First off, I'm a HUGE fan of the NYTimes. I think the decline of the newspaper is a terrible thing. I'm a big time news junkie. I've been reading the Times everyday for the last eight years. But I'm also a Native American attorney who has studied Critical Race Theory and am highly sensitive to images of cultural stereotypes. Imagine my reaction as I came to work early to read the papers and saw the image below before I went to DC District Court this morning for a hearing on Nez Perce v. Kempthorne.
The image was "above the fold" so to speak on the home page of "the most liberal" newspaper in America.
First off, the fringed dresses. I'm not going to comment on the ethnicity of the females, I don't know and don't want to know. The issue is one of sexualization of "the Indian Princess." Don't believe me? Check out Disney's Pocahontas and look again.
Legendary Beauty? WTF is that about? I refer again to University of Arizona Law and Critical Race Professsor Robert Williams lectures on stereotypes and American Indigenous people entitled "Savage as a Wolf" available at arizonanativenet.com.
So back to the NYTimes picture. Look at the full size image and tell me who you see in the background.
Men dressed as US Cavalry?!
I'm not even going to complain that the bar is charging $3 a CAN for Bud Light(my feelings on the sale to InBev are well cateloged by my comments).
The kicker came as I read the article on "Absaroka" but the final insult came in paragraph 12. "Mr. Simpson said Absarokians mostly wanted self-determination."
Native Americans have fought for self determination and the right to self govern ever since the arrival of the White Man...Columbus's big mistake...the beginning of the American genocide. We've been through the Termination period, Allotment, and Restoration. We're still fighting for self government and recognition for tribes. The Churucawa Apache are still an unrecognized tribe because they never STOPPED fighting!
(ASIDE: I just watched Chato's Land on Comcast on Demand, a western with Bronson and Jack Palance which gives the painfully delivered message of the White Man as Savage...worth the 2 hours.)
My favorite newspaper, resorting to ironic stories of white people wanting self-determination ironically contrasted with images of white domination and indigenous stereotypes.
Off to the DC Circuit for a hearing on Nez Perce v. Kempthorne where more irony awaits.
It's a hearing on Class Certification regarding Individual Indian Trust Accounts, where it has been well cited by the Cobell litigation that the US Government has managed to lose, not record, be held in contempt for failing to provide an accounting and living up to their duties of trustee in the cases of managing Tribal Trust corpus/property and mismanaging those funds.
The obstacle to today's certification of various tribes similar claims under one class? Cited by the governement: Tribal Sovereign Immunity.
The irony would lose more in the explanation than it's worth.
Bad NYTimes. Bad breif and argument by the Feds. Bad day for Native Americans.
Will Native American women finally get equal protection under the law?
Right now Native American women on reservations are 3 times as likely to be raped as a white woman. Due to an insanely complex series of jurisdictional issues, limited law enforcement, minimal political will and racism, perpetrators of sexual assault and domestic violence against Native American women often commit their crimes with impunity, knowing they will likely never face prosecution. All of this was documented in sickening detail last year by Amnesty International's report Maze of Injustice
The legislation is designed to boost law enforcement efforts by providing tools to tribal justice officials to fight crime in their own communities, improving coordination between law enforcement agencies, and increasing accountability standards.
I just received an email from a fellow tribal attorney in regards to the ongoing Congressional Black Caucus - Cherokee Nation dispute. Apparently Barney Frank has appointed his conferees to the Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act conference committee.
I just received an email from a fellow tribal attorney in regards to the ongoing Congressional Black Caucus - Cherokee Nation dispute. Apparently Barney Frank has appointed his conferees to the Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act conference committee.
The Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act is being used as a vehicle to further the dispute between the Congressional Black Caucus and the Cherokee Nation. The CBC has promised to hold up funds because the Cherokee Nation has voted, twice, to remove the Freedmen, who cannot prove they are descendents of tribal members.
While I am not a fan of the decision by the tribe, http://thehill.com/... control over membership is an aspect of the inherent sovereignty tribes enjoy because of their status as PRE-EXISTING SOVEREIGNS.
The Supreme Court has affirmed this in the case of Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, where a Pueblo restricted tribal membership to essentially patrilineal descendents.
Senator Obama, our Presidential Candidate and a constitutional law scholar, has indicated he disagrees with Watson and supports the Cherokee Nation's sovereignty, while disagreeing with the decision.
Congresswoman Watson has united the CBC and caused unnecessary tension within the Obama coalition, by attacking not only the Cherokee Nation, but also holding up funding for all tribes and undermining tribal sovereignty across a broad front. Now is a time for building coalitions, not fracturing them.
Congressman Frank is exacerbating the problem.
"Last week the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee (Barney Frank) appointed the House NAHASDA conferees. It appears as if only one conferee, Congressmen Pearce (R-NM), has a federally recognized Tribe in his district. The remaining Majority conferees are predominately Members from the Congressional Black Caucus. Chairman Frank announced on the House floor that he made his conference appointments in order to ensure the Cherokee issue would be addressed."
Once again, racial politics in America is pitting one minority group's interests against the interests of another. This is not change we can believe in. This is an unnecessary attack on tribal sovereignty and poor strategy by Democrats in the months before a critical and historic national election.
Once again, Nancy Pelosi has failed to lead the House and keep Democrats united under one tent.
Indian Country is not unanimous in supporting the effects of the ouster of the Freedmen. But we are united in defending tribal sovereignty.
Pelosi should know better. Watson should know better. Barney Frank should know better.
I wanted to write this diary sooner but I was simply redlining the entire time we were in Austin. There were so many things to do at the same time that it was hard to choose at any given moment.
I was also responsible for another intensive project and that was moderating the photo pool at flickr for the entire convention. My work is done there but the pool will continue to grow as people get home and upload their photos.
