By: Mark Colburn

In reply to AK.

It seems plenty of people outside the native community feel they should be recognized but they just don’t get it. It’s about native lives and culture, not the entitlements and privileges of those who feel they should get special recognition. Because the ‘entitled ones’ in the dominator culture really don’t understand what native people still must endure daily in an ongoing 500 year genocide campaign. In my experience as a white man, they also don’t understand who natives are as a people and what that experience means to them – their culture and it’s traditions, the remnants of which they are still trying to preserve, I would think anyway, after such a long and tragic occupation. Instead, we must do what is best for all and more importantly, do it with future generations in mind.