TETON TIMES

You wonder why I say this. In our tribal elections, there are election codes and guidelines and requirements. With these regulations, we should not be able to elect leaders who have sexually assaulted our women and children.

But there are also leadership positions that are not regulated by an election code. We have spiritual leaders, tiospaye leaders, grass roots activist leaders – with men in prominent leadership positions and the people know it – and still we allow them to lead. That is why I said “elevate” instead of elect.

Many men who have sexually assaulted women or children oftentimes, do not get charged. They never spend a day in prison. How so? Because of the very nature of these crimes. They happen in secret, where the victims are often threatened if they tell. The victims often live with the shame and guilt for the rest of their lives.

If the sexual predator does not ever get charged and penalized by our justice system, they are free to continue victimizing our women and children They have a clean slate and many vulnerable women and children who look up to them as leaders.

In our District Organization’s here on the reservation, many times sexual predators are nominated and elected right at the District meeting. When an elected office is open, it is posted that it will be on the agenda of an upcoming meeting. All the sexual offender has to do is tell their family to attend that particular meeting and nominate them and vote for them.

The people who do not approve, will sit by, and they will be counted as “Not Voting.”

Having a sexual offender as an elected leader is an embarassment. It is a shameful thing! It is a very sick dynamic which makes the whole district, or community look dysfunctional. And in turn, we as a nation look sick and dysfunctional.

This is a true story. I spoke with a fellow journalist about an event that happened during the protest. They told me that they would not take that particular issue seriously, because the leader in this issue was a sexual predator, which made the whole community sick and dysfunctional.

I did argue that there were many in the community that were smart, ethical, upstanding. She then asked, then why did they elect a sexual predator? I had no answers.

Often times, we in our communities know who the predators are. We know those who have taken sexual advantage of our women or children. We know whole families of men “who are like that.”

What we do need to do, is stop elevating these men to leadership roles. It makes our whole nation look sick and dysfunctional. If you are a family member who puts these predators in a leadership role, stop it!

Victim’s who speak out must be listened to, believed, and helped. We all know the recent story of the young lady who spoke out. Her own family said she had “issues,” and couldn’t be believed. My God! A teacher who was supposed to report, stayed silent! Please stop this sick behavior!

Many in our Nation need healing. Not just from historical trauma, Indian boarding school abuse, tribal members who were sexually assaulted as children, women who have been r***d – we as a people need to address this whole sexual assault in Indian Country phenomena.

The newest movement is the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women movement. Sadly, their disappearance or murders can be traced back to sexual assault.

Saving our women and children takes stepping up and speaking out and saying we won’t allow it anymore. We won’t be silent about sexual assault of our women and children. It stops with us!