear want. Again, what that will actually be we don't know. And before we get too far off the rails on the Crazy Train, like Ozzy saying in his first solo break from Black Sabbath, let's view what we can on how one person could be conditioned to rule and control. Start with North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a Republican and Trump's nominee to helm the Department of Interior, the massive federal agency that is typically the first stop for any tribal government to start any work exerting its sovereignty with the US before Burgum seeks approval from Congress in 2025 to lead interior he is moving Trump's drill baby drill policies under the newly formed National Energy Council. Trump also tasked Liberty energy CEO Chris Wright to steer the group into an approach that will seek to eliminate red tape across all government agencies that they view as limitations to domestic energy plans after the Burgum pick Mark N Fox, Chairman for the Madan Hidatsa and Arikara nation, use similar language to praise the North Dakota Governor he's worked with Since 2019 Fox quoted he understands and supports tribal sovereignty, and his outstanding business background is key to his ability to cut through red tape to find solutions that will stand to benefit tribal nations and the country as a whole. Fox had an interview with me last week. Fox leads the MHA nation and its government services from more than 17,000 citizens. This includes a very busy Energy Division responsible for overseeing nearly 1/3 of annual oil and gas production in North Dakota, which trails only Texas and New Mexico in crude oil and gas production nationally, mh as oil activity registered 196,207 barrels a day in October, according to the North Dakota oil and gas division. Mha, nation has 2951 active wells, the vast majority on federal trust lands, the Interior Department will still be responsible for crafting budgets for agencies such as Indian Health Services and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And interior still has a full report and a list of recommendations on how to address grotesque wrongdoings at federally run boarding schools. We do not know how the department will handle that in the next administration. What is clear with Burgum is that energy tribes, tribal governments invested in businesses with oil, gas and all the above, have a role in whatever shakes out. And tribes with land based ceremonies, some even with energy portfolios, will have to prepare to use their sovereignty to protect environment tied to their way of being. For me, this embodies the train at its craziest, weighing financial decisions that could slice against cultural self interest or even the inverse, passing up potential profits to preserve culture, history and identity and a Democrat. System run by capitalism, there are always winners and many losers. This is what America voted into office, again, for Native people. This means that our sovereignty is also tied to billionaire populism, because sovereignty's attachment to us Democracy also produces a sovereignty pool of winners and losers. Sovereignty is a track built for native freedom under the US that will continue to bend and warp forward wherever this experiment wills it toward under it. We built our own trains, hired conductors, and are acquiring more both new and old, innovative and revital. I hate to use a colonizer metaphor to distinguish my belief that native people will exist for eternity while the metaphor isn't ours, neither is the tool that expands our freedom, and that freedom is attached to what is ours, and we will define that going forward. Here's now our conversation with native news online publisher Levi Ricker, walk in and keep it as conversational as we can. We're recording now, but, yeah, I think one of the things I'm hoping that we can do with these recordings is make them more conversational, so it's less like me interviewing you, yes, and that's what I liked about the last the last episode is we started to set the foundation of like, how we can have conversations together. I think the goal for me is still to have like, you know, get some produced news segment, like a news report in there, but have it be the rest of commentary, kind of like a magazine show. Yeah, I like that. And yeah, but we also got to figure out how to talk to what like, what it's like to communicate back and forth with one another who gets familiar. And I think we'll get more of that as we learn to talk. But yeah, Levi, I mean, this is now we're on Episode Five. Where, where you and I are getting to know each other a lot more. Been talking a lot more a few more months. Yeah, we're very familiar. And you know what last one of the things we spoke about in our last episode, we were talking about just understanding some of the cabinet pick nominations from President Elect Donald Trump. A lot of things were happening rapidly. We got into the interior. We got into the Attorney General, which which was then Representative Matt gates from Florida. We talked a little bit about him, and today we're now on the news that gates is now withdrawn. His name to seek the Attorney General. Nomination in place is going to be a former Attorney General from Florida was named Pam Bondi, but this shows us a couple things. Levi, number one, to me, this is part of the dysfunction we were going to anticipate with Trump's governing. Matt Gates had a background, was being investigated by a House panel, house Investigative Committee for potential allegations of misconduct with the minor um, and that's just the vetting process that you know, while he was a loyalist to Trump, that vetting process is now being not, is now a little bit out of Trump's hand, completely, um, because he needs other representatives of Congress to support his picks, even if he thinks that they're the one the best ones completely. AND gates, to me, is a clear indication that, you know, there is going to be some pushback and definitely some major scrutiny on the people that are coming in with the Trump administration. That's what stuck out to me. I don't know if you had any other thoughts on on gates dropping out, you know, almost a week right after he was nominated. Well,
