from Democracy Now
Relevant portion of the video starts at 32:20

There is a break down in the social fabric of our indigenous communities that is directly linked to the US Empire’s conquering of our lands and people. The solution to these problems will not come from the United Nations. It will not come from the Empire itself, whether you vote Democrat or Republican. It will come from within, when we decolonize our societies and overthrow our oppressors.

Hundreds of indigenous leaders and activists from all across the world are gathering in New York City this week for the 11th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. We speak with Dalee Sambo Dorough, an Inuit from Alaska who teaches political science at the University of Alaska-Anchorage and serves as vice chair of the Permanent Forum. Sambo Dorough discusses the range of hardships faced by indigenous peoples in Alaska today, from environmental devastation and threatened land ownership in the Arctic to rampant sexual violence. “In these various different political and economic agendas, indigenous peoples in the United States are at the bottom of the bottom. They always have been,” Sambo Dorough says. “The issues facing Alaska Native communities, indigenous communities across the United States, never appear on the radar screen as a priority issue.”