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Joe Rogan Experience #1442 - Shannon O'Loughlin

Shannon O'Loughlin is the Executive Director and attorney for the Association on American Indian Affairs, and she is also a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Joe RoganhostShannon O'Loughlinguest
Mar 17, 20202h 36mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:02 – 1:24

    Rogan’s reading binge and Shannon’s background in Indian law advocacy

    1. JR

      All right, here we go. Hello, Shannon. What's happening?

    2. SO

      I'm doing well. How are you?

    3. JR

      Thanks for being here. Appreciate it.

    4. SO

      Uh, this is an incredible opportunity. I'm glad you, you're interested in the subject of American Indian history, and I'm glad to be here to talk about it.

    5. JR

      Yeah, I'm glad you were willing to come here. Uh, yeah, I became fascinated when I, um... Well, I've always been sort of, uh, peripherally interested, but never really delved into it until I read Empire of the Summer Moon. And then, you know, uh... Have you read that? S.G. Gwyn's book about the Comanches-

    6. SO

      Nope.

    7. JR

      ... and about the Texas rangers? And it's such a crazy story that I, I just became obsessed. And then, uh, I read, uh, Son of the Morning Star and then I read, uh, Black Elk. The Black Elk one was particularly fascinating to me because it details life, uh, before, um, like before they killed Custer to living on reservations to the desperation. Why don't you-

    8. SO

      Right.

    9. JR

      Before we get started, tell people what you are, who you are and what you do.

    10. SO

      (laughs) So my name is Shannon O'Lachlan. I'm a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. I've been a practicing attorney since about 2001. And I'm currently the executive director and attorney for the Association on American Indian Affairs. We're the oldest nonprofit serving Indian country. We've been around since 1922.

  2. 1:24 – 3:45

    Pandemic parallels: disease, colonization, and the claim that genocide is ongoing

    1. JR

      All right. And, uh, we should tell people, if you ever listen to this in the future, this is all going on right now when the United States is going through one of the craziest times ever in terms of dealing with a virus.

    2. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    3. JR

      We're, we're on, sort of on lockdown. All gyms are closed, all comedy shows are closed, all concerts are closed, clubs, bars, everything's closed. Um, and some places are restricting travel. And, uh, it, it, it's, it's interesting to me that, um, this is all going on and we've never had to experience this before. But it makes me think of what happens when, what happened when the Europeans first came to North America and encountered the Native Americans and they didn't have any immunity to all these diseases that the Europeans were bringing over, and in some cases, wiped out as much as 90%-

    4. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    5. JR

      ... of the people that were living here.

    6. SO

      Mm-hmm. But we're still here. Yeah, if we would've only shut the borders about 550 years ago, we would've... (laughs)

    7. JR

      (laughs) Yeah, if you had a Trump-

    8. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    9. JR

      ... a, a Trump Indian back then-

    10. SO

      (laughs)

    11. JR

      ... want, wanting to build walls around everywhere.

    12. SO

      Oh, God.

    13. JR

      Um-

    14. SO

      Let's not get there.

    15. JR

      Yeah, let's not.

    16. SO

      (laughs)

    17. JR

      It's... I mean, it is, um... I mean, really, it's the... I mean, it's one of the biggest times in human history where if you talk about Europeans coming to North America and what, what happened to the Native Americans just from diseases.

    18. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    19. JR

      I mean, it's, it's one of the biggest genocides in history. Now, now when you talk about 90% of a population wiped out by disease, I mean, that's almost, almost impossible to understand.

    20. SO

      But the genocide didn't happen because of the disease. The disease did what the diseases did, but the genocide happened through colonization. The genocide happened through US Indian policy that continues today. The genocide is ongoing. So, this is not something from the past. This is something that continues today that we still are working to fight against. That's why the- my organization is here.

    21. JR

      Right. Um, y- that's, that's absolutely true. Um, I just was getting into the-

    22. SO

      (laughs) Sorry.

    23. JR

      ... the whole disease part of it, how crazy it is.

    24. SO

      (laughs)

    25. JR

      It's... No, it's fine. It's, uh, I, I wa- I want you to talk about everything you want to talk about. But, um, so let's, let's go to that then-

  3. 3:45 – 4:32

    Why tribes are “nations inside a nation”: sovereignty and the imposed system

    1. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    2. JR

      ... since this is w-... The United States has a very strange situation with Native Americans, where Native Americans have reservations, and on those reservations, they have sovereignty, they can... They have different rules, they can do what they want. It's very strange. It's like there's nations inside of our nation.

    3. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    4. JR

      Like, how do you feel about that?

    5. SO

      Uh, so it's a system that's been imposed by... Maybe the best way to start is kind of start with the beginning.

    6. JR

      Okay.

    7. SO

      Like how did, how did, how did we get to where we are today? There, uh... Foof, and there's a lot of information.

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. SO

      And so you gotta stop me if I start getting too carried away, all right?

    10. JR

      No worries. We have plenty of time-

    11. SO

      Okay.

    12. JR

      ... and, uh, a lot of interest.

    13. SO

      Okay.

    14. JR

      So don't worry about that.

