Gyasi Ross: Our Native American youth are powerful people too

Native kids from Indian Reservations are supposed to feel like victims. Right? And ESPECIALLY kids from the Pine Ridge Reservation—they don’t have a chance. I mean, that’s what Aaron Huey and Barbara Walters specials and even a lot of Natives who don’t believe in the power and specialness of our homelands tell us. Right?

Not necessarily.

I’ve been fortunate to work with/witness and admire many from this young generation of Natives who are just simply amazing. Many of those young women and men understand that there is a reason that our ancestors fought so hard to retain as much of our homelands as possible—they contain our stories, spiritualities and very DNA. Those young folks seem to know, intuitively, that our homes are worth fighting for and staying within.

Those young Natives know that the very real dysfunction and hardship is just part of the story—there is also beauty, hope and spirituality. There is poverty. There is dysfunction. There is suicide. There are absolutely very real non-first world challenges that folks—Native or non-Native—who don’t spend much time on our reservations don’t understand.

But there is so much more—our homelands are powerful places.