Your Turn.

It was a balmy August night in 2002 when my 17-year-old daughter and her child, buckled safely in the backseat of the car, pulled into the Cenex gas station at the corner of North Montana Avenue and Custer Avenue. The windows were rolled down on the passenger and driver's side of the car to let the warm wind blow through the vehicle. After pumping gas, my daughter pulled up to the entrance of the store in order to pay for her gasoline, taking her child with her into the store. She had buckled my granddaughter into her safety seat and gotten into the driver's seat when a man came up to her spewing ugly words into her face. Through her window open, he had a chance to get "into her face" with his racial slurs. He put his hand on the window button disabling her from getting the window up. My daughter's stricken face was all he saw when his last racist gesture was to spit in her face. The golden rings upon his fingers and his red shirt sleeve were all she saw.

Eric Clapton's words, "if I could, I'd change the world" have been singing in my head since Shawn White Wolf's wonderful article about Indian Legislators was printed in Sunday's IR. What an incredibly up-hill battle Dolly Akers fought to change the world so long ago. Unfortunately, for the Senator and House Representatives mentioned in White Wolf's article, the battle continues. Representatives Bixby and Juneau have been requesting of the legislature funding to teach the type of history about Montana's tribes depicted in White Wolf's article. Since the Constitutional Convention thirty years ago to MCA 20-1-501, Indian Education for All has never been funded. Imperative to understanding the Indian Education for All bill is the language of MCA 20-1-501 and the term "all." This is not a bill to teach Indian children about themselves, but a bill to teach all Montana's children about the Indian tribes in the state.

As a Blackfeet mother, aunt, and now grandmother, I will be able to teach my family about themselves in my own home. As Blackfeet children, my children have not been given the school opportunities to learn about Assiniboines, Crows, Cheyennes, Little Shell Chippewas, Salish, Kootenais, Crees, Gros Ventres, or Nakota Sioux. Neither have your children. My children have not been granted the opportunity to shine in the classroom for their vast experiences in life or their grand intelligences.

When I relive the moment my daughter stepped into our house after the trauma the man in the red shirt inflicted upon her, tears of frustration spring into my eyes and I am deeply saddened that another human being sought to bring shame, fear, and racism onto this young girl. More frustration, sadness, and yes, anger, fill me as I watch another generation of Blackfeet, my granddaughter, come to terms with racism in Montana. If I could, I'd change the world by educating our children and youth about tribes in Montana through the education system and not by each individual fighting the battle like Dolly Akers so long ago. If I could, I'd change the world by giving the opportunity of education about Montana's tribes to children throughout Montana so a man in a red shirt cannot inflict pain upon young Indian people in Montana.

SHARON WAGNER lives at 1623 Chestnut in Helena.