  4. 4:32 – 10:59

    The Marshall Trilogy and the Doctrine of Discovery: the legal foundation of dispossession

    1. SO

      So there are three Supreme Court cases that happened in the 1800s, and there was a justice named John Marshall who was actually buying Indian land from, from US, the US government through US grants. And so he was interest- he was an interested party. Uh, but he was making decisions that, um, that set forward the kind of watershed principles that continue to affect who, uh, Native Americans and Indian Nation governments are today. And so those three cases, the first one was called Johnson v. McIntosh and it was in 1823, and it didn't involve any Indians. It was, uh, non-Indians coming to court to try to determine who owned a piece of land in Indiana. And, um, there was one guy, Johnson, who was a plaintiff, uh, who had purchased the land directly from the Piankashaw Indians, who are related to the Miami Tribe today. And, uh, then the defendant was McIntoh and he purchased land from the US government. And so the case, of course, was who had the proper rights? And through that case, uh, through, uh, the narrative that John, that Justice Marshall created, uh, he, uh, brought forward a, a, a piece of international law that affects us today, and that's the Doctrine of Discovery. Have you ever heard of the Doctrine of Discovery?

    2. JR

      No.

    3. SO

      So, uh, that's, that's...... any Christian civilized European nation has the right to conquer, uh, indigenous heathen peoples. So this was the principle that this case was based on and it set forward this weird, um, relationship that tribes and the US government have today. Um, so i- if the US... if the Christian European peoples had the rights to, um, take land away from tribes because they were an inferior race, which is... this, this is language from the case, they're an inferior race, they're savages, they're unable to govern themselves, um, and they only have a right of occupancy. So that was the first of three cases that Justice Marshall decided, and of course he was an interested party in the whole thing because he had purchased land from the United States and he wanted to make sure his land was secure. Um, the second case was Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and this was a time during the Indian Removal Act that Andrew Jackson had gotten through Congress to remove the Eastern Indians west of the Mississippi River into Indian Territory, which is of course now Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas area. And, um... and again, this was a case that actually, uh, the Cherokee Nation tried to bring before the Supreme Court, and before the Supreme Court could even make a decision, um, on the... and I just realized I didn't even tell you the facts of the case. So, um, uh, there was (laughs) ... I'm, I'm getting ahead of myself, I apologize.

    4. JR

      No worries.

    5. SO

      Um, this is, this is, uh, incredible (laughs) experience to be here, so I'm a little bit nervous. Um, so in Cherokee Nation versus Georgia, um, uh, Georgia was trying to assert its, um, laws over the Cherokee Nation and so the Cherokee Nation brought this case before the Supreme Court to say, you know, the, the, this, the state does not have any right to assert any of its laws against us and what Justice Marshall did is s- is said, "Well, you're not a foreign nation so you can't bring a case before the Supreme Court," um, and determined that tribes were a pseudo sovereign nation, that they were still under, uh, tutelage and, uh, they needed to be civilized, uh, again, the same kind of inferior, uh, uh, savage language in this case, um, and, um, held that the federal government had plenary power over, um, uh, tribal affairs, um, and that the Cherokee Nation couldn't bring this case to court. So what ended up happening is some missionaries who were serving the Cherokee Nation actually, um, developed a case and, um, violated Georgia laws, um, so they could bring a case before the Supreme Court and that case was called Worcester v. Georgia and I think that was about 1832, 1831 and in that case, um, it was ruled that the United States, uh, had a guardian-and-ward-type relationship with tribes and so we were the wards, uh, they were our guardian and that set up this weird dynamic that still exists today that Supreme Courts and other case... other courts cite, um, in, in decisions today to basically take away more and more rights. So, so that was... that's the watershed basis for this weird relationship that we have and it's based on racism, it's based on tribes being an inferior peoples, they not be civilized and, and so here we are. So help, help direct me into another question here.

    6. JR

      Well, that's a fascinating thing, the idea that the United States government is... that they're like the big daddy-

    7. SO

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      ... to look over the tribes and that the only way the tribes can exist is if they exist the European way.

    9. SO

      Right, the great white father.

    10. JR

      Yeah.

    11. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    12. JR

      And so all this was happening, uh, while they were trying to conquer the West, so all this was happening around the Gold Rush time.

    13. SO

      Uh, this was happening before then, so this was happening-

    14. JR

      So, so when was the Gold Rush?

    15. SO

      ... in the 1830s. The Gold Rush was 1850s?

    16. JR

      Okay, so-

    17. SO

      1849, 1850s.

    18. JR

      So it was a little bit before that.

    19. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    20. JR

      And then they were... they were trying to... they're b- basically trying to take over land, right?

