I was casually scrolling through my timeline when I saw a photo of a man holding a sign that said, “Yes, all lives matter but we’re focused on the black ones right now, ok? Because it is very apparent that our judicial system doesn’t know that. Plus, if you can’t see why we’re exclaiming #BlackLivesMatter you are part of the problem.” Now I completely agree with this statement but when I read this I thought to myself, “Well what about Native Americans? Not to devalue the Black Lives Matter movement, but when will our lives matter? Will we ever matter? How much longer do we have to suffer?” Here are some issues plaguing the Native community and ultimately the reasoning behind my questions.
1. Incarceration Rates -- Native Americans are 38 percent higher than the national average yet we only consist of roughly two percent of the U.S. population. Furthermore, Natives receive and serve longer sentences than non-Natives for the same crime.
2. Police Brutality -- Roughly for every one African-American male, two are brutalized by the police, but for every Native American male, 2.3-2.5 are brutalized by the police. While every other post on my timeline was about Sandra Bland, there was no posts, no media coverage, nothing over the death of Rexdale W. Henry, a Native activist who was arrested for a traffic fine and was found dead in his cell the next day. Just a month before local authorities took three Native activists that were found dead in a dam 44 days later. The three activists were from the same county as Rexdale Henry. Yet, did you hear anything about either of these cases?
3. Women -- One in three Native American women will be raped in her lifetime. The majority of the crimes are committed by non-natives. Roughly 88 percent actually. Sexual violence against Native American women is at epidemic levels. This is brought on by society’s oversexualizing of Native women. Don’t believe me? Quickly google European Girl, then African-American Girl, and finally American Indian Girl. What do you see? Exactly. Hollywood and social media has portrayed Native women and girls as either non-existent or some sexualized Pocahontas.
4. Poverty -- Despite popular belief, Native tribes are not wealthy. In fact, two of the five poorest counties in the country are Native reservations. Some tribes report unemployment as high as 85 percent. Years of failed government policies have left reservation economies with limited economic opportunities. Alongside that reservations are placed in areas with no fertile land, water supplies, or vital resources. Natives are the poorest racial/ethnic group in the country and the government is doing nothing about it.
5. Education -- Native students perform two to three grade levels below their white peers and only 50 percent graduate high school. Native students are 237 percent more likely to drop out of school and 207 percent more likely to be expelled than white students. For those that do graduate high school only seven out of every 100 will earn a bachelor’s degree.
6. Suicide -- Cross Lake First Nation, a tribe in Manitoba, has recently declared a state of emergency after six suicides in the last two months and 140 suicide attempts in the last two weeks. The suicides are a result of the Canadian government’s failure to follow through with their promised economic reform and the 80 percent unemployment rate in the community. Rates of suicide and drug-related death in Native communities is such a commonality that a Saskatchewan First Nation member stated “A normal person goes to about 7 to 10 funerals in his lifetime… I’ve been to 400.”
7. Drug and Alcohol Abuse -- 18.3 percent of Native youth age 12 and older are currently using illicit drugs. That is double the rate for African-American youth. Native student usage of heroin and oxycontin is three times higher than the national average. One in 10 Natives will die an alcohol-related death.
It is clear through the Black Lives Matter movement that lives are not equally valued. However, the inequality and lack of value of life within our country is much worse than portrayed. We value the life of a newborn Panda in the San Diego Zoo more than we do this nation’s first inhabitants. It’s time we start speaking out for our Native communities, it’s time we acknowledge that Native Americans still exist, it’s time to stop sweeping Native issues under this nation’s already filthy rug. It’s time we acknowledge that Native Lives Matter.