as you know, so many federal departments and agencies impact the lives of Native Americans, in particular, with the Department of Justice, which the AG is over, that's where some of the work, hard work needs to be done. When it comes to our missing and murdered indigenous women, some people use relatives and the other other terms, but we tend to use mmip and MMI R for relatives, but that's where a lot of work's done. And here we have, and so much of what we know about the mmip issue is really involves sexual trafficking, sometimes of our native women. And here we have, if you have somebody who's the Attorney General of the United States, who himself has been involved with the allegations really were 17 year old, minor sexual misconduct and drug usage, ecstasy pills. Given I'll say this, I'm glad he's gone, but I want to give recognition to I think what the national press has done with this case, and I think some of us who are looking forward to really investigating what's going to happen within the new Trump administration, you know, we, we are in the native side, right? The Native American journals as Native American journals, we're really watching closely what impact the second Trump administration will have, but nationally, you know, we're part of this. And I love the idea that the press was able to pull back because some of the, some of the things that. Uh, Candidate Trump was talking about during the election, quite frankly, where Donald is scary, and he disallowed himself, uh, tried to distance, distance himself from Project 2025, but this week, he appoints one of the co authors, the head of the FCC, the Federal Communications uh commission. So that's scary in itself. So I back to my point, though, I in terms of checks and balances with with both houses of Congress being controlled by the Republicans, I was really skeptical of but really nervous about what's going to happen, but in reflection of what happened this week and watching what happened over the course of seven, eight days, the scrutiny of the press going after in that you mentioned the House Ethics Committee, they weren't really willing to release that report, right? But people in the press kept digging, digging, digging, and I think that's great news for us and lets us I think it's a lesson for you and me both, Sean, we need to be digging when it comes to Native American issues.
Yeah. Brandon Carr is the co author for Project 2025 which is immediately coming into play with Donald Trump's administration. It was very clear like even then, but when we when as journalists, we were noticing a lot of the similar policies, proposals coming from that playbook, the authors who are loyalist with with either the Republican Party or Maga politics. I guess it's all of it now that's very becoming even more transparent and indicating, yeah, you know, voters were being lied to during the presidential election. That project 2025 was not something Donald Trump supported, when, in fact, it was the playbook the entire time. That was a very fascinating encounter. Many times, to have to have that with people, and to see it kind of be so transparent right now, it's a lot of what we predicted. And when it comes to kind of coming back to gates and the point she made about the Department of Justice, this comes to that philosophy we've talked about a little bit that, you know, the the issues that affect native people in this country when it comes to the federal government, it's more than just the Interior Department and and while the interior is responsible for the, you know, the treaty trust obligations, agencies like the Department of Justice are essential in US also advancing that sovereignty, because they have been responsible for helping us establish and create legal credibility for our tribal judicial systems. They're also responsible for our law enforcement, for our tribal courts, our tribal judges, things that are necessary for us to have functioning societies that protect our people in our tribal nations. And so who the leader of the Department of Justice is an essential key element, even if they're not the like highlight, Interior Department person. There are a lot of tribal leaders who have told us they are looking for allies in other federal agencies outside of interior who can help them get what their communities need. And the Department of Justice has a lot of money invested in out and building out. Sean,
you recently were at what a conference at Santa Fe that dealt with this very issue of the mmip in what did you learn there, where you were there, kind of give us some
Yeah. And so from there, you know, talking to tribal leaders from across the country and hearing presentations, the focus is still on, how do we continue to build out these tribal infrastructures? This is something as simple as not only having the law in place for a tribal court to work in whatever state it is in, a lot of it requires memorandums of understandings between the tribal government in a state that state government and then also the federal government, once you get that layer of system put in place, understanding this is how the order of operations are going to go. This is how we're going to follow the law when it comes to prosecuting crimes. Here's who's going to be responsible for, the misdemeanors, the felonies, you know, all the various levels of charges that that people may face. Also, here's here's going to be who's responsible for how we determine punishment. Is it going to be jail? Is it going to be traditional healing? There are some tribal courts here who don't want to put people in jail for crimes, or understand that some crimes don't require a heavy jail sentence.
