S3: Ep6 - Gabe Galanda on Indigenous Human Rights

Right in Front of My Face

Todays topic is a broadstrokes lesson on Indigenous Human Rights with activist and attorney, Gabe Galanda. There was a story on the news last week that followed the re-naming of the Indiana pro baseball team from the Chiefs to the Guardians - and now that I have this conversation under my belt, I understand the importance of it in an entirely new way and I hope you will too.

If you walked by Gabe on the street, you’d have no idea that he was raised on a reservation, deviated from the norm of his tribe and went to college, followed by law school, and has now dedicated his law practice and life to helping the disenfranchised and representing tribal governments, and citizens. You’d never guess by looking at him that for 13 years he’s been named to Best Lawyers in America in the field of Native American Law, and dubbed a Super Lawyer by his peers from 2013 to 2020.

I have to fess up to the fact that I know this about Gabe because his family and mine have been friends for a long time. I’ve known him for about 9 years and in that time have seen him take higher profile cases as well as become a community activist in my neighborhood. Gabe is by far my favorite person to ask any question I have about politics because his lens on life is so clear and focused. He’s brilliant so he always knows most of the answers to my questions, but he’s pragmatic and solution focused so doesn’t just rant - he usually has a pretty smart proposal to solve whatever problem we’re faced with, and knows that political system well enough to tell me the truth about what’s going on.

I follow him on Twitter which you should absolutely do too @NDNlawyer - because he’d been quoted in an article that I’d read through his feed. We’ll talk about the case he was quoted on in the podcast. But through that article and his feed, I’d kept reading words I didn’t really understand like “blood quantum” and disenrollment, which as a white person I’d never heard. My Caucasian tribe has never once questioned my ancestry or asked how much Irish I actually have in my DNA - I’ve just never had to worry about it. So I studied up a bit so when Gabe came to dinner to ask him all about it.

I want to thank Gabe for coming to the table with real honesty and eagerness to teach and give an opinion. There are people in life who, when they speak, you listen and realize how much you have to learn. Gabe is one of those people. Thankfully, Gabe is willing to patiently answer all my questions and educate those of us who don’t know about indigenous rights. We owe it to ourselves and our Indigenous brothers and sisters to learn.