    21. SO

      Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

    22. JR

      And-

  5. 10:59 – 15:33

    Removal, assimilation, and resistance: putting Comanche stories back into context

    1. SO

      So Georgia wanted that land for themselves. They wanted to remove the Cherokee and of course the other, um, quote-unquote civilized tribes that were in the Southeast at that time and that's what's so interesting, is because you see throughout time, um... and this is a l- this is a little bit why I have a problem with, um, uh, some of the books that you've read, is because they've taken, uh, small pictures of what was going on and kind of removed the context of what was really happening. There were so many tribes across the Un-ited States that tried everything to resist or comply or assimilate so that they could maintain their way of life, maintain their lands, and, um, continue to prosper as they had been. Um, but the United States was, um, obviously for- a formidable opponent and regardless of, of, of, for example, the five civilized tribes and their, their, their tactic was to assimilate, was to go to school and educate themselves and learn English and even though they did that, and they did everything that the United States wanted them to do, they were forced off their land, um, to the West.... uh, into Indian territory. The Comanche, who, who you've learned about through, uh, the book, they... That... Those events happened during a point of time and that was their effort at resistance. They saw how disease wiped out, um, their brethren from other nations. They knew that, uh, folks were coming to get them and so that was their way of resisting, um, uh, being assimilated and having everything taken away from them.

    2. JR

      In the defense of the authors of those books, they did cover a lot of that.

    3. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    4. JR

      Th- th- these books are in no way, um, taking the side of the United States government.

    5. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    6. JR

      You know, most of, uh... I mean, w- w- the most amazing thing about Empire of the Summer Moon was just how special the relationship that the Comanches had to the land.

    7. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    8. JR

      And about how when, um, J- J- Jesskann Parkers? That would... No. Cynthia, Cynthia Ann Parker, who is, uh-

    9. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    10. JR

      ... she's the photo out there-

    11. SO

      Right.

    12. JR

      ... of the woman that's breastfeeding her child.

    13. SO

      Right.

    14. JR

      She was kidnapped when she was nine and assimilated with the Comanches, and then was re-kidnapped by the United Sta- United States government when she was in her 30s-

    15. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    16. JR

      ... and didn't want to go back.

    17. SO

      Right.

    18. JR

      She missed the Comanche life and through her, and through her depictions and her d- descriptions of h- the way they lived, and the understanding of it, they got a better sense of, like, what she missed about th- that life.

    19. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    20. JR

      And that they had an incredible relationship with the land. They lived basically just in teepees, they were very nomadic, they just followed around the buffalo.

    21. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    22. JR

      And they had, you know, in, in her way of looking at it, almo- a magical existence-

    23. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    24. JR

      ... in comparison to this w- really b- boring life that these settlers had.

    25. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    26. JR

      And when, you know, she looked at it, it was interesting because she was a girl who was born, um, y- you know, a s- you know, a w- how would you describe it, a white settler, and then from the age of nine on, lived as a Comanche. So she had, like, sort of a view of both worlds.

    27. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    28. JR

      And, you know, she very much took the side of the Comanches.

    29. SO

      Yeah.

    30. JR

      And she wanted to go back. Like, she had spoken Comanche. I- in the book, there's an encounter where they bring in someone who was a Comanche to speak to her and she grabs him, she's like, "Take me back. We're gonna leave. Let's get outta here now."

  6. 15:33 – 23:41

    Identity myths: stereotypes, blood quantum, DNA tests, and what “Indian” means legally

    1. SO

      But cultures aren't static.

    2. JR

      Right.

    3. SO

      And we're not static. And I think one of the, the, the major issues that American Indians have is that we're often stereotyped into this, uh, this picture and if we don't fit that then we're not legitimately Indian. When you, when you first met me, what did you think? Did you think, "Well, hmm, where's her brown skin? Where's, where's the feathers?" I mean, this is-

    4. JR

      No, I did not think that. (laughs)

    5. SO

      No, I don't think you did. But and I- and I guess-

    6. JR

      Some people do?

    7. SO

      ... it's a rhetorical question. Oh, hell yes. So-

    8. JR

      Well, are you 100% Native American?

    9. SO

      No, absolutely not.

    10. JR

      What percentage are you?

    11. SO

      Um, and that's, that's... Let's talk-

    12. JR

      Is it racist?

    13. SO

      ... about that. Let's talk about that.

    14. JR

      Can you say that?

    15. SO

      What other... Um, so blood quantum is an imposition from the federal government that is... that has been used to weed out Native Americans. So the whole, the whole idea of US federal policy has been to assimilate Indians, to rid themselves of the Indian problem so that land and resources could be obtained, right?

    16. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    17. SO

      And so blood quantum was one way that the US government could do that. So if you, if you didn't meet what they thought was some kind of purity test, then they could write you off.

    18. JR

      Mm.

    19. SO

      Right? Um, but that is not how, uh, many, um, Indian nations view, uh, tribal citizenship or membership. It's through other types of cultural continuity, family relationships, and it's not about race. Um, that's been an imposition on us. So I'm Polish and Choctaw.

    20. JR

      So half and half?

    21. SO

      Something like that, yeah.

    22. JR

      Something like that. Cynthia Ann Parker's probably a good example of that-

    23. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    24. JR

      ... right? Because she was n- 0%-

    25. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    26. JR

      ... Native American but was purely Comanche.

    27. SO

      Right, right.

    28. JR

      To what-

    29. SO

      Absolutely. Absolutely.

    30. JR

      Um, Italians are very similar.

