Mar 28, 2016 - Believing in & Supporting Ourselves by Curtis Ray Yaz

I don’t feel the bern . . .

Not because I don’t believe that an honest man founded in principle shouldn’t be president, which I believe he is. I don’t feel the bern because it’s sad seeing every native throw themselves yet again at another president before really demanding more and applying long overdue pressure.

We’re so happy at the thought that finally a man who speaks reason is going to be president after 300 years. That’s sad. The man thinks accurately and acts accordingly, so what. We don’t give fathers cookies for being a good dad, we shouldn’t give so many social cookies at the first white man to be a reasonable human being that actually has a shot at winning.

If anything we need to be putting more pressure on this future president before we just throw ourselves at him because pressure on him is pressure on America. We Native’s have power, real power, especially in numbers. We are only 2% of the population but we are THE 2% democrats and republicans need in order to gain power and start their money-focused agendas.

This circumstance must be utilized as leverage, not to get cheaper gas, more money in our pockets, convenience and a tool puppet we can use to be racist on a local and global scale; which is low key what a majority of Americans want in a president. We need to use this as leverage for every Native falling through the cracks of society, people dying and suffering living in the shadows of decadence. The list of real reasons is forever long and forever sad but one major reason is for Mother Earth.

I went door to door in the roughest parts of “Indian country” Montana as a state field organizer seeing a lot of pain and sadness that still sits with me today. In order to swing the vote for Obama, which was a crucial turning point for Obama’s election. Obama and every other democrat really gave a shit about us then in the same ways they are now BUT we didn’t set the bar high enough then and we aren’t now.

We’re so used to getting scraps that we get so happy over crumbs. So as soon as WE start applying real pressure for our children’s children and the planet then I’ll “feel the bern.” We Native’s trust, forgive and forget to easily and were killing ourselves in doing so. But here’s the kicker, I’m voting for this man, because I’ll be damned (literally) if I don’t vote against Trump and Hilary and that’s the sad part of our current socio-political “Indian” condition.

YES WE CAN was the phrase we took hope in, now we put our hope in this man. When we need to start believing and standing behind our own women and men. #TeamDenise #TeamKiller #TeamJordan #TeamHouska

Curtis Ray Yaz (Yupik, Diné and Blackfeet amskapiipikuni) is a community organizer and a hip hop artist. Check out Curtis aka YAZ Like JAWS at https://soundcloud.com/yazlikejaws/tracks