An Open Letter to Pine Ridge Reservation

I am a member at the White Earth Reservation of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

I grew up on more reservations than anyone I know. I attended 4 high schools in 3 states and lived on Indian Reservations at all times. My father was in Law Enforcement for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Dad was the Captain of Police in Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

I know Indian Country.

The American Dream does not sneak up on you and hit you over the head with a baseball bat.

Success is where opportunity and hard work meet. At 14 I was hauling bales, working in a hot hay field on the Ft. Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. At 15, I hired out to a ranch in Montana while my parents lived on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. My summer job in High school was working on that ranch in Montana. Pay was $200 per month working 6 days a week. My last year it increased to $300 per month. Wow.

Know what? I have worked 57 years of my 72 on this planet. I am a bit tired. You want a good life? Work for it. Strap it on. Forget your skin color. Grow a pair and shut up and work your ass off. Think it is better elsewhere? Then move. Or shut the fuck up.

People who are brought up to believe that work is for suckers and that they are entitled to food and shelter will never move up. This culture of dependence will stunt a child's work ethic for life.

And speaking of children, one quarter of children on Pine Ridge are born with fetal alcohol syndrome, meaning with some degree of brain damage. Stop the cycle. Stop the poverty, the addictions, the suffocating absence of opportunity, and the loss of human capital.

Try this Pine Ridge, how about a communal alcohol-free house for pregnant women and young mothers, with classes?

Get a skill and get your child off to a good start.

Close down the Bureau of Indian Affairs. End the reservation system - it's never brought joy or prosperity to anyone. If Native Americans have to depend on government money for survival, how much dignity and self-respect do they have?

I graduated from a University where today, 27% of the students are of Native American lineage.

I know how business is done in Indian Country therefore I know Indian TIME! I have heard it and seen it all. The kickbacks that tribal leaders wanted, the corruption, fraud and waste at the expense of tribal members who don’t have a clue about the financial dealings of their own tribes let alone the 560 plus other tribes that are not subject to government oversight.

I know people don't want to talk about the real issues in the Native American population.

Fatherhood is the single greatest role a man could play in society. It's an absolute catastrophe that two-thirds to three-quarters of Native children are being raised in a home without a father present, in terms of the social cohesion of the community. People don't want to say that. Fatherhood is the single greatest role a man could play in society.

Today, the big reservation wars are internal -- rape, elder and child abuse, gang violence, alcoholism, obesity, opioids, lack of parental oversight, and vilification of those who understand that the top problem of "Native America" is the lack of in-home fathers.

The permanent victimhood class and the welfare state has created generational welfare, "project housing" to warehouse generations of people who have been told for 50 years that they are powerless and have no hope of ever succeeding on their own. Their family structure has been decimated. Their education has been dumbed down so bad that grammar, spelling and financial literacy is foreign to them.

The race card has been sold as a substitute for ambition and success. Social programs have been sold as a replacement for a job and education. Government has been sold as a replacement for a father, and in some cases, the entire family.

Remember I said this. The only person that can make a substantial difference in my life is the person I see in the mirror every day. My decisions affect my outcomes. I refuse to beg for some scraps with the illusion that something of significance is being done.

To pay people not to work, incentivize fatherless parenthood, and diminish the importance of the family, and guess what happens? Granted, it happens to the most gullible and least educated first, but it's front and center. Millions of Americans don't have a plan A much less a plan B. Pay check to pay check and zero savings. That doesn't stop them from having cable, $200.00 sneakers, the newest cell phones and the free shit army rolls on.

What are the ties that bind Natives to the reservations? Love of that plot of land they were displaced to? Racial allegiances/prejudices/bigotry? Distrust of those not like themselves? Shared misery? Handouts? Rejection of curiosity, adventure, exploration, or socialization?...more

If only Robert Gipp from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation would still be alive and in politics. For sure, Mr. Gipp was one of the finest teachers in the history of Oglala Community High School in Pine Ridge, SD.

Robert Gipp always said, more government is the problem, not the solution.

Dean Parisian: The answers to problems at Pine Ridge must come from Pine Ridge

    

Monday, December 11, 2017   

Call it red privilege, or American privilege

By Dean Parisian
deanparisian.com

I lived on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation when I was in high school. Didn't have a choice. My father was Chief of Police for the Bureau of Indian Affairs Police Department in Pine Ridge. If you want, call it red privilege!

