Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Lynnette Grey Bull on Busting Myths and the Silence Around Missing Natives

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay welcome activist and founder of Not Our Native Daughters Lynnette Grey Bull to discuss the lack of attention given to missing Indigenous people, and what she’s doing to make a change. Plus, myths get dispelled and she tells us the dopest thing about being a Native American.  Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Lynnette Grey Bull Producers: Trudy Joseph and Donnie Beacham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? How our learning is on. we are going to celebrate Indigenous People's Day together with you today and air an interview that we did with an amazing woman who is working to end the epidemic of disappearing

indigenous women. Not only in Wyoming where she lives, but everyone. This is an issue that the thought warriors demanded that we delve deeper into. We heard you and here it is. Please give some listening space. to Lynette Gray Bull. Okay, so something interesting happened recently on our Reddit and in our communities.

We had people, when we were talking about missing white woman syndrome, we had people that wanted us to expand the conversation on missing indigenous women here in America and the fact that that is something that goes underreported and under-discussed. We touched on it a little bit when we were talking about the Joy Ann Reed situation.

But you guys wanted more. And what you ask for here, as Thought Warriors, you get at St.Ot Warriors. So we decided to link with someone who is doing a ton of work in that space to kind of frame the issue for us and to maybe delve a little bit deeper into it

so that maybe people who are not aware of what's going on can get a firmer grasp on it. So today we have Lynette Gray Bull joining us today. She is the founder of not our native daughters. She's also got a pretty impressive list of stuff here. You ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Wyoming's at-large congressional districts. So you're trying to get into politics. Most people are running away from politics right now, but you're

trying to get into politics. First of all, thank you for joining us on higher learning today. And before we get into the specific focus of what we're talking about, tell us why you wanted to run for office and why that's important to you to be representative down there in Washington. Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, I just want to thank everybody at higher learning for considering and inviting me to be on. So it's an honor to always lend my voice and represent indigenous people and talk about our issues. It's not talked about enough, as you stated before.

But yes, you know, I'm here in Wind River, Wyoming, or reservation right in the heart of Wyoming. And, you know, Wyoming is the least populated state in America. We only have about probably 540,000 population here in the state of Wyoming. The primary races, ethnicities here are white or Native American. And, you know, we have it. I don't believe we progressed as vastly as other states have. when it comes to discrimination, racism, not having a seat at the table, things of that nature. And so, you know, I went up against at that time was the third leading GOP representative, Liz Cheney.

And I knew for a fact that I wouldn't be able to beat Liz Cheney, but when you're a Native American in this country, you have to take all the chances that you get to make a voice and make an impact. And so if that meant for me and for my people here in this country to run for office just to talk about the issues that we face that nobody seems to be talking about or highlighting, then that's what I'm going to do. You know, do I want to get in office and get elected in office? Yeah, that would be a great segue of trying to promote change and change some federal legislations to do that. However, you know, just having our conversations, MMIW, things of that nature, you know, in the headlines and the papers and the media, that's a start for us. Can you talk a little bit about you founded not our native daughters? Can you talk a little bit about the work that you do through that organization?

Yeah. So several years ago, I was working, I've always been working in fields of protection of children and women. And one of the, and I did a lot of work in, you know, homeless population, mostly working with single mothers and children, working with women who were coming out of incarceration, trying to get their life back together. And that's just a passion of mine just to help people and promote community well-being. I did this in Los Angeles and I did this in Arizona in the Phoenix area. And so anyhow, I started to get into more in the protection of children. I did a lot of anti-child sex trafficking work for several years. And one of the things that I realized doing the work was that some of the major organizations that have the big funding, that have the staff, that have the

means or resources, they weren't focusing on missing Native American women or children. So I launched Not Our Native Daughters back in 2013 because I wanted to promote specifically the missing and murdered and exploited epidemic that was happening to Native American women and children. So that's how it launched the work and it just kind of evolved from there and, you know, continue to plug away and still do the work because it still needed. You know, I was working on this issue not only because I'm an indigenous woman myself, but I've been working on this issue because I have dedicated my life to change these statistics that continue to, you know, be prominent in the,

Native American community. And one thing I always say when I speak is that, you know, I'm a full-blooded Native American women, woman before you. And the statistics I hang over my head is that I'm the most stocked rate, sexually assaulted. And I suffer domestic violence 50 times higher than a national average than any other ethnicity in our country. But yet, everyone is silent about it. I feel like I know the answer to this question.

