To facilitate additional mining on Indian reservation lands, Senator Barrasso has proposed legislation which he claims will provide more jobs for Indians, and bring other benefits to Indian reservations located in states such as Wyoming, Montana, Oklahoma, and Alaska. He says his legislation makes sense because “unemployment” in Indian country “is shockingly high—up to 50 percent among some tribes—and hope is often in desperately short supply.” Senator Barrasso sees his two pieces of legislation as a solution to these kinds of problems.

What Senator Barrasso fails to recognize, however, is that a lack of mining on Indian reservation lands is not the source of the many problems faced by our Native nations. What is the source of those problems? Answer: Washington’s system of domination used against our original nations. Why is the unemployment rate so high on Indian reservations? Why are there so many dire health statistics on Indian reservations? Why are teens and young people taking their own lives at epidemic rates? The U.S. system of domination used against our Native nations.

Perhaps Senator Barrasso does not realize that the very term “Indian country” is integral to the U.S. system of domination being used against our Native nations.