By ROBERT JUMPER
Tutiyi (Snowbird) and Clyde, N.C.
We are judged by our actions, or our lack of action. In the public arena, the old saying is “perception is reality”. Public transparency laws are implemented in communities to minimize public speculation, as it is generally understood that withholding information will foster gossip and conjecture.
I have a once-per-week breakfast meeting with a bunch of septuagenarians (that is the fifty-cent word for people in their seventies). Each morning as we gather, the conversation is usually peppered with politics and ailments. One of the frequently discussed topics is primary care medicine and pharmaceuticals. Some are firm antivaccination believers. I believe the antivaccination philosophy grew from our nation’s fight against COVID-19. The taking of the vaccine became a political propaganda point. So, they will talk about this or that conspiracy, or how they don’t trust the medical establishment, or how the doctors are in league with the pharma companies to give nonsensical drugs and treatments to unsuspecting patients. More than one of the gentlemen at the table stated that it doesn’t pay or benefit the medical community to keep us healthy. They basically said that it pays for them to keep us sick or, at least, believe that we are.
But the facts contradict opinions. In 1950, global life expectancy was an average of 47 years. In 2000, life expectancy increased to 66.8 years. By 2000, global life expectancy reached 76.8 years. In 2023, the expectancy increased to 79.3. (census.gov and the World Health Organization)
Because of the battle that has occurred and is occurring politically in the U.S., facts are being mixed with fiction because of technology and gullibility. Sadly, media bias and participation in mixing fact, truth, conjecture, and opinion to produce a targeted outcome in the minds of those who depend on them to provide objective reporting to form their own opinions and make decisions. Yes, there are still media outlets that regulate personal opinion out of the reporting of news and documentation of history. However, it is still a regular practice, even in local reporting, for reporters to publicly presume intent from actions, conjecture meaning from silence, and extrapolate outcomes from limited data. Some so-called journalists are nothing more than gossip moderators, joining in with the voices of dissent in our communities. For every cause, good or bad, in our culture, there will always be those who promote the anti-cause.
We live in a world and a culture that thrives on fantasy. Notice the celebration of artificial intelligence. We, as a society, promote and endorse anything that will keep us from having to think for ourselves.
Artificial intelligence makes it even easier for those with an agenda to exploit the public. AI has been touted as the best thing since sliced bread. And in some applications of it, it does look like it will benefit mankind by providing services more effectively and efficiently. But it does so, many times, at the cost of livelihoods and isolation for those who it replaces, and those who receive its services. AI encourages us not to do it for ourselves. Even worse, it encourages us not to think for ourselves. It is getting more and more difficult to spot articles written by AI and those written by a flesh-and-blood journalist. Unfortunately, the way AI works in writing is for a user to provide a set of “facts,” and then AI writes an article (or report, or a presentation), pulling from resources on the World Wide Web to create the story. AI does what it is told, so if the user’s “facts” contradict reality, AI will not correct the user. It will just keep searching until it finds a way to craft something that fits the user’s narrative. Just like any good gossip would do.
We, as a tribe, have been debating and searching for ways to communicate facts and truth to our people without sharing them with other people. The government has told us that “they” might get certain information about us and use it to damage us (financially). Roughly a year ago, we were told that the Tribal Portal would be the answer to providing community members with the financial information that we did want “them” to see. Since then, little to no financial information has appeared on the Portal. Sure, the GenWell/Per Capita payout was uploaded there (one set of numbers) every six months. We, at One Feather, were told not to distribute those numbers publicly. But as soon as the numbers hit the Portal, several tribal members published the numbers to their social media pages.
And the only other major piece of financial information shared was the tribe’s annual report. A great report and well-produced, but again, keeping that information quasi-private has not worked. At some point, the report was submitted to a public relations organization, which awarded the report a Bronze InSpire Award for Best in Show by the North Carolina Public Relations Society of America. Don’t get me wrong, the report and those who produced it (who were, according to the post, Rooster Media/French West Vaughan and the Executive Team), in my opinion, did an outstanding job and are well-deserving of the award. I am just saying that the understanding was this was a “for community eyes only” document that was provided via a secure portal and very limited print distribution, yet was given to an outside state-based chapter of an agency (which identifies itself as “the leading professional organization serving the communications community”) for review and evaluation.
