Putting People in a Little Box with Debbe Poitra

Well I believe in sovereignty because I believe that uh we should have the right to be able to manage our own programs and manage Our Lives because uh as a parent would know the best way to teach and to lead their child tribes leaders know the best way to lead their people and the issues that arise on their reservation but that can be um an issue where uh if you don’t have the um if the leaders don’t have the best interest of the people at heart then you can run into some issues there with the sovereignty um treaties I think that uh we are moving away from the um promises that were made in the treaties and um I don’t think that that’s necessarily a good thing I think that there was a lot of lives lost for those treaties there was a lot of land that was given up for those treaties there was a way of life that was given up for those treaties and so with that you know this is my belief this is my thoughts but I believe that the government the US government still should abide by the treaties because of the fact that our people have lost so much and um you look at the devastation today when you take a way of life away from a person and you put them into a little box which is basically what the reservations are and you expect them to survive and maybe you don’t want them to survive and because of that then uh you have made these promises to them that say that well they’re going basically going to provide for the health education and Welfare of our people and um as far as the health uh is concerned you know all of the issues that we have in IHS today and that is the agency that has been governed and assigned to take care of the health issues of the Native American people and currently they’re not doing a very good job of it there are reports you know where there have been so many deaths that could would have been avoided if the staff and the facilities would have taken care of the people when they had the chance and we see that every day I mean there are issues where someone who went into the clinic or had been going into the clinic for months and they were misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all and eventually they die because the disease has uh gotten so bad that they that it overtakes them and those things could have been avoided and you look at education I really think that our kids our native kids have been forgotten there have been so many different measures that have been put into place to educate um non-native kids but when you think take um Native kids especially ours on the reservation they’re not expected to exceed they’re not expected to excel they’re they’re expected to just meet the status quo they’re expected to drop out they’re expected to um not perform at the same level that other students are expected to perform at and I have to really I respect super intendent Basler because of the fact that she is trying to change that since she has taken office she has truly tried to implement programs that are beneficial to Native American students this being one project and so um I think that you know we need to um we need to fight for our rights that were given to us with the treaties we don’t want to be dependent that’s not what it’s all about but it is a fact that uh we don’t want to be forgotten about either