According to The Leadership Conference, Tribal Sovereignty can be referred to as, "the fight to preserve tribal sovereignty and treaty rights...Native American civil rights movement. The federal government has special trust obligations to protect tribal lands and resources, protect tribal rights to self-government, and provide services necessary for tribal survival and advancement...Federally recognized tribes are considered domestic dependent nations. Tribal sovereignty refers to the tribes' right to govern themselves, define their own membership, manage tribal property, and regulate tribal business and domestic relations; it further recognizes the existence of a government-to-government relationship between such tribes and the federal government."

First off, thank you for bearing with me through that long and seemingly overly redundant definition; and secondly, let me tell you why that definition is anything but long and seemingly overly redundant.

Sometimes getting the facts to a "T" is crucial and not always the most time effective. I feel like this is something that Americans are demanding for more than ever. Poorly condensed, flashy entertainment news with a side of large greasy and overcooked fries please! We cut the news down clip by clip to fit a 30 second time frame so we can press "Skip" faster and this is ruining what our forefathers fought for.

But, who are our forefathers though exactly? Were they Washington and Adams and Hamilton and the whole gang back from the original 13? Where they the men who toiled relentlessly in the fields just praying for their first successful crop to come in, sweating out pain and desperation from their furrowed brows? Or were their skins a bit more tanned and thicker, were their hairs ordained with beautiful and rare feathers and beads and did they live faithfully off of the land, ever trusting that their ancestors would provide them with what the needed? Odds are, your history books didn't shine too much of a light on the latter did they?

Even if you side with the, "Well it happened then and we can't be accountable for the massacres and discrimination and pain the settlers inflicted on the indigenous peoples, all we can do is focus on the here and now," person then I get you, I really do. Sometimes men in coats with muskets can be real pricks. But what about the average American today, are we really much better? Or have we simply become a bit more clever and sneaky with our forms of containing and suppressing the culture of our nations real founding fathers and women?

The Indian Health Service (IHS) provides a very brief but concise overview of what special health care services are provided for Native Americans and Alaska Natives; it is as follows,"...Established in 1787, based on Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution...given form and substance....Supreme Court decisions and Executive Orders...the IHS is the principal federal health care provider and health advocate for Indian people, and it's goal is to raise their health status to the highest possible level."

"Highest possible level." Hmm, but get this. Of the 5.2 million Native Americans we have currently living in the United States, both on and off reservations, a total of 28.2% of them, since 2008, have reported living under the poverty line. Even as a college student working minimum wage, most of us make enough, for just ourselves, to live above the poverty line and still we binge on the cheapest food available to save all we can. Imagine not having insurance outside of a standard clinic. Imagine having to take the care that is provided there, regardless of your personal opinion of it and distance from it and having that be virtually your only option. Forget prescription fees and prices and copay deposits. Thanks to the Federal government Native Americans don't have to pay a lick of those fees as long as they are a certified and registered member of a Federally recognized tribe. But what's the catch?

Let's talk about controlled pregnancies and the administration of non-FDA approved drugs. You get what you pay for right? Well in this case since Native Americans aren't paying for a majority of their health care then it comes into question, what are they really getting, quality care or some other kind of care? Relatively few women who find themselves on the reservation have access to a reliable vehicle to drive themselves to the nearest IHS clinic. As a result they are often not able to adhere to a consistent regime of prescriptions if their pharmacy does not allow for more than one month's worth of scripts to leave at a time. Detrimental in any case of meds but especially if we are talking about forms of birth control. Condoms float about on reservations like ping pong balls at a frat party but that insinuates that the male partner in the relationship is willing to wear one.

So, Tia already has three beautiful babies at home and does not want to practice abstinence. She is not able to regularly receive her monthly script of Yaz and her boyfriend refuses to wear a condom. What. Does. Tia. Do. *cue Jeopardy music* Tia talks to her doctor at her local IHS clinic as soon as she can! The, usually Caucasian doctor hears out Tia and urges her to try the Norplant or Depo-Provera long term injections. Tia agrees because who has time for baby number four? Tia doesn't know that Norplant and Depo are filled with adverse side effects and that Depo was only approved by the FDA in 1992 (decades after it had already been administered in IHS clinics nation-wide). Side effects that are sure to come with these injections include: depression, osteoporosis, severely irregular periods, heavy and painful periods, sterility, headaches, and cervical cancer. But hey, it's free right?

By the way, forget about Emergency Contraception (EC), federal law restricts IHS clinics to only administer these little pills to women who have been subjected to sexual assault, incest, and are in perceived danger due to the development of the fetus. So your choice, $50.00 at Walmart for one of these bad boys or groceries for the family for the week?

What's a girl to do? Well, if the idea of these nasty implants don't appeal to you then your doctor is apt to throw this your way, surgical sterilization, a fancy way of framing, "let's tie those tubes right up!". Sounds great at first but once you come to after the surgery and realize you'll need strict bed rest for a week followed by light lifting for the new few coupled with valuable time off from work the odds of you getting your tubal ligation switched when you are ready for baby number four is highly unlikely.

It's almost like this is propagated by the Federal Government, They pour this money due to treaties into these reservations for these and other facilities for the "longevity" of the Native American only to really back them up against a wall when it comes to reproductive rights. Now we aren't killing them by the thousands like we did back in Custer's time or rounding them into camps like the German Nazis did back in WWII but we'd like to also think these atrocities would never happen in present day...but what if they are, just under our noses?

The facts are for you to look up and decipher yourself if you feel so included but the smell of a modern day silent genocide seems to greet my nose a bit too sharply. Maybe that's the Conflict theorist in me. Native Americans do not have the equal rights or resources that other Whites and Non-whites have. Even with help from the Federal government their peoples are at a severe disposition that often only leads to poverty and continued dependency on the Federal Aid system and reservation.

Don't be the guy in class who learns about this and confidently scoffs, "Yeah, this doesn't surprise me." This should surprise our festive fall socks off. This should wipe our smug and ignorant White-pride smirks off our faces because what if we were on the other side looking in? What if we were faced with these detrimental injections and possible sterilization all because we can't afford to jeopardize our families? Americans are in an extreme need for a reality check past our Ray-Bans and step out of our fresh Nike kicks and realize that not everyone else is playing the game of Life with all the same pieces. Won't you be the first?