Cherokee Chat is an independent production and is not affiliated or endorsed by Cherokee Nation
or any of its entities, businesses, government, or otherwise. Any views,
opinions, or content express in this program are solely those of the host
and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Cherokee Nation.
It says he has boundless love for his all right, good morning, good
morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome, and it is
dying to check in with mister Western. How are you there, sir?
I am doing great, tom Osier and all you out there listening to Cherokee
Chat. Good morning, Osta Una dog Doc Well no he which just means
happy Monday, or for a lot of people, including my wife, it's
just Monday. Not anything happy about it really, But anyway, welcome to
another edition of Cherokee Chat. This will be the last edition of Cherokee Chat.
Teaser there. I'll have more to say about that here in a minute.
Keep his hanging to will you. That's right, And as always,
before we begin, we'd like to thank our sponsor, Cooperative Credit Union located
three thirteen West ninth Street and Coffeeville. They're all about providing you with great
personal financial services. Recently, I noticed on their Facebook page something that I
don't think a lot of people consider. Now is the time when everyone's headed
out for vacation. We're getting into those summer months and when travel is going
to be on the to do list. In fact, I received a visit
from some friends who are headed out to Italy for a couple of weeks.
My brother in law and his wife just got back from Italy, and so
I'm looking around asking my wife, where are we in Italy? So anyway,
something Cooperative Credit Union recommends is putting a travel notification on your debit cards.
And that's an excellent idea something I probably would never considered. You don't
want to be somewhere, whether it's Italy, the Bahamas, here in the
great Old us of A and have your card shut off because your financial institution
believes you're a scammer trying to steal funds from your own account. That's actually
happened to me before. This is another great service provide to you by the
folks up at Coffeeville, the Cooperative Credit Union. They want to remind you
they're here to help. Cooperative Credit Union. It's where you belong. Check
them out today on Facebook or their website at Cooperative cu dot com, insured
by NCUA. Okay So, at the top of the show, I mentioned
that this will be the last edition of Cherokee Chat, just to put anyone's
mind at ease, because I know you're all waiting at home with baited breath.
We're not going anywhere. We're simply re branding. Okay So, at
the outset of starting this show, we mentioned how we would like for this
to be a program that not only talks about Cherokee issues, but other Native
issues as well, whether it's Osage, Delaware, anything to do with their
culture, language, it's important to them events that we have going on in
the area. We want to be inclusive. We want other tribal leaders and
proud members of those tribes to feel like they have a voice here. It's
important these races are heard. After discussion with our sponsor, we decided to
rename the program Native Beat, and we'll still discuss local issues with local guests
and do our best to provide you with information, highlight cultural language history,
and talk about events important to our listeners. As always, I'm grateful to
everyone who tunes in. I received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from folks
in the community and couldn't be more pleased with the response. Now, we'll
say we do have detractors from time to time, as with all that's right,
as with anything. Yeah, and they're certainly entitled to their opinion.
I typically don't pay any attention to them, or or if they do get
my attention, I typically feel sorry for them. I'm just not going to
keep what I've decided is I'm just going to keep coming here and doing what
I'm doing since we first started and focus on what's important, preserving Native history,
language, culture and providing us all with a platform. I've truly been
touched by the support, and honestly, it really keeps you going, just
the support you get from the community. So, now that we have that
out of the way, Yes, something I would like to talk about that
it's an important election that's coming up and everyone at home might be thinking,
oh, yeah, the June eighteenth primary is just a few weeks away.
Well, not that primary. I'll I'll encourage you want to get up and
vote on primary day for certain or you can vote by absentee valid or by
voting early downtown. But for Natives, voting should be very important because I
remember this from yesterday. Yesterday marked the one hundredth anniversary that Natives were actually
allowed to vote in the United States. So that's kind of mind boggling when
you think about it. Four years after women were allowed to vote, the
Native Americans were allowed to vote in the US. So I don't think it's
kind of interesting. So, but there is another election coming up. Like
I mentioned, it's not the June eighteenth election. This is actually going to
be held on June fifteenth, which is a Saturday. It's probably important we
start from the beginning. The Cherokee Tribes democracy is older than the United States
democracy. In fact, it's around three hundred years old, and that system
of government has been interrupted at times thanks to removal and controlled by the US
government. In fact, Cherokee Nation did us start having the power to elect
its own chief again until nineteen seventy five, which was the year I was
born, and that's also when we adopted our first constitution. At that time,
we adopted our constitution and we made provisions in it that a vote be
considered every twenty years as to whether a constitutional convention should be held to make
substantial changes to our existing constitution. Our last constitutional convention was held in nineteen
ninety nine, and it's really interesting if you go back and look at the
old photos of people from that constitutional convention, because you see people who are
not yet tribal counselors, you see people who are not yet chiefs, you
know, and it's just very interesting to see those were the framers of the
constitution we're currently living under, you know. And so it's really important to
keep that in historical perspective because when we consider our framers of our US Constitution,
we didn't have us they were, that's right. These people were an
abstract to what we know today in Cherokee Nation. So I think it's interesting
to point out in fact that Thomas Jefferson proposed this idea of respect to the
US Constitution. He was thinking that the country and its people change every generation
or so, and those changes should be reflected in how they are governed.
