In Minnesota's Ojibwe communities, the political gender gap has evaporated. Today 57 percent of the top elected officials are women, including Erma Vizenor at White Earth, Karen Diver at Fond du Lac, Melanie Benjamin at Mille Lacs, and Carrie Jones at Leech Lake.
Read MoreSuch a pleasure to work with Anna Gibbs on this Ojibwe language project
Read MoreGreat conversation with host Michel Martin.
Read MoreFairness is not given. It is made.
Read MoreIndians. They are so often imagined but so infrequently well understood.
Read MoreIn whose honor?
Read MoreGretchen Wilson might like being called red neck woman, but that doesn't mean I can address all white women by that label. It's the same with Indians and mascots. You might find an Indian who doesn't mind, but that doesn't mean that anyone can call me their mascot.
Read MoreThe land made the people.
Read MoreMiigwech!
Read MoreIndians. They are so often imagined and so infrequently well understood.
Read MoreAt the time Gilbert commissioned much of the Capitol’s art, those assets tended to be created with a very particular point of view: that of the people who designed and built the Capitol, almost all of whom were male and white.
“Nobody sees the world as it is, we all see it as we are. From a Native perspective, there are 10,000 years of documented history in Minnesota before white guys showed up,” said Anton Treuer, executive director of the American Indian Resource Center at Bemidji State University who's also a member of the Capitol Preservation Commission's art sucommittee. “The absence of real substantive acknowledgment of that is screaming out to me. It doesn’t happen very often that we have a chance to have this kind of conversation. They are going to remodel the Capitol every 100 years or so, and I think it’s an important opportunity to think about what we have, and what’s missing.”
The Ojibwa word for elder, "gichi-aya'aa," literally means, "great being."
Read MoreTruth and reconciliation begins with truth.
Read MoreTruth and reconciliation is not an event
Read MoreWhile the Capitol undergoes a major, four-year renovation, a commission is scrutinizing all of its artwork. The group will consider tough questions like whether to continue displaying portraits of every governor in the state’s history, but the artwork depicting Native Americans is the most difficult task on the group’s agenda.
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