Get The Story Right On Tribal Issues
CHARLY EDSITTY
The UNITY News Online
There are many questions when it comes to news coverage concerning American Indians. Many often go unanswered or are inaccurately presented.
On Friday, six panelists from various tribes will discuss mainstream media’s failure to accurately cover and understand American Indian issues in an event titled “Who is an Indian?” The panel is presented by the Native American Journalist Association and will begin at 11 a.m. in McCormick Place West, Room W471.
“Mainstream papers like to sensationalize issues,” said Jeff Harjo, executive director of NAJA. “When it’s bad, they always stick it in the front. When it’s good things, it gets buried in the back. They take advantage of our situation, especially the bad situations.”
Karen Briggs, president of Red Hummingbird Media Corporation, will serve as the moderator of the event. Briggs is a member of the Yakama tribe and resides on the Tulalip reservation in Washington state.
“The confusion in covering American Indian issues is a result of the overall miseducation of America on Indian issues,” Briggs said. “The media is only a symptom of America’s misunderstanding.”
Joining Briggs on the panel will be Suzanne Jasper, director of First Peoples Human Rights Coalition; Joe Garcia, president of the National Congress of American Indians; T.W. Shannon, Oklahoma state representative; and Chad Smith, Cherokee Nation principal chief.
There are currently 562 federally recognized tribes across the United States and Alaska with a collective population of 1.7 million. Some tribes are recognized as sovereign nations entitled to freely govern themselves without outside control.
Hot button issues such as the Cherokee Freedmen controversy that called into question the citizenship of thousands of Cherokee Indians pull the complexities of Indian law and citizenship to the forefront.
The Freedmen are descendents of black slaves who were either owned by or married to Cherokees or are the offspring of a mixed-race family. They were stripped of their tribal citizenship by the tribe because they were not considered “Cherokee by blood.”
The controversy received much media attention and went to trial, with the Freedmen winning back their citizenship but later losing it in a tribal vote. The incident stirred up strong accusations of racism within the tribe.
“(Newspapers) have a responsibility to get the facts straight, and by them going to a source that isn’t valid isn’t a correct way to report,” Harjo said. “That’s why we need more Native reporters.”
Harjo explained that stereotypes surrounding American Indians need to be overcome, whether visual, written or spoken. Common misconceptions include extreme wealth from Indian gaming, free health and housing services for all from government-assistance programs.
“The failures of the media have a profound effect on national and state policies, attitudes and bias,” Briggs said. “We feel the effects in courts and government policy.”
Briggs said she doubts the mainstream media will ever fully get the story right and suggests the solution falls to the minorities in media to right the wrongs. Despite the challenge, she said she is hopeful that words will turn into actions.
“In terms of fair and accurate information, it will open the door to fair and accurate actions,” Briggs said. “We are talking about fairness and justice to an identity.”
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July 24th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
New media also need to report on the individual Indian. We are those that have been terminated from tribal membership after the casinos opened up. Tribes in California, like Pechanga have eliminated 25% of their tribe, not following their (our) own constitution and bylaws. Picayune Rancheria eliminated a staggering 50% after the casino there opened.
These stories, along with the civil rights violations that accompany them, need to be brought out. The NARF and ACLU’s unwillingness to get in the fight for those Indians that have been disenfranchised should also be a story that merit’s telling. Google Original Pechanga’s Blog to learn more about what has happened on the Pechanga Rez in Temecula.
July 24th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I find it interesting that an article about the news media getting the facts wrong on American Indians is itself full of misleading information. In your article you stated that the Freedmen were stripped of their tribal citizenship by the Cherokee tribe because they were not considered “Cherokee by blood.”
Actually, it was Congress in the early 1900’s that extinguished by statute any entitlement to enrollment or property in the Cherokee Nation by descendants of Freedmen. The federal courts have held the same, but non-Indian descendants of Freedmen are re-litigating the same issues in federal and tribal court today.
You also make it sound like there are no descendants of Freedmen who are Cherokee citizens. That is not true.
There are thousands of descendants of Freedmen who can document that they also have a Cherokee ancestor listed on the Dawes Rolls and they are and will always remain Cherokee citizens. It is only those non-Indians who cannot document any Indian ancestor who cannot meet the requirements to be a Cherokee citizen as laid out in the Cherokee constitution.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:40 am
I hope this panel is able to do something. The media’s coverage of the Cherokee and Freedman controversy was truly disgraceful. Articles were so misleading that the population at large and even some elected representatives in Congress have a complete lack of understanding piled high with misconceptions. But what else is new? Reporting incorrectly on conflict amongst Native Americans is as old as the printing press.