  7. 23:41 – 31:50

    Beyond gunfights: boarding schools, child removal, and cultural genocide

    1. SO

      Right. And- and- and that policy has been studied by folks like Adolf Hitler-

    2. JR

      Hmm.

    3. SO

      ... and was even included ... He talked about, uh, studying how, uh, the US treated American Indians in his book Mein Kampf.

    4. JR

      Really?

    5. SO

      Yes. So, um, uh, and ... But it wasn't just the battles. Um, there have been many different types of battles, uh, that we consider warfare though it hasn't been done with, you know, guns and-

    6. JR

      Legal.

    7. SO

      Right, legal battles, exactly. Um, uh...... I mean, since the 1600s, um, Europeans have been trying to educate us and assimilate us and, and civilize us, and have passed laws once the United States, uh, became a, a new country in the 1800s, passed laws to take our children and move them far away and, and punish them if they spoke their language, uh, cut their hair, put them in these schools that were military-based. And they studied academics in the morning and then they did trade in the afternoon. And, and those trades were to help pay for the schools, so they were basically indentured servants, slave labor, um, m- making sure that the school could have enough funds to, um, pay for their own education. And, uh, uh, the boarding school history in the United States and Canada has horrendous, horrendous stories and th- these schools were funded by the US federal government. And, uh, the association and other groups are trying to get, um, the United States to release records of, of who were the children in these schools. We think there's- there were about 500 boarding schools across the United States and about at least 20,000 children that we can figure out were, were killed, were di- died in these schools. Um ...

    8. JR

      Jesus.

    9. SO

      Yeah. So there's the Carlisle, um, uh, some of this work has been done at the Carlisle Indian School in, in Pennsylvania-

    10. JR

      (coughs)

    11. SO

      ... which is now owned by the Army Corps, um, Army Corps of Engineers. And, um, there are some tribes that are trying to repatriate their children that are in graves there and, and bring them back home. So this has been a process all over the country, trying to figure out, you know, who these children were, uh, where they belong and, and to bring them home, and it's, it's been a really difficult process for the organizations involved.

    12. JR

      How did so many of them die?

    13. SO

      Disease, um, uh, not being fed, um, working too much, um, all those things that could kill a, a child.

    14. JR

      And all these things, there's records of all these different children and the places they stayed?

    15. SO

      No.

    16. JR

      No?

    17. SO

      We, we, we haven't been able to ... Uh, folks that are doing this work have not been able to find all the records and, like I said, the federal government, um, probably doesn't have the records, probably has mismanaged a lot of the records regarding, um, these boarding schools. And, and there were different times, there have been different eras of Indian policy where the federal government was like, "Oh, wait, this isn't working. Let's, let's get out of this business of teaching Indians. Let's give it to the churches and let them do it for a while."

    18. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    19. SO

      And then it would come back into the federal government and ... But the churches would have it, and of course, we've heard all of the horrible things that, that different churches have done to children, um, and there are still many boarding school survivors today that can tell those stories of abuse, um, sexual and physical, um, and, um, who still live with that today. Uh, there's a organization called the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition that is really, um, working on these kind of issues and have, um, are pulling together the stories and are also working with survivors, uh, to try to heal from that, that trauma, that's not just theirs, but it's, it's this inter- intergenerational historic trauma that has been with our communities for a couple hundred years now. Um, so there, there are a lot of stories like that and, and this ... Again, this is US federal policy. Um, you know, they would, um, uh, while they were ... While the US was, um, building the reservation system and, and, and putting tribes, um, uh, kind of in these blockades, if you did not send your child to school, you weren't given rations, you weren't given your food. If you practiced your culture, you, you could be killed for practicing your culture, um, using your language, um, because ... And because this was the assimilation policy of the day and this happened, um, uh, I would say 1850, 1870s, through the 1920s. There was this horrific period of federal Indian policy of, of doing, trying to do away with language, um, uh, communal-type living, uh, uh, cultural practices, and religion. Uh, so this isn't just, you know, gun warfare. This has been a continuing policy that even affects us today.

    20. JR

      So it was gun warfare until they got the Indians to move into the reservation, and then it was basically an annihilation of the culture.

    21. SO

      Right.

    22. JR

      You know?

    23. SO

      And it meets all the definitions of genocide from the-

    24. JR

      Yeah.

    25. SO

      ... um, from, uh, international law.

    26. JR

      Um, one of the things that, uh, they talked about in Black Elk was the practice of the Ghost Dance, the, this-

    27. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    28. JR

      ... this idea that they were going to somehow or another bring back the old ways. And it's a sad, sad story.

    29. SO

      Yeah.

    30. JR

      When, when, when you hear them talk about it, especially because it's coming from the words of Black Elk, who was a guy that was there, um, with the Battle at Little Bighorn-

  8. 31:50 – 38:27

    Oklahoma’s “reservations that never went away”: allotment, land status, and modern jurisdiction fights

    1. JR

      Where did you grow up? Did you grow up in Oklahoma?

    2. SO

      In Oklahoma, yeah.

    3. JR

      Did you grow up on a reservation?

