Makoons

Absolutely. Our term is "Apple"...red on the outside, white on the inside. My own husband faced this quite a bit as he is very dark skinned but did not have a reservation accent, lived in town, did not follow spiritual traditions, and decided to go to college. There's a huge stigma attached to going to college because you're "going to learn the white man's ways" and are "leaving your people behind." It's sad, because what would move society forward faster than educated natives coming home and working for their people?

I think they are and can be both. With many tribes, the casino affords them the ability to operate as a functional soveriegn society. This tribe has its own school, clinic, tribal court, elder housing, tribal housing program, etc because the casino money pays for most of it. The casino pays my salary. The per capita payments are another thing...some people use the payments responsibly and still work and make themselves useful members of the community, others take it as their pass to stay at home and do nothing. It's a huge temptation and when you don't have to work...you get bored. When you get bored in a small town where there's nothing to do you find illicit drugs to keep you entertained.

A case where the mother has fetal alcohol syndrome and the father has a traumatic brain injury. Their kids were so medically neglected that their skin condition had caused their eyes to be swollen shut, they had open bleeding sores, and were in so much pain they couldn't move.

Oh gosh yes. Last year the tribal chairwoman was re-elected despite being under investigation for money laundering and fraud. There's a lot of nepotism in tribal affairs...it's all about who you know and not your education or reliability.

And just so you know, a lot of natives don't have any moral objections to gambling. In Ojibwe traditions we have a lot of traditional gambling games and so on so we've been doing it for hundreds of years. That's the christian influence.