But I'm going to ask it anyway, because I'm not asking. I think it's important to hear the answer. Why do you feel like so many people are silent about it? I think it's so many people are silent about it, just like we have a large number of missing African-American people, missing Hispanic people and even Asian people. The root of the problem is the same, and that is discrimination and that is racism.

You know, taking consideration, you know, this all kind of exploded because Gabby Petito's body was found. she went missing and then she was found, you know, and nobody was talking about MMIW until a white person went missing. Why are we having so many conversations about missing murdered indigenous women and girls, all because a white woman went missing. And that hurts me to say that. It really does because there should be more people who care. We should be progressive along the way in our country where not only is it an epidemic for Native Americans, but it's an epidemic and an issue for all brown people. And again, our stories don't get told.

You know, one thing we know for sure in tribal communities is that if one of our children or one of us as a Native American women goes missing, we're not primetime material. We won't make it on the evening news. We won't be on the first page of the newspaper. And that's not just true for Native Americans, but it's true for African Americans and Hispanics and all the brown people in our country. I'm You hold on for a second

I'm sorry I really do I didn't know that was incredibly powerful I wasn't aware of the issue and and we weren't here we've been doing this for about a year

and no that's a it's it's I almost I don't know what to say like it wasn't until she went missing that we even start to have this conversation so um i think the entire community you know owes we owe each other a little bit better so i just wanted to

say that i don't know why i was moved to just say that i do i'm i'm really am sorry for that uh because i can tell the conviction and the emotion in in your voice and what you're speaking of this uh yeah so yeah my bad for that blind spot i i i really am sorry. No, you're totally right, Van, and what you're saying.

I think that, and we've kind of talked about a bit on this podcast, and that is that sadly, we, if you're not directly impacted by it, it's almost as if you, you don't act on it

because it doesn't hit you the same way. And so when we've been talking about missing white woman syndrome and missing, um, indigenous women and it's coming to the forefront and you've been speaking out about it and we've seen other journalists and other indigenous people speaking out about something that has been an issue in the community for such a long time. I am wondering with the increased coverage that you've

seen in light of this discussion coming to light with Gabby Petito, have you seen more people reach out to you or to the community in wondering how they're going to. can help or giving you a platform to speak out on how you can help or how they can help. Absolutely. I think this is the first step of change, just having the conversations that haven't had had before in different areas and different platforms to have those conversations. So yes, I mean, I've been, these past two weeks have been bombarded with people who want to speak more about it, want to learn about the issue. And again, you know, it does come from because a white woman went missing. Is there a white woman syndrome in America?

Absolutely there is. And there's only a small number of us in the country that knows and believes it and have lived through it and experienced it to understand that this is an issue. And so I think the conversations and just educating our communities, educating our networks, you know, educating our communities. This is how we're going to start creating those change. I mean, ideally, you know, I'm a big dreamer. I have lofty ideas most of the time, but, you know, I would like to see, you know, not just a momentum because it's something to talk about at the current time. But yes, as months and even years go on past this moment, I do hope and believe and pray that this will actually be something that is a significant change for us. You know, I don't want to live the rest of my life as a Native American woman in this country that has the worst statistics in the country of violence, of sexual assault, of domestic violence.

