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Dismantling Racism Resource Book

Of the many problems Indians face in schools is denial of their very existence. “We had kids
graduating from school who didn’t know that there are seven reservations and thirteen tribes in
the state,” says Robideau. IPA joined with other groups to craft the Indian Education for All Act.
“Our portion of that says that public education curriculum will be culturally relevant, include
Montana’s Indian history and be taught by culturally competent instructors.” With lots of hard
work, the Act passed in 1999.

The organization has branched out into other problem areas such as job discrimination and police
harassment. In 2000, IPA ran a campaign against racial profiling by the Missoula police
department. Robideau recounts that youth were targeted by police as gang members because of
their clothes and for daring to congregate in public and that driving while Indian was treated like
a moving violation. IPA turned out 100 Indians for an accountability session with the Missoula
chief of police and pressed a series of demands. “From that,” says Robideau, “they now have a
mandatory dismantling racism training program for all law enforcement and emergency
personnel that we designed and is Native American-specific.”
Despite the group’s name, there are white members of IPA. “Our very first members realized
that if we were an Indians-only group, sooner or later that would work against us,” says
Robideau. “Besides, we also wanted to build bridges of understanding. A white person could say
the exact same thing as me to a white audience and somehow it would take hold where I
wouldn’t be heard. We understood that and said the goal is to have more people understand what
we endure and help us change it. But a lot of times where there are white people involved in
organizations like ours, they do the speaking and the Indian people are in the background. So
IPA has a hard-and-fast rule that only Indian people will speak publicly for the organization.”

Robideau says this arrangement has been successful, and that the rare threat of division within
the base has been between tribes. “One of the greatest tragedies for us as people of color is that
we allow outsiders to come in and agitate us and turn us against each other,” she says. Asked
whether IPA has built relationships with other communities of color in the state, Robideau points
out that Indians and whites account for 98.7% of Montana’s population. There are small
communities scattered around—Latin@s in Billings, African-Americans in Great Falls and
Hmong in Missoula. Amazingly, Robideau says, “We have people who say, ‘Why is all the
attention going to the Hmong community? You pay more attention to the Hmong than you do to
me!’ That’s divide-and-conquer and we add to it when we allow people to turn us against each
other.”

Looking back on IPA’s accomplishments in its first five years, Robideau notes that before IPA,
“there was no urban Indian voice. Everybody knew where the tribes stood on issues but nobody
even recognized us as being part of the community as Indian people, or that we had issues.” She
adds, “What’s really changed in terms of the climate in Montana is that we’re organizing. Indian
people are saying ‘we have lived with this for generations and it’s time that it changed.’”

Robideau recounts the conversations she had as a child with her grandfather, Alec Blackhorse,
about racism. “I would say, ‘Why do these people do that? We need to fight back.’ And he said,
‘No. You have to feel sorry for them. They don’t know any better. You have to say a prayer for

Dismantling Racism Project 84 Western States Center