    4. SO

      Uh, so Oklahoma is an interesting case. So, um, uh, Oklahoma did have set aside lands. So Choctaw had their area, Chickasaw, and the other tribes, uh, that were removed to Oklahoma. And by the way, um, because of that removal there, tribes that were already there were removed. So there were already tribes there, the Caddo and Comanche and other, other tribes that this was already their land. Um, so new tribes moved in, um, and, uh, land, uh, during the... um, I'm forgetting my dates now, but, um, uh, there was a, a Dawes Commission, um, around 1906 or so where, uh, uh, there was a census and, uh, individual Indians were allotted about 160 acres apiece. Uh, and this was an effort to, uh, decrease the amount of land base that tribes held in common, right? And this happened all across the country, not just in Oklahoma, where there were allotment policies. And I believe there, um, uh, there were about... Oh, heck, I'm not good with numbers. I think there were, like, 19 million acres that, that were removed this way of, of land. Um, but what happened today, there is a criminal case before the Supreme Court that is actually addressing these issues because even though our lands were allotted, the exterior boundaries of our reservations, the area that we had agreed to live in, they've never been d- extinguished. They've never been diminished. And, uh, so the Supreme Courts is ac- uh Supreme Court is actually looking at this issue now as to whether we still have jurisdiction within the exterior boundaries of our reservations in Oklahoma. Um...

    5. JR

      Who would that extend to? Uh, cities? Is there... Are there cities in Oklahoma that are in those areas now?

    6. SO

      Oh, yeah. So if you think of-

    7. JR

      Like Tulsa?

    8. SO

      Yeah. So that's Creek Nation. Um-

    9. JR

      So Tulsa would be owned.

    10. SO

      Well, so, so... Not necessarily. So, so it's raised a lot of fear with, with non-Indians about-

    11. JR

      Wonder why. (laughs)

    12. SO

      Yeah. "The Indians are taking back the land."

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. SO

      "Oh, my God." Um, uh, but what would actually happen, there's a lot of p- uh, places in Indian country where there's allotment and there's, there's, uh, non-Indian individuals who, who have fee land within the exterior boundaries of reservations and then individual Indians ow- owning fee land within the exterior boundaries of reservation.

    15. JR

      You're saying fee land?

    16. SO

      Fee land. So just how you would-

    17. JR

      So you pay a fee?

    18. SO

      No, no. So how you own land.

    19. JR

      Okay.

    20. SO

      It's called... It's not restricted. It's, it's, it's in fee. Uh, you own the title to that land, right? Uh, a lot of land held by tribes is in trust or in restricted fee. So, um, uh, uh, a, a common area land, like s-... like, let's look at, um, uh, the Onondaga Nation in, in New York State. They have, um, the exterior boundaries of their reservation, they own, uh, restricted fee land. So they own it, but they can't sell it without US permission, all right?

    21. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    22. SO

      Um, trust land is similar and it's treated the same as restricted fee, but it's held in trust. So the US has more control of, of, of what happens on that land or has been seen to have a little more control than it would in, in just restricted fee. Um, but within the exterior boundaries of the reservation, you can have this checker boarded, uh, ownership of land of non-Indians and Indians and, and, um, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the tribe has jurisdiction, um, over the non-Indian fee land. And the, the civil and criminal jurisdiction issues on an area of land like that is extremely complex and continues to be, um, um, argued in the courts. Um, uh, and, uh, most of the time, um, our jurisdiction, uh, i-... most of the time, we lose those cases, especially since, um, the 80s and 90s. Um, and up until today, we've, uh, there was really a change in kind of how the Supreme Court decided Indian law cases. Uh, so, um, if we go back into the history of, of federal Indian policy, you see this kind of weird schizophrenic, you know, tho- those, those, uh, uh, those martial cases that I talked about. They really set forward kind of schizophrenic principles, that, that Indians are sovereign but they're, they're just a ward, and they're uncivilized. So, we have to take care of them, but they're sovereign. And so you have at different areas... eras of time, uh, policymakers who, who support tribal sovereignty and will use those cases to help support that sovereignty, and then there are other, um, administrations that come around, um, not talking about, uh, any current administration, but, um, uh, th- that, that use those cases against us, um, and, and degrade policy and degrade any kind of rights that we may have gained in, in other eras. So, it's, it's really been, you know, Indians today live in this... (sighs) live in such an insecure world. You know, our statistics are horrible. You know, the, uh, suicide rate for our youth, uh, our high school graduates, everything that you could possibly think of (laughs) that there's a statistic on, we're usually the lowest. We're the worst. And it's because we live in a, a society that is constantly changing. We can never depend on whether or not our rights are secured, whether or not we're gonna have land, jobs, um, uh, be able to practice our culture. We're still trying to... You know, there were a period of, uh, periods of time in, in our history where, um, people

  9. 38:27 – 42:19

    Ancestors in boxes: NAGPRA, museum storage, and global sacred-object trafficking

    1. SO

      would steal our religious objects and our sacred items, they still do, um, and loot our graves. Um, there, there's an, uh, law called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act that was meant to repatriate those stolen items and those stolen ancestors back to tribes so that we could help with our cultural revitalization as well as put our ancestors back to rest. Um, uh, there are still at least 200,000 ancestors in boxes in museums.

