Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood?

Of course, many of you will recognize this from the all too familiar Sesame Street skit.  For me it brings to mind a recent conversation with my brother.  We were sitting around reminiscing about growing up in Ketchikan, Alaska, and the topic of our respective paper routes came up.  And after we got past the sibling rivalry of whose paper route was the more difficult, etc., we were both amazed that we could probably recreate our routes and customers from distant memory.  But the ‘Aha!’ moment for me was when I realized that my route consisted of mostly Indian customers. It dawned on me that even in the early 1970’s, Ketchikan remained a very segregated community – my paper route was south of Ketchikan Creek, a part of town once known as Indian Town.

And the one speck of food that he left in the house was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse …

“And then he did the same thing to the other Whos’ houses, leaving crumbs much too small for the other Whos’ mouses.”

I am sure that many of you recognize these famous words from Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but for Indian Country, Grinches have been stealing Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day and every other holiday and non-holiday for far too long.

CDFIs in Indian Country: More than a Decade of Momentous Growth

Beyond First Nations and its board of directors’ wildest dreams!  That is how I would characterize First Nations Oweesta Corporation’s many achievements in its very short history.

Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic

When we talk of financial literacy, especially in the American Indian reservation communities that are the focus of most of our efforts here at First Nations Development Institute, we need to keep some perspective. Because financial literacy is hardly an economic development strategy; it is more closely related to a tactic.

The Justice League Gets Two New Members – Well, Sort Of

By day they masquerade as mild-mannered journalists, but the Wall Street Journal’s and the Center for Public Integrity’s two-headed team of Michael Hudson and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, and the Denver Post’s Alicia Caldwell, might be better known as False Sanctimonious Man/Ostrich Girl and Copycat Girl respectively.

For Hudson and Silver-Greenberg, their bosses cannot find enough bad things to say about Elizabeth Warren, the new Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  And why not?  For years these stout defenders of free-enterprise and free-market capitalism have turned a blind eye to the profane profits made by predatory lenders.  Profits are profits, as long as they are legal (e.g. meet regulatory, or in this case, unregulated approval), and as long as you are non-Indian.  Yep, I said it.

Are we courageous enough to lead the way to economic prosperity and economic sovereignty?

Can Indian Country achieve prosperity without risk? Or better yet, are we courageous enough to lead the way to economic prosperity and economic sovereignty by trusting our own proven Indian institutions and putting economic control and therefore real economic power in the hands of our own Indian people?

Gratitude

President Ronald Reagan was quoted as saying, “Enjoy life, it’s ungrateful not to.”  And this month since the topic is cultural revitalization, let me offer my paraphrase/spin on this quote . . . “Embrace your Indian-ness and your Indian culture, it’s ungrateful not to.”  Too many people have sacrificed too much and so many others continue to fight the good fight so that you may enjoy this choice.

Walls: Brick and Otherwise

I have always subscribed to the Roman philosopher Seneca’s quote that, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” 

With that being said, however,  a recent conversation with a friend about ‘tipping point’ moments in one’s life, made me recognize that one of those moments, for me, came about and at the time when, while the opportunity was there, I am pretty sure that my preparation did not fully accompany it.

Philanthropy: Don’t Get Me Started

In the introduction to the book “The Honor of Giving: Philanthropy in Native America,” Ronald Austin Wells, articulates it best when he says:

“Native Americans also have not been permitted to participate fully in the philanthropic process in the United States and consequently have not shared equally in the dynamic manifold redistribution of economic resources that is nearly unique and so vital to American society. Yet Native American traditions of giving, sharing, and community are truly philanthropic – that is, motivated by something quite akin to the classical Greek philos/anthropos, a love for humankind, a love for the People. Indeed, if we are to understand the complex motives and meanings that drive philanthropic behavior across the spectrum of human cultures, Native American cultures of giving offer extraordinary clear illuminations and insights.”

Paper Headbands

American novelist, writer, playwright, poet, essayist and civil rights activist James Baldwin probably stated it best in the 1989 documentary The Price of the Ticket, when he said:

“It comes as a great shock to discover that Gary Cooper was killing off the Indians, when you were rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians were you. It comes as a great shock to discover the country, which is your birth place, and to which you owe your life and your identity, has not in its whole system of reality involved any place for you.”