Community: Ism's & Aint'ems

In mainstream American culture we incorrectly apply the term community to any clustering of individuals “a town, a church, a synagogue, a fraternal organization, an apartment complex, a professional association—regardless of how poorly those individuals communicate with each other. It is a false use of the word (The Different Drum, Schulz, 2006).” American Indian definitions of community are much more group oriented, steeped in family ideas/ideals and cultural ties and norms that originally provided the people with “rules to live by.” Within American Indian communities there were networks of support systems that enabled each generation to help, catch, and even uplift members of the next or previous generation (when the need for support emerged by any individual or cluster of individuals within the group).

“If we are going to use the word [community] meaningfully we must restrict it to a group of individuals who have learned how to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper then their masks of composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to ‘rejoice together, mourn together,’ and to ‘delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own.’ (The Different Drum, Schulz, 2006).” This is close to an Indigenous concept of community.

“Once we allow that all clients are ‘nested’ in community, we can entertain the idea that all (or at least most) client problems (be they physical, psychological, economic, or social) are ‘nested’ in communities as well. This realm of community problems (the environmental component) is what Schwartz (1969) called the ‘public issue’ side of a ‘personal trouble.’ (Group Work: Strategies for Strengthening Resiliency, Mondros, 2001).” At this point and time American Indian populations are suffering from inter-generational posttraumatic stress disorder. After centuries of systematic attempted genocide, followed by the constant onslaught of culturally bias laws thrust upon Native families with the intent to destroy the Indian concept of family itself, tribal members today are finding themselves surrounded by a legacy of self destruction instead of a system of love and familial support.