"Across the country, tribal citizens are being asked to go to the polls to vote for chairmen and tribal council members.

As for the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation election, well, who are you going to vote for? Tribal citizens are being asked to re-elect the same people who led the tribe into a deficit that will affect future generations.

But our leaders aren't thinking that far ahead, despite the fact tribal people are taught we must look out for the seventh generation beyond us.

And tribal voters don't seem to be asking important questions, like how our leaders led us into a massive debt. That's because most people are going to vote as if their job depended on it.

In most cases, it's true.

If you live in a depressed economy, you take a job where you can get it.

Meanwhile, we've left our children to watch a bankrupt carnival unfold before their eyes.

I could make excuses for bad leadership.

I could blame such behavior on the boarding school system that stripped Native values from our people and prevented them from being good human beings. But not everyone went to a boarding school.

I could blame historical oppression that has befallen Native communities. The consequences reveal themselves in staggering statistics. Indigenous people have some of the highest suicide, violence, diabetes, alcohol and infant mortality rates of all races and ethnicities in the United States.

Yet our culture continues to sustain us.

I could blame the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 for pushing the foreign concept of a tribal government upon us, a form of rule that contradicts traditional values of leadership.

But we know the difference between right and wrong."

Get the Story:
Jodi Rave: It's time for the young to assume tribal leadership (The Missoulian 10/29) $ad1 Relevant Links:
Jodi Rave - http://www.missoulian.com/jodirave

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