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Welcome to Live Free Ride Free, where we talk to people who have lived self-actualized lives on their own terms, and find out how they got there, what they do, how we can get there, what we can learn from them. How to live our best lives, find our own definition of success, and most importantly, find joy.
Your Host is New York Times bestselling author Rupert Isaacson. Long time human rights activist, Rupert helped a group of Bushmen in the Kalahari fight for their ancestral lands. He's probably best known for his autism advocacy work following the publication of his bestselling book "The Horse Boy" and "The Long Ride Home" where he tells the story of finding healing for his autistic son. Subsequently he founded New Trails Learning Systems an approach for addressing neuro-psychiatric conditions through horses, movement and nature. The methods are now used around the world in therapeutic riding program, therapy offices and schools for special needs and neuro-typical children.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on www.RupertIsaacson.com
Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New
York Times bestselling author of
The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
Before I jump in with today's guest, I
want to say a huge thank you to you, our
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To find out about our certification
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So now let's jump in.
Welcome back to Live
Free, ride Free today.
I've got Jeff, Tom Hay.
He's a lawyer, he's Native American.
He has a unique perspective not just on
the American experience and, you know,
the world experience of America, but
also on the America, within America.
And many of us who are not American,
or at least not born there, have a
perception of the USA usually based
around what we see coming through
the media of one kind or another.
But the, the truth is that there are
many Americans and that the Native
American experience is something that
I think is probably unfamiliar, hidden
from most outsiders because it's just
not what is presented front and center
in the media experience to the outside
world except in certain enclaves of
Hollywood or a film dealing with the
American West or something like that.
But even then it would be through the,
usually through the perspective of, you
know, a, a non-native film director or so.
So it's great to be able to have,
you on Jeff, because you have spent
your life as a lawyer for tribal
advocacy, which I suspect probably
has not made you a multimillionaire.
Although I do hope it does one day.
And you are, if I have
it right, hada Nation.
Yes.
Same geographic area.
You informed me as the Mandan and
Aria Kiri, which those listening
from outside the USA or outside that
area would be like the upper Missouri
Basin sort of plains of the Dakotas.
Yes.
Would I be right in in, in thinking that?
Yes.
And so that is an America within America.
How does one live one's
life as a tribal advocate?
And maybe before we get into this,
your name Tom, Tom Ha Tom ha Tom hav
Jeff Tomhave: Tom ha
Rupert Isaacson: Tom ha.
Talk to us about the origin of that
name, because I suspect that in
the origin of names we can learn a
lot and then we can go from there.
Jeff Tomhave: Well, I'm, I'm glad you
asked that because most people assume that
Tom Hay is some kind of indigenous name.
Mm-hmm.
It's actually German.
Okay.
One quarter German and.
The German ancestors I'm sure you know
this, Rupert a lot of German immigrants
moved to, you know, the great the
Great Lakes area and the upper plains.
So Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota
is filled with Germans and Germans.
Germans and Scandinavians.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: Yes.
And, and I've been told it's because,
you know, that part of the United
States looks like where they came from.
So in doing the, my own genealogy
research, I found that Tom ha is actually,
you know, the, the, the shortened version.
It was originally Tom Haven.
Ah, that would make sense.
From like, from like, I don't
know, like the 13 hundreds.
It was Zh at one time.
But anyway, anyway, that's,
that's where that name comes from.
And throughout my life you know,
teachers and, and you know, other
people have always assumed that it's
it's some kind of indigenous name
and Well, I just let 'em think that.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, but I mean it, I think one could
be forgiven for thinking that because
it's not an obvi, if it was Tom Haven, it
one would automatically think Germanic.
Yes, it's true.
Tom Hay one does not.
And I'm, I was actually busy googling
it as you were talking there, and
it, it also seems to possibly have
a a Belgian, but it would be the,
the Flemish, Dutch what's the area?
Free Freezeland area.
Mm-hmm.
Name.
And then, then it actually
does make sense to me.
And yeah, as you, as you say, that's,
you know, rather, like me, I'm a
product of the colonial experience.
My surname Isaacson was Lithuanian Jews
who wanted to sound less Jewish and
less starve in German, southwest Africa.
So they misguidedly changed their name
from Mirko to Isaacson, thinking this
would make them more, more accepted.
I dunno why they didn't go for like,
fun, Isaac or something like that.
But no, they went with Isaacson,
which of course didn't work.
And the other side we're all,
you know, Dutch and English and
Scottish and you know, yeah.
Here I am, the mishmash.
So, but you, despite the fact
that the name is Germanic yes.
Are Native Americans, so, and why did you
decide to get involved in tribal advocacy?
Why not just go and live your life?
And also if you're gonna become
a lawyer, why not just go off and
become the kind of lawyer that.
Gets rich.
Why, why not just, you know, look after
nice oil contracts in North Dakota or
something like that, and then, you know,
retire to Palm Springs and play golf.
You know, like why did you
choose the part you chose?
Jeff Tomhave: These
are all good questions.
I'm gonna probably ask that every day.
First I wanna swing back to
to you know, my own heritage.
So, so my father was, you know,
he was half so he grew up on his
reservation, the Fort Reservation in
North Dakota, you know, as a half breed.
And so he was never, he wasn't Indian
enough for the Indian kids, and he
was, you know, not white enough for
the white kids and, and all of that.
But on my mother's side, my
mother's maiden name is Kit,
and that is an indigenous name.
And that actually means lake
Superior in, in Potawatomi because
that's where she came from.
You know, that's where, that's
where her tribe was from.
So on my mom's side, I am also
Potawatomi and HoChunk which are two
tribes from was the Wisconsin area and.
Like most native people of my
generation, and I am 62 years old
now, our parents probably met at
some off reservation boarding school.
And so most Native Americans are this
tribe and that tribe because their
parents met at boarding schools.
And so, you know, I'm a product of that.
And that gets into, you know,
why, why tribal advocacy.
My father worked for the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, and which if your audience is
not familiar, that is the branch of the
federal government that provides most of
the services on Indian reservations that
the federal government would provide.
And to give you a sort of a historical
perspective getting into colonialism,
it would be like a a British, or I
mean a European colony somewhere.
The governor of that colony would
be the one, you know, administering
the programs for that colony.
That's essentially the BIA did.
And in, and in some part still
does on different reservations
in the United States.
And so he worked for that, his entire,
his entire professional career.
And ultimately, you know, made his
way up the, up the organization where
they wanted him to be to run it in
DC and he ac he actually refused to
do so and, and he, he turned down
promotion after promotion because he
saw how you can't really do anything.
I mean, you know, you, you, you
can provide services, but you can't
really help the people if, if the
services aren't geared for the people.
Put it this way, if you're, if you are
serving the federal government, you're
not necessarily serving the tribal people.
And that's sort of what he saw
and that's what he told me.
And and honestly, that's
really what I've done.
And, and because I am this tribe
and this tribe and this tribe, I
sort of have a, a, a more global
perspective of what tribes need.
And I originally didn't want to do this.
I actually wanted to get into,
into media, into filmmaking and
was starting out doing that.
And along the way I, I had a found
a mentor and this mentor told me.
He said, well, if you ever wanna have,
if you ever wanna own a new car, and
if you ever wanna buy a house, find a
profession, you know, get a, get a degree
and, and, and make that be what you do.
And then this can be your hobby.
And so I actually took
his advice to heart.
And so, 10 years out of college,
I went back to law school.
And I, I didn't wanna be a lawyer.
I never wanted to be a lawyer.
'cause God knows the world is
filled with enough lawyers.
But I wanted to have the law degree
because it gives you an opening that
not having it wouldn't, wouldn't
give you Oh, it gives you a Yeah.
Sort of, yeah.
There's a gravitas to having a, a JD
behind your name and it opens doors and
it, and it keeps conversations going.
And that's what I wanted to do, is
I wanted to have my law degree so
that I could help Indian people.
I had no idea how to do that.
But other than, you know, because the
United States government, the whole
founding of it is based upon property law.
Mm-hmm.
The, the Bill of Rights, which
is, you know, oh yeah, let's,
let's protect the people too.
That was sort of an add-on, you know,
in order to get the Constitution
passed, they said, okay, we'll
throw on the bill of Rights too.
But it's basically about property law.
It's about how to keep the property
with the people who own it and
how to protect that property.
That's pretty much the United
States government in a nutshell.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Tomhave: And so I wanted to use that
legal training for tribal people so that
they could use their own property, whether
it was real property or intellectual
property for their own benefit.
And so that's really why, what I wanted to
do with a law degree, not necessarily, you
know, be in a courtroom arguing, you know,
esoteric matters of the law, but getting
tribal people to start thinking about
how they could really exercise their own
inner power to do what they wanted to do.
And so that's, that's, that's really
what I wanted the law degree for.
Rupert Isaacson: And let me ask you,
Anai, even perhaps to your mind,
overly obvious question, but if you are
listening to this, say in Germany or
New Zealand, it might not be obvious why
Native American people might need that.
Why did you feel or still feel
that Native American people
need that kind of access to.
The power to argue for
their property rights?
What's missing that they don't have?
Jeff Tomhave: Well, because there are
575 federally recognized tribes in the
United States, 236 have reservations.
So a, a land base that
they call their home.
However, except for a handful of cases,
they don't actually own that land.
The federal government owns
that land and it's held in
trust for the benefit of them.
So, for instance, Navajo Nation biggest
reservation in the United States,
they don't own a, a, a bit of it.
Interesting.
They own parcels outside of it, you know,
but they're like any other landowner.
They, they own that place.
They don't own their reservation.
And so the way that the, the federal laws
have been designed is to disenfranchise
Indian people from pretty much everything
from their land, from their culture,
from their language, from their history.
And so that's why it's important
for me and, and professional
natives of my generation to get.
Indian people, especially elected
leaders, to start thinking all
around the lines of, we don't need
the federal government's permission
to do something, we can just do it.
Besides, they're gonna give it to us
anyway, so why don't we just do it?
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
The question is, do
what, what is the need?
Like if, if you were to put in a
nutshell, the lack that spurred you
as a younger man to say, look, I
need to try and fill this gap here.
What is that gap?
What is the major disenfranchisement?
Jeff Tomhave: The major disenfranchisement
is the fact that Indian people
have been so colonized that they've
forgotten how they govern themselves.
What I mean by that is most
tribal nations did not have jails.
You know, you dealt with a wrongdoing
by having the, the, the person who
did the wrong make things right.
So, for instance, if you killed somebody
for whatever reason, you know, accident
on purpose, you were jealous, whatever,
you then had the responsibility to
take care of that person's family.