you know, being missing and murdered. I know my chances for myself and my daughter and the daughters of my community have a high vulnerability to this issue. Another thing I just want to add to this is that, you know, a big stem of the missing murdered indigenous women and girls movement is human trafficking. And so, you know, a lot of people have to, if we talk about MMIW, we're going to have to talk about child sex trafficking and sex trafficking, not only of Native Americans, but of people of color. I think the more and more we have these conversations, the more and more we're going to educate, you know, our communities and our loved ones because the goal is to protect our loved ones and our children and our nieces and our, you know, our grandchildren. You know, I think we have a lot of work to do when we talk about undoing racism in our country. You know, white people get the, get the justice. This country promotes that it says it has while people of color go a lifetime without it. So talking specifically about missing indigenous women, what do we know about the actual problem itself, speaking in terms of do we know who are the most vulnerable, where they're the most vulnerable, who's perpetrating these crimes, why this vulnerability exists?

What are the mechanisms of change that you would like to see in order to counteract what seems to be a problem? problem that, you know, nobody's discussing. Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. Well, about 70% of violent crime against Native American women, 70% of those crimes are done by non-Native Americans. They're done by people of other races. And we talk-

70%? That's nuts. 70% of violent crime against indigenous women. are made of non-native perpetrators. And this is an NCI report that was from 2018 had kind of signified this. And so, you know, I've been doing this long enough to know, especially on social media,

when I share that statistic, and I have means of it, I have, you know, I do my best to promote, you know, art with the statistical to educate the social media community. You know, I always get a back. of white people that say, oh, well, it's your own people that hurt your own people. And even if that was the case, I mean, it's still an issue, you know, but it's not, that's not statistically, it's the non-Native American men who are, you know, impacting violence against Native women and children. My God. I mean, just in talking, things that have come to light and just even in having this

conversation with you. There's so much that we have to learn, but then there's also certain things that we have to unlearn. And I know we talk about this in the, in the black community a lot of things that we were told about slavery and, you know, our founding fathers and certain things like that. But we're also now having conversations about Thanksgiving's not quite what it was that we were taught in school. And we're having to unlearn these things and educate one another about history and how things really were. I know you're probably getting this a lot. Like you said, you've been bombarded over the last two weeks, but for certain people, because they're just now learning new things, they don't know where to start. They don't know where to go, but they want to

know how they can help. And with National Native American Heritage Month coming up, like, what is it that we can do? So we can help our Brown sisters and brothers. Right. That's a great point. I think you do have to undo some of the myths. You know, some of the biggest, myth I hear about the Native American community is that we all get casino money. That's not true. I mean, it's true for certain tribes, but just to give you a bird's eye view of what the Native American community looks like in America, there's 574 tribes in our country. That means there's 574 different, you know, ceremonies, custom, culture, you know, what we do here in the Northern Plains region, our ceremonies and the things that we do to practice our heritage is very

different, you know, in different regions of the country. And, yes, you know, when we were able, when tribes were able to get casinos on their land, you know, because of their sovereignty, land that they hold, you know, that did help the community. But most times, you know, there's not hundreds and hundreds of tribes that have multi-million dollar, you know, a billion or a million dollar casinos. It doesn't go to their tribal members most of the time. It usually goes right back into their community, you know, either into community economic development and things of that nature. But, you know, tribal members, you know, do not get a big check every month. That's something that I hear a lot. I had a journalist asked me that, like,

well, isn't that casino money helping your guys' issues? And I'm just like, it doesn't work like that. You know, then you have to talk about there's 574 different governments that run their own tribe a different way. So, I mean, if you think about that, then you can just kind of undo some of those myths that Native Americans get money or we get casino money and things of that nature. Another thing is that, and statistically, it is true. I think the top five counties in the country is populated by reservation land. But again, there's other tribes that are progressed very well. Most of those tribes are near the city or near a prominent area where they're able to have, you know, influx of collaboration with the state or with the nearby

