Renee Roman Nose: Help rescue the children of Native America

The facts are there. We know them. We live them, every day. We see them in our children’s lives, especially now. According to Aspen Institute, 75 percent of all Native youth deaths between 12 and 20 are directly attributable to violence. 23.6 percent of us live at, or below, the federal poverty rate. The average household income for a Native American or Alaskan Native family is $33,300, compared to mainstream America’s average of $46,000. Alcoholism mortality is 514 percent higher than the national average. Approximately 2 percent of US children come from our communities, yet 8.4% of our children are in foster care. Our high school youth graduation rate is 49.3%, for whites it is 76.2 percent. Only 13.3 percent of our people have undergraduate degrees.

We battle these statistics every day in our communities. From Alaska to the lower 48, we live with these stories, we know these people. We are these people. The tragedy in Marysville, Washington highlights what we already know. It’s time to do something else. What we are doing isn’t enough. We know that.

Recently, I was in a hardware store in Darrington, Washington, walking by two men with a rifle who were buying ammunition for hunting season. They were admiring the rifle, and, as I walked by, they asked me what I thought of it. I replied, “Well, historically, we have a long history of not being comfortable around white men with guns!” We all laughed, they took my Indian humor well. But I thought a lot about that conversation.