For the rest of your life.
That was your sentence.
And so, so jump forward to present day.
When tribes run their own jail
systems, they don't have the capacity
to do it the way it's done, say
outside in the local county jail or
in the state prisons or whatever.
They don't have the personnel.
They don't have the expertise,
they don't have the programming.
For instance, they don't have healthcare
in, in jails, in, in tribal jails.
There is no healthcare in tribal jails.
And so rather than trying to perfect
jails, why not go back to the old
way of doing things of not jailing
people and make the sentence more
in line with how your worldview
used to be and how it should be.
Because if you don't have the
capacity to run a jail, then
you shouldn't be jailing people.
But if you do have the capacity
to monitor somebody's penance
through their own atonement work,
well then you could do that.
The reason that I mentioned
that tribes don't own their
land, it's important because.
Because they don't own their land.
They can't impose property taxes.
And without property taxes, you
can't run government services.
And so everything that tribes do,
jails for instance, all depend upon
funding from the federal government.
And funding from the federal
government is, it's haphazard.
It, you know, it happens every year.
Congress can fund programs for Indian
tribes however they want to, and
they usually are grossly underfunded.
And that's the situation is if you
don't have the capacity to enact
property tax to provide services for
your people, then you gotta rethink how
you are gonna provide those services
and what kind of services you provide.
For instance, why run a jail if
you don't have, if you don't have
the revenue to run it properly?
And why not do something that is more
in line with your own traditional
philosophy of how to deal with wrongdoing.
That
Rupert Isaacson: kind Is
that, is that what you have?
Is that where you have spent a lot of your
career, is in that aspect of trying to
change the relationship with wrongdoing?
And if so, how on earth
do you enforce that?
Jeff Tomhave: Well, that is still
an unrealized ambition of mine.
Okay.
But you asked why I
wanted to get into this.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
So this is like in principle, right?
Jeff Tomhave: Yes.
In principle.
In principle, yeah.
And I just use the, the, the jail analogy
because everyone understands jail.
So no matter where your audience
is, they all understand, you know,
what they're supposed to be and
usually what they actually are.
So you could imagine in the tribal
aspect, there're a lot more there're a
lot more degraded than, than elsewhere.
And I've toured tribal jails.
They're, they're actually
really pretty bad.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I'm sure they are.
What, what is, what have you spent,
like, talk us through the highlights
of your career in advocacy then.
What have been the things
that you've worked on?
What have you seen succeed?
Jeff Tomhave: Well, most of what
we've spent, or Brandy and I have
spent the last 22 years working
on is infrastructure development
that most people take for granted.
For instance, you could live in any, any
big city in America or any small, you
know, rural county in America and you're
probably going to have electricity,
running water and a paved road outside.
Now you may not be able to afford
to hook up to that electricity
or that running water, but you
can walk on that paved road.
It's available to you whether
you can afford it or not.
In a lot of places in Indian country,
there still is not paved roads.
There's still not running water,
there's still not electricity.
There are some places where there
still not telephone service.
Nowadays with cell phone
service, that's pretty much over.
But even 20 years ago, there were
places you didn't have hardwire cell
hardwire, landline telephone service
just because it was too remote and too
cost prohibitive to put it in there.
Rupert Isaacson: So I'm just
gonna play devil's advocate.
'cause of course, when I was a kid
growing up in the uk in the late
seventies, early eighties, even on the
farms a hundred miles from London, you
didn't necessarily have electricity.
People certainly didn't
necessarily own a car.
The road might not be paved, you know,
and this happened somewhat slowly.
You know, there'd been World War ii.
Post-war austerity growth was slow.
The, the general prosperity that one
sees now in Western Europe wasn't there.
The cities were filthy.
They were, you know, falling down.
That's changed now.
But of course, if you, and when I was
a kid in I have Portuguese family,
and I remember in the countryside in
Portugal, around then it was, people
would still walk, women would walk a
kilometer to get water pots on the head.
And rural transport was Volkswagens.
Not in, not in the capital in Lisbon,
but outside in the mountain shore.
Again, that changed.
Then of course, I remember seeing Eastern
Europe went through its thing and it
went from, you know, horse agriculture
to mechanized agriculture, kind of in
front of my eyes after the war came down.
So, and, and I remember even when I moved
first to Texas 25 years ago or so, the
community that we went were in certainly
didn't have paved roads and, you know, and
that was really just outside of Austin.
But what you have said is true
because in all of those cases, as
soon as the governments could provide
those services, they of course did.
As soon as those revenues were
there, you know, the pa the road
outside our place in Texas did
become bathed, et cetera, et cetera.
And when I was working as a journalist
in, say, on the Navajo reservation, back
in the nineties, late nineties and so on.
Yeah.
The, the life that one saw was remotely
rural in that way, that, that, you
know, outside of certain places,
there just were no services, period.
People were self-sufficient
and that was that.
And I believe in, in many
cases, probably still are.
You have worked then trying to
get that kind of infrastructure
to these places, I presume.
Yes.
Have you done it and have
you been successful at it?
Jeff Tomhave: Yeah, we have because really
when you you gotta find your champion
whether it's in a member of Congress
or it's someone in a federal agency.
And once you do, and okay, this
might not be how it is right now in
Washington DC under this current, but
Rupert Isaacson: who knows how
it's right now in Washington,
Jeff Tomhave: in, in our history,
you know, in our experience.
And, you know, we've been doing this
brand and I have been doing this together
for 22 years, but we've both been doing
stuff like this for the previous 10 years.
Just not with each other,
not not our own company.
Our experience has been that
people come to DC because they
want, they want to solve problems.
They wanna, they want to fix things,
they want to, they wanna leave a legacy.
Rupert Isaacson: They
wanna make things better.
Yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: They wanna
make things better.
And so you find that champion and
you take, you know, in our case, our
community story, and we usually begin
in the local community and make, make it
tell their story to that person that
we eventually find as a champion.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Tomhave: And make it be their story,
because they wanna be the hero, they
want to be the hero of, of whatever.
And so that's how we've
been able to do it.
We've been able to say, Hey, all we
need is, you know, a couple hundred
thousand dollars to do the study.
Everything with the infrastructure.
You gotta do the preliminary studies,
the environmental studies, the
historical studies, everything first.
And that's usually the first phase.
And then afterwards, then you find the
funding to actually do the project.
But once you've done the first step,
which is the studies, the, the second
step is usually much easier because,
oh, you've already done step one.
Now we just move on to step two.
And, and that's how the process
used to work here in dc.
Hopefully we'll get back to that someday.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Jeff Tomhave: But yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: so, so there you are
based in dc you know, originally from deep
within the American heartland, but then
based in DC would a tribe then contact
you or your firm, engage your services
and say Jeff, we need this health service,
we need this road, we need a better jail.
We need a thing.
Right.
Can you help us to find a congressman
or woman who will advocate for
us and help us find that money
to put into place this service?
Is that basically
describe what you would do
Jeff Tomhave: Exactly.
That, that's exactly how,
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
Exactly.
Jeff Tomhave: How, how it works.
Rupert Isaacson: Can you give us a couple
of examples of where that succeeded?
Jeff Tomhave: Sure.
The I don't know how familiar you're with,
with Navajo, but it's in three states.
You know,
Rupert Isaacson: I'm, I'm
quite familiar with Navajo now.
Primarily I'm coming to my own story
with Navajo in a minute, but yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: Okay.
Primarily Arizona and New Mexico
and a little, little part in Utah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yep.
Jeff Tomhave: The Utah section,
there's a, there is a community
there called Navajo Mountain.
It's on Navajo Mountain.
Mm-hmm.
And there, it, it is in the Utah
section, but the road to get to
it starts in the Arizona section.
There is no way to get to it
from the Utah, from other places
in Utah on U through Utah.
The only road that goes there is
in Arizona, so it's a 14 mile road.
The
students who went there were bused from
all over the Utah section because in
United States school districts work by,
by, you know, districts, but they're,
they're confined to their states.
And so the Utah School District
represented about half of the
Utah section, the Navajo Nation.
And in order for the kids to get to that
school, they had to be bused through the
Arizona section and then back up to Utah.
It was about a four hour one way drive
for some, if not most of the students.
Rupert Isaacson: Wow.
Jeff Tomhave: And the, the, the
parents got frustrated because, you
know, obviously when it rains there
and the, the roads turn into mud bogs,
the school bus can't get through.
And so kids are missing all kinds
of school missing so much school,
in fact, that I believe if you miss.
Something like 16 school days in
a, in a school year, you actually
have to be held back for the next
year because you've missed too much.
School kids were, that
was happening repeatedly.
Parents were frustrated and so they
actually sued not only the the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, but the Navajo Nation and
the state of Utah to say, Hey, fix this
road so that, you know, it doesn't take
four hours to get there, you know, so that
kids can get there in a normal, you know,
school drive, you know, an hour at most,
you know, or school bus drive an hour.
At most.
The lawsuit was actually successful.
And all three of the parties, the Navajo
Nation, the state of Utah, and the
Bureau of Indian Affairs, they actually
built a brand new school in Utah.
Two new schools.
In fact, the, the the primary
school in the secondary school,
brand new beautiful facilities,
and they paved the road all the way
from the school to the Utah border.
Problem was the Arizona side was
still a dirt road, so there's 14
miles that was still a dirt road, so
the problem was still in existence.
So we took that issue
and took it to Navajo's.
Representative at the time and said, this
is an obvious equal protection argument.
This is a constitutional issue.
These kids have a, have a
constitutional right to get to school
like any other kid in any other
district school district in America.
And that was the winning argument.
Our member of Congress was able
to get us the money for that.
And in that time, in that process
of, of getting the, the roadway
paved, what had happened was that
the local utility, the Navajo owned
utility, put in new water lines
along that right of way of the road.
And they also put in new
electrical and new internet lines.
And so not only did we get this
14 sec, 14 mile section of road
paved, but they got brand new
infrastructure all the way because
the road was actually not being used.
And so they could do all of that
maintenance work and all that,
all that construction work.
And so now, the Navajo Mountain
schools are like state of the art.
They're winning awards in Utah.
They've got this robotics
team that they do robotics
competitions all over the country.
And so that's sort of like one one
example, another example we got a
call from a local Navajo aids patient
advocacy groups saying we can't get
any treatment for HIV aids, you know,
and, and, you know, our local Indian
Health Service is not being responsive,
you know, do something about this.
So we actually looked into what
that was, and we found out that
treatment for HIV aids, that wasn't
anything that the Indian Health
Service was off, was authorized to do.