city. But most tribes are in vast rural regions, you know, just like our tribe. We're in a very rural region. And so, you know, just learning, what I always say to people who wants to learn more, learn about the tribes within your own state, because I can guarantee you, you know, we're really, as Native Americans, we're really big on hospitality. It kind of displays who we are, our honor. Like if you reach out to a nearby tribe within your own state, they would love to have you. We love inviting outsiders to our, you know, what we do, our ceremonies, our, you know, the things that we do to practice our heritage and culture. We, we love having outsiders, you know, come out and want to learn more. And this is how we build the bridges. And this is how we build the, you know, coalition and, you know, coming together a little bit stronger with collective voices. And so, you know, just learning our heritage, learning, know, that this is, you know, that our, you know, that our, you know, that, our doors are open to outsiders, which is really true. One last thing I would say is, you know, the exploitation and violence against Native American women is not a new thing. You know, of course, we have an acronym, you know, MMIW, you know, but I've been working on this issue before.

That was a hashtag or an acronym. You know, there have been research and studies that prove that from the first ships, the first, the first colonizers and settlers that came to this country, they would offer indigenous women and children to the new, the ships that kept coming in to new settlers and offer us as a sign of, we've conquered these people, do what you want with the women, do what you want with them. You know, it was,

we've been exploited since the first colonization in America. That leads me to my next question. There's been a couple. of different eras of education about Native American people, Native people, indigenous people to this continent. And the first was

that, and it was a big thing in America, there were, this is the way it happened. There were cowboys and there were Indians. And that at night, the bands of war parties would come along and kill American settlers along the Oregon Trail or whatever,

whatever. And the American psyche around the experience of indigenous people, the world psyche, the human psyche around the experience of indigenous people has evolved and it's continued to change. And as it's continued to change, I still haven't seen much momentum in addressing some of the issues that indigenous people really across the world, because I talked to friends from Australia who will talk to me about Aboriginal people and some of the issues that they have and some of the fights that they have or the the issues they have with governments there and people there.

It doesn't seem like much as being done to change it. My question is, with representing a group of people that have lost so much at the hands of colonization, white supremacy, exploitation, and murder, what's the starting point of trying to make the descendants of those people and those people whole. Like how possibly could anyone begin to address the mass genocide? Like what would you want to see happen? It seems sometimes I think like people shy away from this because even right now in speaking to you, I walk around here sometimes thinking like I have won the

oppression Olympics and nobody has it worse than me. And I know that it's not a competition. but I'm like, fuck. Like, what do we do? What would you want the answer to that question to be? Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a meaty question. But, you know, for me as, as, as, you know, as an advocate, as someone who lends a voice to to my community and to my people, you know, ideally I, I have a dream and I have a dream to

see Native American people in the same places other, other ethnicity succeeded. One of them is in, you know, in Congress, both on the House and Senate side. You know, I want to see more representation and state legislation. I want to see more representation in areas where there's actually change being made, not only in legislation, but in counties and in states and, you know, even the different elected offices within that. You know, I want to see more representation because the more and more we let, you know, the white man, so to speak, and be in. charge, the more and more we're going to continue to be oppressed, you know, and we're going to continue to be downplayed the issues that we face. You know, every issue that we face in Indian country, we have to march. We have to have banners. You know, we have to go to extreme to get our

message across, extreme to talk about the issues that we face on a regular and daily basis. It shouldn't have to be that hard. But you know what? You know, we've seen that time and time again in our history. We see that for, especially with the civil rights movement. You know, Dr. Martin Luther King, we see a lot of people that had to do these things to go to extremes in order to get justice in order to get fairness and equality and fight for your seat at the table. You know, and I feel like this is where we are, you know, in Indian country is that we're fighting and not just myself. There's other, you know, a plethora of other advocates that are out there that are fighting for land or, you know, fighting for the environment and, you know, doing other different torches of the issues that we face. Mine just happens to be for indigenous women and children and communities, but, you know, I think that we're in a place and hopefully this momentum will continue that will be in a place to continue to speak not only our truths, but we'll be the one to tell our stories because most often for us in Indian country, we're having white people that have to either stand beside us in order to get the attention or they're telling our stories for us when it really should be us. that makes me think of a question you talk about having a seat at the table and we started off talking

