Indianz.Com > News > People’s World: Northern Arapaho Tribe calls out COVID-19 racism
Wyoming Indigenous face coronavirus treatment discrimination
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
People's World
RIVERTON, Wyoming — There is a hotbed of controversy raging about the treatment of Tribal members of the Wind River Indian Reservation by a local hospital and inflammatory statements made by the Fremont County Commission Chairman Travis Becker.
In the early days of the pandemic Northern Arapaho Tribal members of the Wind River Indian Reservation in west central Wyoming were reportedly denied treatment at the Sage West Hospital in the city of Riverton. This city is within Reservation boundaries, But, due to what I would call one of the anomalies of federal Indian law it is not considered part of the Reservation. Allegedly, Tribal members were seeking treatment for the virus and were turned away and driven off in the truck beds of Sheriff’s pickups to a Tribal quarantine facility.
On September 14, at a meeting of the Select Committee on Tribal Relations, Lee Spoonhunter, Northern Arapaho Business Council (NABC) Chairman, spoke at length on this situation and issued a statement which I quote in pertinent part:
“Wyoming remains in the grip of a public health crisis due to COVID-19, and no corner of our state has been hit harder than the Wind River Reservation. The human toll has been unspeakably tragic—every one of us knows a friend, family member, elder, or colleague lost to this terrible virus.
“That’s why I am so deeply troubled to learn about a threat made this week by Fremont County Commission Chairman Travis Becker against the Wind River Reservation and Arapaho people. Chairman Becker called state Rep. Andi Clifford and demanded I apologize and retract my earlier comments to a legislative panel regarding substandard healthcare treatment for Native Americans, as well as lingering bias and stigma toward the Tribal community that this pandemic has exposed. Unless satisfied with my apology, Chairman Becker said he would revoke our Tribe’s use of county vehicles for the transport of patients to and from the Wind River Family & Community Health Care and White Buffalo Recovery Center.
“Let me be clear: I won’t apologize for pointing out the kind of discrimination—whether overt or subtle—that Tribal members in Wyoming and across our country know well.
“And I won’t apologize for talking openly and honestly about systemic racism and how it has contributed to a COVID- 19 pandemic that continues to infect and kill our Arapaho people and members of Indian Country in disproportionate numbers.”
Spoonhunter continued, “In fact, Chairman Becker’s threat against the Northern Arapaho Tribe and its people—who are county residents—perfectly illustrates the kind of anti-Tribal sentiment that remains all too common.”
Posted by Northern Arapaho Tribe on Sunday, April 21, 2013
Albert Bender is a Cherokee activist, historian, political columnist, and freelance reporter for Native and Non-Native publications. He was an organizer and delegate to the First and Second Intercontinental Indian Conferences held in Quito, Ecuador and Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Recently, he has been an active participant and reporter in the Standing Rock struggle in North Dakota. He is an attorney and is currently writing a legal treatise on Native American sovereignty. He is also writing a book on the war crimes committed by the U.S. against the Maya people in the Guatemalan civil war of the late 20th century. He is also the recipient of several Eagle Awards by the Tennessee Native American Eagle Organization and a former Director of Native American Legal Departments and a Tribal Public Defender.
This article originally appeared on People's World. It is published under a Creative Commons license.
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