It is a rather poor place. Not much has changed in the 40 years since I was in high school except the names. The truancy, the lack of motivation, lack of parental involvement, lack of desire to make oneself better is still there. The crabs are still trying to claw their friends back into the bucket when they try to escape. If you go to school in Indian Country you know what I mean.

Lots of blame to go around. Lack of two parent households are the biggest culprit but nobody wants to talk about that because the financial incentives are all wrong there.

Oglala Community High School was the roughest high school out of the four I attended without a doubt. I was failing algebra. I bought my first beer in Whiteclay, Nebraska, for the high school prom. Walked in with cash, no questions asked.  Age: 15.

To say that I am grateful for the life I have been given is an understatement. There is absolutely no way my life has turned out the way I thought it would. We all face great challenges in life. All of us. It is the privilege we all have for waking up.

I thank my Creator daily for the will and motivation that my parents fostered towards education. The privilege of education. We all have it. It is what prompted me to start my scholarship at the University of Minnesota. My scholarship helps leverage resources to produce long-term meaningful impact for students who need them the most and to help break the cycle of poverty, addiction, moral courage and the suffocating absence of opportunity.

Call it American privilege, I get it, you should too. Gratitude is an awful powerful human emotion and I am elated to have plenty of it. Every. Single. Day.

In Pine Ridge it is hard to swallow the poverty and carnage of the federal government handing out scraps of freebies. The drug scene is out of control. I would like to help the enormous loss of human capital. Bringing coats in the winter isn't doing it. Painting churches in the summer isn't doing it.

Pine Ridge has the problem. Pine Ridge and only Pine Ridge has the answers. Pine Ridge has the privilege.

It starts in the mirror. The power of one. Go ahead Pine Ridge.

Change! You can do it. Reach deep Ridge. Get after it.

Dean Parisian is the CEO of Native American Advisors, Inc., the oldest Native American investment management firm in the United States. The Registered Investment Advisory firm was founded in 1993 to help Native American entities after Parisian began his career on Wall Street in 1982. Parisian is a member at the White Earth Reservation of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, a former NYSE arbitrator and trader who began his career with Kidder, Peabody and later worked for Drexel Burnham Lambert in LaJolla, California. His philanthropic interest is in Native American education and he's endowed a significant scholarship for Native American students at the University of Minnesota. His greatest accomplishment includes raising two sons and 34 years of marriage.

To say that I am grateful for the life I have been given is an understatement. There is absolutely no way my life has turned out the way I thought it would. We all face great challenges in life. All of us. It is the privilege we all have for waking up. I thank my Creator daily for the will and motivation that my parents fostered towards education. The privilege of education. We all have it. It is what prompted me to start my scholarship at the University of Minnesota. My scholarship helps leverage resources to produce long-term meaningful impact for students who need them the most and to help break the cycle of poverty, addiction, moral courage and the suffocating absence of opportunity. Call it American privilege, I get it, you should too. Gratitude is an awful powerful human emotion and I am elated to have plenty of it. Every. Single. Day.

In Pine Ridge it is hard to swallow the poverty and carnage of the federal government handing out scraps of freebies. The drug scene is out of control. I would like to help the enormous loss of human capital. Bringing coats in the winter isn't doing it. Painting churches in the summer isn't doing it.

Pine Ridge has the problem. Pine Ridge and only Pine Ridge has the answers. Pine Ridge has the privilege.

It starts in the mirror. The power of one. Go ahead Pine Ridge.

Change! You can do it. Reach deep Ridge. Get after it.

I hope Pine Ridge can help itself. I hope Pine Ridge can get back to two-parent households. I hope addiction treatment centers work for many. I hope the healing can come. The Oglala warriors are up against a powerful enemy, alcohol.

I can only pray. Here is the Lord's Prayer in the language of the Oglala Lakota.

Ate unyapi Mahpiya ekta nanke cin, Nicaje wakanlapi nunwe. Nitokiconze u nunwe. Mahpiay ekta nitawacin econpi kin, he iyecel maka akanl econpi nunwe. Anpetu ihohi aguyapi kin, anpetu kin le unqu piye. Na tona ecinsniyan ecaunkicinpi wicaunkicicajujupi kin, he iyecel waunhtanipi kin unkiciajujupiye. Na taku wawiyutanye cin ekta unkayapi sni piye; Tka taku sice etanhan eunklaku piye; Wokiconse kin, na wowasake kin, na wowitan kin hena ohinniyan naohinniyan nitawa heon. Amen.