So is that that restorative justice piece, that there's a restorative justice
element to it that's also in for tribal some tribal courts, a traditional restorative justice where, where you go to, let's say, your probationary period, instead of going and being required to pick up trash on the corner, not only do you have to do that, but also you have to haul a bunch of wood. For some elders in the community, sure, you know things like that, that that provide a community service element that are also just responsible of being a good person in your tribal in your tribal place. These are all small scale. They're hyper local. They're not for every tribe, but they're things that tribes are considering as they build out their own systems, which is where they are now, from there, they're looking at, how do we advance millions of investments into. Into programs that we need for issues like mm, I P, you know, missing, murdered indigenous women and relatives, the violence that native people face on and off reservations. There's money that has gone to that, that that started under Trump. You know, we got to remember that a lot of this legislation that that that came before Trump, he continued, Biden continued it as well, too. And so tribes do feel a bit of a sense of opportunity content consistently here that next administration. They hope that they're going to still have the pathways to continue to build out and work to build out what's best for their community. So that's what I've heard the most out of but it's just one space. Criminal justice is just one space of our life as how we live. One of the things that I kind of wanted to talk about next was another appointed pick, sorry, appointment pick for Trump's cabinet, which is Department of Education. And this is Linda McMahon, who is, for some people, who I grew up knowing Linda McMahon as the wife of Vince McMahon from WWF, WWE wrestling. I grew up watching her on TV because she was on wrestling. Now she's running the Department of Education. She's another loyalist and why. And we'll learn more about what that's going to include, including some background on some issues with sexual allegations and lawsuits that have come with her company at the WWE and WWF, but if she sticks on, she is a Trump loyalist, and the Department of Education is going to be another essential element for Native people to build out our own education systems, again, another department that could be broken out of the interior, because we have to also build our own schools. And we're seeing that when it comes to language revitalization programs and all kinds of other stuff that, you know, just require us to be able to
build our own stuff. On the topic of the Department of Education, during the campaign, there again, candidate Donald Trump was calling for the elimination of the Department of Education. So I was kind of watching, you know, so many announcements came out, what 10 days ago, or whatever, they started announcing the cabinet, but this was like way into the process. So I was thinking, are they even going to choose a nominee for the Department of Education? So that's a positive sign, actually in itself, but we just don't know what she'll do. Maybe she is there to dismantle it there again, that's one more thing we as Native American journalists need to monitor. And I want to say this. I was at a native vote forum in Milwaukee back in October, put on by four directions, native vote group, advocacy group, and Janine Abrams, the sister of Stacey Abrams, then he ran for governor. And I was at lunch, and I just said, you know, I just can't understand these Republicans. Want to do IT department education. And she didn't even flinch. She looks over at me, she said to me, so because they want to keep us dumb. And I'm like, Oh, that's a little stark, but think about that. I do think that there are people in this country that want to keep minority people, people of color, Native Americans, and not getting the discussion every political entity versus a race or all that, but we're part of that mix of maybe they want to keep us dumb. And what's that mean that was floating around every once while you say on social media, most dangerous Native American is an educated Native American. So I think about that, and I saw as I'm glad you brought her up, because I that is something that we at Native news will be watching, what happens with the Department of Education. And yeah, we still know, even though we've had certain immeasurable successes, more more Native Americans get their doctoral degrees and all that master's degrees. However, we still have the highest rate of dropout rates in the United States. And I think, I think there's a section in Chicago where the Hispanics overtake that. However, nationwide, Native Americans still have the highest high school dropout rate. And you and I both are big proponents of education, so I'm glad you brought that topic up.
Yeah, yeah, the education element. And I think you're correct that there is a benefit, and this election really proved the benefit of a population that is not educated, that had that lacks critical thinking skills, that can easily be manipulated with misinformation, with flat out lying. I mean, we opened this conversation where you know President Elect Donald Trump, essentially, Lily lied to the American public throughout, throughout his campaign that he wasn't going to take on these project 2025, initiatives. Whether or not he was, he actually wasn't supportive of that at that point, we don't know. But now it's clear this is the playbook. Yes, there's certainly, certainly an advantage for having a population. For some people, that doesn't that is not educated. And I think this election proved that clearly, one thing that I do want to hit on it on education, this is something that I hope to follow going forward, whether it's McMahon running Department of Education, or somebody else with Trump's administration. One thing that is clear about something McMahon is supportive of, and something that has been part of Republican Party principles that could benefit Indian country. While there is an action to to eliminate more public public school systems, school choice is an option. When you look at school choice, what that does is it builds out more charter schools, separate from public funding public schools, you're essentially moving public education dollars into some charter school element. Now what we've seen when it comes to charter schools is that in places like New Mexico, North Dakota and some other states with heavy Native American student populations, native tribes are benefiting from the tribe the charter school model, where they can, not only are allowed to design their own schools, and some are even building out their own school systems, separate from the state, the local, the county, districts that native schools have to go to. It's an odd marriage. Obviously, there's going to have to be more that could that's going to have to be tracked from there, because you don't want to feel exploited. You still want to maintain that, that strength of being able to have full ownership over your tribal district, I'd imagine. But that could be a weird I could be one space where there could be some level of compromise in places to work going forward, because public schools for native is terrible across the country. Yeah,
