1. Your Vote is your Voice. Sounds cliché, but it’s true. If you want your views heard, you have to vote. Take a look at the groups who are having a say in the election dialogue; it’s the people who are coming forward as a block and saying we will vote, but, you will support our position on this, this and that. They have found their voices, and we have to find ours – in the election process, the voice is in the vote.
2. Not voting is still voting. Not voting allows the status quo to continue. When we choose not to vote because we think our numbers don’t matter, take a look back at elections and see who won, by how many. Currently, the election polls indicate a deadlock and a very close race. Which is a perfect situation to find ourselves, our numbers have “swingability”…which in the world of politics is “currency”. We can swing an election in the direction we need and or want it to go.
3. We count. The Indigenous Vote will change the Nation. It will change our individual/respective Tribal Nations; we will engage, on our terms, discussing our issues. The dialogue of the politicians and governments will include us. Given the number of Native American Indigenous candidates running for offices nationwide, its obvious, #VoteIndigenous.
We can elect our peoples to be representatives in Governments; which brings “change”. Change to the face of government and the voice of government, which, conceivably, will include us. We’ve always looked from the outside in, but today, we are becoming the government and are making the changes from inside.
We must do all we can to elect those ones running for the United States Congress & Senate. Like Denise Juneau in Montana, a member of the MHA Tribal Nation / Three Affiliated Tribes, and Chase Iron Eyes, a lawyer from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe running against the guy who mocked and attacked the Native Woman on stage, during a Violence Against Women event. We must do all we can to rid the government of idiots.
4. Recognize the time we are in. The time for the First Peoples & their Rights to be recognized, as the First on the land, the owners of the lands, and Treaty peoples with Rights, is now. But, we will be given the rightful recognition only if we are engaged and dialoguing, voting and participating. We need to stand up, stand out, and be heard. When we elected President Obama, the Native Vote came out 4-1 for him and he remembered that. We know the history of his administration and his appointment of Kimberly Teehee as his Sr. Advisor in the White House, followed by Jodi Gillette, and all of the appointments he’s made of Native Americans to Senior positions throughout government.
And all of this is good, but, we still need a fundamental shift to have a true Nation to Nation relationship with the Federal government. Legislation that works contrary to our Sovereignty needs to be erased. Until then, we do not have a Nation to Nation status. We have an abusive relationship. There are Supreme Court decisions that need to be reversed because they allow the imposition of jurisdictions on Tribes where they should not be.
Like the Cotton Petroleum case, 1989 – google it. It is bad case law that allows States to tax Tribe’s Trust Property. Today, this case has allowed the State of North Dakota to tax the oil & gas revenues of the Three Affiliated Tribes in a botched Tribal/State Tax Agreement: in the original tax agreement the State took 80% of the revenues and gave the Tribe 20%, which we lobbied to get it to 50/50% - but, the State has now taken $1BILLION dollars from the Tribes tax revenues and $0, zero, comes back to the Tribe or any Tribes.
Why? Because the State does not fund federally recognized Tribes. We need to insert these issues into the election dialogue and expect a commitment from candidates that they will act in our interest, “if” we vote for them. We must have our “ask” when we dialogue with candidates and it should be substantive, why, because our vote is not for free.
5. Act. Throw down the spear. We have been oppressed by legislation and acts of the governments; executive orders, etc., our history tells of the oppression imposed upon us as the First Peoples. At some point we have to gain the courage and the wisdom to recognize and believe again, that we are a powerful people.
Throw down the spear and call the enemy out. The enemy of oppression, of assimilation, of genocide, of injustice, the legislation created by “legislators”. Call it out.
Bring it to the battlefield of the election – throw down your spear.
Your weapon is your vote. And, your weapon, is in your hand. It’s time to use that “right” to vote, and use it to take back what has always been ours.
Your weapon will cause the shift to make the government work to your favor. We are a warrior peoples. We know how to battle, and, we know how to win. It’s our time.
