MISSOULA — The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) are standing in solidarity with the Crow Tribe after disparaging remarks from Republican Senate Candidate Tim Sheehy.
Charkoosta News posted an audio file where Sheehy can be heard saying Crow Tribal members are drunk by 8 in the morning and they threw beer cans at his head during the Crow Fair.
CSKT says Sheehy’s comments are disrespectful and send a dangerous message about Indigenous people.
“These people tend to think that they know what's best for tribal people and they really don't and … in the position they're in the … spot that they're at, they're, they're thinking that they don't need to be educated more about who we are when, in fact, they do need to be educated more,” CSKT Tribal Chairman Michael Dolson told MTN. “And these kind of remarks really show an immaturity of -- about dealing with our, our tribal people. And so, we definitely stand with our, our tribal brothers and sisters against language like this.”
During Monday night’s U.S. Senate debate on Montana PBS, Tester pushed Sheehy to apologize for those insensitive comments about tribal members.
"The reality is, yeah, insensitive. I come from the military, as many our tribal members do. You know, we make insensitive jokes and probably off-color sometimes. And … you know, I'm an adult. I'll take accountability for that. But let's not distract from the issues that our tribal communities are suffering,” Sheehy said. “And you can say, look, I'll take responsibility, but, you know, apologies matter and how you treat people matter. And if you treat them with disrespect, other people will disrespect them. So, like I said, to begin with, you're a big guy. Just apologize,” Tester said.
"Will you apologize for opening the border?" Sheehy asked.
"I didn't open the border,” Tester responded.
- information from Robyn Iron included in this report.