I would agree. And I'll say this, I'm from. I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That's the home of Betsy and Dick DeVos and Betsy was Trump's first education secretary, and they for years, and I'm talking it goes back to late 90s. Even have been proposed. Proposing and really promoting is a better word. This, this charter schools, of choice. And where I resisted it all along is the fact that they, typically the devices have a their Kristen reform, so they really want to push the Christian aspect of teaching Christian principles within these charter schools and and I resist that in that I'm a strong believer of separation of church and state. I just don't think that in my children, obviously, are adults in the but I wouldn't want my kids at that age, and back then, my children were young. I didn't want them to have to go learn somebody else's religion. And, you know, I mean, I think it's proper that schools can give the real topical type of descriptions of various religions, but to actually base one religion or one denomination and really promote it in schools, I just think that's wrong. However, I agree with you 100% that Native Americans can benefit from that, and as we continue on as native journalists, monitoring what's happening with the second Trump administration, that's a positive aspect, and our kids, Native kids, can benefit from that done, right? And I there again, if the tribes can monitor that and have some good educational standards. Hey, I'm all for it. Yeah,
and the models I'm thinking about, and this is going to help us get into our next topic, where we talk about self identification and what we are as Native people, the model, the education models I'm considering, and that I've seen that have taken advantage of this sort of boost in charter schools that are run by tribal school that are tribally run schools, or schools that are run by Native people have a focus on traditional elements, learning language, learning songs, learning just the elements of what it is to be identified as a native person, even within this this concept of being a dual citizen, where you can be a citizen of your tribal nation, but you're also a citizen. Also a citizen of the United States, where you're establishing sovereignty as an elemental basic lesson from very from K through 12, from the very element elementary level for these students. So when they get to middle school, high school, they now understand these levels of sovereignty at a sophisticated space and can hold conversations with not only us, but the people that they have to interact with who are non native. It also does in a lot of spaces, I think even help non native people who get to understand, oh, this is what sovereignty means. This is the responsibility of the federal government also. This is what it means. This is, this is what it actually means to be a native person in this country, it's cultural, it's also a political class. And I think about that when it comes to sort of even time, two of these things, right? Like we were talking about how there's an issue of people who may not be completely aware or educated about Native issues, just general issues overall. But, um. It's an opportunity to not only educate the general population to understand our issues, but also help us avoid problems that comes to self identification, where, if there are certain people now just straight out lying about being Native. And I want to talk to you about this, because this, this came to this kind of this came to front in this past election, the issues with self identification and who's native, who is not native, and also who can just flat out say I am native. Do you have any thoughts on this? Well,
I think that's a subject that I think we really need to look at and really, hopefully establish some working relations with national media. You know, during our poll, we did a process, so we actually had to screen the respondents, and we had cross questions that we asked if they're native. And I'll just give you an example, they'd say yes, but they had no idea what tribe they're a member of. Well, you cannot be enrolled in a tribe and not have any idea of what tribe you're involved in, because it's a pretty rigorous process to get recognized and and unless you're, you know, almost halfway into a coma, you would know what tribe here belong to. And I, I'm a proud citizen of the prairie band, Potawatomi Nation, and I know my identity and but that's self identification. And one thing I will say this, I laugh about it sometimes, because we get I would say maybe four or five questions a month through our email here at Native news online asking us to help them get enrolled with their tribe. And you know, their grandmother was this, and we have to just let them know very kindly that we are not the enrollment office of any tribe. It's so we can't do that. But during our process of of looking at who was and who wasn't native, when responding to our our survey, every we actually have four waves of surveys, and every single one actually had the same sets of questions that really cross reference, cross check, see if somebody really was, in fact, native. And I'm not sure even our system was 100% foolproof, because there again, we don't, we're not the enrollment office. However, some were just so blatant that that you knew they were not native. And my understanding is some of the polls pay $5 and I found out later that our Qualtrics that we we engage with, actually paying people to respond. And you know, if you if that's how you make extra money, by taking a bunch of polls every day, well, you can get in there and say you're Native American, and, and, but, but what we were trying to ascertain was really what the attitudes and behaviors were for them, and do they know? Because with with voter suppression as we know it, to be among Native Americans, we wanted to know what kind of voter suppression was taking place. So we actually had some really good questions. And Sean, we're going to write a report that's I'm not trying to rush it to the point where let's hurry up and get this done and so we can put it out. But no, I want to do it well, and if it takes us to mid January, end of January, so be it because we want we have four waves of surveys that have really good information. But one of my biggest takeaways was this whole discussion of self identification, and certainly that was amplified with Edison Research. Did, did some did one exit poll, or some exit polls? It was a 219, people thereabouts, very small sample, and they were not near on tribal lands. And she gets some really distinctly different answers when you are on tribal lands, as we found out at Native news online. I just think that it's an opportunity for us to help educate what's our what's our common thing, we say we have to do the Indians. 101, well, I think this is another area. We're going to do Indians, 101, with the national media and say, Hey guys, four years ago, at exit polls, we were referred on CNNs graphics. Something else. Well, we moved up, but it was wrong. It was wrong. Four years later, I was happy that they made an attempt to track the exit polls of Native Americans, but that self identify, self identification process is very flawed, and I think that's something we really need to check them on.
