Last week, I watched the Rosebud Sioux Tribe council meeting and listened to the annual report from Sinte Greska University given by President Dr. Erica Moore and Vice-President Scott Herman. They gave a very comprehensive report by updating the status of all programs at our Tribal university. The SGU report begins at approximately 3:05:00 in the recording on You Tube
I was very impressed with the report and all the work that they’ve done in the last year to get the university on track with the mission statement. Once again, I want to address how our people engage in lateral violence, I’ve talked about lateral violence in previous columns. There have been a lot of social media posts about the administration at Sinte Gleska University. Some social media posts allege wrongdoing. Some of those posts unfairly blamed the current administration for wrongdoing in different areas, but I never saw any actual proof or reports of criminal charges filed against anyone.
These allegations were made against the current administration, when in reality the administration has been working very hard over the past year to bring the university back into good standing with the Higher Learning Commission and with the reservation community. The SGU administration stepped up in big ways to help our students. For example, during the recent SNAP shut down, SGU issued food cards to students. They also issued food boxes to students; they provide complimentary daily meals for students who attend classes. Transportation is provided at no charge for all of our students to attend classes. People can and will say what they want about our Tribal university, but many tribal citizens earned degrees from SGU. If SGU wasn’t here, I’m not sure if many of us would’ve been able to finish our education.
Another good thing about our university is a student can attend SGU and earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree without incurring student loan debt. It’s all good to attend an off-reservation school or university, but there is also great cost involved with attending college off the reservation.
I think people who post things that aren’t true about local institutions or individuals need to post the proof of the allegations they accuse Tribal and other officials of doing wrong, or go file criminal charges. I’ve read a lot of hateful social media statements, but I don’t see real proof to back their accusations up. Many folks also say a lot of disparaging things that don’t need to be said about the people who work in our local institutions and tribal programs. When you gossip or start false rumors about the people who work in our Tribal institutions and programs, it’s wrong. Also, when you align with people and others who gossip or tell lies, you’re basically engaging in dysfunctional behavior and are no better than they are. When you are the type of person who is going to tell lies about another person or accuse them of things they aren’t guilty of, that makes you an unhealthy person one is guilty of inflicting lateral violence on others.
I don’t believe it was one of our Lakota virtues to accuse other people of wrongdoing when they didn’t do anything wrong or gossip about them or tell lies about people. I believe it’s wrong. Our children are very susceptible to all of this behavior. They watch us do this to each other every single day. They listen to us tear each other up sometimes, we even hear it in the public meetings broadcast on YouTube. People tear each other up and say things that are disrespectful and totally uncalled for. It doesn’t look professional. It makes the person who’s doing it look very bad and it teaches our young people that it’s acceptable to act like this in public.
Do we all want our children to grow up like this to be better at inflicting lateral violence than we are? I don’t think so. I think we all need to work harder at treating each other better and not spreading rumors or lies about our elected officials or the folks who work in our tribal programs, tribal schools and at Sinte Gleska university. Please be good role models for our people! Thank you.
Sicangu News 