I always like to throw a little pop culture in, just for context’s sake. Remember the 1981 movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (Paramount Pictures/Lucasfilm)? In one of the final scenes, Indiana Jones is sitting at a table with his museum director (Brody) and two government officials (Musgrove and Eaton). Jones has turned over the Ark to the government for a finder’s fee and a promise to return the Ark to the museum. The exchange goes like this:
Musgrove: You’ve done your country a great service. Eaton: And we trust you found the settlement satisfactory? Brody: Quite. Eaton: Good, good. Then I guess that about does it. Brody: When can we have the Ark? (Eaton’s glance flicks over to the mysterious bureaucrat, then back to Brody) Eaton: I thought we answered that. It’s someplace very safe. Jones: That’s a powerful force. Research should be done. Eaton: Oh, it will be, Dr. Jones, I assure you. We have top men working on it right now. Jones: Who? Eaton: Top…men. (Jones exchanges a look with Brody) Jones: We may be able to help. Eaton: We appreciate that. And we won’t hesitate to call on you. Musgrove: (dismissing them) Thank you. Thank you again.
As they exit the museum, Jones meets with his love interest in the film (Marion).
Marion: Well, they aren’t going to tell you, so why don’t you just forget it? I’d think you’d had enough of that Ark. Just put your mind on something else.
To say that this scene is typical of government interactions with the media would be an understatement. When we retooled the One Feather back in 2014, the government had a public relations person at the head of the chain of command for the paper. If you ever read the Cherokee Code (and if you are a tribal member, I hope that you do know the Code), you know that having political manipulation of the One Feather is against our tribal law. Yet, that had somehow been sidestepped or overlooked when the organizational chart was made back then. So, for at least a few years, the tribal media drifted toward being nothing more than a public relations mouthpiece for the government.
The way the Charter is written, the community has little say in how they are governed beyond the ability to vote. And even that is in question. Referendum votes are at the will of the government, not the community. And even when the Charter lays out a specific right of the people, compliance is not a sure thing. Our government has continued to delay and put off a tribal census to satisfy the requirement of our primary and foundational governing document, the Charter, for decades.
I’ll close with a little food for thought from former Ugvwiyuhi (Principal Chief) Robert S. Youngdeer.
“When I took office on October 3rd, 1983, and during December when the Christmas List was submitted to me, I objected to names of non-members receiving Christmas checks, which at the time was $50.00. Jumping ahead to 1986, the tribal council passed a resolution resolving that the Christmas checks for the old and infirm be in the amount of $100 per head. It was brought out at a council meeting after I left office that the council thought that I would veto the resolution, but to their surprise, I approved and signed the resolution. I knew in my heart that had I vetoed the $100 Christmas Gift Resolution, the Council would have over-ridden my veto, making me the bad chief who did not care for the old and afflicted tribal members.
“The submitted $100.00 per person Christmas list consisted of 1,124 names and at $100 per head the Gifts totaled a staggering $112,400.00. To my surprise, I found the same dozen or so names on the list that I had previously objected to.
“1,124 names of older and afflicted people, some of whom were not tribal members at a cost of $112,400, was a far cry from the $225.00 spent on forty-five members who received $5.00 a piece the Christmas season of 1912.
“I am telling you this to try and give you a feel of things to come during my time as Principal Chief of the Eastern Cherokee. It is not to ask for your sympathy but to let you know the obstacles placed in the way of a new top political person. I shouldn’t say, exploding onto the scene but I was not a member of the clique, you know the old pros, who liked to rule the roost by not allowing the tribal members to have a constitution, which would have contained three branches of government, neither branch more powerful than the other.”
“The Memoirs of Robert Youngdeer” by Robert S. Youngdeer, 2012, Museum of the Cherokee Indian Press, page 335.
