"Recently I read some news articles regarding Ziebach County being the “poorest in America” and I am genuinely uneasy and upset by the information circulated by a person that doesn’t live in the country of Red Scaffold. We are a humble people. We survive on what is necessary so that we continue our Lakota way of life. We may not have large amounts of capital or drive new cars, wear expensive clothes or live in $250,000 houses but what matters most to us is that we are rich in history, rich in the Lakota language, rich in our culture, rich in the ability to survive, rich in perseverance and resiliency. We do not warrant to be exploited and be used as a catalyst for the reporter’s unscrupulous yellow journalism. If you truly want to help us, provide us with buffalo and butcher it with us. Come with us and harvest the healthy fruits within our lands and offer it to the old ones and the weak. Hunt the deer with us and make “bapa” (dried meat). Dig the “tinspsila” (turnips) and braid them.

In my lastrealindian Lakota opinion, Mollie Orshansky and her development of the poverty threshold in the early 1960’s for the United States Government is harmful to our youth that are labeled as such and is a deliberate use of the propaganda model & systemic bias for the end result of the minority Lakota to abandoning our lands and be overrun with white cattle ranchers.

Our land and where we grow up plays a large role in our identity. If the United States Government intends to force us off our land, I will dig up the maza wakan I have hidden, and you can replace that soil over my body after we fight."

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Wiyaka Chasing Hawk: Red Scaffold country; Rich in the Lakota way of life (Last Real Indians 9/23)