October Surprise for Native Americans

In the final days of the election and as National Native American Heritage Month in November begins, we were all holding our breath about an October surprise. We just did not think it would come from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR).

With the pandemic raging and Native Americans disproportionally affected, the Republican commissioners and one independent voted to bury an investigative report that would have highlighted the severe impact that COVID-19 has had on tribal communities. And, in a break with longstanding practice, these same commissioners blocked the release of commissioner statements on this report.

At its meeting on October 30, USCCR Chair Catherine E. Lhamon said before the vote, “The needs our investigation uncovered are staggering.” The report would have detailed escalating rates of hospitalization for Native Americans and the Indian Health Service’s scarce supply of ventilators and other resources for COVID-19 patients.

The report would have also addressed the systemic racism that pervades everyday life in tribal communities — which have been become even more visible during this crisis — such as the lack of broadband internet access in Indian Country, the lack of funding for preventive public health programs, and the shortage of personal protective equipment for tribal health care providers.

A large part of the systemic racism that occurs against Native Americans is that they do not get a seat at the table, their voices are not heard, data is not collected about them, and, as a result, they become somewhat invisible.

Yet Native Americans are one of the fastest growing populations in the country, living in resilient and thriving Native American communities.

But, as the entire nation faces an avalanche of a second wave, Indian Country is in a very precarious position. Health officials on the Navajo Nation, which spans parts of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, reported 130 cases of COVID-19 on October 29, the highest daily number of new known cases since June. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez issued a statement that said: “Our health care system cannot handle much more and we are in the verge of a major health care crisis.”

The federal government has a trust responsibility to provide health care for Native Americans, but yet, the Indian Health Service, the agency tasked with carrying out this responsibility, has been underfunded for decades. Couple that with a pandemic that has stretched to the limit even the most advanced and best funded health care systems in the nation, and, the lack of resources and personnel being provided to our fellow — and first — Americans is unconscionable.

It should not go unnoticed the cruel irony that the USCCR voted to deny this very crisis by failing to let the detailed investigative report see the light of day and, more importantly, fuel future funding and resources where they are critically needed, but, they blocked this report on the eve of a month that honors both Native Americans and veterans, of which Native Americans serve in the Armed Forces at five times the national average and have the highest per-capita involvement of any population to serve in the U.S. military.

Perhaps the commissioners who did not want this information public thought that if the report is not published then the problems do not exist. It is the same thinking employed by those who deny the pandemic and refuse to wear masks because it interferes with their “normal” lives. As the great Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph observed: “It does not take many words to speak the truth.”

Let’s us honor Native American Heritage Month by not letting the second wave of Native Americans hit Native Americans as the first wave did, and urge that this important report see the light of day. As fellow Americans, we can do no less.

Mary Smith, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, is the past chief executive of the Indian Health Service, which provides health care to over 2.2 million Native Americans around the country, and Chair and CEO of the Caroline and Ora Smith Foundation, which supports and trains Native American girls in STEM.