    2. JR

      Jesus.

    3. SO

      That's just in the US.

    4. JR

      200,000 in museums in the US?

    5. SO

      Just in the US. So, um, our ancestors and our cultural items and religious obje- uh, objects have also been taken all around the world. Uh-

    6. JR

      Imagine if it was French people. If those 200,000 French people in boxes in museums in the US.

    7. SO

      And France is one of the, the worst. So, there was j- just a case, uh, recently, um, uh, the French love to auction our sacred objects for some reason. Um, there was a, uh, a sacred shield of the Pueblo of Acoma, um, in about 2016 that was, uh, being sold at auction in, in France. And, uh, the, the tribe, the Pueblo fought and even went to court in France to try to, uh, stop that auction and get that item back because, uh, there was evidence that it had been stolen in contemporary times. Um, and, uh, uh, France said, uh, "You don't have standing, um, in our courts." Um, so even though they're considered a sovereign or a pseudo-sovereign nation here in the United States, we didn't have standing in, in the French court and couldn't protect that item this way. So, um, we had to use other means of negotiation and arm-twisting. Um, that item has finally been repatriated, but it took, it took about four years to, for that to happen.

    8. JR

      So, it's finally been brought back?

    9. SO

      Yeah. It's... But that's, that's just one case. This happens-

    10. JR

      Where is it now?

    11. SO

      Um, it's back, it's back home at the Acoma Pueblo.

    12. JR

      And di- do they have it on display, or is it-

    13. SO

      No. This is a sacred object. The- these-

    14. JR

      It can't be on display?

    15. SO

      Right. Th- these are items that are used for religious purposes. They're, they're, they're protected sacred items. Um, and, uh, the association... We were fighting with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, uh, last year and the year before because they were displaying, um, items from a private collection that were sacred. Um, one item was even a funerary object, was an item that, um, is never supposed to be seen because it's buried with the ancestor, um, and it was on display, uh, and without any kind of consultation with the tribes affected. Uh, i- i- it's horrendous the way we still look at Indian people and, um, and our cultures and our practices today. Uh, we're still being called heathens. There was an article, um, uh, uh, I think just last week. There was a, a, a religious man saying that we're heathens because we, we, um, the sage that I gave you, because we burn sage, um, as one of our, uh, medicinal and, and spiritual practices.

    16. JR

      That was the reason why they were calling you heathens?

    17. SO

      Yeah. And this was just in an article last week from a, um-

    18. JR

      What-

    19. SO

      ... from a Christian group.

    20. JR

      Oh. Well...

    21. SO

      Yeah. Well...

    22. JR

      I'm a heathen too, to them.

    23. SO

      (laughs) Yes.

    24. JR

      We're all heathens.

    25. SO

      Yes.

  10. 42:19 – 1:06:46

    Sports mascots and pop-culture branding: why public education is a core fix

    1. JR

      Um, the... It seems like the issue of, uh-... what we, we were talking about, but youth suicide, high school graduation, um, drug addiction, all, all those-

    2. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    3. JR

      ... problems, those, th- those are the most massive ones. And w- what could be done to try to mitigate these problems?

    4. SO

      Hmm.

    5. JR

      Like, if you had a magic wand-

    6. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    7. JR

      ... and, I mean, it's been ... I mean, if you, if you talk about Native American reservations in this country, you know, people talk about poverty, they talk about drug addiction and alcoholism, they talk about despair. I mean, this is something that was also brought up in the-

    8. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    9. JR

      ... the book, Black Elk. So this seems to be something that started when they were forced into reservations in the first place and then were ashamed of their heritage because of the fact they were subjugated by these, these ... I mean, whatever you want to call them, the, the, the soldiers, the, the military. What could be done? What ... If you had a magic wand and you said-

    10. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    11. JR

      ... and I said, "Shannon, what can, what can be done to give you ... you, you have all the money at your disposal, what would you do?"

    12. SO

      Well, there's, there's no quick fix to, to-

    13. JR

      Right.

    14. SO

      ... issues like that. And people have been trying to, to work with, uh, tribes regarding poverty and, and, um, addiction, and schools-

    15. JR

      So even if there's no quick fix?

    16. SO

      And there's no quick fix.

    17. JR

      What kind of-

    18. SO

      But I think what, what there is, and, and, and what we're working to do ... See, my organization's almost 100 years old, and, uh, we're looking forward to the next 100 years. What are we gonna do? And, uh, there is really important work done, being done, uh, regarding healing from historic trauma, and it's community work. It's work that engages, uh, the entire community. So it's not just directed at, at young people. It's not just directed at a segment. It, it really involves a whole community coming together and healing. But what also really needs to happen is we need to bring people like you along with us. So we need, um, uh ... If, if we can't clear away the myths that, uh, Euro America or white America, whatever you wanna call it, if we can't clear away those myths, um, that we continually face every day. Every time I go into Washington, DC ... Damn, every time I go into the Wegmans, there's a big, uh, Washington football team, uh, uh, Tostitos potato chips with the Washington football team name on there, and, and, um, uh-

    19. JR

      The Redskins.