I know this goes back to my point. I've been thinking about since this entire elect, this entire campaign season and post election, that there needs to be some type of polling firm, enterprise, an opportunity here for any of those major native groups that want to invest in something, because this is a topic of discussion that people are interested in. There's a top. Make a point of reference that this is a strong political class, but we don't know enough about it, and I think that that we have an opportunity to try and learn more with the smart and bet with smart investment.
Well, one more point I want to make is, is we are not a monolith as needed people 500 is 74 federally recognized tribes. It's just massive. And at Native news online, we try, we try to cover Indian country, right? But also sometimes I realize it's daunting and even overwhelming, to the point where man just to even know the names of all 574, tribes is daunting. But we are not a monolith, just as people in Alaska who wear parkas would not have to wear if you're a Seminole member down in southern Florida, southern tip of Florida, where the Seminoles live, you don't need to wear parkers. So that's just illustrates the difference, right there, geographically, but within our within our people, culturally, we have differences. Obviously we have different languages, different ways of ceremonies. Some have pow. Some don't the west coast have the bird singers, absolutely beautiful. What I first time I heard bird singers? I'm thinking, what is this? What's this? Cuz I'm so used to the drum here in the among the nishnabe people here in the Midwest, at Great Lakes, but the birds are just beautiful, beautiful and various generations, right? Of these men singing man, that's a beautiful music, and that's the beautiful thing about our culture. We are diverse. We're not a monolith. And even when it comes down to our politics, we do not all think alike you have. Was it Mark Fox and you wrote the story his reaction to the North Dakota Governor Doug Berg, Burgo Yeah, being nominated to be the Secretary of the Interior, taking over for Deb Holland when she leaves. Well, he comes from us, oil state. I mean, the three affiliated tribes which Mark Fox is the chairman of, you know they're all for oil exploration. You talk to other Native Americans, oh, no, we don't want that. This is destroying our environment. You're going into our sacred, sacred sites in your tamper with that. We don't want you drilling oil on our sacred sites. So there are different opinions. And I guess I want to know your opinion on that whole discussion. We are not a monolith,
yeah. Well, I think I'd start personally. I start with myself and my grandparents, and so I look at my grandparents, my mom's parents, Gloria, cantina and Paul Loretto. Gloria and Paul were both from Laguna Pueblo. Paul was from Jemez Pueblo. Gloria was Zuni Pueblo. They had five kids, and within just their lineage, from there all their grandkids, great grandkids, nieces and nephews. We probably have several dozen tribes represented, even though we're all the one tribe, when it comes to how we have to identify, we have to remember that that a lot of our determination for our, you know, certificate of Indian blood and how we are qualified as a citizen, which grants us to access to things like health care. Sometimes we can get how housing, you know, our number that we give when we go to IHS, you know, allows us access to schools and other things. I always tell people I do my mom, my mom lives in Zuni Pueblo. I practice my ceremonies in Jemez Pueblo, but the federal government has me counted in Laguna. Wow. So, so I have, I have these various kinships and various elements to my native identity, just just of just me personally carrying them. And there are, they're all different, even different languages.
