Mark has been a correspondent for Indian Country Today, director of the Native American Journalists Association and is author most recently of the memoir My Mother Is Now Earth. He is an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and a regular contributor to The Progressive, including for the column, “Going Native.”
Prior to colonization, American Indians had their own values of tolerance and acceptance. Forgetting those values not only threatens our tradition, but our right to tribal sovereignty.more
Public attention has focused on the bad behavior of prominent, mostly white men. Thankfully, this spotlight is also falling on Indian men who have behaved in similar ways.more
Tribal sovereignty is precarious at best. Indians know that at any point the President, Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court could do away with Indian-federal treaties, dismantle reservations, and open up tribal lands to the highest bidder.more
From proud displays of Indians as savage sports mascots, to exploiting Indian land for oil and other natural resources, you cannot convince me that the spirit of Christopher Columbus is no longer with us.more
Despite a June 19 court decision protecting the Redskins name and logo as an expression of free speech, the team's days touting a racial slur as a name may be numbered.more
The history of Native Americans is clouded in illusions of transcendence, but the standoff at Standing Rock is only the latest in a never-ending dynamic that has raged since the Puritans landed.more
Today, in 1758, the first American Indian Reservation was established. That was just the beginning of a siege against Native American sovereignty and the environment.more
It's been 40 years since American Indian activists ended their occupation of Wounded Knee, S.D., but thanks to them, life has improved in Indian country.In February 1973, activists in the American Indian Movement came to the Pine Ridge Indian Res...more