Native American Press/Ojibwe News

Resolving Red Lake crime problems will require sustained community action

October 4, 2002
Nine Red Lakers were charged, indicted, or pled guilty this week with violations of the Federal Major Crimes Act. This has to be some kind of abysmal record at Red Lake, one of the worst weeks in Red Lake’s history. As I recollect, even after the 1979 Revolution there weren’t nine people charged with violations of the major crimes act in one week.

Think of what that does not only to the lives of the people charged with these crimes, but also to their families, the victims and their families, and the community.

It’s too easy to blame an influx of inner-city “gangs,” and to cry for even more federal funding, instead of looking what’s actually happening at Red Lake.

Instead of assigning blame, or getting caught in cycles of self-destruction and re-victimizing ourselves by using our community’s problems as fodder for even more ineffective band-aid federal programs, it’s time that we rethink where we’re going, and where we want to go, and then take the actions necessary to get us where we as a people really want to be in the future.

We have to look honestly and seriously build a society where people feel safe again, so that that all of us have real rights, genuine responsibility in our government, and involvement with our community.

I think that the only way we can do that is to restructure tribal government by drafting an entirely new tribal constitution with a real separation of powers, constitutionally-protected rights, and workable mechanisms of justice built into our constitution. Rather than just hammering out a few dents in the BIA’s old boilerplate, we need to begin by having some serious discussions about what it means to be Red Lake Ojibwe people, and how we can work together to create a government that’s an integral part of a viable, healthy community.

If we want to survive as a people, and create the possibility of a decent future for our children and grandchildren, we must break away from the outsiders’ agendas, definitions, and governmental structures which have been imposed on us through the present “revised” constitution, government programs, and our own uncritical acceptance of the priorities and values into which our community has been seduced by federal funding, economic dependence on gambling operations, and ‘big box’ economic development schemes.

It’s time that we started addressing our own problems, and allocating our own money to do it. We can’t depend on others, because the foundations of our community are too important to let these problems fester any longer.

We have the money to fund far less important things, like pow-wows, sporting events, and campaign donations. We have reached the point where we must make it our priority to spend our money on improving our government and rebuilding our own society, and leave nonessentials to somebody else.

As Jean Pagano details in his article this week, the schools at Red Lake are failing, and our children are being cheated out of an education and deprived of the skills that they are going to need in order to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

We have to be able to not only deal with the drug and gang problems which are tearing our community apart, but also to convince our children that’s not the way to do things. We have to have more respect for each other, and to dispense some “tough love” to our children. All of us tribal members need to work together in carrying out our responsibilities to each other and to our community.

We have to get back to respecting nature. We’ve used up almost all of our resources, and it’s time to reinvest, replant, restock, and restore the natural environment that is at the foundation of who we are as Indian people. We have to get away from plundering and abusing the environment for a ‘quick buck,’ and find a way to regain the harmony that’s been ignored and eroded over the past several generations. Our economic future depends on our resources that are there, instead of trying to rely on the “quick fixes” that have gotten us into our current financial problems.

Recently we have shown that when we act together with a common purpose, put aside our differences and unite for the sake of our community, we can make change, as in the enactment of the recall ordinance and the recall of the former tribal treasurer, and in our election of six new tribal council members.

It’s time we act.