Let me ask you a personal question. How do you feel you center yourself around those? What three different? Yeah,
that's how I do it for me, because I do it based off of, you know, my mom being in Zuni. So obviously, when I visit my mother, I'm in Zuni Pueblo a lot. We do a lot of ceremonial stuff there, you know, we practice and we pray. You know, I know some of the language I pronounced, you know, Keshe is how we say hello. That's how we you know, I'll talk sometimes on the podcast, you know that that's some of the one that actually we is what I know, some of the more language of, and then just her from being there, is a very strong sense of, this is my home. This is my community. So I have that tie. Part of why I got tied into the some of the cultural elements and our ceremonies and hems is because of my grandfather, her dad, who was tied to those systems, and his father was so that was like a pathway for me to learn traditional songs, dances, ceremonies, different prayers that we do in a space that is, you know, you know, very deeply cultural and traditional. Now, when it comes to Laguna, for whatever reason. Even though that is the one that I am registered in, that's the one that the federal government has me marked in. That's the box I have to check whenever I have to go to IHS or get any type of service. That's the one I'm actually disconnected from the most. Wow, and and I came to learn as I tried to understand a little bit more, and I have a lot of family there, and it's not like I don't go and visit or anything, and it's just 30 minutes away from where I live right now, but I got to learn as I was understanding that a little bit better, even though that's where both of my grandparents were from, that was the place they would leave the most, because that's where a lot of that the train was in that space, and that's where they would leave because that's where the train to come pick up people, to take them to school, to the boarding schools. So they would, they wouldn't stay in Laguna, because it was along a major, thorough way and a major train road. Zuni and Hamish were a little bit more remote. So there might be something there that just this tie of how they were, they themselves were a little resistant to being around there and and as a result, that's kind of where I'm at now, um, my grandparents aren't alive. Um, my grandfather passed and my mom was a baby, and then my grandmother passed and I was a toddler. So some of this also comes in knowing the people that they were around, knowing the people that know them, we have stories to share, and for whatever reason, we're gravitated toward towards Zuni and Hamish more than Laguna. Yeah,
I've been to Hamish one time, and what I remember about Hamish was that burger place. Was it Dave's burger?
Dave's burgers? Yeah,
he has probably the best Indian taco I've ever had in my life. I kid you not that. So that's my experience in Amos. But it was a snowy actually, I think it was March as I recall. I know I couldn't get out that night from Albuquerque, because that's what's flat actually, I supposed to fly out the next morning. Flight got canceled because they had, I think it said since the 1920s they had not had snow that late in the season. But I was up there on a snowy day, and that just the only restaurant there. And you know, I love this setting, though, and it was like delicious Indian tacos. So anyone knows, anyone knows Levi Richard knows I love to eat. So you're
getting me hungry right now, and that's the great thing that bonds all that together, is food. Yes, you know every place I go and visit it. So let's meet somebody. Let's go have some dinner. That's where we're a monolith.
We love to eat.
We all have bread, just different types of
bread. The old line I ran the India Center here in Grand Rapids, it's like we knew if you wanted a crowd, you had to have a potluck or offer them. And we all provided the meat. They'd bring other things, right? But you offer food and you get the crowd out. So,
yeah, yeah. So, and that's yeah, having a so for me, with that experience, I can understand people who may be reconnecting, who may not be completely tied, or who may have even been adopted out of their tribal communities, and are trying to understand it more because they were told myths or like legacy about where they come from, but when it comes to just straight flat out lying about who you are because it's a for some people, they think it's an esthetic. They think it's a culture they can appropriate. That's just wrong, and I think that as Native people, we know that, and unfortunately, we're going to have to continue to educate non native groups and non native people that you know don't claim to be something you're not part of, even if you think there's a legacy to it. If you were told, you know, maybe, maybe the first red flag is if you were told you had a great grandmother, Cherokee princess or somebody in back in the day was Comanche. That's probably a lie, and maybe you should just stop right there before repeating that to anybody else.
