Facebook "Real-name Culture" Runs up Against Native Culture

Being newly introduced to Facebook, I found this article kind of funny:

Robin Kills The Enemy is getting back in touch with her friends since her Facebook account was reinstated on Friday. For awhile she was banned from the social networking Web site – a communications lifeline for young adults – because it wrongly flagged her for registering under a false name. 

When news of Kills The Enemy’s ban got out, other people with Native American surnames emerged to share similar stories. Many just gave up on the idea of using Facebook because it would not accept their names. A Facebook group called “Facebook don’t discriminate Native surnames!!!” has more than 1,000 members.

Facebook spokesman Simon Axten, said this in an e-mail to The Argus Leader “Facebook is based on a real name culture . … ” Sometimes mistakes are made he said, and, as in the case of Kills The Enemy, people need to contact Facebook to be reinstated. Read the story here.

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Rumor Has It

I only recently discovered the semi-hoopla about Barack Obama and his birth certificate.  My first encounters with it were on message boards related to a number of stories on Fox News' website.  From what I've learned, quite a few people took the whole thing very seriously, enough at least to move on with legal action.  Here is a basic overview of the story, from a source I have come to look at often, Snopes.com.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp


Funny thing is, the story got revived inadvertantly, or who knows, maybe even deliberately recently following some comments by a Republican Senator.  Here is a good starting point:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/22/richard-shelby-alabama-se_n_168913.html


If anybody is wondering why I'm bringing up this particular issue on my blog, it is really to illustrate that rumors, and the act of creating and subsequently propagating them, is one of those political tactics that transcends almost everything--race, culture, you name it.  Last during that silent period of the Constitutional election on our membership requirements, a number of people who favored the changes were irritated with Council because they did not feel there was any effort put forth to dispell rumors that the amendments would lead to some enormous ballooning in the Tribal population.  Personally, I think the complaints had merit.  Although we had a good if not entirely accurate estimate of population growth, 298 more members give or take, I do think the rumors that there would be more than a thousand new enrollees scared some voters.  More to the point, I think my peers who wanted the amendments to fail were okay letting that rumor run rampant.  It came to a minor head during the community meeting in Portland, when one Tribal member actually got a couple of Council members to admit that the exaggerated numbers were not realistic.  Of course, only those present would have heard...
Rumors played a bigger role in the efforts to smear the ABC/PPP Council members following their elections.  As I recall, there were a number of letters in 2005 that were written entirely to discredit us, the worst of course being the anonymous flyer mailed out following Wink Soderberg and Kathy Tom's elections in September about how we were going to scale back per capita to $4000 among other things.  That might have been the most people to ever show up for a Wednesday night meeting at that time.
You never really know when a rumor is going to take, or how.  I do believe half the time they are started deliberately, though.  When I think back to that September 2005 anonymous flyer, one thing stands out.  I was warned by somebody who up until then never at all seemed a fan of mine.  But this person had some clear problems with what was going to happen.  So a week before he came and warned me, and even told me who was responsible.  For all I know this person did it themselves, but in this case that doesn't seem likely.  What matters is he was right.  One week later that anonymous letter hit a bunch of mailboxes, and we were flooded with phone calls, emails, verbal comments, and a three-hour Wednesday night meeting.  If creating the perception that this new Council was going to be trouble was the goal, then they might have scored some points with the stunt.
Rumors are effective when there is an environment of distrust around.  It doesn't help when people don't like the source of the truth either.  I don't expect rumors, in Grand Ronde or elsewhere, to ever really stop.  Ultimately, it is upon the readers, viewers, and listeners to mine for the truth.  Problem is, who wants to research everything?  Outside of those in academia, hard core politics, or journalism, not many people have the time.  They simply put faith in those who distribute the information and hope for the best.  Sadly, that is where it all starts.   

