Nineteenth century U.S. policy makers worked out the plan for the future destruction and domestication of our nations, and our eventual assimilation into the United States. We are now living in the future that those U.S. policy makers envisioned. Shouldn’t elected Indian leaders still be resisting that U.S. plan rather than now using terminology that serves, in the name of “accommodation,” to bring into effect the political assimilation of our nations?

Mind you, not all elected Indian leaders are working in that manner, and all would probably deny that they have any such interest. But if that is indeed the case then Indian leaders need to reflect that view by the words they use and their way of framing the issues. If it is merely out of bad habits established over generations that some of the elected leaders are now typically using politically assimilating terminology such as “U.S. tribes,” then once they have been apprised of this, it is imperative that they stop using that terminology especially in the context of the United Nations.

The fact that some elected Indian leaders are using “U.S. tribes” and the fact that the lawyers and other experts working with those leaders have not advised against the use of such terminology tells us a great deal. What this tells us is that those elected Indian leaders and their experts have not truly understood the subtlety of language and its reality-constructing nature. The expression “U.S. tribes,” which, by the way, exactly matches the U.S. government’s terminology, is politically destructive to our nations and peoples. Use of that terminology constructs, maintains, and reinforces that form of reality.