South Dakotan to sing anthem at Democratic Convention » RapidCityJournal.com

No one even today knows exactly how many Native American women were sterilized during the 1970s. One base for calculation is provided by the General Accounting Office, whose study covered only four of twelve IHS regions over four years (1973 through 1976). Within those limits, 3,406 Indian women were sterilized, according to the GAO. Bruce E. Johansen Sterilization of Native American Women

South Dakotan to sing anthem at Democratic Convention
By The Associated Press

Robert Moore of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota will sing the national anthem at the Democratic convention in Denver next week.Moore is an elected official in the tribe and has been a volunteer organizer for presidential candidate Barack Obama.

He will sing on Wednesday, Aug. 27, the same night that former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle is scheduled to speak.

If that isn’t enough, consider the basis behind the Republic of Lakotah separation from the U.S.:

NEEDS AND CONCERNS FOR THE POOREST COUNTY IN THE UNITED STATES:

MORTALITY

• Lakotah men have a life expectancy of less than 44 years, lowest of any country in the World (excluding AIDS) including Haiti.
• Lakotah death rate is the highest in the United States.
• The Lakotah infant mortality rate is 300% more than the U.S. Average.
• Teenage suicide rate is 150% higher than the U.S national average for this group.

DRUGS AND ALCOHOL:

• More than half the Reservation's adults battle addiction and disease.
• Alcoholism affects 8 in 10 families.
• Two known meth-amphetamine labs allowed to continue operation. Why?

INCARCERATION:

• Indian children incarceration rate 40% higher than whites.
• In South Dakota, 21 percent of state prisoners were Native, yet they only make up 9% of the population.
• Indians have the second largest state prison incarceration rate in the nation.
• Most Indians live in federal reservations. Less than 2% of INdians live where the state has jurisdiction!

DISEASE:

• The Tuberculosis rate on Lakotah reservations is approx. 800% higher than the U.S national average.
• Cervical cancer is 500% higher than the U.S national average.
• The rate of diabetes is 800% higher than the U.S national average.
• Federal Commodity Food Program provides high sugar foods that kill Native people through diabetes and heart disease.

POVERTY:

• Median income is approximately $2,600 to $3,500 per year.
• 97% of our Lakotah people live below the poverty line.
• Many families cannot afford heating oil, wood or propane and many residents use ovens to heat their homes.

HOUSING:

• Elderly die each winter from hypothermia (freezing).
• 1/3 of the homes lack basic clean water and sewage while 40% lack electricity.
• 60% of Reservation families have no telephone.
• 60% of housing is infected with potentially fatal black molds.
• There is an estimated average of 17 people living in each family home (may only
• have two to three rooms). Some homes, built for 6 to 8 people, have up to 30 people
• living in them.

UNEMPLOYMENT:

• Unemployment rates on our reservations is 85% or higher.
• Government funding for job creation is lost through cronyism and corruption.

THREATENED CULTURE:

• Only 14% of the Lakotah population can speak Lakotah language.
• The language is not being shared inter-generationally, today, the average Lakotah speaker is 65 years old.
• Our lakotah language is an Endangered Language, on the verge of extinction.

*Taken from http://www.republicoflakotah.com/

Still not enough? How about the strange case of Leonard Peltier? Journalist Brenda Norrell, a long time reporter in Indian Country was recently shunned by the responsible Indian Country news media for trying to hard to bring un-censored First Nations news to the world at large. As she puts it:

“In Indian country news, there are also hush words, words to be used sparingly, if at all. For editors, those words include two names "Russell Means" and "Leonard Peltier." Also, in Indian country, reporters know it is unlikely that editors will publish any serious criticism of the war in Iraq or the Bush administration. Reporters also know it is unlikely that their articles will be published if they point out how the elected American Indian tribal councils sell out their people and their land, air and water for energy royalties and energy leases. At the same time, those councilmen and tribal chairmen give voice to the need to protect sacred Mother Earth.”

Native news/White Man’s news, who can tell? The Indian masses are ignored until wartime then we exist until we get hurt or killed then they forget about us. Unless of course they can use us for pro-colonial propaganda like Lori Piestewa was and still is being used as a tool to encourage other poor and destitute Natives to help them do to someone else what was and is being done to us. Were the Dine Code-Talkers respected by the likes of Senator and Presidential hopeful John McCain when they returned from fighting the Japanese? Will they be respected as Indian people from an Indian nation being swamped-out by the United States and it’s culture of capitalistic genocide?

Why would an Indian want to sing the White man’s song of liberation as if it is a tribute for himself?

Why?

- The Angryindian