about how you ran for congress and you went up against liz cheney and you know among other things you were fighting to you know have a voice for your people and issues that affect your community and a voice for the underrepresented what is liz cheney doing in congress to represent the community the voice i mean has she ever have you ever had a meeting with her to talk to her about the issues that the very district that she's representing are affected by. And is there anyone in Congress who is really stepping up on behalf of indigenous people and fighting for your rights? Yeah. You know what? I will say on the Liz Cheney response is, you know, we, we had a few meetings when I was running. We had a debate that me and her both was, you know, the headliner in. And one of the things that I

publicly addressed with her was MMIW. And I asked her why did she vote against the Violence Against Women Act, which really helps Indian country. And she responded that she would, she would like to have a further meeting with me, you know, beyond this debate, you know, she would like to see, you know, how she can, you know, represent us as Native Americans in the state of Wyoming, not just Wyoming, but she has the kind of authority to do that for the nation. Yeah. And here this past year, I'm sorry, just earlier this year, she voted against it. So she totally contradicted what she said to me personally in the debate, probably just

elected as some of them do, but didn't really do any action behind it. She actually voted down against it again. And I have a whole list of other, you know, things that she voted against that does not help us in Indian country. It actually keeps us oppressed, in my opinion. But yes, you know, as far as, you know, having representation in D.C., you know, about four years ago, we had, you know, Congressmen, at that time, Congressman Deb Holland out of New Mexico that was able to get elected in House. We had Cherise Davis. And so, you know, these significant people were just, you know, were able to make a tremendous impact for us because they were on the front lines advocating for us. You know, as we see, you know, now Deb Holland is now Secretary of Massachusetts.

She's the first cabinet member, Native American cabinet member, you know, on the president's cabinet. She's also the secretary for Department of Interior. And she has an uphill battle because she's undoing a lot of a system, a colonized system that was not built for us. And it's still not built for us. It still does not work for us. You know, one of the things the U.S. government did to try to appease, you know, Native Americans in the tribes is, oh, we'll give you this land. We'll call you sovereign. You know, here you go and go on your way. But it's a system that continues to keep us oppressed. And the system. doesn't work and the system doesn't work then and the system doesn't work now and it needs to be changed. Would you like to see better relations or more caucusing and power building between black people and native people here in the country? Would you like to see that grow and become more unified? Absolutely. That's another dream of mine to see a more collaboration with the

African American community and the Native American community. I think there's a lot to learn, you know, from what was done in the past and still, I mean, African-American is still doing a lot, you know, to promote justice and fairness, you know, in the black community, especially with Black Lives Movement and all other atrocities that continue to plague the African-American community. I think that, you know, hypothetically speaking, you know, we can, if we get that in a movement and together in collaboration, it would be one, you know, unification that would not be reckoned with as far as in the realms of justice, social justice, you know, promoting change, getting things done. You know, you know, like one thing I always say is, you know, you'll be a fool to think you can do it

alone. You can't do it alone. You know, you definitely need your allies. You definitely need people who are smarter than you who have the know-how who have done it before and can guide you into that pathway of real, real tangible change, not just for us, but for our children's and our children's children. I'm thinking as you're saying this, I remember when right after George Floyd and they were marching in Minneapolis, you saw indigenous people come out together in droves with their, like wearing everything, supporting, holding up their signs. And it was a really beautiful thing to see.

