DON'T DRINK THE RED KOOL-AID!

Some Sault Tribe members are having difficulty understanding what "culture" means to the Ojibwa and the Odawa Indians (known today as the Chippewa and Ottawa). Over the last four or five years there have been numerous discussions (email and otherwise) about "the culture". If you listen to what some Sault Tribe members refer to as culture, you will be thoroughly confused. Here is a rude awakening for some....culture has nothing to do with sucking up to certain Sault Tribe board members,administrators, supervisors or belonging to self-described elite groups who pick and chose who will be part of "the culture". If anyone wanted to learn about "the culture", it would be far better to get that education by taking a class or conducting research at the library or on internet sites dedicated to teaching Native American culture.

The word "culture" as it pertains to a group of people describes behavior patterns, arts, beliefs,and traditions. We see a real diverse cultural group when it comes to the Sault Tribe. There are those who claim to be cultural yet couldn't begin to demonstrate the words truth, humility, honesty or respect, even if their lives depended on it. The way some "cultural" members of the tribe would describe a particular action would have a completely different meaning to the rest of the real world. To steal means truth, to be dishonest is to be fair, to lie means to be honorable and black is white with several shades of gray.

The Sault Tribe has become a cult with a bunch of weirdos leading the pack and those that follow might as well have another glass of that funny red kool-aid. Followers walk around cheering for the wrongs of the leaders and believing all is well. And why....because it serves them, has served them or they hope that drinking the red kool-aid will bring them eternal wealth, as soon as they figure out where the wealth went.

In the meantime, the lies and coverups continue to flow. Good people are being fired for false and loosely made up lies (otherwise known as political retaliation) while on the board sits an accused embezzler without a gaming license who is suing our tribe and we also have several directors (click on the word director to listen to Lana Causley's demands to return the crooked police chief back to work)who fought to save a crooked police chief's job. Rumor has it that charges against the bad cop are piling up quickly. While members have been waiting for more than a year to find out the results of the FBI investigations,the board and their kool-aid drinking followers pretend to know nothing about such a thing. Anyone inside that admin building that says they don't know of the investigations by the FBI should get their head out of wherever it is stuffed, quit their job and search out one of those intervention clinics that bring people caught up in cult groups, back to reality.

There are some really good people who do follow traditional native ways, who live the good words, honor their Elders and give what they can to help others. But they don't fit in with the finely tuned kool-aid drinking "Core families". On the bright side, the kool-aid drinkers are on the fast track to the edge of nowhere and when they disappear into their nice orange jumpsuits, we will be waving goodbye with a smile on our faces.

May the Sunshine In Your Face