    20. SO

      And, um-

    21. JR

      I mean, is that a offensive word, like, say-

    22. SO

      That's an offensive r-

    23. JR

      ... me even saying that, like, right there? Is that offensive?

    24. SO

      Yes. Yes. Um, not to everybody. Um, but the majority of, of Native American groups, tribes, they've all, uh, let the team know that that, uh, that that name is offensive. Uh, and they still won't change it. They don't, uh ... They say it's honoring, it's honoring Native Americans. Uh, that term is used, um, uh, and you see it in historic records, uh, to count, um, Indian skins or scalps that have been, uh, taken from, uh, Indian people. Um, i- it's an offensive ... It's not just derogatory, um, or demeaning, but it's, um-

    25. JR

      And we should be really clear what you're saying when you're saying skins and scalps. You mean dead people.

    26. SO

      Yeah. Yeah.

    27. JR

      D- yeah.

    28. SO

      Um, uh, n- yeah. And sorry. Um-

    29. JR

      No, no worries.

    30. SO

      Uh-

  11. 1:06:46 – 1:23:35

    Origin stories vs the Bering land bridge: science, sovereignty, and being left out of the narrative

    1. JR

      Because this is something that, um, someone actually had brought up to me, that there are many Native American cultures that don't believe the story of people, uh, coming across the Bering Land Bridge from Asia.

    2. SO

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

    3. JR

      Is that something that-

    4. SO

      That's just one story.

    5. JR

      That's just one story?

    6. SO

      So, that's just one theory about how the Western hemisphere was populated. There are many of those stories and what's interesting is that science ... a lot of indigenous peoples have a- a- have stories that go back hundreds and hundreds of years.

    7. JR

      Mm.

    8. SO

      And there's a great book, so if you really want some good books, uh, we've gotta get you into some indigenous authors. Uh, one of which is Vine Deloria, who has, has passed on but he, um, he was an attorney and a scholar and wrote a book in the late '60s, early '70s called Custard Died For Your Sins and it was n- it's known as the Indian Manifesto, right? Um, but he also wrote-

    9. JR

      Cus- Custard Died For Your Sins? What is his name, again?

    10. SO

      Custard Died For Your Sins. Uh, Vine Deloria. Uh, he also wrote a book called Red Earth, White Lies and he talks about western science and, and its arrogance of, of, of creating these theories like the Bering Strait Land Bridge and never really, um, considering, uh, never going and asking indigenous peoples, um, who, uh, who lived on the land and whose place was the land how they got there, because they do have those stories of how they got there. And, and, um, and-

    11. JR

      But what is the story that most Native Americans accept? Is it the idea that they came from a bunch of different places?

    12. SO

      It's, it's their own origin stories. For example, um, the Choctaw Nation has a few origin stories, um, one of it which includes, um, coming out of the ground at a certain, certain area in the Southeast. Um-

    13. JR

      Coming out of the ground?

    14. SO

      Coming out of the ground. So, being birthed out of the ground, um, in a certain area. And then there's another migration story. So, a lot of, um ... I have one elder, um, uh, said, "Okay, uh, you wanna hear an origin story? Do you want the 5,000-year version? The 20,000-year version? The 40,000-year version?" And he would go into the story about how, um, uh, many people in the Southwest and Southeast and up into the Northeast actually came from the South and were slaves of, of Aztec and, and other, um, civilizations down South that had been released and began migrating up, up through the North.

    15. JR

      Mm.

    16. SO

      Um, and, uh, there are other stories that, that have us come from other places, um, by boat. I mean, th- there were also, um, great canoe and, and, and water-farers and, um, so, uh, I think there's a lot, uh, a lot to unpack there that science really has ignored. Um, and, um, Vine Deloria is, is great though when he talks about, um, uh, these things in Red Earth, White Lies because he has a sense of humor about it. And he talks about, "Oh, yeah. Here we are in, in, in Asia. Wow, there's a big sheet of ice up there. That looks like a good place to go. Let's go." And, uh, he talks about how, um, uh, there's theories of, of, of trees and horses at a, at a certain period of time that, that migrated, um, back and forth among the land bridge and how that could have occurred and how, how sometimes it doesn't seem quite logical, um, what science has put together there, so, um, uh-

    17. JR

      Do you know the full story about the land bridge though, like the, the scientific version?

    18. SO

      The full story?

    19. JR

      Yeah. I mean, it, it really was a country. I mean, it was, it was not just, like, a thin bridge. Like, we, we try to look at-

    20. SO

      No, it was ... Uh, it was a big sheet of ice that may have had-

    21. JR

      Well, it-

    22. SO

      ... little areas of, of, uh, uh, w- the, where you could survive. Um, but from what I understand about it, um, uh, yeah, maybe I, I, I probably don't, uh, know it well enough, but, um-

    23. JR

      There's animals on-

    24. SO

      ... Vine Deloria-

    25. JR

      I mean, it's, it's, it's the way ... They're changing the way they look at it on, on a, uh, almost a daily basis.

