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Today I surrendered use of my Osage Nation car tag

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April Wazhaxi-Jones
November 13, 2023

After 30+ years of the State of Oklahoma recognizing the entirety of Oklahoma as Indian Territory, Gov. Kevin Stitt decided to take his frustration out on Oklahoma Tribes and declare our reservation boundaries are the only place I can live and continue to use my Osage car tags.

I’m an Osage, living in Indian Territory, Oklahoma City.

After much research and guidance from someone I trust, I concluded my only choice was to register my car outside of my Tribe. I cried as I turned in my Osage tag documents to the State of Oklahoma Tag Agency on 122 and MacArthur tonight. My Osage tags were due for renewal. My window of waiting for a resolution from the legislature was closing and I need to use my car now.

I cried on the way home and I cried as I replaced my tag with a new Choctaw Nation tag, courtesy of my husband. I’m grateful, at least, I didn’t have to take the obscure Oklahoma Scissor Tail tag, or Pioneers of the Prairie, or any of the other local tags, but I feel gut-punched right now.

Growing up out of state I was never able to have that Osage Tag and I couldn’t wait to move home so I could finally represent my tribe, via my vehicle, every day.

It may seem trivial to some, but every time I see my car with my Osage tag, I beam with pride. Every time I’m in my car I knew my Osage plate was there. Represent. It always made me smile. Every time I see another Osage plate on the road I know that is a car carrying a family and I say, “𐓷𐓘.𐓻𐓘.𐓷𐓟 𐓩𐓣𐓤𐓯𐓣” recognizing this good thing, and I smile. I’m not able to live in Osage right now, and seeing those other Osage tags makes me feel at home. Not alone.

I can’t help but feel the timing of Governor Stitt’s latest assault on sovereignty was uniquely tied to the release of “Killers of the Flower Moon.” I can’t help but think he’s behaved using the same tactics that The Devil and all the other white settlers used in dealing with the Osage 100 years ago. It is right out of the Hale playbook … Find any barely legal loophole to exploit and keep taking more and more.

I know it is because we have been fighting back. We have been demanding our sovereignty be recognized. Demanding our rights to self-govern as a Sovereign Tribal Nation. We are doing good. We are thriving. And just like the early 1900s, there are those non-Indians that don’t believe we should be prosperous when they are not. They see what we have built and how far we have come and they despise us for it and see it as freebies and handouts from the federal government, which is absolutely asinine, but without the ability for our stories to be taught in schools these people are left ignorant to the reality of the Treaty Obligations the State and Federal government have with us and that are constantly, to this day, being broken.

As I sit here writing, in the background I hear a news program with sound bites of a former president talking about the further assault he’s planning on brown people and immigrants should he win reelection and I think to myself, “How in the heck don’t half of Americans see the danger of that man?” He created this environment for this Governor to do what he’s done. He says exactly what he’s going to do, and his rhetoric causes more hate and division every day, and they cheer him and treat him like a messiah. Am I to believe we have regressed so far that truly half of America is that racist and believe what he says is ok? It makes me sick and so frightened for my children and grandchildren.

On days like today, I long for the comfort and Safety of my Osage Reservation. I love to drive by the arbors, the meeting halls, the old Osage buildings. The City of Pawhuska. Capitol of The Osage Nation …

I wish I could move back home and not be surrendering this precious piece of Osage I carried with me everywhere I went.

April Wazhaxi-Jones

Oklahoma City

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