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Indian Country lost a foot soldier, this week: Harlan “Kabaniquay” McKosato. I surprised myself by how hard I took the news. The Sac and Fox journalist was always in my orbit as I have made my way in the profession. On Sunday, a mutual friend let me know he wasn’t doing well; that he was dying. By Tuesday, he closed his eyes for the last time. Harlan’s life and death is both a story of humor and tragedy. He was downright goofy, going on shows like the Family Feud. And he had a gift for making hard conversations less so. But he also battled addiction from what else but living while being Native. It’s hard and even for someone like Harlan who shined. He wasn’t immune to the Indigenous struggle. As I write in my latest column for Indigenously, in many ways, he’s emblematic of it. Harlan’s sister described him as a “hayseed,” a word I hadn’t heard before until this week. In the most literal sense, it means a seed obtained from hay. More figuratively, for someone exactly like Harlan, it defines a simple person from the bottom-up. In this sense, Harlan was Indian Country’s everyman. The timing of his passing, for me, is poignant as my industry reckons with its own institutional racism. They are realities that Harlan contended with all those years he worked in public broadcasting, perhaps the whitest workplace in America. In this regard, there is much to reflect on Harlan the Hayseed in this moment. Enjoy the read.
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