====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
Suicide is epidemic for American Indian youth: What more can be done? By Stephanie Woodard 100Reporters A youth-suicide epidemic is sweeping Indian country, with Native American teens and young adults killing themselves at more than triple the rate of other young Americans, according to federal government figures. \In pockets of the United States, suicide among Native American youth is 9 to 19 times as frequent as among other youths, and rising. From Arizona to Alaska, tribes are declaring states of emergency and setting up crisis-intervention teams. http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/10/14340090-suicide-is-epidemic-for-american-indian-youth-what-more-can-be-done COMMENT BY HUNTER: (Sam Friedman asks: Hunter, do you think there has been a major increase in suicide among Indian youth? Or has it been a relatively steady rate?) Realizing that the great majority of Native people do not commit suicide, it remains that suicide among younger Native people -- especially early adolescence to, say, early 30s or so -- has been a consistent tragedy through much of the 20th century when life began to be increasingly circumscribed by encroaching Euro American culture. In conjunction with this, patterns of anti-Indian racial and cultural discrimination became closer and sharper. This has continued to the present moment. Some suicides are direct; others occur via alcoholism -- however subconsciously driven. The latter factor is certainly found among "older" Indians as well. I think there has been an increase in youthful Native suicide in the past 20 years or so -- that goes beyond simply more pervasive and accurate reportage of such tragedies. Three factors are deepening economic vicissitudes, including in the cities; lack of perceived worthy challenges; and the relatively "new" [for Indians] matter of "hard" drugs. A key danger is the "cluster/contagious phenomenon" -- exemplified, for example, by about seven youthful suicides in the matter of a very few weeks among a relatively small Maine tribe a generation ago. How fast and how well this is going to be addressed is speculative. There are always good people who do that which they can in these situations -- and then do even more. But much, much more is needed. That's my short answer, Sam. I could give a much longer one -- with case histories. Thanks for commenting -- and asking. Hunter (Sam did a quickie and limited search of articles on Native suicide, coming up immediately with 558. He aptly noted that this "has been studied a fair bit." Sam's certainly right on target.) Studies of "Indian problems" are legion, almost infinite. Sometimes it's been a bad joke in Indian Country. What's frequently missing, obviously, are tangible, substantive and realistic approaches. In the area of potential suicide, these would have to be, among other things, preventative and as curative as possible: economic, socio-cultural, educational, medical -- and certainly deeply sensitive vis-a-vis the respective tribal culture and broad pan-Indian values. Self-determination -- always and forever a key Native goal and always in the context of continuing treaty rights and other formal Federal obligations -- has been taking good "legal" root on virtually all reservations since the latter 20th century. And more and more young Native people are entering a variety of critically needed "professions" -- and, of course, doing so without shedding their tribal cultures and Native identities. I think I mentioned earlier that prevention of Indian suicide, especially that among young people, is a key interest of Thomas. (Thomas Gray Salter, a young MD, is our grandson/son -- presently in his fourth year of residency at University of Iowa Hospital.) In the early '70s, the late Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman, had a great little song about "task forces" from DC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDH4cQvgIyc Hunter HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ and Ohkwari' Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO www.hunterbear.org (much social justice material) Key pieces from our big Jackson Mississippi Movement scrapbook. Three consecutive and full pages beginning with this Link: http://hunterbear.org/a_piece_of__the_scrapbook.htm See my personal reflections on Medgar Evers: http://hunterbear.org/medgar_w.htm The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]: http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm (Expanded, and with more photos in Fall 2012. Material on our Native background.) For the new (11/2011) and expanded/updated edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new and substantial introduction by me. We are now at the 50th Anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement of 1962-63: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