They were authorized to provide
prevention and awareness and
screening, but not treatment.
And so that was a, a pretty easy one.
So when the reauthorization for the
federal HIV aids treatment bill came
through, we were able to get the
internet health service included in that.
And I say that as though that was easy.
It actually took us about
four years to do that.
But it was a, it was a really easy fix
because the local community thought their.
Their local Indian health Service
was being unresponsive, not knowing
that they weren't, they weren't
able to do this anyway, but we
were able to get them to do this.
And so now HIV AIDS treatment is
available throughout Indian country
because we were able to do that.
Rupert Isaacson: What's interesting to
me about that story is given that AIDS
was such a big thing surely you as a
Native American, you know, would've been
aware that that service was lacking.
Like would've heard someone saying
about something about it somewhere.
It's interesting.
And, you know, I would've assumed,
okay, it's a health, you know,
there are health services.
AIDS is the thing that would be sort of
on the, and of course my background's
in Africa, lots of it down there.
So, you know, it's just front
and center to find out that it
wasn't, is, let's say, surprising.
What were people doing?
Were they just dying at home?
Jeff Tomhave: Or they'd go off
reservation to go seek treatment?
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
So if they could afford to find some
health insurance somewhere, they could go
and get it, but not on the reservation.
If they were dependent upon the local
reservation service, they might die.
Jeff Tomhave: Right.
Exactly.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Wow.
Okay.
Tell us another one.
Jeff Tomhave: Well, I, I know Brandy had
mentioned this one but we were able to get
the first cancer treatment center on a,
on Indian Indian reservation at the Tuba
City Hospital in on the Navajo Nation.
And that was a 10 year process.
Okay.
But the finding the the
oncologists and finding the
pharmacy and all the specialized
equipment, that was the easy part.
The hard part was getting the federal
government to reimburse the services,
which they do everywhere else across
the country except for Indian country
because they weren't authorized to do so.
And so it, it was a 10 year process for
us to get the federal agency that does
that, to get them authorized to do that.
Rupert Isaacson: Why were they
not authorized and why would it be
difficult to get 'em to be authorized?
Jeff Tomhave: Well, because
pretty much everybody in the federal
government assumes that, well, since
there is a bureau of Indian Affairs right?
And there's an Indian Health Service,
they're the ones that do all that stuff.
Not knowing that they actually
don't do all of that stuff.
They're very limited in what they can do.
Even more limited in,
in how they're funded.
And so a lot of other federal
agencies actually provide services
for Indian tribes in Indian
country through other programs.
It's just that the leadership of
those agencies and departments
might not necessarily ever even
know that or be aware of that.
So they didn't, they didn't know that
and they didn't wanna know about that.
So that's why it took us 10 years.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
And what are you working on now?
What's the current project?
Jeff Tomhave: Well right now the
the hospital is it's the hospital
that where we were able to get
the cancer services stood up.
They their actual building is
well over 50 years old and so
they wanna get it replaced.
It's gonna be about a billion dollars.
And as I've told them, there's, there are
no pot of money in Washington DC that is
a billion dollars to replace a hospital.
We're gonna have to do it in, in stages
and in phases and, and, and all that.
But no, we that's the big one
that I'm working on right now.
But also because of the work
that we were doing with cancer.
I'm starting a an organization that
is gonna try to get cancer treatment
on reservations more readily.
Now that we've been able to get the
services reimbursed, now we actually
want to start providing services.
And so I'm working with the handful of,
of native oncologists across the country.
And when I say handful, I mean a handful.
There was only five that we know
of, of native oncologists, and
they're all willing to partner
and, and get this thing going.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
You know, it's, it's very interesting
when, I remember when I moved to
the USA one of my first questions
was, where do I find Indians?
Where do I find Indian culture?
And I moved to California when I
first moved, and so, you know, it was
San Francisco and my then partner's,
you know, friendship Circle was very
liberal, very progressive, very East Bay.
Mm-hmm.
So I thought, oh, they'll know.
In the same way that if you, if you
are Southern African, you, you know
where the tribes live, you know
that, you know the clauses are there
in the Eastern cape, you know that.
Tu are up there in Latu.
You know that the su swazis are there
In Su Swaziland, there're is zululand.
There is, you know, up in Botswana
it's the Botswana, there's Shauna
and the end Bailey, that's Zimbabwe.
You, you know this.
And you, you might be unaware of some
smaller tribes and know, and there also
might be not so nice colonial reasons why
they are placed, where they are placed.
But you do know, I mean, you would know
where to go, what you know, to, to see
and experience the indigenous culture.
What flummoxed me when I got to the USA
was like, no, like not only did people not
know, but they really didn't want to know.
And so you would ask people including
liberal, educated, you know, Northern
Californians and the, the resistance
to it and the dismissal of the question
was almost a little bit hostile.
And it was interesting to me.
I thought, wow.
And, and, and then I would ask,
well, aren't you interested?
I mean, you know, you're born here.
I mean, you're born on that mountain
and surely you'd kind of want to know,
and that mountain kind of has an Indian
name or the, the state has an Indian
name, or the river has an Indian name.
And aren't you kind of curious about,
you know, just who the people were?
I mean, aren't you curious
about the history, even if
they're not there anymore?
No.
The answer was like, no.
And I think, what, what's the difference?
Why, why were people so incurious?
Almost deliberately incurious,
and it's my journalist mind.
It's like, I've gotta know this, you know?
And then I realized, oh, I see.
Because the colonial experience in
southern Africa, while brutal was not that
type of genocide there were genocides that
happened, but overall, there wasn't enough
overwhelming white settlement coming in.
There weren't tens of millions of
people getting on ships from Europe and
going down to South Africa, there were,
you know, maybe a couple of million.
So just pure economics, you're not
gonna go down and wipe out the labor
force, and you couldn't, if you tried
something might happen like a smallpox
epidemic or a, a particularly brutal
local war those things for sure happened.
But in general, you were always gonna
be outnumbered by the people who lived
there, which of course meant that sooner
or later they were gonna take it back.
And that's of course what happened.
But the story in North America was
so different because the sheer volume
of people coming in was greater
than the number of people who were
living there in the first place.
Right.
And so there was.
No other way that it was gonna go.
And I thought, I see there must be
some sort of deep-rooted guilt about
that, which makes people incurious,
who even would, these would be the
sort of people who would go to an
anti-apartheid rally, you know?
Or perhaps now it would be something
for freedom for Palestine or something.
Yes.
But they wouldn't take up the
flag for the local Indian tribe.
And, and so I, I was asking people,
well, who are the local Indians here?
There must be, I mean, you know,
there were people living here before.
I mean, I know San Francisco's, you
know, been a Spanish settlement for a
long time, but before them, there were
people here and I'm looking on the map.
Look, there's reservations.
Look, look, no, what's that tribe?
You know, it begins with m it's
you know, and have you been there?
No.
Do you wanna go there?
No.
Why not?
Why are you asking these questions?
Okay, interesting.
So then, of course, I had to go
and I found out about, so I, you
asked me about Navajo Nation.
I owe a debt of gratitude to
Indian country and Navajo Nation.
Now, I would say that anyone who's
gone and lived in America, or benefited
from America in any way, of course
owes a debt of gratitude to Native
America because they created America.
And so if you have benefited from
America, you have benefited from.
The fruits of those peoples.
But that's, but in a more direct way.
I began a journalistic experience in
Navajo Nation that started in the late
nineties and then popped up again a
couple of times where I was following
various land rights issues there.
In the same way that I was doing it
in Africa and reporting on it, not for
American press, but for British press
because Brits are interested in it.
By the time my son became diagnosed with
severe autism and those of you, you know,
who know my story that I went to Mongolia
and there was a very big healing there.
And then I was back in Africa
and then I found myself in
Australia in the rainforest there.
But my, the final healing
was actually on Navajo.
And it was this guy called Chi who
also went by the name of Blue Horse.
And at the end of that healing where
we sweated on behalf of my son my son
became like properly conversational
that day, not a week afterwards.
That day.
And he did it on I 40 driving
out of Navajo reservation.
He said something to me that was
not what his previous scripted
autism, you know, it was, we had
just come out of the last ceremony,
Jeff Tomhave: mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Sunrise
ceremony with, with pollen.
And subsequently various friends of mine
went to this healer for various things.
And all of them ended up with
a very, very positive outcome.
And
so I have this debt.
And also professionally, I have a debt
because my first break into journalism
was actually given to me by the Cree
Indians when I was living up in Canada.
I reported on their land rights issue
where the government, hydro company,
hydro Quebec, was going to flood.
It blew my mind an area the size of France
Jeff Tomhave: mm-hmm.
And
Rupert Isaacson: area the size of
France to sell this wa hydroelectricity
to the New England states.
And the flow of the water was going
to be so big that it was gonna cause
the earth's crus to shift and release
all this mercury from the bedrock.
And it actually had happened before
in the seventies and a smaller.
Way.
So they, the Cree had managed to
get a settlement from the government
and they'd used it quite wisely.
Quite a lot of their kids had ended
up going off to law school 'cause
they knew that it would happen again.
And of course when it did,
they were sort of ready.
And I went and reported on that.
Again, not for the Canadian
press, not for the American
press, but for the British press.
And they were successful.
And they gave me that story 'cause
I went up there as a completely
poverty stricken freelance journalist.
And they flew me around
on the, on the sea planes.
And they got me out to the
trapping camps on the snowmobiles.
And all of this would've cost thousands.
Thousands so I could get that story out.
And so I owe so much to Native America,
and I'm always intrigued by how
invisible it is when you are in the USA.
I was just in Florida, right?
I was just in Florida and I went
to visit a friend who lives in a
place called Jupiter, Florida, which
is just outside Palm West Farm.
And I am driving around and then
I see this little blo, you know,
brown plaque about a battle.
I'm like that battle, the date,
it could only have been against
Indians, it couldn't have been
against the Spanish or anything.
And I remembered, oh
yeah, the Seminole Wars.
I'd heard of the Seminole Wars.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I get on Wikipedia, I look
up and I realized I'm in the
middle of Seminole country.
And there are actually semial
reservations around me, but
there is zero evidence of it.
So why is this Jeff?
Why, you know, somewhere
like Navajo notion.
Okay.
In the southwest, huge areas,
vast, you know, remote.
Okay.
And then when you get
in there, oh yeah, okay.
Here's a big intact culture.
But we can understand that
it's a schlep to get in there
'cause it's a remote place.
But when you're dealing with places
like Upstate New York or California,
or Florida, it's not remote.