And I think that's an excellent question by Van because we need to do the same thing. We need to return the favor. Yeah. You know, when the back-life movement, especially with getting momentum. and really moving forward in each state, you know, each state had their own, you know, a chapter and people were really getting involved. You know, I've seen a lot of different tribes and tribal communities come out to actually march and do the things that was needed to, you know, get the word out. But I love this one picture that I've seen because, you know, the black guy I've moved,

it has the fist in the middle, but someone, I don't know who did it, but it got really shared across Indian country, but someone did the fist and had an eagle feather holding into it. And yeah, And they had shirts and everything, you know, that people were wearing from different states. You know, it's, I think the, the network that the Native American community has in the, in, in, in our country and in African American network, I think once those four, those forces joined together, you know, like forces like Sean King or Lee Merritt, like it's going to be a force to be reckoned with. Really, it is because, you know, these are the people who have the know how to get the change that is needed. Last question for me. It's the last one. what is the single dopest thing about being Native American?

Like somebody can ask me right now, what's so dope about being black? And I'll be like, you know what, man, you got a whole day for me to tell you. What's the single dopest thing about being Native American? Yeah,

and I've never even thought of that. I never had that question asked before. I would say our culture. I would say that, you know, like our tribe, we practice a Sundance ceremony, every summer, you know, this is something that all of us feel connected to when we have to get

ready for ceremony. And we have different ceremonies throughout the year. Most tribes do. But, you know, I feel so connected to my ancestors when we practice in ceremonies because these rituals and these ceremonies that we do. I mean, my, you know, ancestors did hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Some of these songs that we sing are hundreds and hundreds of years old. And, you know, So just to be able to, you know, be around that and practice these songs. And it's so, you know, the people that, you know, our ceremony leaders who handle all of those doings, you know, they're so gentle and precise with it. And, you know, I feel a sense of being connected to my people presently, but I also feel connected to, you know, my ancestors that have had it worse to me. You know, I'm still advocating and I'm on the front lines and I'm doing what I can for change. But I know one thing. My ancestors had it had a much, much harder than me and did a lot for me to to be here and be existing still as an indigenous person. Last question I have and I want to piggyback on what you just said about your ancestors.

Can you tell us the history of your last name? Absolutely. I would love to tell that. So I'm northern Arapo from my mother's side and that is from, that's why I live here at the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. But my father's side is humpup-hawakala, from the Standing Rocks, the tribe.

And actually, I have a lot of family ancestor ties in the state of Wyoming because there is a town in Wyoming probably about 100 miles from here. It's called Grable, Wyoming. It's my last name.

Yeah. And that, not too far from Kanye West in town. I was about to say, don't let Kanye get into, don't let Kanye come over there and take over stuff. The next time,

Kaya will say, All kinds of crazy stuff on the hour. Resist him. Resist him, LeBek. Give us some easy. But, yeah. So anyways, so my, my Lakota side of the family, there was, I would say, I don't know how far back. I always heard the story from like hundreds years ago, but that was my grandparents telling me that in the 80s.

So maybe it's a little bit further down the line now. But there was a Lakota. warrior who had killed an albino buffalo in that area of Brable Wyoming. And that's how he got his name. So in our way, you know, hundreds of years ago, you had to earn your name. Whatever your gift was, whatever, maybe you did something heroic, you know, you, that's how you got your name. So my family name stems from that, you know, a warrior, one of my ancestors killed a white

buffalo was able to be honored by that last name. And I'm honored to still carry that last name. Beautiful. Amazing. Lynette, thank you so much for joining us on Higher Learning Today. If there was an action item that our listeners could take away in order to help and be a part of it, is there anything you want to direct them to before you get out of here? I would say that not our native daughters is a grassroots organization.

We are not funded by the government. If you want to donate, feel free to donate. If you want to learn more, please feel free to reach out to us. Next Monday is Indigenous People's Day. Get involved. There's something happening somewhere. It might even be, you know, on a, you know, on a, webinar or Zoom, get involved, learn more. And I'm happy to, to, uh, for people to reach out.

I love building bridges. But thank you so much. It's been our honor to sit here with you guys and have this discussion. The pleasure is all ours. Thank you so much for being here.