There’s something happening here… 

And it’s major.  

Picture this. A multi-media network and educational organization that is Native. All Native. All the time. 

Picture this. A multi-media network providing totally indigenous programming and a state-of-the-art training facility to nurture future generations of Native journalists and television producers, technicians and editors. 

Quite a picture, don’t ya think? 

It’s not just a picture anymore. It’s reality.  

Native American Television (NATV)  is literally right around the corner; just months away from beaming into the living rooms of Americans from all corners of the map and what this means—what this means—is light years beyond another channel on our dish network. 

What this means  is that for the first time mainstream America will be introduced to images of Native Americans-Aboriginals-Indians that weren’t fabricated in the TNT penthouse offices or in grainy black-and-white westerns or plastered on motel signs along Route 66. In other words, beyond leather-and-feathers, casinos, Pine Ridge and Chief Wahoo. 

And more. An educational program, based out of metro D.C., which will take emerging media talent from Indian Country (for those of you who don’t know, that’s everywhere) and provide hands on training, and more importantly, opportunities for young Natives to put their skills to the test. 

A lot of work still has to be done. Absolutely. As we speak, the programming content is being discussed and developed by people a lot smarter than me. People who understand television; people who understand and appreciate Native culture; keeping it professional, authentically Indian and infinitely watchable.    

They get it. They don’t want NATV to turn into another screamingly bad network filled with hours of turgid documentaries or insipid infotainment drek. Think expansively, because the NATV folks certainly are. Think news magazines; movies. Cooking and music and comedy and culture. Think Native. Native television developed, written, performed and filmed by… Natives. 

Picture that. 

So let’s give a standing-O to the tireless idealists who dreamed this and put their grit and mojo and cash and reputations on the line against a resounding chorus of naysayers who said it couldn’t be done, shouldn’t be done, wouldn’t be done. 

Idealists like the NATV Board of Directors and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians. Idealists behind the scenes—and you know who you are—who infuse their lifeblood into the operation. Idealists like you and me whose support will ensure that a Native voice, for the first time in the United States, will be heard and seen.  

Will be heard and seen. By all of us, for the very first time. 

What a beautiful picture that is.