Jeff Tomhave: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: These people are
living right there in the communities.
So why is it invisible?
Why is Native America invisible?
As you know, if you followed any of
my work, I'm an autism dad and we have
a whole career before this podcast in
helping people with neurodivergence,
either who are professionals in the field.
Are you a therapist?
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Or are you somebody with neurodivergence?
When my son, Rowan, was
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I really didn't know what to do.
So I reached out for mentorship, and
I found it through an amazing adult
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And she told me what to do.
And it's been working so
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We really want to know.
We really want to help people like
me, people like you, out there
live their best life, to live
free, ride free, see what happens.
Jeff Tomhave: Two reasons.
I'm gonna give you the, the simple
answer first is because Native
Americans are also Americans.
And so when you live in an urban area,
say in Southern California or Phoenix
or Albuquerque or Miami, you're gonna,
it's hard to differentiate where the
suburbs end and the reservation begins
because you have the same businesses.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Tomhave: And so, so
Native Americans are Americans.
They like the same fast food
culture and, and big box store
culture as everyone else.
And so.
That's the easy answer.
The harder answer is because
of the checkerboard system.
Now, this goes way back in US history.
Basically to get the railroads built,
the federal government promised the
railroads, Hey, every 10 miles we're
gonna give you, you know, a 10 mile
stretch and it can go for another 20
miles so that you can build your towns.
And, you know, obviously, 'cause it
was steam engines, they, they needed
every, every 10 miles or so, they
needed to get water for their engines.
And so you could build that infrastructure
there and put towns in and you,
you could sell all that, lease, all
that property to pay for all this.
We'll give that to you.
Well, where did those, where
did that land come from?
It came from reservations.
It, it, the reservations
that were negotiated, that's
where that land came from.
And so part of part of it was building
the railroads, took a lot of Indian land
and then the allotment act, which when
public lands were open to homesteaders,
they said, Hey, come and get all your,
you know, your, your 40 acres and, and
you know, you can prosper and, and.
You'll succeed.
And so that's where a lot of
a lot of reservations became
diminished because of that.
And so
I know that you've experienced
this because I've, I've heard you
speak about this where you're on
a reservation and you don't know
you're necessarily on a reservation.
That's also because of right of way,
if you're driving on a highway that is
not the reservation, that's the right
of way or of the state or the county.
And so all of the billboards, all of
the gas stations, basically everything
in that right of way is gonna look as
though it's any road, any place else.
And it isn't until you get off of those
roads and go a couple of miles into this,
to the communities that you'll actually
find the Indian settlements, the, the
people you know, and, and, and that,
but I also think that what you
touched on earlier is also true.
There's a lot of white guilt in
Americans they don't wanna know,
and so they don't want to see it.
And so they're, they're, they're more
than happy to go buy tax-free cigarettes
and tax-free gasolines on reservations.
But that's the extent of it.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
I've got a challenging question.
So Colonialization is a two-edged sword.
You know, have you ever seen
Monty Python's life of Brian?
You know, of course.
And there's, there's the scene where
it's the liberation front, you know,
the ju the Judean Liberation front.
What are the Romans ever done for us?
Hey, hey, you know, so well
Jeff Tomhave: roads
Rupert Isaacson: aqueduct, apart
from Aqueduct, what are they?
Well, roads well apart
from Rhodes, what are they?
And then they go through the, well,
apart from roads, aqueduct healthcare,
you know, blah, blah, blah, you know,
what have they ever done for us?
And it's poignant because you said, you
know, Amer native Americans are Americans,
they like box store culture, they like
fast food culture, et cetera, et cetera.
And I'm curious about that because that
is of course the hand of colonialism.
If you like destroying culture and I'm,
you and I both know that there are many,
many enclaves of Native America within
all over North America, where actually
the original culture is very, very strong.
To the point that, like I've been on the
valley floor of Canyon Deha in Navajo
country where it's like a traditional
life from about a hundred years ago.
But, and people living down there to
some degree choose that, but by, that's
by no means, you know, everywhere.
Why do you, and, and then I
remember when we met at the Quis
Film Festival in Montana last year.
And I remember there was a movie about the
Blackfoot Nation and their relationship
with horses and the land and so on.
But as an outsider, I have to say
it looked like just other normal
American sort of semi ranch type people
living in trailers, dressing like
white people driving the same truck.
You basically adopting
the same culture the same.
And there was a lot of talk about the
culture in that movie, and then you saw
like little snippets of it, but mostly
what you actually observed as an outsider.
It's like, no, look dude, it
looks exactly the same as anywhere
else in White Western America.
What's the difference?
Jeff Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Naive question.
So my question is in a, in a state
of being where one is fighting
for advocacy, self-advocacy,
why the wholesaler adoption
of the colonial culture?
Jeff Tomhave: Because the traditional
culture has been taken away.
And so a lot of people don't necessarily
know it's not their experience.
They don't know what their
traditional culture is.
Okay.
And they're, they're like anyone else.
They're searching, they're, they're
looking at things, you know?
And in order for culture to
survive, it has to adapt.
And so,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: I am gonna tell you
a story and hopefully this'll,
this'll illustrate what I mean.
So, you know, Brandy, she's chota one of
the five civilized tribes, and they're
called civilized tribes because they were
Rupert Isaacson: Brandy, by the way.
Is, is, is, is Jeff's wife who runs
a Native American Humane Society.
Yes.
Please go and check her interview
out on Equine Assisted World.
My other podcast.
'cause it's, it's really a great
interview, but just when he says
Brandy, that's what he means.
Okay.
Sorry.
Yes.
Okay.
Jeff Tomhave: So yes, so, so, should
member of Choctaw Nation they're
part of the five civilized tribes.
They're called the civilized tribes
because early on they adopted
English, they adopted Christianity,
they wrote their own constitutions.
And like the rest of America,
they had African slaves.
And so they're called the
five civilized tribes.
Right.
Speak English.
Right.
Became Christians really
early in their history,
Rupert Isaacson: settled in towns.
Jeff Tomhave: Yes.
Settled in towns, had newspapers.
It looked
Rupert Isaacson: like colonial towns.
Jeff Tomhave: Yeah.
Had constitutions, had to, had
sheriffs and, and all that stuff.
Right.
And a couple of years ago we
were driving through Oklahoma and
we went to Durant, which is the
capital of the Choctaw Nation.
They had just opened
their cultural center.
It actually had opened just as COVID hit.
So when they opened, they
actually didn't open.
And so we were there, you know, a few
years afterwards when, you know it was
safe to come out again and they were
actually having their big opening.
And so we were there.
And when we got there, there was a Navajo
woman who was the, the, the person,
the hostess who, who introduced us.
'cause she married a Choctaw guy.
And she said, oh, here's,
here's our programming here.
Here's what you, you know, here's
what you might wanna do today.
And one of 'em was
Choctaw language classes.
And so, you know, brand
new perked up immediately.
And we went into 'em and
they were singing hymns.
And it finally dawned on me they became
Christians so that they could hide
their culture right out in the open.
They were singing hymns in Choctaw.
And it dawned on me right then and there.
Ah, okay, now I get it.
So, the Choctaw Nation has probably
per capita some of the, the, the, the
highest fluent speakers of anywhere.
They are the, I believe they're
the, the second largest tribe.
Navajos being the first, and I know
Navajos has a pretty big fluent
speaker numbers, but I believe
Chota is just right behind them.
And it's not that they, they don't
like say, oh, English is bad.
No.
It's that they've been able to keep their
culture because they, they adapted this
persona of being just like white people.
And so they were able to
shield it for themselves.
And I think that that's, that's
that is more prevalent than not.
Now you said, you know, you,
you, you've been to enclaves
where there's thriving cultures.
I've been to places where there
are what are called unacknowledged
tribes you know, federally recognized
tribes, meaning, you know, you have a
relationship with the federal government.
You know, it's, it's based on a treaty
or a statute or something, but there's
some federal reason why the United
States government deals with you as a
tribe, as a separate political entity.
And that's, that's called
federal recognition.
There are what are called
unacknowledged tribes in that
they never had that interaction.
So they're just these small
rural communities off in the
mountains or wherever, you know,
the desert floor, wherever.
And they haven't ever had that experience.
So they're completely intact.
They've got their language,
they've got their culture,
they've got their, their religion.
And even though they speak English
and they go to schools and all that,
they still have all of that, because
that was never taken from them.
And I've been there, I've seen it.
It, it, it exists.
And, and so I think there's, there's,
there's the extreme way of, oh, we're
gonna, we're gonna adapt everything
that, that white American culture has,
and we're gonna take it on as our own
and hide our own truth inside that.
Or, Hey, you never bothered
to deal with us, therefore you
never took anything from us.
And I think most tribal people,
they're definitely somewhere in
between either end of that which is
why, which is why, you know, the film
on the Blackfeet reservation Yeah.
They look like ranching people because
they've always been ranching people.
Even before horses.
They were, they were doing animal
husbandry with the wildlife, you know?
Mm-hmm.
This past summer we are in, we
were in North Dakota, we went to
a powwow, and we were both amazed.
There's this brand new powwow dance
that it's women and they're rodeo women,
and they dance with, with the lariats.
And the whole thing is to keep the
lariat going up while they're dancing.
Rupert Isaacson: That's
like Gangnam style.
Yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: Yes, exactly.
And it's, it's amazing.
It's incredible because
Indian people do rodeo a lot.
I mean, you'd think, oh,
that's a cowboy thing.
And you know, Indian people have been
doing that you know, basically forever.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, at least
since the colonial experience.
I, I, I dunno if Indians
were doing rodeos before,
Jeff Tomhave: well, not rodeos,
Rupert Isaacson: rodeo itself
is a Spanish word, right.
I mean it
Jeff Tomhave: Yeah.
But, but animal husbandry
Rupert Isaacson: works.
Yeah, sure.
Absolutely.
I guess, I guess, you know, I'm,
I'm only asking these questions as
devil's advocate because I think
it, it's important for people to try
and who are not familiar to kind of
understand where Native America's at.
And it's confusing because you
can, you can meet, as you say, you
can meet a tribal person and they
come across to a large extent,
just like any other American.
And then you're like, well,
then where's the lack?
Why, why are you guys so poor?
You don't look poor.
You're wearing a nice thing.
You're driving a nice car.
There you are, you're living in
Washington, dc you've got a, you know,
you're a lawyer, you've got a job.
Yeah.
Where's the problem?
And just as people from
outside of America.
Don't see white American
poverty, which for sure exists.
