Native community shuns inmates

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The Drumheller Native Brotherhood met May 10 with the Task Force on the Criminal Justice System and its impact on Native people of Alberta. The Fifth Estate was well represented and we got credible media coverage. Our statements about what we considered important received adequate attention and coverage. Now all that remains to be seen is the priority the government will place on what has been gathered by the task force. We are aware we echoed much of what was said across the province. The problems do not change much from place to place, only the players.

In some areas the problem has gotten so complex and large society can't do much to alleviate the situation. It also appears society is loathe to do anything about a situation that does not provide a maximum return for dollars invested in the development of human quality. This is very clear when we, as Indian peoples, see this society not doing much for their own kind.

On one hand, this society wants selective abortion and also, selective execution for certain types of criminal offenses. Is this to mean society will decide who lives and who dies? It seems your longevity depends on who you don't offend. It does tend to get frustrating at times.

I can someday image a politician finally coming right our and stating, "NO!!! We won't kill you at conception. We'll wait until you're born into poverty, unemployment, family abuse, alcoholism and drug addiction and finally kill someone out of rage at the world. Then we will take you into the next world dangling at the end of a rope!!!"

We have to take care of each other. This society has proven time and again we are not high on their list of priorities. We must stop hurting one another! We cry out in rage at society with blind, unthinking cruelty and who suffers.? Those closest to us. Statistics prove the majority of crimes committed by Natives involved alcohol and the crime was visited upon those closest to them - their family. By our actions, we are raging at society for injustices we have suffered real or imagined but we choose the most innocent of victims to take our anger out on - the little ones. They never say anything when they watch us vent our frustrations. They have not yet learned the words with which to voice their pain and cycle continues.

We come into these places and add insult to injury and call ourselves "WARRIORS!" That we failed out there proves we couldn't maintain the discipline of a warrior - WE FAILED ourselves. We're not warriors, but Indian niggers on the back of a bus going nowhere.

Yet, we keep hanging around the Fort for more rations. The only thing that has changed from the old days is the Indian agents are now Indians. The whisky traders are still here. Only now, they don't only sell whisky, they also sell little bags of powder that only adds to the problems we already had.

Meanwhile, we will be given the opportunity to try, judge and convict ourselves in courts of law soon! This new project will be the tribal justice system cloaked in the trappings of self-determination, self-government, mapping out your own destiny, etc. Ask the one question that will cut through all the rhetoric and bullshit. Who is going to pay for all this? Ask for research materials which prove accepting self-determination leads to termination of Treaty benefits - I will send them to you. I may be in prison but I am still part of the Indian community or have you forgotten me so quickly?

May times we have approached our own bands via letters for support or for donations for our Native Brotherhoods/Sisterhoods across the country. Far too often we do not even receive a reply. Out of sight, out of mind. Just how much does the leadership of our own Indian nations care to invest in the development of human quality?

It is not the government who will listen to our pleas for assistance in finding our way home. It is our leaders in our own communities who have to do that.

The Native community cannot continue to blame whitesociety for its ills. I still hear too often the white man killed all the buffalo and tried to wipe out the Indian. So what? Stop living in the past and get with the program! Stop giving more excuses for not having done anything to solve your own problems!

I also hear we are losing our culture. But I heard an elder say, "The leaders who say we are losing our culture are the same ones who say it year after year. What have they done to ensure this does not happen?" Very true. We have not lost our culture! What we have lost are people among us who will willingly place themselves in situations of mental, physical, and spiritual privation to earn the Indian knowledge that is culture. For the rest of us, all we can do is maintain what we have access to for the time being.

It has been proven in tougher prison environments across the Medicine Live in the United States that spiritual rebirth in Native inmates guarantees the continuance of positive codes of conduct once freedom is attained by them. This spiritual reawakening, once started, needs to be nurtured to fullest potential and growth. This type of growth is initiated by the people who have made the conscious decision within themselves they do not want to hurt anymore.

Some of us reach old age before we finally decide we are tired of being in pain. It gets tiresome licking the same old wounds. We need the warmth of a fire circle. We need the sense of belonging only the camp can give us. For too long we have traveled the War Trail and we are tired of sleeping on our feet and need to come home. But, first we need to hear the Native community say to us it is all right to come home.

I may upset people by my words. I make no apologies. I have the courage to be able to speak out! I have earned the right to speak! Just as many of my brothers here, we are capable of blind, unthinking cruelty. But, we are also capable of excruciating tenderness. Our rage brought us here. Let our words from the heart be heard by you.

(Yellw Bird is president of Drumheller Native Brotherhood.)