Celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day With KARE 11’s Michelle Redberg

By Michelle Redberg, Local Sales Manager at KARE 11

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!

As a proud Anashinabea and Lakota woman, I find it incredibly important to honor the vast number of Native American cultures across our country, and I take immense pride in participating in Indigenous Day celebrations and raising awareness for these groups.

I am a Local Sales Manager at KARE 11, and I am so proud to work at an organization that recognizes and celebrates cultural diversity! Within my role, I interact with clients, our viewers, and community leaders. No different than any of you, my culture informs everything I do and how I do it, and it’s imperative that I continue to represent my unique perspective in all of those contexts throughout the community.

The TEGNA and KARE 11 team has done an amazing job focusing on diversity and inclusion. From our internal focus team to better educate our staff to our incredible content recognizing unique perspectives within our community, like Lifting Voices, to our high-quality coverage (and one of my favorite stories from our team) Native American Boarding Schools: A Lost History, this company truly embraces and celebrates cultural perspectives! That is part of my “why” I come to work every day. It’s an honor to work within an organization that supports all of our voices to make us all stronger.

And we’re all stronger because each member of Team TEGNA has its own unique cultural perspective. My Native American heritage is sacred to my loved ones and me and has played a major role in my upbringing and very much shaped who I am! I grew up going to Pow Wows, making traditional crafts, and attending Indian education programs. It was a blast!

I emphasize Native American cultures intentionally, as one significant misperception is that Native Americans are a homogenous people. However, the truth is there are many unique Native American cultures; we are very much a heterogeneous people.

For example, my heritage is made up of two very distinct Native American tribes: they speak different languages, have different belief systems, and have different subcultures and family groups. And at one point in time, the two tribes were enemies, so my grandparent’s marriage was considered controversial. It’s hard to believe that was only two generations ago.

Another misperception healthy to address is while Native Americans are an important part of history, we are not a historized people. Native Americans, though few, continue to be active, relevant, and proud cultural people of the world. Thus the need to celebrate the rich culture that exists today!

I believe shedding light on those experiences affords us all an opportunity to better appreciate our differences and bring us closer together! I look forward to learning more from Team TEGNA.

Again, happy Indigenous Peoples Day! Here’s to pausing and celebrating the resilience of the past and assessing how the next generation of Native Americans can thrive into the future. I encourage you to go check out a Pow Wow! Enjoy an Indian Taco. You won’t regret it. 😊