I've lived in rural Texas and you
know, the rural south and or, you know,
people might on the other hand have a
perception and say, black America and
think, well, black America's all ghetto.
And it's like, well, some of it is,
but no, a lot of it isn't actually.
There's a lot of people who do
very well and you know, blah, blah,
blah, and all points in between.
But I think because the Native American
experience is so poignant, obviously
the Black American experiences as well,
but the Native American experience of
dispossession, first of land, then of
culture, as you said, you know, and
then after the conquests even after the
reservations then being put into these
schools where you weren't allowed to
speak your language and that, you know,
and when you were saying, oh, well people
are searching for their culture, someone
listening to this might say, well, why?
I mean, it, it seems that the culture's
everywhere from what you guys are saying.
There's 500 and something tribes,
and there's this and there's that.
But as you begin to recount
the story, you go, oh, I see.
Unless you were one of those, if you like
uncontacted type tribes or happen to be,
you know, cocooned by the geographical
isolation of the middle of the.
A Navajo reservation, which is
the size of Ireland, you know, or
something like that, then yeah, yeah.
You know, you, you might well
have actually found yourself in a
cultural no man's land as a sort
of alien within your own place.
And I could see that leading to a kind
of despair that, of course you see when
you meet Native American homeless people
in cities and all the substance abuse
and all the, you know, the stuff that
you see and then inherited trauma, we
now know much more about epigenetics,
you know, when one goes up into places
like the Pine Ridge Reservation or the
Rosebud Reservation than the Lakota
tribes up there where you think, well,
why would they be so f you know, effed up?
Because they're the ones who came
out with their, you know, spirit
intact, their military spirit.
They, you know, they beat Custer,
they won all these battles, red Cloud
and, you know, sitting Bull and all
these people, and they, they're, you
know, national heroes even outside
of a, you know, bazillion movies.
Why then are these the poorest and
most effed up places in America?
Well, yeah, they, they won those
battles, so therefore the, the
government was going to go in and
make sure they didn't win anymore.
And yeah.
Which, which is interesting because
in Zulu land in South Africa where
my grandfather came from the Zulus.
Beat the British Army Fair and
Square, huge battle battle of Tijuana.
They wiped out two British regiments
had to climb over their own
dead to do it, but they did it.
And because of that, weirdly came
out of the colonial experience with
a real sense of pride and therefore,
weirdly less animosity towards whites.
But they didn't have the
overwhelming immigration.
They were still, of course, massively
abused and under apartheid and so on,
but it, it wasn't, I guess they just
weren't so outnumbered and overwhelmed.
So when you talk about,
when one encounters people's attitudes
towards Native America, there's
often a, an assumption, particularly
within white America, that the Amer,
that the Native Americans actually
do have money and they're just kind
of lazy and have no work ethic.
And you hear this a lot, like you
hear, well, you know, they don't
have to pay taxes, and they've got
all this and they've got all that,
and they have these casinos, and the
casinos make, you know, billions.
So where's all that money going, eh?
And why should we, American taxpayers
have to pay for these guys who don't
pay taxes, who have all this money
coming from, say perhaps oil and gas
or perhaps from, casinos, et cetera.
And I think a lot of those people are
asking those questions in good faith
because they themselves don't know,
again, because of this invisibility issue.
So can you answer that?
Why are American reservations
in Indian reservations so poor
when huge natural resources, when
gambling, et cetera, et cetera?
Why?
What, what's, what's the disconnect?
What's going on?
What's happening?
Jeff Tomhave: Well, the short
answer is that money doesn't
stay on the reservations.
Obviously with the resource extractions,
it's the companies that are doing it,
Rupert Isaacson: right?
Jeff Tomhave: The tribe's
getting a small royalty.
I mean, there's been, you
know, it's documented.
There's court cases, you know, been
going on for decades, if not, you know, a
century now of how mismanaged the federal
government is with with tribal resources.
And that they don't even
get market rates for them.
They get, you know, less than that.
And so, so that's sort
of like the easy one.
The other one is with gaming.
You know, most people assume that it's
the tribe that is, you know, running this
and therefore getting all the profits.
Well, most of these casinos,
they're financed by outsiders.
You know, some of them.
The it's one of the tribes in Connecticut.
I don't remember if it's the PWAs
or, or, or the Ashing Tucket, but
I believe the Sultan of Bruna is
the one who put up money for that.
And of course, you know, it's a long
term, you know, like 30 year loan, and so
the profits go to pay back the debt, you
know, and part of the federal law that
regulates gaming on Indian reservations
it was actually crafted by the State
Governor's Association so that they
would get the lion's share of any profit.
So that is why, if you are aware of
this there are a handful of really,
really profitable tribal gaming
enterprises across the country.
And they give money to, you
know, the local volunteer fire
department to build, you know,
new stations, get new fire trucks.
They, they put up the new little league
ball fields, you know, new auditoriums
for the local high school, all that stuff.
That's because that's part
of the federal law that.
Regulates Indian gaming is a
portion of any profits goes to
the local adjacent community.
And then there, and then, yes.
And then eventually some of it does come
down to the tribe providing for itself.
And there are some there are
some tribes where they're making
obscene amounts of money and their
individual members are getting tens
of thousands of dollars a month.
And there, there is that,
that, oh, well they don't work.
They're lazy.
Well, they don't have to work.
I mean, if I was getting $30,000
a month, I wouldn't work.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: But I'm not,
Rupert Isaacson: but, but what,
why are some, why are some gaming
enterprises then able to pay tribal
members 30,000 a month and others not
Jeff Tomhave: because they are a bus
ride from New York, or they're in,
they're in suburban southern California.
They're where people are who wanna
gamble and most Indian tribes are not.
And so, you know, they're, they're most
Indian tribal casinos are on some, you
know, not even a, a interstate highway.
They're on some US highway.
Out in the middle of, you
know, ranch land where Yeah.
If you're lucky, there's,
you know, there's 50 people
there that night, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: So they're not,
they're not where people are.
That's, and that's why some
of them aren't very successful
Rupert Isaacson: if there, if
there are a handful though,
that are really successful.
Jeff Tomhave: Yes, there are.
Rupert Isaacson: Are you able, in your
advocacy work, let's say you want to
pave that road in Utah, or you want to
build that new hospital for the cancer
center, can you go to those other tribes?
Is there, is there that kind of solidarity
in Native America, or is there not,
would, would a tribe, would the PWAs say,
that's not our, that's not our concern.
Would they say?
No, that's definitely our concern
Jeff Tomhave: there.
It, it, it's a case by case basis.
Mm-hmm.
Most of them have philanthropic
foundations, but they are, like any
philanthropic foundation, they're,
they're basically concentrating on,
you know, their geographic area.
So, you know, so you couldn't go to
somebody in Connecticut for a project
in, say, Arizona, you know, you could
go to the Arizona tribes and say,
Hey, can you do this thing in Arizona?
And you know, if it, if it
aligns with what their, you
know, what their principles are,
then sure, you could ask them.
But it's, it's like anything else,
you, you need to have that relationship
already established with them.
Mm-hmm.
That takes the time.
It takes time to cultivate and but yeah,
so to answer your question, no, there
isn't that general overall solidarity.
But there, but you can find connection
points if there philanthropic
guidelines align with your, with,
with what you're asking for.
Rupert Isaacson: So the question
again, as an outsider is why
isn't there that solidarity?
So if, if all Native Americans have
had this same basic experience of
genocide, colonialization, you know,
just having a really, really awful time
at the hands of European colonials,
that's a common experience that
presumably binds people together.
And as you say, being thrown into schools
where there's different tribes and and
so on, and so, and so people are marrying
across the tribes and, and so on.
So why, what prevents that solidarity?
Jeff Tomhave: Well, I think it's it's
a it's a legacy of, you know, the whole
divide and conquer, you know, practice.
You know, the federal government,
it deals with tribes across the
country based upon which, which.
Federally administered
region that they are in.
And so you'll have those tribes all get
together and, you know, meet and discuss
about their things the others, their own.
And so there's never really a, a,
a time or a place for tribes ever
just to get together on their own.
There are a few national tribal
organizations but they're actually funded
primarily by the federal governments
that by the federal government
agencies that these organizations
are supposed to provide oversight to.
But when, but when you're being funded
by them, you don't really police them.
And so that's really what happens.
So I think there really hasn't,
there, there really isn't
that that avenue to do that.
And hopefully that, that's,
that's, that's kind of what I'm
been trying to do is, is get.
Elected tribal people or just tribal
people in general to start thinking,
Hey, just because the federal government
told us we have to do it this way
doesn't mean we have to do it this way.
Rupert Isaacson: Right?
I mean, there must have been
people who had this vision.
I mean, you would think, where
is the Native American Martin
Luther King that there has there?
No, never been anyone
who said, I have a dream.
You know?
And and also effectively, you
know, listen, lads, these guys
are always gonna do us up the
backside unless we get together.
And I can see how the legacy,
it's not just divide and conquer,
it was also divided before
white people showed up, right?
People have been at war with each other,
nations have been at war with each other
in Native America before, long before any,
any anyone from Europe ever showed up.
And I could see, of course
that doesn't go away.
The old rivalries exist in Europe.
Why wouldn't they exist
everywhere else in the world?
But nonetheless, when you are
getting, when you're really
get, you are all getting it from
the, the man in the same way.
You would think at a certain point people
would go all in the 500 year, 600 year
history, you know, someone would go,
alright, look, it's pretty clear that
unless we present some sort of united
front here, nothing's gonna change.
Do you think that can happen?
Will happen, will ever happen?
And if so,
Jeff Tomhave: I am, I'm, I'm
optimistic that it can happen.
I'm dubious that it will happen because
people are people, people, you know, have
their old animosities and Yeah, there is,
there's definitely tribal animosities,
which will prevent that from happening
across certain, you know, certain divides.
And that goes way back.
That's all pre-contact.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: Animosities and warfare,
and those probably will never be resolved.
But people are, people and, and
people, you know, have their
own agendas and you are right.
There is no Native American
Martin Luther King.
There hasn't been for hundreds of years.
You know, and the last ones were, you
know, military leaders who tried to,
you know, create these tribal alliances.
And some cases did, and some
cases were not successful.
But there hasn't been any
in contemporary times.
And it's a, it's a shame, but I
also think that because the native
population is so small mm-hmm.
That.
That
the, you know, most tribes are
just a collection of, you know,
a handful of families and, you
know, this family is in power once
they're in the elected positions.
And then that family gets power
once they get an election.
And so there's, there's those
familial intertribal squabbles that
will prevent that from happening.