In the Cherokee Nation. This process is designed or to serve as a strong
remedy to change our government at a systemic level. Well, we always want
to be responsive to the concerns the needs of our citizens. We have remedies
in place to allow our government to be petitioned. Our constitution as it stands
currently provides our citizens with three paths to amend it. We can do so
through the petition process. We can do so through the Tribal Council, which
is the legislative body representing the people, and they can place individual amendments on
the ballot for the people to consider. And the third way, which is
what we'll be considering June fifteenth, is the constitutional convention. Even if our
people vote no on June fifteenth, we still have these other two paths so
we can take to amend our constitutions. So it's not like shutting the door
on any possibility of actually amending or changing our government for to say, the
next twenty years. Wow. Yeah. So, But on June fifteenth,
if we decide as a people whether a constitutional convention is warranted, there's only
that question that's going to be on the ballot, yes or no. If
the answer is yes, a group of our citizens will be impaneled to visit
our various districts and embark on a listening tour to hear the concerns of our
citizens. A convention is then called a lottery among our citizens decides who the
delegates will be. The issues will be debated, language written, and voted
on by that body and then presented to the Cherokee people for ratification. And
the reason we have these remedies in place to change our constitution is so that
we can save ourselves the expense of the process and prevent any potential disruptions in
our government instead of just going to a full fledged constitutional convention. And you
know, some will say, I mean, there's probably naysayreas that say,
you know, well, what about McGirt. You know, that had a
huge impact on Cherokee Nation that it results and a huge expansion of our criminal
justice system. And you know, our sovereign nation now has to take on
the added responsibility to deciding the fates of people who commit crimes on the Cherokee
Reservation who are Cherokee citizens. And the beauty of that is, you know,
our constitution even was written twenty one years before McGirt. Some say the
question, some may question whether there's a potential, I don't know problem where
there could be government overreach or violation and civil liberties. But thankfully, because
of that constitution that was debated and ratified in nineteen ninety nine. We have
protections in place to make sure that those sort of things don't happen to the
average tribal citizen. So's we do have measures in place, and it's going
to protect people. So even if you know people want to change radically change
our constitution now, and you know, well with respect to McGirt or some
of these other issues that we've been facing as far as tribal sovereignty, you
know that's going to act actually be taken care of by the existing constitution.
And here's the thing, We've never been more prosperous as a people. I
think everyone will agree. We've seen incredible growth in our business and services we
provide to our tribal members. And some say, well, there's a potential
for corruption with all that money flowing into our tribe. I can't deny that
potential exists. I mean, anytime do you have money flowing into government offers
or to anyone, you know you're going to have some potential for corruption.
It's human nature, I believe. But the great thing is we have one
of the most transparent governments and business interests of any tribe, really of any
entity in the United States, we have laws that ensure that the freedom of
information will not be impeded when requested, and that meetings regarding official business will
been held in secret. We make sure that the Open Meetings Act, we
have one for Cherokee Nation, just as we have one in the state of
Oklahoma, and we hold that very sacrisanct, and we want to make sure
that that's pretend. And the other thing is we have a great freedom of
press. And that's what I always see is that the press is definitely one
of those things they call it the fourth of state, you know, in
the US government is, but it really is one of those things is kept
A free press actually helps keep all the other branches in check, honestly,
because if you shed light on corruption or something that might be happening, there's
going to be a lot less chance of that happening in the future, and
people might be able to take action to remedy it. So that's the reason
I think it is important to have a free press. So anyway, with
those with that transparency in those checks and balances, we ensure that those elected
to governess are not only responsive to our needs, but responsible to us,
which is as it should be. For any democracy. I feel the Chief
has often said in relation to this issue, if it ain't broke, don't
fix it. None of our elected leaders support a constitutional convention. Of majority
of our community leaders do not support a constitutional convention. Given how well things
are going for the tribe, it doesn't make sense to have one, And
honestly, I think it would be financially irresponsible to have one. I believe
the last estimate, according to our Secretary of State, Sheello Bolden, was
was going to cost upwards of a million dollars to even have a constitutional convention.
