AFN Should Use Term ‘First Peoples’ Instead of ‘Natives’

by MIKE O’NEILL (mtoneill@clearwire.net
The Bristol Bay Times 
09 October 2008

We should approach the goal of having healthy First Peoples and total community wellness and independent living for everyone, including elders and people with disabilities in rural Alaska, in light of First People governments being truly sovereign.

One of the first steps to achieving sovereignty in rural Alaska is for urban Alaska to view ordinary rural non-white people as people.

We do not help the general white public view First Peoples as valuable human beings when we ourselves use negative slang words to describe ourselves. Because of the constant use of slang to refer to First Peoples by whites and most Natives, including the Alaska Federation of Natives, as the name boasts, most mainstream people see us as not respecting ourselves and thus not deserving of respect. The end result of this is, we don’t get a thing and end up surviving on meager corporate dividends, hand-outs or low wages.

The AFN name needs a major fix fast. A better name would be the First Peoples Convention. When that change happens, we will be making progress, and true sovereignty in rural Alaska will be a possibility.

With AFN just around the corner, the Anchorage Daily News and KTUU Channel 2 News are about to slaughter us with slang headlines again: “Natives this,” and “Natives that.”

White people would never apply these kinds of slang words to themselves, or allow them to be used in the media.

“Whites win major political battle against First People with Senate Bill 101, Healing Racism in Urban Alaska, voted down by majority,” is not a headline that is likely to ever appear in local media.

Why, then, should we allow slang headlines to be constantly used against us or by us every day — particularly in the missions and visions of the Native peoples’ health care system, the 13 regional corporations and the 13 regional non-profits?

First People politicians, presidents, representatives, executives, managers, employees and board members of the 13 regional corporations and 13 regional non-profits who are managing the ordinary indigenous citizen peoples’ assets, health care and rights to economic freedom and prosperity, should advocate for sovereign salmon and game rights, both for commercial and customary traditional uses, for our much beloved rural and First Alaskan communities.

If that happens, there is hope for rural Alaska people to sing, dance and participate. We want good paying jobs back in the homelands with businesses that we own and operate.

This is especially important in regard to the development of environmentally responsible high-tech salmon trap operations and processor plants in communities where salmon are in our hands, our faces, our hearts and our minds.

Salmon could bring us greater benefit if we were more often owners and operators of salmon-based businesses. For example, chum salmon caviar, called sujiko in Japan where it is a hot commodity, sold for 2,200 yen per kilogram, or $43 per pound, there in Aug. 2005, according to the Southwest Regional Office of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

We don’t need any more calculated, prepared speeches. For once, business and community leaders ought to step up to the podium with no paper or notes or power point presentations and speak from the heart. They should stop the long, boring, heavy ego-oriented introductions and speeches that take up valuable time and takes away my chance and the chance for other people to express themselves.

Give it a try this month at AFN, which would be better called the First Peoples’ Convention. We should throw out slang terms like “Natives” and “Indians” and “subsistence,” which only imply “survival,” according to the Webster Dictionary; whereas “trade” implies commercial and “traditional and customary use” implies prosperity and sovereignty.

If we call our get-together the “Peoples’ Convention,” what will the Anchorage Daily News and KTUU call us then? I think they would continue to use slang for a while, “Natives at the People’s Convention voted on this today.” What about all the powerful whites who attend our convention and come with calculated speeches and promises for a better life? Will they be singled out using slang? Will the Alaska delegation and governor be singled out in slang or even referred to as white? Not a chance.

According to a recent Associated Press and Yahoo News poll, one-third of white democrats have negative perceptions of black people — using terms such as “lazy” and “violent” to describe them — and 2-1/2 percent might not vote for Obama because of his race.

In Alaska, I’d say 75 percent of the total registered white voters think First People are less-than, lazy, drunk, stupid, etc.; and why not? Don’t the words “Natives” and “Indians” mean just that in slang terms anyway to most of the general public, to some Native people, to most politicians in Juneau and even the ones that say, “Read my lipstick”? The other 25 percent pretend they don’t hear it, see it or think it.

To Sarah and Todd Palin, Native regional corporations, Juneau politicians and Washington, D.C., politicians, read my heart: This is Alaska history and fact. We are 230 sovereign nations. Instead of doing something that will never work, such as importing floating fish processing plants from Seattle or overseas to help Bristol Bay citizens, elders, youth, children and babies, why not outlaw the current Bristol Bay gillnetting systems, buying out the 98 percent outside-owned gillnetting systems in Alaska for $7 billion, then allow sovereign First People community governments to own fair community salmon trap allocations and environmentally responsible high-tech community processing plants? Support local people to own, build, operate and market the best darn gourmet salmon products and fresh frozen seafood products in the world to the world. Stop the welfare bandage fixes. Stop the oppression nonsense. Stop barbaric corporate financial greed, and think civic economies. Bring justice back to the First People. Help restore First People sovereignty; and the state, nation and world get better.

Help stop the out-migration from our homelands, and help us put an end to all those really bad social statistics. Help us create ownership and local jobs in our communities. Help transform our communities into places that are healthy, clean, industrious, prosperous and happy. Call us “people,” at every chance that comes along. Make it a habit.

“Quyana chuck nuk.” Thank you very much.

Mike O’Neill can be reached at mtoneill@clearwire.net.

        

    


Reprinted as an historical reference document under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html