But I do think that because the
population is so small that, that
the vision for unity
that conversation almost
never happens because
someone will say, oh, well, you know,
we can't do this because of X, Y, or Z.
And the other person will say, oh,
and I wouldn't wanna do it with
you because of this there or that.
So, I think if the population was
larger, that would be an easier
conversation because those voices
would just sort of be background noise.
But right now they're prominent.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
It's, it's interesting to me you
would have thought that the same
issue would have pervaded in, in
black America, because again, to the
outsiders, oh, black America's a thing.
But of course, black America's.
Many, many, many cultures not all
of whom were on good terms with each
other, and yet they did manage to
forge a movement that fundamentally
shifted the political landscape.
I'm optimistic.
You know, I think, I
think people can change.
Like if you, it's really interesting
if you look at say Scandinavia, right?
We all look at Scandinavia as
like, you know, Canada's the
Scandinavia of North America.
North America is the Canada,
you know, it's, you know, yeah.
They're, they're the Canada of Europe
and, you know, enlightened liberal
people who very have great, you know,
policies of social this and social
that, and look after their environment
and was not always, so there was, there
were these people called Vikings who
committed all sorts of atrocities.
And you could even argue that the Northern
European colonial experience was just
a continuation of the Viking tradition.
Yet the, somewhere along the line.
They stopped doing that and became
transformed into a very different society,
Mongolia, when I was in Mongolia, this
was really interesting, you know, the,
the most brutal and violent culture
on the planet, you know, exploding
out of Mongolian, like we killed
everybody, you know, kill everybody
from the Pacific to the Mediterranean,
you know, once every 50 years.
And then, whoa, that was a
bit tiring, wasn't it, lads?
You know?
And so then they end up, you know,
going back to the heartland and sort of
recovering for a, a generation or so.
Then they get everybody again.
And you know, you got Genghis Kahan and
Khan and Tamerlan and all these people,
you know, and then somewhere in the
17th century you get these Tibetan monks
wandering over the Altai plateau and
talking about this thing called Buddhism.
And like in one generation, the
Mongolians go, yeah, you know,
that's a good idea actually.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe we, yeah, maybe we should do that.
Or the Berlin War coming down or
the end of apartheid or whatever.
So I, I just wonder,
do you think that maturation
process is round the corner
somehow for Native America?
Because it seems that as long as
I've been involved in North America
that those, the, the problems despite
growing prosperity generally have
remained really acute in Native America.
The, the social problems, the.
The poverty, the, as you said, all
the things that you outlined, despite
as, yes, as you say, some, some
people of course, do very well, but
we know that that's not the norm.
Sooner or later there kind of has
to be a collective pinching of the
skin and kind of going, all right,
listen, we, we, we gotta do it
differently because we're still here.
Right?
I mean, that is an achievement,
as you say, it's a very small
population, but that is actually a
testament to an achievement, because
by rights you shouldn't exist.
You know?
I mean, if you think about the
effort that went into annihilation
of native community, you know,
one just has to start reading the
histories and it's, it's criminal.
Jeff Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: But it was also,
it was final solution type criminal.
It was very well thought out,
mass death on an industrial scale.
And just as Hitler couldn't
kill all the Jews, though, he
gave it good old college try.
They couldn't obviously complete the
genocides to the Native Americans,
but they jolly well had a go.
And, you know, I, I
lived in Texas, you know.
That's Comanche country, right?
I lived in the middle of Comanche,
not one Comanche, you know, within
a hundred, 200, 300, 400, 500 miles.
They, they got rid of them like
really efficiently, but yet there's
still some sitting up there in a
Oklahoma where they shoved them.
They're still there.
You guys are still there.
And there you've got people
like you sitting in Washington,
DC you know, advocates.
You must have this dream somewhere in you.
Jeff Tomhave: Oh, of course I do.
Yeah, it's something that I've, I've
wanted and thought about and contemplated
and that's, and that's why when I started
I said, you know, native professionals
of my generation, because it is
something that people do talk about.
It's like, when are we gonna get
over these, these petty squabbles
and actually get into the game and,
you know, do something about this?
And so yeah, it, it is something
that, that that I, I dream about.
But I'm not sure how it's
actually going to happen.
Because as long as the federal government
basically controls pretty much every
aspect of tribal governments, and it does,
that's not a conversation that's gonna
happen at the tribal governmental level.
It may happen elsewhere.
And that's, that's where my optimism
comes from, is it may happen
at the community level, it may
happen at the, the grandma level.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: It's gotta happen somewhere.
Because I think the, the, it's
too easy to distract a tribal
government by doing something else.
It's like throwing a, throwing a ball
at a dog, you know, the dog's gonna go
chase it, you know, rather than stay
where they are, stay at the attention
and, and do what needs to be done.
So I think that that conversation,
as far as I know, it hasn't happened
yet, but it could happen just not in
the arena of, of tribal government.
Rupert Isaacson: I, I agree with you.
I think that I think that I mean, let's
face it, Martin Luther King didn't
happen at the federal government level.
And we also know what happened to him.
But
how, let's dream a little bit, okay.
Let's say it happens
at the community level.
Let's say it happens at the grandma level.
What happens fantasy scenario, what
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Jeff Tomhave: Well, I think
it first starts off with
with everybody airing their grievances,
whatever they are, get them out in the
open and done with because there is so
much trauma that I, I, you can physically
see people carrying this trauma with them.
They're, they're hunched over.
It's, it's, it's in them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can see the pain in them.
And I think once you start to let
it out, I think it'll, it'll happen.
And I think once people aren't
overburdened with whatever the
trauma is, whether it's immediate
trauma from something they've
experienced, or it's this historic
trauma, you know, it's still there.
It exists, it's real.
And there isn't a way to, I think
deal with it in a healthy manner.
There are now Indian Health Service
programs to deal with people's
historic trauma, put it that way.
Rupert Isaacson: Ah,
Jeff Tomhave: you can't go to
a local clinic and, and, and,
you know, get that service.
It doesn't exist.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Jeff Tomhave: But once people have done
that and, and, and they sort of relieve
themselves, or at least, you know.
Released some of that anguish
and, and pain, you can start
talking about, oh, okay.
We can start dreaming, we can
start thinking about possibility.
We can start doing things differently.
You know, perhaps we should
stop disenrolling our members.
I mean, that would be a great idea.
Rupert Isaacson: Tell me about that.
I wouldn't even know what that means.
Jeff Tomhave: Because tribes have
been successful with gaming some
tribes have just started disenrolling
their members because they, they
don't wanna share the profits.
They want to keep 'em all to themselves.
And so there's a, it's a, it's a
thing that's been going on for,
you know, the past 20 years now.
Tribes will just disenroll people.
Rupert Isaacson: How does one,
how does one get away with that?
I mean, if you're born into
that tribe, you're, that's like
disen, that's like denying your
ci stripping of your citizenship.
How, how can that happen?
How does that happen?
Jeff Tomhave: Well, you, the current
tribal government will say we no longer
recognize these families as being, you
know, legitimately members of our tribe.
And they'll point to something, some
historic, you know, thing about that
family, that family line to say, that's
why they're not a member of the tribe.
And because it's the tribal
government, they can do it.
And the federal government says,
oh, it's an internal tribal matter.
We, we can't do anything about this.
And so you've got this phenomenon now
where, where tribes are disenrolling
their members in the short term.
What that does is that increases their,
their own percentage of whatever, you
know, gaming profits there are, but it
also decreases their tribal members.
And federal services are based upon
how many members of the tribe you have.
And eventually one of one of the
consequences of a, of a federal law
that's about a hundred years old
now, it's called the Blood quantum.
You know, only members of your tribe that
have this amount of Indian blood in them
are considered members of your tribe.
Once they, you know, once they
fall below that amount, they're
no longer members of your tribe.
They're no longer Indians.
And so.
The genocide, it still is going on,
is just a paper legislative genocide.
Now, whether the federal government
does it through blood quantum or
whether tribes themselves do it
through disenrollment, it's happening.
So basically the ultimate result
of genocide is when you get people
to kill them, kill themselves,
which is what is happening now.
And so if tribes can stop disenrolling
people, that will be a big step
into realizing a, a better future.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you think, are you
any part of trying to get that to happen?
I mean, and is there some,
is there an appeal process?
And could you go and say, and get a DNA
test and say, actually look, I am, you
know, totally a member of this tribe
because look, here's the DNA test.
What are, yeah, what recourse would
somebo do people have if, if that,
and is it arbitrary and sudden?
Does someone just like get a letter
through the mailbox saying, sorry,
you're not a member of the tribe anymore.
And it like, yeah.
So how does it happen?
Is there an appeal process?
What about DNA tests and
how would people stop?
How would you stop this
process inside the genocide?
Interesting.
Jeff Tomhave: Yeah.
Well, there is no appeal process as,
as I mentioned before, if a, if a
currently, you know, legitimate tribal
government decides they wanna disenroll,
you know, so many people they can do it.
Right?
And, and the federal government
who's supposed to have oversight
always says, this is an internal
matter we're not gonna deal with.
It's an internal tribal matter.
We have no say over this.
And of course, they like that because the
less, the less tribal people they have
to deal with, the easier their job is.
Yeah.
So there's no appeal process.
As far as I know, there's no, you
know, movement to try to rectify this.
There is no, you know, DNA
fight to, to, to, because there
Rupert Isaacson: ought to be right.
If there's a blood quantum, there ought
to be a DNA answer to that, right?
Jeff Tomhave: Yes.
There, there should be.
Well, and the thing too is, is, as I've
been saying all along, is, you know,
this federal law that says there's blood
quantum tribes don't have to follow that.
They can say, no, this is, this is
what we consider to be a tribal member.
Okay?
And it could be somebody who's
been a historic member of a tribe.
I mean, historically you didn't
even have to be Indian to
become a member of a tribe.
A tribe could just adopt you in, and
then now you're a member of the tribe.
I mean, it could get back to.
That at some point.
And I think for a lot of tribes
where they're dwindling down to, you
know, just a couple of dozen members,
they need to do something like that.
Otherwise, they're not
gonna be a tribe anymore.
They're not gonna exist.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
That, that would, yeah, that
would seem to be logical.
So it, it, you know, it's just, it
is intriguing to me because let's say
somebody is gonna get stripped of their
citizenship for whatever reason, which is
like one of the most extreme things that
can happen, and it almost never happens.
There would be all kinds of legal
challenges that could and would be made,
you know, if someone was to try and
take away your American citizenship or
your British citizenship or whatever.
It's, it's so extreme.
If it happens, you've gotta be a
member of a terrorist organization
or something, or something.