And you know Sean as it relates to our, our surveys that we we conducted throughout the presidential election season, we actually reference Stephanie Freiberg, Dr Stephanie Freiberg, she's a professor of psychology now at Northwestern, she was at the University of Michigan up until about a year ago, I guess. But she's done a lot of work around the mascots in her and so we the professor we use at Northwestern Neal School of the deal School of Journalism reached out to Stephanie, and they had a great discussion around how, how she assesses self identification thing and and how she does that work around mascots. I remember when the Washington Post put out that survey, I don't know. Was it 810, years ago, thereabouts, that basically said 90% of Native Americans, or they're something around their high 80s, early 90s, of had nothing they it's anything wrong with mascots and well, most of us who are heavily, heavily involved with the. Native American issues, we resisted that immediately, going, what? Because, you know what? Sean, honestly, I could, I could tell you five people on my fingers that support mascots that people I deal with on a regular basis, and so we know that was erroneous, and got a lot the Washington Post got a lot of pushback. Stephanie fry came with some really good information. And one of the things she said when it comes to those Native Americans that support mascots are usually the ones are so disconnected to who they are as a Native American, so you know, and I am not a social scientist, but if you really delve into who's native who isn't, yes, you may have native blood, but if you have been brought up as a Native American, you're disconnected to some of the issues. But, and her point really was this, that those who have embraced their culture are very acculturated in terms of who they are. As a native person, are anti mascot. They don't say it's okay to appropriate sports imagery, Native American imagery into sports. They are very adamantly opposed to but those on the other hand, who haven't grown up with the culture. Oh, there's nothing wrong with it's honoring us, and that's what the Washington Post delved on. And I also know this, and you do as a journalist, you can go through a crowd, whether it's a powwow or some other Native American event, and you're looking to interview people, and you can, if you're looking for a certain answer. It may take you 10 or 15 people, but you can find that person to give you the answer you want. But that's but to be honest, to be transparent, transparent about the issue, you need to say, Okay, I had one out 15 who said this point with 14 other Native Americans were on the opposite side of an opinion. And so I think it's just fascinating. And I learned a whole lot about polling this year. I will say this, that it's kind of like they say, the Wiser you get, the older you get, the Wiser you get. You realize you don't know a whole lot about anything, and, but, but, yeah, we do have a certain amount of expertise, so I've gained a lot of knowledge, but I also realized I still have a lot to learn when it comes to polling and and we want to do it right at Native news online, just as we do with our our news coverage on an ongoing basis. We want our polling to be as accurate, as accurate as we could possibly, can get it. And I tell our writers here at Native news, we at Nate, we as Native American, lied to, lied about so often, native news online will not be part of it. And so to me, I guess it's a passion that I have is to be as accurate as possible. Because what we record Sean and you're a journalist. We know as we borrow from Ben Bradley, we get to write the first draft of history. And so I think that our the things that we write, people are going to read it well long after we're gone, they're going to be reading things that we wrote as it relates to the 1920s Right? Or 2020 excuse me, 2020, something aging myself, but not that old, but I guess, I think so. I guess where I'm going with this. I view our role as native journalists as being very, very important, very critical set. We can get it right. And even at that, it's, I'm a Potawatomi guy. I like to say it's one potawatomis opinion, and I don't I'm not arrogant enough or stupid enough to think I speak for all Native Americans in the United States.
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the mascot issue, because one thing, and I'll be brief on this, one thing that that that topic did for me in that discussion and the organizing around it, um, is it just showed me the power of native people organizing around an issue and being successful. And then as I got to learn more about it, I got to understand the legacy history of how this is tied to, you know, the sort of legal fights that native people were doing to fight for our sovereignty as we, as we, as we were, as we were becoming new citizens of this country in the 1900s you know, not that long ago, the mascot issue was, was it was a topic that, while some people thought maybe have been inconsequential, like, Why do you care about a name? Why do you care about an image? What it did for me was one not only get those racist images out of there, open up in a discussion to people to confront them, but personally, for me as a native person, what I saw was I saw the power of native organization, native organizers and native people being successful and pushing for topics that mattered. And I think it expands to so many other spaces. From there, like obviously, we have to continue to fight for everything. I keep going back to health, education, environment and our economic businesses. That's what that taught me. Um. Um, and also it reached the sports space, because this is stuff I learned as a child, you know, like I was into baseball and football, and that's what I was into. And now suddenly I'm watching football and my favorite team is playing wad the Washington team, and now I'm having a thought about sovereignty images. And I don't want to say it radicalized me, but it opened my mind to these topics that are significant to who we are as Native people. And I want to say it probably helped me get to where I'm at to hold these discussions going forward. So I think that that, to me, is one of the lasting legacies of the mascot issue. As we as we continue to see it move forward and almost be completely finished. It's impacted us and influenced us to continue to take these, these type of efforts, even further.