So that's a I can think of over a million reasons why we probably
we probably shouldn't have it. So anyway, I generally won't take a political
stand in a lot of issues. But that's why I'm voting no on June
fifteenth and encourage all my fellow Cherokees to do the same. Now, if
you have a different opinion, I respect that. It's perfectly acceptable. Yeah,
that's the great thing about living in an actual democracy. So anyway,
before we go, I want to make sure everyone remind everyone, so make
sure we check out our Cherokee community facebook pages for the latest events, news
and meetings. Washington County Cherokee Association, the Cherokee Cultural Community in Dewey,
the Nuita Cherokee Community Foundation, Native American Fellowship. Also, since we're broadening
the scope of this program, I thought it was important to point out that
the Delaware tribe also has its own website. They have their own Facebook page.
In fact, I follow it regularly. In fact, this passed my
worldly weekend they had. I think it's the fifty ninth annual Delaware pow Wow.
And I have to admit, I grew up a mile south of the
Fowley Memorial Powout grounds where the how I was held every year. You're pretty
familiar. I'm very familiar with it. And I have to laugh a little
bit because my parents bought a house just across the road from where they live,
and they were in painting it and getting it ready to move in.
And my mom is always this person who always believes there's a mystical cause for
a lot of things, right, And so she heard the drum beat of
the pow wow and I think we could even kind of hear faintly hear the
songs, and she said, I think we have ghost Indians out here.
When I said, Mom, it's Memorial Day weekend. It's the weekend of
the pow Wow. You know, it's just it was pretty funny. But
yeah, but that's that's my mom. If you know her. That's pretty
It's pretty cute though, it really is. Yeah. So another thing I
wanted to bring up about the Delaware people, about the Delaware Tribe, as
they recently opened up a storefront grand opening of the Tetan Trade Cloth Company h
And it's actually in the Johnstone Sayer Building and I opened on June seventh.
And if for those of you who don't know, it's a beautiful building,
it's a it's where Hideaway Pizza is located. And that's right. And it's
located at one sixty Southwest Frank Phillips Boulevard. And I just wanted to give
a shout out to my good friend Crystal Sayer. She is a strong Native
ally and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of support she not only
provides our tribal communities, but bart as well as a whole. She is
really a shining light in this community and she does a lot, and I
just I'm just so thankful to have her presence here and a lot of people
may not remember, but her father was a state rep here for several years.
Clyde. Yeah, so a wonderful representative for this district. So Cherokee
Nation just to remind people, because in case people forget, Cherokee Nation has
a career services office open at the Cherokee Culture Community in Dewey, seven hundred
to East Durham. Is open from eight to five Monday through Friday. They
also have a monthly pot luck there. I wasn't able to make it last
time, but I understand that they sort of reads for basket making for the
tribal councilor door Patskowski and there's always something fun and cultural going on there,
so check it out. June sixth, the six pm the Washington kind of
Cherokee Association meets for our June pot luck. Anyone is welcome to attend.
We were scheduled to have Dora there as a speaker, but as I'm sure
everyone can understand, when you're a tribal counselor a lot of times your time
is not your own. So I just wanted to point that out. That's
going to be at six pm. Like said, June sixth, we're located
just east of the Kuyskui Health Planning near oschal Leta, and that's just off
County Road twenty nine hundred, about a mile and a half west of Highway
seventy five. In keeping with the spirit or broadening the scope of the broadcast
for the newly rebranded Native Beat, this month's prize giveaway as a Cato rattle.
And this rattle was made by Ken Duncan. He's a member of our
Washington County Cherokee Association. He does a great job on preserving his culture but
also introducing us to his culture. And I wanted to remind everyone to tune
in to the next edition of Native Beat, not Cherokee Chat, June seventeenth
and nine to forty five in the morning. You can follow us on Facebook
at Cherokee Chat, which is actually going to change the Native Beat, or
catch our show in the Barsol Radio Facebook page or on demand to the Barzel
Radio app available on the Apple Store. A big wadeau to all of you
listening, Doda do goha e until we meet again. Thank you. Cherokee
Chat is an independent production and is not affiliated or endorsed by Cherokee Nation or
any of its entities, businesses, government, or otherwise. Any views,
opinions, or content expressed in this program are solely those of the host and
guest and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Cherokee Nation, but
says he has boundless love for his