Why are Native American problems barely talked about when this is their country

@cherokeepatti :(

@NativeOregonian They are making some money off of it, casinos, tourism on the various lands....and they do talk about it themselves, it’s just not exposed to the public as much as it should be.

@cherokeepatti But how much of it actually goes back into the Rez? I wish the general public did talk about it more.

@NativeOregonian A lot of it does, they prefer to hire Natives so that’s some change in their pocket. And they use quite a bit for social service programs, health care, etc. The Choctaw nation built their own hospital using their money over a decade ago and they refuse to accept Federal govt. money because they want to run it their way, they are open to natural medicine. That’s what I was told at a health fair a while back.

@cherokeepatti That is good to hear, as long as the Vegas/Reno corp casinos keeps their hands off.

@NativeOregonian The state of Oklahoma takes a cut of it, they tax the revenues. The Indian nations should get tax cuts for using the money for their social service programs and health care.

@cherokeepatti Oklahoma should not get one copper cent as the Cherokee Nation is sovereign.

@NativeOregonian They tax all the nations. And I agree.

@cherokeepatti :(

@cherokeepatti I thought there was a federal treaty that was supposed to prevent the states from taxing those on the Rez.

@NativeOregonian The tribes thought so too but when the casinos started generating a lot of money the state took them to court and made them pay.

@cherokeepatti 😡

@NativeOregonian Oklahoma has more Indian casinos than any other state. They are making some of them bigger and bigger now too.

@cherokeepatti This needs to be taken all the way to the US Supreme Court, I think it was Kavanaugh that sided with a recent case that honored a treaty.

@cherokeepatti I am for anything that will take more money away from the european decendents and give back to the First Nations.

@NativeOregonian If the treaties are still in effect they need to be honored. The govt. tries to swindle land from Indians by doing land swaps, I am always suspicious because it means there is probably minerals of some kind on the land that the govt. is going after.

@cherokeepatti Exactly, they need to be honored. One movie that I think explains it perfectly is Thunderheart, with Val Kilmer. I also think that movie ties in with the 1974 shootout at Pine Ridge, which railroaded Leonard Peltier into federal as a political and corporatist prisoner.