Yeah, and I think that's a great point. Is the idea that native people push back so strongly on that issue basically says we just don't want to be dominated any longer. We want to have a say in our lives and how we're viewed, how we conduct ourselves, how you view us, and I think that's just so important. And as keep going back and we're in this season of post election transition team is working on putting together the upcoming Trump administration, just so incumbent on us to really, really push the issues as we know them to be in in Indian country. And I do want to reference Sean the the top issues that Native Americans told us in our polls is this is really consistent on all four waves of the polls. And it was number one is protection of sacred sites. And I know that I think illuminative and and the native organizers, Alliance Judith LeBlanc, they have, which is our second thing is tribal sovereignty. They have that number one. And when we pulled just our own crowd in internal polls four years ago, tribal sovereignty was the number one issue. But when you use the third party polling source, as we did this time, and it was, it's just really like four points difference for percentage points, but protection of sacred sites was really important. And so that I bring that up to say this is that during the Biden administration, President Biden, with the help the assistance of recommendations of Secretary dev Holland, the first Native American to ever serve in a secretarial role in the presidential cabinet, they designated certain sites as national monuments. And with that, there were sacred sites within those monuments that Native people, the tribes in those particular areas, really wanted protection, so that the sacred sites as they see them, where they go worship, go, do ceremonies, what have you, would not be having to deal with oil being extracted from from those sacred sites. So that's something that we're gonna have to monitor to as native journalists. I just think that it's just really important that we keep pushing back and, you know, one sweep of a pen from the President of the United States can, either expand or decrease the size of national monuments in the United States. And it's it's Antiquities Act, as I recall, presidents has the latitude to do that, so within their powers. Yeah,
yeah, the Antiquities Act was utilized heavily under Barack Obama, and helped establish, you know, national protected sites, and then under President Joe Biden, has been essential to, you know, here in the western side, you know, side of this Country Bears Ears, National Monument in southern Utah, as well as giving more protections around Grand Canyon for tribal coalitions. That's the other part we're seeing within this space of protecting sacred sites, are several nations building and working together. You know, when you say we're not a monolith, yes, we're not a monolith, but a lot of us are now coming together and and utilizing our resources together to collaborate. Collaborative, crowd, collaborative, collaboratively, excuse me, collaboratively. Protect stuff that that is fundamental to who we are, the sort of shared experience we share, even though we're different. People speak different languages, may have had different histories. There's some things that are similar to us, and I think that is something I'm curious and excited to see about into next year, or into the next administration, how tribal nation building rose and, you know, we were going to talk about, and this is actually a good we're going to pause here shortly, but this is going to be a good lead way into our next episode. And we're going to talk about a report we got of tribal economic development and Indian country's policy priorities for the federal government. This is just the preview, Levi, because we're going. To talk about this and get into the deeper into this next episode. But this is something that came to us last week. It is endorsed by 14 National Native organizations, including the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, the National Congress of American Indians, the United south and eastern tribes, native Farm Bill coalitions. And we'll have a link to all this, and people can read it when we release this episode, but this is going to outline a lot of the policy is, particularly economic policies that tribes want to see happen under this next administration before we get into any thoughts on that. And we'll have to keep that short, because we're going to talk about that in the next episode. One of the things that's recommended in here that that, that we can talk about that's happening here. Shortly, it's going to be the very final one is continuing the White House Council on Native American Affairs and tribal summits. Joe Biden's going to be hosting his very final one here to end the month, Native American heritage month in November. Can you just talk to that topic and the significance of the White House, hosting tribal leaders and listening to them each year. And the benefit that could have for Trump administration and tribal nations?
Well, I I've attended several of the tribal White House, tribal nations summits. It one thing I'm really, I am always impressed with is the gathered of the tribal leaders in a very they almost coming out, getting a consensus with some of the same issues, because they the day before they meet and kind of prep themselves right. The National Congress, American Indian sometimes helps facilitate this. I know the National Indian Health Board has has helped facilitate it, but there are these common concerns that Native Americans have, and I was really disappointed during the four years of the Trump administration that they they had eliminated what President Obama started, and he had eight consecutive and they weren't even called summits. They were called conferences. Back then, when Joe Biden came in, a group of Native Americans convinced, said, We need to up it a little bit. You call it a summit. And so that has been called a summit. I'm proud that they have done that. The White House Council on Native Americans. You know, a lot of that work is done, and that's where they the I think it's 1418, different departments and agencies the federal government come together and really talk about, okay, what are you doing over here at department transportation to solve this issue and so many issues in Indian country are intertwined, even when it comes to mmip issues, which was Like number two and three on our list of concerns. You know, there's a lot of things deals with transportation, justice, on and on, and so each department can play a role. But when you come together and say, in a concerted effort, say, hey, we really need to address the issues that confront our first peoples of this nation. I just think that's, I'm hoping somebody can get to the to the Trump administration say this is really necessary to keep those relations going with India, country and and I guess I'm for one and really happy. I say with a smile on my face that 14 organizations came together and said, Let's push this agenda. Because I think that's a really critical Sean, that we all work together as Native people.
Levi, you brought it full circle for us in that good, strong indigenous way. Thank you so much. I appreciate you, Levi.
I appreciate you as well, Sean and chi miigwech, and have a good holiday season that's coming up on us. Excellent.
We'll talk to you again soon. Take care. Levi. That wraps our show our Thank you listeners for tuning in to this episode of the native vote native voice podcast. The native vote native voice podcast is produced by native news online with funding support from the MacArthur Foundation, the National Congress of American Indians and four directions. Thank you all for tuning in until next time.