Winona LaDuke discusses Native-American acceptance

Jerry Hoffman

Family values politically motivate Winona LaDuke, Green Party vice presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000.
“I’m motivated by two things,” she said Monday night in Plachta Auditorium. “I’m a mother and I have three kids and there are certain teachings I have in my household.”
Her first rule for her children, LaDuke, a Harvard graduate, motivates her to fight for Native American land recovery. Ninety percent of her reservation is owned by the U.S. government.
“One teaching I have is don’t steal,” she said. “It’s hard to say don’t steal when the government steals and doesn’t return.”
LaDuke also fights against the nation’s materialism.
“Another teaching I have is to not be greedy. It’s hard in this society that glamorizes wealth. We glorify wealth, but we don’t ask where their wealth came from. We don’t ask whether it was at the expense of others.”
LaDuke is Ojibwe and a resident of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. She founded the White Earth Recovery Project.
A professor at the University of Minnesota, she has published articles and authored two books, “The Last Standing Woman” and “All Our Relations.”
Nuclear power is also a problem according to LaDuke’s values.
“One of the hardest teachings I have is that you should clean up your mess before you make a new mess. We don’t seem to have that in society,” she said. “Take nuclear power for example. They want to take the waste and move it on the interstate and railroads and dump it on an Indian reservation. This is not a Native-American problem, it’s a public health hazard. That is irresponsible public policy.”
Responsibility is a value not only children, but the government should heed, LaDuke said.
“One of the last rules I have is that you are responsible for your actions. One of the most irritating and offensive creations is the limited liability corporation. You make a whole lot of money and you are not responsible for your actions. To me, that is unethical,” she said.
Native Americans still struggle to be understood, she said.
“There are not a lot of teachings about Native people,” LaDuke said. “It’s just a shame what they teach you about Native people in public schools.”
LaDuke said by participating in land recovery efforts, she has encountered various stereotypical views of Native Americans.
One question I get asked is ‘what were you Indians doing with the land before we got here?’ This kind of climate exists throughout North America.”
While attending a Lion’s Club meeting in a town bordering her reservation, LaDuke said her requests weren’t well received.
“I said that I’d like to see the return of land and they started getting mad,” she said. “This guy raised his hand and said, ‘You Indians would feel better if you would go out and get a job.’ So the next guy said, ‘I knew an Indian once and he was a drunk and could not hold down a job.’ So I said, ‘I knew a white guy once and he was a drunk and could not hold down a job.’”
Land recovery for Native Americans is essential to their sovereignty, LaDuke said.
“If you don’t control your land, you don’t control your destiny,” she said. “Change happens, but it’s a question of who controls the change. We are not the smartest or the richest, but we are the ones who live there.”
When LaDuke attended Harvard, she said she disagreed with the art program. European art was a discipline under fine arts, while Native-American arts could be found in anthropology.
“Why are some people’s art considered fine and others are in anthropology?” she said. “That teaches a certain world view. Every community can create fine works of art.”
Streets and towns named after people like Lord Amherst need to be changed, LaDuke said.
“He distributed small pox ridden blankets and he is considered a hero. We shouldn’t name towns after Hitler. We shouldn’t name them after butchers.”
Industrial hemp should be grown instead of cutting down trees, LaDuke said.
“It is not a drug,” she said. “You would have to smoke an entire bale to get high. It is a plant of 25,000 uses.”
To answer whether or not change will come soon, LaDuke quoted Tom Goldtooth, a Navajo.
“When white men realize the chemicals in the environment are causing their testicles to shrink, then money to the environment will start flowing like water.”
The key to change is to learn how to better spend money, LaDuke said.
‘We are the richest country in the world. We don’t know how to spend our money, but we have a lot of it.”
LaDuke attributes this to the fact that the United States spends one-third of its money on the military and even sends money to other countries like Mexico and Columbia whose military uses it fight civil wars.
There is value in an Iroquois teaching that says “In each deliberation consider the impact on seven generations from now,” LaDuke said.
“Change is possible,” she said. “Change is made by the hands of the individual.”

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