Richard Williams

(Items in italics and parentheses are interview responses included from before Rick's editing)

AH: We are asking several questions for the handbook: why is the term 'help' such a sensitive topic for Native Americans, what is the best way that non-natives can make an effective and respectful contribution to Native American causes, and what areas of public ignorance most need correction?

RW: I think the first issue around 'help' is a historical thing. The best way it was presented to me was in a conversation with Vine Deloria, he said, "Rick if anyone comes to you and they say they want to do something good for Indian people, get away from them as quickly as possible." The historical record shows that anytime non-Indians have come to help Indian people, it has ended up being destructive to Indian people.

AH: They have brought their own ideas of 'help'?

RW: White people have always decided what those forms of help will be. An example is the Allotment Act; it was done with the best intentions of 'helping' the Indian people become farmers and assimilate into the dominant culture. Well, the Indian people didn't want to become farmers. The outcome was devastating. You could look at the Indian Reorganization Act, and it was the good intentions of all the white people in America that this was going to help Indian people. The consequence of this act was the destruction of all the traditional forms of governance. These are historical examples of "helping" by non-Indians that ultimately proved devastating. (This has been a historical pattern.)

AH: So it is a term based on Euro-centric ideas?

RW: Yeah, they're not going to help you do what you believe is best for your people. They are going to do what they think is best.

AH: Is there anything else you would like to add to that question?

RW: I think that the other connotation of other people wanting to 'help' us is implying that somehow we don't have the intelligence to help ourselves; that we don't have the ability to recognize the problems or know what's best for us. There is something demeaning about that. It's different when we ask for help because we know what we need.

AH: The term 'help' implies a subordinate patron-client relationship?

RW: Yeah. That whole domestic-dependant concept: that we are relying on the U.S. government or white people for help. It's a demeaning kind of thing.

AH: Now about the question of stereotypes: which do you think are the most endemic in society and detrimental to Indians?

RW: Most stereotypes about Indians are negative. Many people are fascinated with American Indians; unfortunately, their interest focuses on the past. This is interesting because people in America, in terms of history, are most ignorant about Indian people. Other than learning about Indians in the third grade where they made teepees and wore feathers, there has never been a real opportunity for them to study Indians outside of the mini-series on PBS or a John Wayne Western. I bet that 90% of the people in America lack basic knowledge about Indian people. If you ask them, "are there sovereign nations in America?" They would have no clue. Or you could ask them, "can you identify ten Indian tribes?" They might get three or four. Or better yet, "can you identify ten Indian leaders today?" They probably couldn't do it. Can you name ten Indian leaders today?

AH: I was thinking about that: it's a stretch. I think I could get to ten, but I couldn't rattle them off, one through ten.

RW: (See What I mean? Perhaps it is because we got so close to extinction that we didn't really matter anymore.)

AH: So where do you think that the lack of education about Indians comes from? Do you think it is primarily from not being included in school curriculums? Or do you think it is an issue of popular culture just not embracing Indian issues?

RW: Well, it definitely happens in the schools. But if you think about it, and in the West here, since about 1860 the U.S. government-until recently-didn't want us to exist. If you think about forced assimilation of people, you think about destruction of cultures and genocide. And if you don't want these people to exist, what better way to do that than not include information about them in the curriculum in schools or only include the historical images of the past.

AH: So you think that teaching contemporary issues is important as well? You took issue with the fact that they were implying that Native Americans only exist in the past.

RW: Yeah. I think a lot of people in America are shocked that Indian people still exist. I will go through the Cincinnati airport, or walk through downtown Columbus Ohio, and people will be shocked to see an Indian person. They sometimes approach and ask if I am a "real Indian". We are such a small percentage of the population, less than 1%. There's just not any real awareness. What's amazing is that we have these casinos, and if you went into these casinos and asked people, "what do you know about Indians?" The only thing that they are going to say is, "well, they own this casino: they're rich." We know that is not accurate information. So even when there is information, it isn't necessarily accurate information.

AH: In my interviews, the perception that non-natives think that the tribes have great wealth is a predominant theme. Most of the Indians I have interviewed share the mood that: 'just because some tribes have casinos, it doesn't mean that all of them are making money. And just because two or three tribes have been making money off their casinos, it doesn't mean that all Indians are rich.' Apparently, there seems to be a perception among Indians-and I don't know whether it is true or not-that non-natives think Indians are rich and living high on the hog. Is that how you feel as well?

RW: I think there is a perception by many people that Indians are wealthy because of the casinos. We know this is not true. I think the most important thing people in America need to know is that Indian people are educating themselves. This has truly changed the history of Indian people. Tribal colleges have changed Indian people's lives. This movement is the most important series of events for Indian people in the last 100 years. I recently wrote a piece for a local newspaper ('Natural Intelligence', 2/6/02. Compass section of Denver Post. Also lookup ICT [2002/02/07] Education resources and Indian education futures, in Indian Country Today, 1/14/02), and the whole point of the column is that the winners write the history, and they determine what intelligence is. Consequently, when you analyze American History books, the plains Indians were always referred to as 'savages' or 'hostiles'. I never see, except from Indian authors, the adjective 'genius' or 'intelligent' used to describe Indian people. The implication then, is that we are without intelligence.