Jeff Tomhave: Yep.
Rupert Isaacson: So I'm, I'm a
little bit stunned to know that
there's no appeal process and that
there'd be no DNA answer to it.
But equally, as you say
why not adopt people in?
And then why not be very
wise about who you adopt?
Like why not adopt Warren Buffet?
You know, why not adopt Jeff Bezos,
you know, and say, alright, now
you are, you are, you are a homie.
So, you know, let's, let's see.
Some of that money to.
Build a hospital or two please.
You know, which clearly
they've got that money.
Is that, is, is it something like
that actually, is it something
about no, no longer trying to
protect culture and hold it apart?
And coming back to my question about why
would Native Americans adopt so eagerly
white culture, but actually could there
be a wisdom in that integration in order
to sort of do a more successful version
of what the Choctaws did to say, okay,
well then, then let's swell our numbers
and then let's decide, okay, if your
family has been in America at all for
some gender, or even if you've just got
off the boat and we like you, maybe, you
know, all, all new new American citizens.
Like when I got my American citizenship,
what if, what if 32 tribes had
come to me and said, sort of made a
little presentation to me and said,
which one of us would you like to,
you know, we'd love to have you.
Of course if we have you,
you know, we'd like you to.
Rather like a church, we'd like
you to pay a tithe and, you know,
that would go towards, you know,
some of the things that we did.
But, you know, here, here are the
benefits of being a member of,
of, of this tribe or that tribe.
It's very interesting, isn't it,
that that isn't the way of thinking.
Do, do you think something
like that could happen?
Jeff Tomhave: I I think it's possible.
I don't think it's realistic.
I don't think tribes would want
to do it, but I definitely see
the benefit of how you could
increase your political reach if you
had people who had different skill
sets and different economic levels.
Yeah, I, I de, I definitely see that.
You know, and that's, you know,
again, I go back to that's
something that tribes used to do.
You know, you used to adopt people,
you know, the, you know, in my part
of the country in North Dakota, you
know, the first people that we, the
first Europeans we met were the French,
you know, and, you know, we adopted
French people into our tribe, you know?
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, the Hadza knew French
before they knew English, you know.
So it's, it, it's not out
of the realm of possibility.
But I do like your idea
of, of Warren Buffet.
That's a, that's,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
I mean, why not?
You know?
Jeff Tomhave: But, you know,
Rupert Isaacson: is every, is every
American president an honorary
member of a tribe, for example?
They should be, shouldn't they?
Jeff Tomhave: It should be.
Exactly.
Exactly.
I think I think tribal people would
probably be more comfortable with
somebody like Mark ruffle because, you
know, he's out there, you know, on on
the front lines, you know, whenever
there is a, whenever there's an issue.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sure.
But
Jeff Tomhave: having the Hulk
would be, would be a, a big catch.
But I, I don't know.
You know, but seriously, I think that
there are a lot of people who don't
know that they do have native heritage.
You know, it might be family
lore, it might be suspected, and
of course now with DNA, you know,
you can be more certain of that.
Mm-hmm.
But I mean, I think to start
the conversation, it would
have to be something along,
you know, that kind of mm-hmm.
Scientifically, you know, sort
of genetically there's gotta
be a more than just, oh, you
wanna be a member of a tribe?
There's gotta be something there.
I definitely like the idea of.
What can you bring?
Not tribes going to a new citizen and
saying, Hey, here's what we can offer you.
But people coming to the tribes
saying, here's what you can, you know,
here's what you can offer the tribe.
Here's my skillset, here's
my, here's my reach.
You know, here's, here's everybody
that I know who, who can, who will
go to their member of Congress
and do this thing for you.
You know?
Mm.
I
Rupert Isaacson: I think, yeah.
I wonder if the tribes can have
like a golden visa type thing.
It's like, yeah, you can come in and
you can, you know, live here and you
can have a nice house and you can
do all this and but you know, it's
gonna cost you 500 grand and you
know, you need to build that hospital.
But it seems to me though that
yeah, 'cause what we're dealing
with the i is the idea of nations.
Some people say tribes, some
people say nation, right?
Yes.
And nations can nation build or
they can decline and, and die or, or
become absorbed into other nations.
And we know that's the process of history.
It just is intriguing that despite
all attempts to extinguish it,
native America is still there.
And as you say, so many people
who have lived for more than a
couple of generations in North
America do have ma native blood.
And perhaps that is
something that might bring.
Things to a, a, a better person.
You yourself.
Now, are you, you've, you've lived a long
time in DC doing this advocacy work, so
you can obviously work and you and your
wife are now moving back to the Dakotas.
I mean, that's why you're
sitting in that empty room.
I happen to know 'cause
you're moving house.
Jeff Tomhave: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: You've gone, you've
bought this old school on the is it
the Mandan and reservation standing?
Jeff Tomhave: No, we're, we're
in we're in Eastern North Dakota.
We're about four hours
from my reservation.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Jeff Tomhave: An hour west of Fargo.
Rupert Isaacson: So you yourself are
deciding to go back to Native America?
Jeff Tomhave: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Why?
And what are you gonna do there?
Jeff Tomhave: Well, as you mentioned,
we bought this old school and
we're gonna turn it into our house.
But also it's gonna be, you know,
where our businesses are located.
So Tom Hay Group will be there,
and Brandy is executive director
of Native American Humane Society.
That will be centered there.
This new cancer treatment network that
I'm creating that will be centered there.
So not only it's gonna be our residents
and the center of our businesses, but
because it is an old school, we intend
on keeping one of the classrooms as an
old classroom, I mean as a classroom,
so that we can invite, different tribal
governments, different tribal entities
and organizations there so that we
can conduct trainings, they can have
their own trainings and meetings there.
Since we will be, you know, in North
Dakota, you know, we are, we are just
a couple of days drive from about
half the reservations in the country.
And so that is really important to us.
Plus you know, when we made this purchase
and I told my cousin who runs the hospital
on, on my reservation, said, Hey, I'm
gonna be four hours away from you.
She said, great.
She said, because, you know, other
than her immediate family, you
know, all of her extended family
have left and she is so great.
So you can come back for, you know, all of
the birthdays and holidays, but especially
the, the tribal ceremonies, which,
because I've never lived there, I've
never been able to participate in 'em.
I've always lived, you know,
a few times zones away.
So it's never anything that was
ever in, you know, my, my thinking.
But now that she's thinking yeah, you can
come for the tribal ceremonies, you know,
to these you know, sacred ceremonies,
which I've never been a part of.
You know, that's really that's really
something that I'm looking forward to.
Mm-hmm.
Especially since, you know, I'm
getting older and, you know,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: We're, you know, none of us
are gonna last forever, so I, I actually
want to be able to, pass this stuff
on to our son so that he knows it, you
know, well before he's in his sixties.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I mean, like I said, you know, further
back in this conversation, I myself just
personally owe several debts of gratitude.
I talk, I, you know, to
Native American ceremony.
I told you about the one with my son.
Previous to that also on Navajo Nation.
I attended a, a sweat that was for
the Bushman because I brought the
Sun Bushman to the Navajo Nation
as part of our attempts to help
them get their legal title to their
ancestral land back in, in Botswana.
And it was indeed successful.
The medicine man at that
healing said to me, do you hunt?
And I said, I do, but it might
not be a, a type of hunting you
are familiar with because I'm
Fox hunting, British fox hunting.
And he said, that's not important.
I'm just getting it loud and clear
from the spirit world that you
have to give it up and it's somehow
connected to your son's autism.
I didn't even question it.
I, I gave it up right
there and then and then.
A lot of really positive things in my life
happened, like from that point when, and
then when we were got into Washington,
DC and we went into the State Department.
Finally, we testified before
Congress, congressional Human
Rights Caucus and all this stuff.
But it was when we walked into the State
Department, we walked into the office of
a man who had been, was gonna give us an
interview, and he happened to be Apache.
And he just looked at the
guys that I was coming with.
He said, he said, I know exactly
what you're dealing with.
I grew up on the reservation there.
And he just picked up the phone and
he called the Botswana land Minister
in front of us and said, you guys are
supposed to be our trade partners.
I've got, you know, five guys sitting
here from the counter house, said
they've been tortured and da da da
and illegally evicted, da da da.
What's going on?
And this had a massive se, seismic effect.
The woman who set up that meeting was
called Rebecca Adamson, who's Lumbee
Indian from and ran First Nations
Development Institute, which was basically
the force in America that supported our
work in Africa, again, native America.
And then quite recently as recently as
2021, I was going through a personal,
real personal crisis and, I ended up
with a Lakota medicine man who put me
through a ceremony that absolutely,
absolutely dealt with the issue.
And I walked into that ceremony
with the issue and I walked out of
that ceremony without the issue.
So, and I, I wonder how many
people have a story like that.
I think more people, I happen to have a
few of them, but I, I feel that Native
America has been subsidizing, if you
like, white America for a very long time,
partly by simply virtue of geography.
It's your place with, to some
degree guests, but equally by still
creating this sacred heartland.
And you know, that feeling, you, you,
you've spent time on Navajo, you know
that when, particularly when you're down
in the Southwest and you're on Navajo
Nation, Hopi Nation and those places,
and some of the surrounding ones, you
absolutely feel that you are touching
the living heart of the continent.
And I don't, I know even very sort
of conservative, skeptical people,
white people would say the same thing.
There's something about Monument Valley,
there's something about those landscapes.
There's something about
Bryce Canyon or whatever.
You are now going back in there.
You have this dream, this quiet
Luther King type dream, although I wish
you a much better outcome personally.
Do you, what do you see coming out of
this place, this education and cultural
and service center that you are going
to start, as you say, at the heart of
within two days drive of every Indian
reservation, pretty much in the country
dream irrationally.
Please
don't let rationality hamper you.
Let's say 30 years after you die.
What would you like to 50 years
after you die, what would you like
to see coming out of that place?
What change landscape
would you like to see?
What's the legacy?
Jeff Tomhave: Well, I'm glad you asked
that because this is something that brand
and I have been talking about and one
of the things that I wanna do as Tom Hay
Group, because as we, you know, mentioned
before, you know, we do our advocacy
in Washington DC and, you know, we've
been, you know, basically guns for hire.
You know, people have an issue, they hire
us and, and we take care of it for them.
I actually.
Using the guns Slinger analogy.
I don't wanna be the guns
slinger, I wanna teach them how
to, how to shoot on their own.
Right.
I want, I wanna teach
them how to advocate.
