Reznet

Stephen Walks Over Ice danced during an intertribal at the 89th Annual Crow Fair in Crow Agency, Mont., in August. Reznet photo by Adam Sings In The Timber

Open Letter to the Crow Nation

By Luella N. Brien

An open letter to the Crow Nation:

I love living on the reservation and being with family, but one thing I hate is the crap everyone has to endure.

There is nowhere to live. No jobs. Nothing.

We need to prosper as a people. Instead, we pull each other down like crabs in a bucket.

Our leaders are constantly fleecing their own people.

As a Crow, I don't remember a time when we our leader wasn't indicted. When I was younger, Richard Real Bird was convicted of embezzling. In 1996, Clara Nomee and 20 tribal employees were indicted for allegedly using eight checks totaling $10,600 from the Little Big Horn Casino for their own benefit.

Nomee said the money was used to support Native American Days in Billings and to send a delegation of tribal elders to Washington, D.C. The charges were dropped in 1999, but Nomee was found guilty on an unrelated felony charge of misusing tribal money to buy 80 acres of tribal land for less than what it was worth.

One of my own relatives, Clifford Birdinground, pleaded guilty to a bribery charge and was sentenced in September 2003. Although he fought it, he ended up serving his time last December.

As of yet, Chairman Carl Venne hasn't been indicted on anything. Court records aside, I don't think this is the new day I was promised as part of his election campaign.

In a 2002 article in the Billings Gazette, a not-yet-elected Venne said, "Even little kids know if something is sweet or sour." True, though there are a lot of little Crow kids out there with a bad taste in their mouths.

He also said some officials and their wives were making combined tribal incomes of $100,000 a year while unemployment ran rampant across the reservation.

Hmm, I wonder what's changed.

Our current leader proclaimed he wasn't going to run for a third term, but now he is. The tribal constitution states executive officers can only serve two terms, and Venne came in halfway through Birdinground's last term.

And the Venne camp says Venne can run for another term because he was grandfathered in under the old tribal constitution.

To me, that's questionable considering Venne was sworn in after the new constitution was in effect. Did he find a loophole, or is the Venne camp creative in their interpretation of constitutional law?

I don't remember a time when the chairman or the chairwoman didn't stick their noses in other people's business, using their power to meet the needs of one of their relatives or friends. We've all heard of or experienced instances in which chairmen and chairwomen hired their own relatives or fired those who didn't attend their campaign feeds.

Just the idea of someone possibly not voting for a certain person could result in job loss.

It seems the power of becoming leader of the Crow Tribe strips away that person's moral fiber.

Why?

I need to know.

In 2000, I was promised a more progressive government, and I believed that when I voted for the new constitution in 2001.

As a nation, we were promised three branches of government - an executive, judicial and legislative. We were supposed to have a checks-and-balances system. No one branch should have all the power, and those branches should keep each other in line.

But I'm not seeing that. Where is the separation of power?
I've heard stories of the judicial branch being influenced by the executive branch on several occasions; I know people who didn't graduate from high school who are running departments, while educated tribal members serve as administrative assistants.

I'm crying out for sanity! Why is such a backward system acceptable?

With executive elections next fall, I already see people throwing their hats in the ring. And I am crying out for salvation.

The Crow people need someone who can stand his or her ground, even against family members requesting special treatment.

It's not right. It's not acceptable, and someone has to put his or her foot down.

We need a candidate who has strong morals and a deep-rooted sense of culture and tradition, but also a progressive mind.

We need someone who is educated but still possesses a distinctly Crow personality.

We desire a candidate who knows how to handle the press and the public.

We deserve someone who understands the value of a hard day's work, because apparently once a leader is in office it becomes pretty easy to take money and opportunity from the Crow people.

My generation is filled with Crows no longer surprised at corrupt tribal leaders. That cynicism is not only unhealthy but is disconcerting.

How are we as young Crow leaders supposed to learn to lead our Nation if the people expect us to fail?

The young leaders of the tribe need people to look up to - and we need them now.

 

Luella N. Brien, Crow, is a reporter at the Billings (Mont.) Gazette. She is a graduate of the University of Montana School of Journalism and of the Freedom Forum's American Indian Journalism Institute. As a student, she was a reznet staff member.