CNN referred to Native Americans as “something else” on their voter demographic poll last night. The poll on the screen read like this:
- White
- Black
- Latino
- Something else
- Asian
We weren’t declared as citizens of our own stolen land until 1924. We didn’t get the right to vote (in all states) until the early 1960’s.
And yet non-natives can’t even refer us as Indigenous people when we’re a part of the electoral process.
Y’all wanna know why Arizona flipped blue?
The Navajo and Pima/O’Odham (one of my tribes!!!) communities have been crucial in flipping this state. the Native vote in Arizona was MASSIVE - no doubt to the impact Covid has had on our communities there. I’m going to look at other blue-flipped states but what I’m seeing so far is that Natives have been critical for the Democratic vote regardless of voter suppression tactics designed to keep Natives away from the polls.
I also noticed that CNN started running ads raising awareness for Covid impact on Navajo territories and my thoughts are: 1) it doesn’t fix the mistake you made by calling us “something else” 2) the Navajo/Diné are not the only natives on that territory and the other tribes (including mine) deserve to be officially recognized.