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Members of the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, and the Global Indigenous Council are concerned that the new David E. Kelley series, set in Montana, does not portray the crisis of Indigenous and Indigenous women who go missing every year in the state.
Several Indigenous organizations wrote an open letter to ABC asking the network to “engage in dialogue” on the portrayal of the disproportionate number of missing and murdered Native American and Indigenous women each year in its new series devoted to the Montana abductions, Big sky.
The letter, sent this week and signed by Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council Executive Director William F.someone’s daughter, on the Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous and Indigenous Women in the United States), expresses “grave concern, at best cultural insensitivity and, at worst, appropriation, for the upcoming series. soon to be created, Big skyThe letter is addressed to ABC Entertainment President Karey Burke, Executive Director of Corporate Social Responsibility David Ambroz, Series Executive Producer Matthew Gross, and Series Creator David E. Kelley. ABC declined to comment. .
Based on CJ Box’s 2013 novel The highway, big sky follows a private investigator (Kylie Bunbury) as she works with an ex-cop (Katheryn Winnick) to investigate the disappearance of two sisters and other kidnappings at Montana truck stops. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter this week Burke said that Big sky was “a realistic story about how violence against women exists in our country. She owns it and tells a story of women who are victims of it who end up triumphing ”.
The letter from indigenous organizations expresses disappointment that “neither Big sky or Highway address the fact that the disproportionate majority of missing and murdered women in Montana are Indigenous, a situation replicated across Indian country, which has made this tragedy an existential threat to Native Americans. The letter adds, “To ignore this fact and portray this devastation with the face of a white woman is the height of cultural insensitivity, made all the more glaring given the national awakening to the need for racial justice. “
According to the 2019 FBI Missing and Unidentified Persons Report, 10,447 people missing last year were of “Indian” origin; however, many community leaders and activists say this data does not represent the true number of missing persons. Last November, Attorney General William Barr announced a Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Initiative that is recruiting more resources and staff to tackle the problem in the US attorney’s offices.
“Please note that Indigenous peoples make up 7 percent of Montana’s population, but the state identifies approximately 26 percent of the missing as Native Americans,” the letter said, citing recent statistics from the Montana Department of Justice. .
The signatories add: “We sincerely hope that you will enter into a dialogue with us to discuss the inclusion of an information framework at the end of the future. Big sky display credits that direct viewers to Someone’s daughter documentary and factual information on the crisis of murdered and missing indigenous women. “
The letter concludes: “We believe that such inclusion will be an important signal of your willingness to work with other entities to ensure that the scale of the MMIW crisis is not diminished … It would be extremely regrettable if you were missing this opportunity to tell. the whole story true. “
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