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Native Obama Page Yields Mixed Results

By Kevin Abourezk

OK, so my little experiment yielded little fruit.

But I have to say, garnering 92 members for a Facebook group devoted to finding Native leaders who are worthy of the presidency wasn't anything to laugh at.

Two weeks ago, I created a Facebook page called "The Search for a Native American Obama." The site has attracted mostly Native members from all over the country, including notables like National Museum of the American Indian Director Kevin Gover and former Oglala Sioux Tribal President Alex White Plume.

But while plenty of people have joined the group, few have suggested Native leaders who might one day rise to the highest office in U.S. government.

Still, some did offer names.

Rayleen Gaudet Nunez of Boston suggested John Trudell, Winona LaDuke, Della Warrior or Chris Spotted Eagle.

Trudell is the former chairman of the American Indian Movement and a longtime poet, musician and author. LaDuke is a longtime environmental activist who ran for vice president in 1996 and 2000 on a Green Party ticket headed by Ralph Nader. Warrior was the first female president of the Otoe Missouria Tribe of Oklahoma and the former director of the Institute of American Indian Arts. Spotted Eagle is an award-winning independent filmmaker who is a longtime AIM activist and former director of the Minneapolis American Indian Center.

"These are people I personally walked with through a part of my life who are a match for anyone and who have unquestionable integrity," Gaudet Nunez wrote.

Rob Schmidt, a freelance writer from Los Angeles, suggested Deron Marquez of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians in California. Marquez was former chairman of his tribe and was the first of his tribe to get a bachelor's degree. He is now working on a doctorate degree in history from Claremont Graduate University.

I certainly can't criticize any of these suggestions. From the little research I did, they all seem to have accomplished great things already.

And, more than anything, I created the Facebook page to elicit from people names of prominent and little-known Native people with great leadership potential and skills. I certainly haven't been disappointed in that regard.

An unanticipated result of creating the page was providing a place where people can talk about what it means to be a Native leader.

Venida Chenault of Topeka, Kan., wrote about the need for Native communities to begin training their next generation of leaders and about the need to find Native leaders who are "committed to and passionate about advancing Indigenous cultures, sovereignty, self-determination and land bases for the future."

Wrote Antonio Doxtator of Milwaukee: "We don't need a Indian version of Obama we need a Native version of our own Native leadership values. ... What other leaders in the world can stand in the same room as a Crazy Horse, Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Cochise, Manuelito, The Peacemaker, Hyenwatha, etc.?"

I couldn't agree more: Native people shouldn't look for an Obama clone but, rather, someone who embodies their own values, one value in particular: humility.

"When I think about great Native leaders like Crazy Horse and Chief Joseph, I don't think of someone who glorifies their own reputation but, rather, someone who thinks of himself or herself as a servant of the people," I wrote. "I think that's what's missing in American politics today and something Native leaders can return to this country's great halls."

Saying Goodbye to a Respected Colleague

I was sad to read Thursday that my longtime colleague in Lee Enterprises, Jodi Rave, is ending her 11-year career as our company's Native affairs reporter. Rave wrote in a column sent to Lee newspapers that she plans to write a book about Elouise Cobell and the Indian Trust Fund lawsuit.

Rave has been a mentor to me since I began at the Lincoln Journal Star in 1999, a year after she started at that paper. And she has remained a trusted friend ever since, one of a handful of Native reporters at mainstream newspapers tackling issues everyday involving Native people.

She spent more than a decade illuminating the dark corners of Indian Country and bringing its challenges and triumphs to the attention of millions of readers across America.

She wrote about the government's mismanagement of Indian land trust accounts and about Native domestic abuse. She wrote about award-winning Native artists and about inspirational Native children celebrating their culture through dance and song.

She traveled to far, forgotten corners of America to interview parents who had lost their children to suicide and Indian elders fighting to preserve their cultures.

She became a household name among Native leaders roaming the halls of U.S. government, as well as Native parents struggling to make ends meet on and off reservations.

And she angered tribal leaders who stole from their people and broke their promises to those who empowered them. And she soothed the loneliness so many Native people feel living and working in communities spread far and wide across this great land, bringing to us each other's stories.

She was, and is, a Native journalist.

And I wish her the very best in her future endeavors.

Kevin Abourezk's "Red Clout" columns are available for syndication. Please contact reznet to purchase republishing rights.

Kevin Abourezk, Rosebud Lakota, is a reporter and editor at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star. He writes reznet's "Red Clout" political blog and teaches reporting at the Freedom Forum's American Indian Journalism Institute. Abourezk was awarded a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism in 2006.

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