You know when I was 7 years old and would pray for God to come get my dad as he was a very violent White man that verbally and physical to all 5 of us children. When God did not come get my dad I told my mom that God was going to come get me on May 15, This was when I was 7 years old. I figured that out when I attended a few sessions with a great Councillor that I was already thinking of dying. At seven years old. So many children are going through this now. This why I am working so hard to get this building up to Isabel as it will provide a place for the children go and feel welcomed and feed. We are going to have after school activities and tutors to help those children that need help. Please help us keep our children safe and secure.
~ Georgia Little Shield, on why the Okiciyap building is so desperately needed.
Georgia gave express permission to use this quote.
This diary is going to be very frank about a tragedy, another ongoing link in the genocidal chain of "Indian policy" in this country. It's also going to be very personal at some points. It may be difficult to read. Please read it anyway.
For far too long, there has been a silent epidemic spreading among the young people in our Indian nations. No one talks about it; it's too fraught with fear and shame and blame and guilt. The outside world doesn't know, and mostly wouldn't give a damn anyway. What are a few more "good Indians?"
Suicide.
The word itself drips with ugly connotations. And lots of people are all too happy to pop-psychoanalyze our children, tell them why they don't need to feel this way, tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps even though they don't even have moccasins. But too few people among our own communities - and virtually nobody outside them - actually makes an effort to understand the root of the problem and correct it.
That's where Georgia Little Shield comes in.
Because she's been there. Read that passage again:
You know when I was 7 years old and would pray for God to come get my dad as he was a very violent White man that verbally and physical to all 5 of us children. When God did not come get my dad I told my mom that God was going to come get me on May 15, This was when I was 7 years old. I figured that out when I attended a few sessions with a great Councillor that I was already thinking of dying. At seven years old.
The hell of it is, I know how seven-year-old Georgia felt. Hell, I was seven-year-old Georgia. I know what it's like to grow up in an environment of fear and violence, and I know what it's like to pray that God - whomever and whatever that might be - would make it all stop. By any means necessary.
I remember times in my childhood where I lived in a near-perpetual state of terror. I certainly lived in a perpetual state of guilt. And I remember thinking how much better off I'd be if I simply weren't here anymore - so that I wouldn't have to feel. Anything. Because everything I did feel was killing me.
And for us, it's too often an intergenerational thing. I remember my father telling me stories of how he, too, used to pray for God to come and get him, to take him away from the abuse and the bullying and the feeling of being unloved, unwanted, utterly abandoned. Of course, with the non-traditional religious indoctrination visited upon him by his mother, he never would've admitted to such a sin as wanting to commit suicide. He gussied it up in his mind into something different. But I understood.
And he could never seem to make the leap between how he was abused as a child and how he treated his own children. In his mind, he was the good parent, doing it "because he loved his children so much." And so his own childhood torment repeated itself, visited upon his own offspring.
I got out. For long years, I stayed way the hell away from anything connected to my background. I shoved it down, buried it deep - so deep I thought it would never be able to get out again. But the past doesn't stay buried. Understanding, with the benefit of adult hindsight, doesn't erase the pain. It doesn't even keep the pain from coming back when the world starts to disintegrate again.
And for our children today, it's not at all past. It's their present, their now, and when it isn't being stolen from them directly, they're throwing it away because they've lost all hope in basic survival.
Genocide by other means.
Byron Dorgan tried to tackle the issue. As he noted in a piece that was published by the APA last year:
The rate of suicide for American Indian and Alaska Natives is far higher than that of any other ethnic group in the United States—70% higher than the rate for the general population of the United States. American Indian and Alaska Native youth are among the hardest hit. They have the highest rate of suicide for males and females, ages 10 to 24, of any racial group.
Think about that for a moment. To most of the country, we're utterly invisible - nothing more than caricatures on a movie screen. And our children are choosing to leave this existence at a rate higher than in any other ethnic group in this country.
The numbers shame all of American society:
The rate of suicide among Native American youth, ages 15 to 24, is the highest of any racial or age group in the United States[.] Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Native Americans between the ages of 10 and 34 years[.] The Native youth have an average suicide rate 2.2 times higher than the national average for their adolescent peers of other races [citations omitted].
The reasons are legion. At bottom, though, lies the fundamental fact that their lives are too often filled with racism, near-unimaginable financial hardship, and constant reminders that the larger culture cares nothing for their lives, much less their needs. When a young person from one of our nations ends his or her life, and people ask why, their friends will reply with a horrible, brutal truth that no one wants to hear - and I've seen and heard variants of this from all over the country:
She felt that no one cared whether she lived or died. And then when [another youth from the same tribe] committed suicide, and she saw how people cried and cared about [that person], she decided that she was better off dead. Then maybe people would care about her, too.
No, it's not a direct quote, because I don't have it in me right now to go digging for the painful examples that contain the precise words used. Suffice to say that variations of this have appeared over and over and over again when one of our children takes his or her own life.
This is what Georgia wants to stop.
Because of the holidays and the cold weather, we've been focusing on the food pantry aspect of the project, trying to keep families alive for one more winter. But we need to keep our young people's souls and spirits alive, too, and that's what the other aspect of Okiciyap is designed to do.
It's also why they need so desperately to get the building moved across the state to Isabel. We've managed to help them raise enough money for transport, but they also need to get it set up, skirted, modified for access for those with disabilities, hooked up to utilities, and up to code. This far, the ChipIn widget shows a total of $6,480 raised (plus some extra from those who've sent checks rather than use the widget). I'd like to see this up to $10,000 by the end of the day on December 31, but I'm a realist. I know that folks are hurting, and many are completely tapped out. But if you have a few bucks to spare to save a young person's life - and particularly if you itemize, and can use the extra tax deduction before the end of the year - please drop a few bucks in the kitty. If we can get that widget up to, say, $7,500, I think they'll be able to get the building transported and the basic set-up completed. That's one thousand, twenty dollars. Not much in the overall scheme of things; just enough to put it out of reach if we can't raise it.
Here's the widget:
If you prefer to give by check, here's the address for that:
Georgia Little Shield, Board Chair
OKICIYAP
PO Box 172
225 W. Utah St
Isabel, SD 57633
And remember: Okiciyap has been granted 501(c)(3) status, so donations are tax-deductible.
Please. Every five dollars goes directly to save lives here.
And that matters.
Our children matter.