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Changes of Pace

Fountain Hills, Arizona is one of those places that, according to my server at lunch, has really been designed to be a retirement community. I kind of figured that, having walked around last night after getting into the Comfort Inn. What I first noticed was the shortage of sidewalks--this is a driving community. Second was that by 10:00 everything seemed shut down. My hunger had reached an alerting enough level that I ate at McDonald's. Anybody who knows me could testify to how unusual that is. I was told that the mild, sunny weather here is winter. For summers I wouldn't want to be here. For as much as I love Oregon, there is something alluring about the desert. I can't explain it. Well, I can, but that is not the point of this blog...
The Comfort Inn at Fountain Hills was the only hotel I could get near the Ft. McDowell Casino, the main purpose of my journey. This is to be a very quick trip, not even spanning 48 hours between touching down in my plane and lifting off to go home. I met this afternoon with a number of Tribal leaders following a conference of Arizona tribes. We spoke about trends in Indian gaming and how those were growing to be the same everywhere, especially reservation-shopping. Elsewhere, as in Oregon, such practices are putting tribes at odds with one another. The biggest point of interest is how the Obama administration, with appointments and policies, will deal with a quietly emerging pattern in Indian gaming. We all had our opinions, but they are just guesses.
What comes of today's meeting will ultimately depend on follow-up, networking, and other tribes nationally coming to the same realization that we have. Indian gaming as a means of revitalizing tribal economies is getting a little stretched in terms of its original purpose. To sound like a broken record, I could be wrong, but time as usual gets the final say.
The Ft. McDowell Yavapai Nation are like many tribes, at least in regards to their gaming operation. Tons of slot machines, themed food outlets, and a convention center that would make architect students and interior decorators smile. Like us, they are 30 miles from a small city (Scottsdale), and less than an hour from a major metropolitan area (Phoenix). Unlike us, there are a handful of other tribes close by. Phoenix, as Portland, is where a tribe would set their sights for a new casino.
Arizona has more tribes than Oregon, and infinitely more natives. I am not sure how that affects their intertribal politics, especially considering the Navajos number in the hundreds of thousands and their Reservation, which in turn encompasses other Reservations, would outsize a number of east coast states. How they deal with traditional territories must be very interesting. It goes to show that gaming is different for all tribes, and even then, for all states.

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Photogeneity

Pow wows have a way of being visual smorgasbords. These photos are from the Oregon Western Tribes Gathering that was celebrated a couple of weeks past in honor of the state sesquicentennial, or 150th Anniversary. I had showed up for the second grand entry, and many informed me the mid-day one was epic, although it would appear more than half the attendees had left shortly thereafter, no doubt to prepare for the ultimate cross-cultural event, Superbowl Sunday.

Facebook

I read an article last week observing that Facebook is now five years old. Some Harvard 19-year-old started the social networking site at that time, and evidently more than 1000 of his fellow campus-mates set up their accounts and profiles within the first 24 hours. Is anybody surprised that this young man is now a billionaire? I'm not. It's an interesting story, and here is the version I read if anybody is interested:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/04/facebook.anniversary/?iref=mpstoryview

I set up my own account back in May, mainly because a number of invites were popping up in my numerous emails from people from who were almost forgotten by me. A few of them were people I'd met traveling years ago, and no doubt I ended up getting invites from them because there is a feature that pulls one's email addresses and automatically sends invitations, and not because they one day wondered "Hey! What happened to that American dude I met back in...?"
I've found myself much more active on it recently, though not in the everyday activity-baring way that many seem to engage. What I cannot deny is that it is probably one of the greatest inventions in the last five years, in particular because it gives users the opportunity to re-kindle old friendships in a way that never existed before. Now I know that MySpace exists, as does email, but Facebook, for technical reasons that are beyond my ability to explain, seems to make reaching out and pulling old relations back into the fold very simple. There are drawbacks though. One individual who I work with and is more tech-savvy than most has stated his reluctance to sign up for almost the same reasons. He doesn't want people from the past to be able to find him. Hmmm...
Facebook gained quite a publicity push last year during the Obama campaign because it was one of many tools he used to reach out to that younger generation of disinterested voters that I'm told includes me. Funny thing about that is I've often wondered how that equates with our Tribe. I've always thought of Grand Ronde On-Line as being the premier independent internet website for Tribal members, and really, it is. But there are quite a lot of Tribal members on Facebook I've noticed, and here is the really interesting observation, a lot of them are people whom are not regular visitors to GROL, in fact some of them aren't even on that website at all. I can't really explain that, other than it may be purely a generational preference. Facebook allows for more visuals, like photos and albums, plus numerous gimmicks, like electronic pokes, smiles, wedgies, causes, and even a wave for Oregon Ducks Football fans. There is a playfulness that people seem to like.
My brother has already started a Facebook club for Grand Ronde Tribal members. A few have joined, and I'm sure others will later. I look forward to that.

The Benefits of Indian Gaming

Funny thing about being a part of the Oregon Tribal Gaming Alliance, I get so used to what we do that it doesn't really occur to me that maybe others are interested too. In speaking with a Tribal member recently, she had actually gone on to the OTGA website and printed out the studies we'd done on the benefits of Indian gaming to the state of Oregon. Although all the studies are quite long, I think anybody looking for statistical data on Tribal gaming might find this very useful. At the very least, it is darn interesting....
Check it out:
http://www.otga.net/documents.php

Of course, the whole website is interesting, really.