AH: Indian education is an important issue to the other people I interviewed as well. However, they have different opinions about what kind of education is important. Some of the Indians I interviewed advocate education along the lines of standard education that popular society uses. Others that I interviewed believe that only tribal education or Indian students who will use their degrees to work in their community should be supported.

RW: (That's why I say "tribal colleges.") One of the missions of tribal colleges is to educate people to keep them home and rebuild the intellect of the reservation communities. That in turn is going to help the urban communities, and back and forth. If you look at it from a historical and federal policy standpoint, until the 70's the policies were always forced assimilation. You look at things like relocation in the 50's and termination, and basically it's saying, "We don't want you to be an Indian. You can't be an Indian: we don't like the way you look; we don't want you to do these things--stop being an Indian. We are going to do everything we can to prevent you from being Indian." Well, that has been the message for all of these decades. If you are a young Indian person and that is what you are hearing, that is, "you have to go away to get an education and don't come back." For a century now that has happened. The best and the brightest have gone away. Every year the best and the brightest of the communities leave. Eventually, if you keep that up, the society is going to deteriorate: the intellectual capacity, the great leaders, the best-are going away. It is inevitable that you are going to stagnate and you can see that in the small towns in North and South Dakota where the same thing has happened. This outward migration has created larger societal problems, particularly if you are trying to make a leap from being a small community to dealing with the concept that you are now a sovereign nation. Contextually, this all happened in a very short period of time. Can you imagine the implications, if you don't have the intellectual abilities or the leaders to help define these concepts? These are drastic changes in concepts of who you are and what you are doing. If you don't have the people there to build and grow simultaneously with the development of Indian law, sovereignty issues, and economic challenges, you can end up with one crisis after another. Dysfunctionalism and governance by sentiment become the norm-let me give you an example. I was reading the minutes of a tribe where they spent almost an hour and a half discussing whether or not they should buy a new battery for their farm tractor. This is a sovereign nation dealing with a mundane issue that should have never even been brought to the council: a sovereign nation deciding if they need a battery for a farm tractor. That is how absurd it is and that is what happens when you don't have effective leaders, you don't have that continuing development of the best and the brightest of the intellectuals in the community. When they're all gone, things like that happen.

AH: Do you think that the message that "you have to leave the reservation to get a good education" is somewhat the same as saying that you can't keep your culture and be educated as well?

RW: If you leave Pine Ridge South Dakota and you go to Boulder Colorado, you are entering another world. The expectation at the University of Colorado is that you are going to get an education. You are not going to learn the Lakota language; you are not going to learn about Indian religion, you are not going to learn about Indian history, with some minor exceptions. For the most part, the entire education is a different education than what you would need if you were going to be going back to that reservation. I believe we now have tribal colleges and universities that are showing you can be educated in both worlds, and not lose anything culturally.

AH: Do think it also has a demoralizing effect on the people who stay behind on the reservation? In the sense of "you have to leave the reservation to get an education," which implies that if you stay on the reservation then you won't get an education.

RW: Yes it does. That's where the tribal colleges have really turned things around. As the tribal colleges were developing, the message among some Indian people was, "these colleges are inferior, you're not going to get a good education unless you go somewhere else." That isn't the message today. The best and the brightest are going to tribal colleges as their first option. They are saying, "Hey, I'm going to stay here because I'm going to get a better education here than I would anywhere else." That's tremendous. When you think about the dynamics of that, it's empowering not only to the people who are staying: it's empowering to the people who are there, its empowering to the governance-it's empowering to everyone. All of a sudden the message is different: "I want to stay here. I'm the best and the brightest and I want to make a change. I want to help make these changes."

AH: It probably keeps the community more intact as well.

RW: Yeah.

AH: How can non-natives get involved in being an advocate for that? Through political action or are there organizations they can donate to or…?

RW: They can donate to the American Indian College Fund for scholarships. They can support all of the legislation regarding appropriations for the tribal colleges and Indian education. Anything that they can do to support those kinds of activities would be great. I truly believe that education is the answer. You cannot have economic growth and development without education. The foundation for the future must be built around education. Reservations that have tribal colleges have better economic indicators than those that don't have tribal colleges.

AH: Their economic indicators have changed since they started tribal colleges?

RW: An example would be to evaluate the teacher training programs. Indian people are getting their teaching degrees and staying in their communities. By staying in their communities, they are filling jobs that ordinarily go to non-Indians: the money is staying in the community. Say you graduate 20 teachers a year each making thirty thousand dollars a year, that's $600,000 that is going into the tribal economy. Economists say that a dollar will turn over 2 ½ times in a community, so really the net effect is 1.5 million dollars in a single year. That's just one graduating class of teachers. That is the dynamics that you get when you have people staying home and taking jobs in their community. That changes reservation communities. In ten years, one graduating class will have had a 15 million dollar effect on that reservation: that is the kind of thing that is happening.

AH: Wow. That's powerful.

RW: Yeah. That's what we want to happen. That's empowerment. The other thing is that the empowering nature of the tribal colleges is wonderful on students. The personal impact on tribal college students is important.

AH: In the sense of teaching pride in their culture?

RW: It is also confidence in themselves: knowing that the education system isn't this bad thing. It's a wonderful thing to inspire them to learn. That is why the tribal colleges are successful: they have turned the light on in Indian students. Once you do that with a student, it exists for the rest of their life. You create a life-long learner.