    26. SO

      But the way the theo- Right. But the way the theory began, it, it was just a very small group of, of scientists who, who, uh, uh, uh, made a determination that this was the way that the Western hemisphere was populated and, and what a lot of indigenous scholars, um, contemplated was that was an easy way to basically devalue our place in the Western hemisphere.

    27. JR

      Okay, so that's the resistance.

    28. SO

      That we came from somewhere else, yes.

    29. JR

      That's the resistance. Um, the, the science behind it-

    30. SO

      That this wasn't-

  12. 1:23:35 – 1:40:05

    Modern legal battlegrounds: ICWA, “termination” pressures, and consent in federal decisions

    1. SO

      Well, they, they just, uh, they are taking land out of trust status. Uh, they would, uh... There are, uh, groups that are attacking the basis of federal Indian law and the rights that we do have. So there's, there's an act called the Indian Child Welfare Act. Uh, it was passed in 1978, and it's an act that the association was heavily involved in to get passed. And it, it started with, um, some work with the Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe. Uh, and a woman came to the people back then and said, "They took my kids. They stole my children." And after investigation, it was found that it wasn't just happening at, at Spirit Lake, um, but it was happening all over Indian country where state welfare workers were taking, um, Indian children in a disproportionate, uh, rate. A quarter of all Indian children during that period of time were taken away from their own families and adopted out to white, white families. Um, and so the Indian Child Welfare Act, um, required state courts to do things before a child was taken away from its tribal nation. There are groups now that are working to dismantle that act. And, um, uh-

    2. JR

      For what purpose?

    3. SO

      ... and that's being suppo- Because they th- they think it's racist. (laughs) So they... So it's, it's like they've taken it and, and, and are, are looking through a backwards mirror.

    4. JR

      They flipped it around?

    5. SO

      Yes.

    6. JR

      Wow.

    7. SO

      Um, so instead of it being an act that was passed to protect our children and to make sure that the children had ties to their culture and their families, um, uh, they're saying that, um, that's not in the best interest of children. So they're still looking at Indian tribes as we can't take care of our own kids, um, that, uh, our way of life is, is not acceptable, um, and, uh-... other adoptive families would be better. And what's interesting is that the Indian Child Welfare Act doesn't prevent non-Indian families from adopting children, it just requires a certain process to make sure that the, the affiliated tribal nation is involved in that placement and adoption process and, uh, uh, and so that the child can maintain those, those connections, or that they try to find a family that's more culturally appropriate, uh, for the child. Um, uh, so there's just been, um ... Actually it came out of the Goldwater Institute, which is a, um ... Goldwater, when he was a, what was he, a senator? Um, he actually voted for the Indian Child Welfare Act, but today the Goldwater Institute is, is actually funding cases around the nation to attack the Indian Child Welfare Act.

    8. JR

      What is their, what is their reason behind it? I mean, what are they trying to achieve?

    9. SO

      They say it's not in the best interest of Indian children. And even though there are child welfare organizations around the country that say the Indian Child Welfare Act is actually the gold standard in child welfare and that, that we should be utilizing those principles that are used in the Indian Child Welfare Act to protect all, all children to maintain f- familial connections.

    10. JR

      When I'm asking you this in terms of, like, if you had a magic wand, what do you do?

    11. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    12. JR

      The reason why I'm asking you this is because I've thought about it. I've sat down and, and tried to go over it myself, and I don't see a solution. That's, it's ... What's so strange to me is that we have nations inside of our nation.

    13. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    14. JR

      And, uh, I don't, I don't wanna end it and I don't want to continue it. Neither, neither one makes sense to me.

    15. SO

      Hmm.

    16. JR

      Like, to, t- to end it would be to say, "You are forced to assimilate, you no longer have sovereignty. We're gonna break the last treaty and disband the reservations and make everybody just be a United States citizen." That seems crazy.

    17. SO

      Well, everyone is a US citizen. So citizenship was forced on us in 1924, I believe.

    18. JR

      But I mean a US citizen like I'm a US citizen-

    19. SO

      Right.

    20. JR

      ... where I can't start my own casino and I can't just do whatever I wanna do.

    21. SO

      But do you understand what, why that is? I mean-

    22. JR

      Oh, yes.

    23. SO

      ... I g- I guess we-

    24. JR

      No, I do. No, I'm just-

    25. SO

      And do you under-

    26. JR

      I'm just ... The reason why I'm saying it this way-

    27. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    28. JR

      ... is because I'm just, I'm just trying to look at it, like, from an overhead view, like if I was an alien and I was trying to sort this out.

    29. SO

      Mm-hmm.

    30. JR

      And I had no, no ties to either culture, I'd be like, "What do you with that?" Like, what do you do with that? Like, I understand that these people have been massively fucked over, that genocide was perpetrated on their, their, their race, that they were wiped out both with disease and by m- military actions and soldiers and treaties were b- broken. I get it. But the state they're in right now, when you look at what we're talking about in r- with these reservations, the horrific s- conditions and the problems with drug abuse and alcoholism and suicide and, and despair and self-esteem and all these issues, like, what is the solution?

Episode duration: 2:36:03

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