And ever since COVID being in DC
doesn't matter because all meetings
are, you know, virtual nowadays anyway.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: You almost never go in and
have an in-person meeting anywhere in DC
And even if you do, it's a hybrid meeting,
you know, some people are there, the
major principles probably are elsewhere.
So being in DC doesn't matter anymore.
And so I think us moving to North
Dakota is, you know, we're gonna,
we're gonna jump on that opportunity.
You don't have to be in DC
to do this work anymore.
Right.
And, and if we can teach younger
people how to do this, younger
people than me, obviously, who
aren't jaded, is that what the
Rupert Isaacson: jd, after
your name stands for?
Jeff Tomhave: We still believe
that things can, can work well.
You know, you have to have that
optimism, you have to have that energy
in order to, to realize those things.
So what I'm hoping to do is, is train,
you know, a couple of dozen of people.
So they go back to their
own home communities.
And so that 50 years from now, they're the
ones who are doing this for themselves.
They're not hiring.
Any of the big fancy, you know,
white shoe law firms here in, in
Washington, DC to do the work for them.
And believe me, most tribes do,
including the Navajo Nation.
They hire the big DC law
firms to do this stuff.
And I've been in meetings
with those people.
They don't know anything that you've
testified in front of Congress.
They don't know anything that
you don't know how to do.
It's like, it's, it's,
this is not rocket science.
It's not, there's not an alchemy here.
It's telling a good compelling
story to a receptive audience.
And if they're not receptive now,
make them receptive in the future.
That's a skillset that anyone has.
But there's, there's, you know, there's
some particulars, you know, how to
do the dance steps, you know, so I'm
wanna teach them the dance steps.
But basically, once they know
the dance steps, they can, they
can do this however they want to.
And it's, it will be more effective
if the advocacy comes from the
actual communities themselves.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Tomhave: Because they're the
ones who are gonna be impacted
by whatever the outcome is.
And they're the ones who have
the more compelling story.
And so, like I said, 50 years from now,
I want them to have trained people so
that they're all doing it for themselves.
And maybe that that.
That alliance of tribes that I'm hoping
for, maybe that'll happen after I'm gone.
Rupert Isaacson: I think it's a
very, very logical first step.
Are there other, Tom have groups
out there doing similar stuff?
Are you part of a growing network of
people like you who are gonna start this
up across Native America and bring that,
you know, because it, it sounds like
you, you are a, you guys would be a very
important organ within a body of that,
but you might need other organs as well.
Do you, are there other
people out there doing,
Jeff Tomhave: I wish, I wish I could
say there are tons of us, but in
the almost 25 years that we've been
doing this, we've never run across
anybody who does exactly what we do.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Tomhave: You know, and, and
you know, to answer your, one
of your first questions of, you
know, why not just be a regular
lawyer and make all kinds of money?
And I think you couldn't find two
jds, you know, me and Brandy who make
less money because if you're gonna
work in Indian country, you wanna do
gaming or you want to do a resource
extraction, that's where the money is.
Yeah.
And you know, that's, that is
nothing that we want any part of.
First of all, there are
plenty of entities out there.
Who are doing that already.
We wouldn't, we wouldn't compete on
that level, nor would we want to, we
take the hard approach of working on
problems that aren't very lucrative.
You know, we've, we've actually had
contracts where small communities have
paid us just a few thousand dollars,
and we've worked for them for years.
And I mean, over those course of those
years, they paid us a few thousand dollars
just because no one else would do it.
It's a, it's a relatively easy
fix that they're asking for.
It just takes time.
Mm-hmm.
Other people wouldn't do that on
another, a big huge Washington DC
law firm would not take a client on
like that because they don't have the
money to pay for all the time that it
would take to do the, we need to do.
But we've done it
because no one else will.
And, and so I'm hoping that it, as
we train other people, you know,
they can do it for themselves and,
and they don't need to hire anybody.
But as far as I know, there is
nobody that does what we do.
We know other consultants who are just,
you know, single, sole proprietorships,
but they're working on specific things.
They don't do the advocacy like we do.
So there might be a, a connection
to, to work in different avenues.
But nobody that we know
of does what we do.
Rupert Isaacson: So 50 years
from now, we've got, if, if
there's 500 and how many nations?
Jeff Tomhave: 75?
Rupert Isaacson: 575,
then if you had 57.5,
Tom have groups dotted about the place.
Jeff Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: You'd have a sporting
chance of changing the social and
political landscape to a lasting degree.
I think you are actually
enacting that dream.
And it's interesting that the only
other group I came across, which was
First Nations Development Institute, who
helped us so massively in Africa, run
by Rebecca Adamson Lumbee Indian living
on the East Coast was about the, one
of the only other people I ever met who
Jeff Tomhave: mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Was
doing something similar.
And of course, of course I just had
to be, you know, on your website
while you were talking about all
that, you know, and you kept saying
jd, after the names I was, had to.
Look up what that means
because I'm British.
And it's, as you, well, you know,
it's Juris doctor, a graduate level
professional degree for practicing
law, similar to an MD for doctors
signifying completion of law school,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But what is the difference between
JD and a simple lawyer or attorney
and why does it make a difference?
Jeff Tomhave: Well, a JD is just
what you get from law school,
from graduating law school and you
know, being a licensed attorney.
You know, you pass the state bar, whatever
jurisdictions bar you're practicing in.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: So that you can
represent clients, you know, in
that jurisdiction following that
jurisdiction's, you know, procedures.
So that's what it is.
And so, you know, I never passed a bar.
'Cause I told you I
never wanted to practice.
I just wanted to have the jd.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So if you had, again,
those 57 jds, some of whom have 57.5
actually some of whom have passed the bar,
some of whom haven't, but all are working
within jurisprudence to this degree.
Yes.
I think that you are actually fulfilling
that, the progress towards that dream.
And that's intriguing to me because
in a politically very uncertain
time whether you are sitting in
Europe or whether you're sitting.
Where you are sitting or whether you're
sitting in other parts of the world.
There's a feeling of instability at
the moment that I think is, we haven't
felt for 80 years maybe in the west.
And
there couldn't be a more optimal
time for a dream like yours.
That goes back to the heart, I think,
of what it means to be American.
Mm-hmm.
I also wonder if
something like Tom Hav group and the
subgroups that come out of Tom Hav
group, once you plant yourself back
there in North Dakota, and I, I could
see this having an international reach as
well, where people might want to engage
you and the groups that you inspire,
similar to the way that the Kalahari
Bushman engage first Nations Development
Institute and also people practicing
international law, wanting to come an
intern, you know, and get a sense of that.
You know, we, we benefited definitely
from pro bono lawyers, many of whom were
young lawyers in DC who wanted to come
and do pro bono work for us in Africa.
Get a real knowledge of how
that whole thing worked.
I could see that happening
the other way as well.
And people from other parts of the
world wanting to come and work on
these issues with you all to get
an understanding to then bring home
to their communities, even honestly
within Europe we, we have these issues.
I'm very intrigued to
see how you and Brandy
proceed.
When are you guys officially
landing there at that old school
and hanging up the shield?
Hanging up the
Jeff Tomhave: sign?
Well, as, as you can see, we're still
in the process of moving out of here.
So there's some stuff that we have to
do to, to get this place, you know,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Jeff Tomhave: On the market.
But because it's it's winter here in,
well, especially North Dakota right
now is here in Baltimore, I think it
was, it's in the thirties, but this
morning when I went for a run and it
was 25 degrees and I think that's what,
like three or four CEL minus Celsius.
Yeah, it's
Rupert Isaacson: minus three or s
Jeff Tomhave: so, so it's,
it's still pretty cold.
So we gotta wait till winter to be over in
North Dakota before we can go in, because
Rupert Isaacson: that's August, right?
Jeff Tomhave: Well, April.
April so probably mid-April is
when we're finally gonna out.
Be leaving here.
So hopefully we'll have this
place up on the market, you
know, May 1st and we'll be there.
And then we'll be, you
know, rehabbing the school.
And first we have to build our,
our own, our own living space.
'cause it is just a school.
But once we do, we'll hope,
hope you come by and have a
Rupert Isaacson: I would love to.
I would love to.
And North Dakota's a state I've
never been to, so I've never been
to either of the Dakotas and I've,
I've been intrigued by them forever.
So I can see it on, on the horizon.
And I wanna have you guys, both
you and Brandy back on the show.
Let's give it, you know, a year, 18 months
and see where you guys are at, you know.
I'll also be coming back to Montana
in in September for the same event.
So, you know, I dunno if you, and
one thing I would love to do is
get involved with what you are
doing on the mental health, neuro,
you know, neuropsychiatric side.
Mm-hmm.
And I know that there are also
people out there within Native
America doing that work very well,
like Jessica White Plume and so on.
Mm-hmm.
And people like that, that
I could learn a lot from.
So, yeah, I think it's an
ongoing conversation and I, I
would love to work together.
Yes, there's autism and there's
all that stuff out there in
Native America, you know?
Jeff Tomhave: Yes.
And I, and I believe Jessica is about four
hours away from where, where we'll be.
So yes.
Perfect.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so it's
watch this space and Jeff,
Tom have, has a dream lads.
So let's let's dream it with him.
Alright.
Yeah.
For a better world.
Jeff.
It's been amazing.
Thanks so much for, for coming on.
Well,
Jeff Tomhave: thanks for having me.
Rupert Isaacson: Just give us the, or
I guess I can give it to you 'cause
I'm on your website as I speak where
I was and then I, I went to, so
Tom hav group, T-O-M-H-A-V-E group.
Dot
Jeff Tomhave: com.
Rupert Isaacson: Dot com, right.
And the, the work is really broad.
You know, I, I was, I was
cruising around on your site.
Looking at you, you, you've talked
about some of the work that you've
done, but you know, there's also roads,
jails missing, an indigenous mi missing
and murdered indigenous persons.
How you do what you do,
your cancer watch stuff.
Your there, there,
there's so much on here.
I do really recommend listeners,
viewers go on Tom have group.com
and have a look at the work that they do.
And if you are a young aspiring lawyer
or other person who might like to.
Get involved in some way and
perhaps internal or something.
I would suggest that you reach out to
Jeff and Brandy through that website.
Can they do that?
Can people do that?
Jeff Tomhave: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Okay.
Jeff Tomhave: Just look
just email info@togroup.com
and we'll get it
Rupert Isaacson: info@tomhavegroup.com.
Yep.
Alright, brilliant.
I look forward to the next meeting.
Jeff Tomhave: All right, me too.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Happy moving.
Jeff Tomhave: Thanks.
Rupert Isaacson: Bye bye.
Bye.
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