Turtle Island Project: U.S. ignores poverty, teen suicide, racism on Native American reservations

Racism, poverty, teen suicide on reservations, the derogatory perversion of American Indian names on Minnesota rivers and other locations across the country, and learning respect for the environment from Earth-based cultures were among the topics discussed at a Native American Roundtable held in northern Michigan.


TIP volunteer media advisor Greg Peterson reports on the roundtable.
---
Inaugural Grand Island Conference in northern Michigan addressed racism, poverty, teen suicide, derogatory location names, and other issues; Centering prayer, Celtic spiritual issues discussed during Turtle Island Project conference

(Munising, Michigan) - Racism, poverty, teen suicide on reservations, the derogatory perversion of American Indian names on Minnesota rivers and other locations across the country, and learning respect for the environment from Earth-based cultures were among the topics discussed at a Native American Roundtable held Sept 13-15, 2007 in northern Michigan.

Sponsored by the Turtle Island Project, a non-profit based in the Upper Peninsula, the conference was held at the Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising.

The reasons for a shocking increase in teen suicides at American Indian reservations was discussed including the 600 attempts and 15 deaths over the past two years at the Lakota Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. The discussion included whether media coverage of the suicides would be different if the victims were white teenagers.

The TIP will bring more details on this effort in the near future, however the Rosebud official said the U.S. government has been ignoring requests for addition counselors and the four current counselors badly need help because each has over 100 teen cases.

The TIP believes this is another example of low-income Native Americans being overlook, yet the situation would make national headlines if the deaths were affluent white teens.

"I think one of the main reasons for suicide is loss of identity and hope and with that comes deep despair," said Pat Cornish-Hall, a Munising resident who is just discovering her mother's Native American heritage. “I do believe that poverty certainly has an effect on suicide.”

Counselor Joni Peffers of Gwinn said the media should report on the trends of teen suicides in their area but not give the individual details of each attempt or death.

"Each suicide should not be publicized for many reasons," said Peffers, owner of Celtic Cove Counseling at K.I. Sawyer.

TIP co-founder Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard said wars across the globe have been started in the name of religion - but “that is not the case with Native Americans who fought over the theft of land or hunting rights, never over differences in religious belief.”

"Native Americans never started a war over religious ideology," said Rev. Hubbard, TIP director and pastor of Eden on the Bay Lutheran church.

The perversion of the original Native American name of Minnesota's Rum River and similar derogatory names was placed on the agenda at the request of Thomas Dahlheimer, director of the Rum River Name Change Organization Inc. in Wahkon, Minnesota.

Minnesota State Rep. Mike Joros, D-Duluth, recently introduced a bill that would change 14 derogatory geographic place names that are offensive to American Indians.

The Rum River in Minnesota was named by whites referring to alcohol "spirits" instead of the original American Indian name that meant "Great Spirit."

"Two of these derogatory names were changed from the sacred Ojibwe name for their Great Spirit (Manido) to Devil, as was the custom throughout our nation," said Dahlheimer. "Racial hatred was why many geographic site names were changed from Native peoples' names for the Great Spirit to Devil."

Hubbard said one of the goals of the TIP is to "give Native Americans a venue in which their voices can be heard and listened to."