Observations and random thoughts.
By WILLIAM LEDFORD
How would you folks at home feel if we had a tribal election and the obvious loser of that election went off on Twitter, and everywhere else, claiming that he won and whining that the election was stolen even though that particular election, due to previous attempts by outside actors and agitators, was the most secure in tribal history? And then he got a few of his less bright supporters to wander around with signs hollering dumb stuff. Would you call that candidate a sore loser or a fighter? At what point does “fighting back” become a tantrum? If I had an opinion on this, which I do, I would say, on Day Two. Courts across the country have all thrown the challenges out due to no evidence, the Electoral College has affirmed Joe Biden as President-elect, it’s done, get over it, move on.
“Cancel culture” strikes again and another one bites the dust. After many long, long years of use under protest from Native people, the Cleveland MLB franchise has finally decided it will give up the use of its racially stereotypical mascot name by dropping the use of “Indians”. As of this moment, the new name for the team is undecided. We’ll see if the curse of Russell Means is removed along with the name.
My family and I came down with the COVID at beginning of Turkey Day week. It was three weeks of absolute hell. I’m now positive that we came down with this same virus in early December of last year as many of the symptoms were identical. This time however, was worse, much worse. I got pneumonia and they put me on oxygen and wanted to hold me but I wasn’t having any of that. I thought that if they kept me in a unit with more sick people I wasn’t coming out so, I went home, and suffered. Better to suffer COVID-19 with a familiar TV remote in your hand. Plus I had better recordings on my DVR than the clinic had.
The vaccine is here! Yayyy! In a side note, that there is an Otoe word that doesn’t mean anything close to what the general use means but I used it regardless. Anyway, I saw in the One Paper that our EBCI healthcare workers were getting shots and that made me happy. Now if the Feds can stop monkeying around and work to get it out to the people we may have a fighting chance against this viral pandemic.
I want to thank the EBCI, the Principal Chief and Tribal Council for their monetary generosity this year. It was a nice slice o’ pie and really came in handy. Now for the but. At end of everything is a big ol’ but. Yeah, y’all need to get your minds outta the gutter. But, we could always use a little more, for the New Year. Anybody over there listening?
I feel so badly for the Lumbees. They’ve tried for decades to convince legislators that they’re a tribal nation without any success. They’ve sucked up to North Carolina’s GOP with promises of votes and election support to no avail. And this year they were so close yet again. Like I said, I feel so badly that…well, what about that? The feeling just suddenly went away. What was I talking about again?
Ledford is a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians currently residing in Albuquerque, N.M.