Now I can refocus again on our caucus.
The Native American Netroots caucus began on Thursday morning at 9 a.m. I was nervous that no one would show up since many people fly in later that afternoon and I was competing with many other things scheduled at that time. I feel extremely fortunate that we ended up with about 16 participants. I was completely pleased with all of their contributions. I felt it was our most productive caucus since we started 3 years ago in Las Vegas.
I briefly introduced myself (you can find a more detailed account of my background as an assimilated Indian here.) and I urged everyone to please help me grow this blog; as they encounter folks in other blogs who care about our people to please encourage them to join and contribute with diaries and comments.
This title is not an exaggeration or misstatement, although I really wish it were. I did not go to Netroots Nation to learn that it was possible to rape a woman, right here in the United States and walk away with absolutely no consequences to the rapist. But that's what I learned in a panel discussion on Friday morning.
Come over the fold and I'll tell you exactly how this happens - and you can take an action, a small first step towards ending this nightmare.
Navajo asked me to post this video here. I wasn't expecting to take any footage at this panel here in Austin, but I felt I had to once the panelists started talking. The panel and its report are titled, "Maze of Injustice: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA". It was very very moving.
This is a diary that I will fill in later. It is a place for this morning's caucus attendees a place to post their individual recaps in the comment section.
I am in a session right now about GOTV and talking to your neighbors. I will try to post my recap a little later.
We had a wonderful session this morning. All the attendees had something important to contribute and we were all energized as a group.
The sterilizations of indigenous women were covert means of the continuation of the extermination policy against the Indian Nations. At least three indigenous generations from 3,406 women are not in existence now as the result. The sterilizations were not unintentional or negligible. They were genocide. What would the indigenous culture and political landscape be now? One can only imagine, but the sterilizations like the relocations - were forced.
Last week the Washington Redskins scored a legal victory for themselves and another moral failure for American Judicial system. Patent and Trademark law and the investment of millions of dollars into a racist name and a stereotyped image assured another few years of denigrating headlines, repeated televised use of an outdated slur, and the continued monolithic pace of American jurisprudence.
Last week the Washington Redskins scored a legal victory for themselves and another moral failure for American Judicial system. Patent and Trademark law and the investment of millions of dollars into a racist name and a stereotyped image assured another few years of denigrating headlines, repeated televised use of an outdated slur, and the continued monolithic pace of American jurisprudence.
(I use quotes as the debate within the Native American community over the use of the term Indians remains vigorous, is the use of the term Indian to describe North America's indigenous people a slur, was Columbus's folly a proper moniker for the thousands of commnuities of people here prior to the colonization and enslavement of "America"?)
The Marshall Model incorporates the "Doctrine of Discovery" which summarized finds that tribes are domestic dependent nations, pre-existing sovereigns, which are subject to domination because of their inherent inferiority as "savages" (if you ask me this kind of tortured legal logic is barbaric in itself). Due to the inherent inferiority of the thousands of tribes, the handicap of their race requires the United States federal government to treat the tribes "as a guardian to his ward" (this creates the whole basis for the federal trust situation, where the federal government is supposed to manage the Native's lands for their benefit [trust law requiring a trustee, trustor, and res or property to be managed by the trustee]).
This "language of racism" (see Robert Williams "Like a Loaded Weapon") continues to dominate our jurisprudence and our culture. http://www.arizonanativenet.co...
So how is this language of racism reflected? Most recently, in U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly decision on the Redskin's patent and trademark victory. http://www.washingtonpost.com/... Here, the Judge found that the litigants ahd waited too long to file a claim, that the term "Redskin's" was so insulting and racially offensive that it should not be granted the protection's of copyright laws.
While I need not run through the various races and hypothesize about the outrage that would exist if there existed various football, baseball, and hockey teams named after stereotypes of other races I will list a few of the ones that America feels are accceptable in terms of denigrating the "pre'existing sovereigns": The Washington Redskins, the Cleveland Indians, the Kansas City Cheifs, the University of North Dakota "Fighting Sioux", the University of Illinois "Fighting Illini"...and their associated mascots and cheerleaders.
The UN has protected rights for indigenous people under international law and treaties, which the United States, the world's leader in protecting human rights (until 2000), has so progressively refused to sign and make itself subject to (See US v. Dann and associated OAS rulings finding that the US failed to give due process and property rights to the Western Shoshone).
I find it amazing that America, where all property holding slave owning white men who don't want to pay taxes are created equal, continues both in an abherrent jurisprudence based on racial superiority and continues to justify the disparate treatment of the "pre-existing sovereign" in the role of our "guardian".
Later this month a decision in the Cobell trial is expected, a trial which has lasted 12 years and found various Cabinet secretaries in contempt and the US continually and historically in violation of their duty as trustee. Yet in spite of the mismanagement of billions of dollars over a period of 100+ years, the government will find (Judge Robertson) that he doesn't understand how misappropriating billions of dollars may have benefited the US government (talk about circular reasoning and tortured logic).
It has been less than 100 years since the "First Americans" were granted the right to vote and equality of citizenship. And today, America denies it has a problem with race. http://en.wikipedia.org/... "We are post-racial" it is proclaimed. Yet yesterday Dan Snyder and the NFL were granted the right to continue insulting me every Sunday. And tomorrow, the US will steal billions of dollars it owes my peoples. And the next day we will still be living in poverty on our reservations, lack the funds to build needed jails and judicial systems, and have federal funding for the Indian Health Service cut for a war of choice in which many of us serve.
Canada New Zealand and Australia have all apologized for their treatment of indegenous peoples, ranging from attempts to assimilate to outright genocide. America has yet to do so. The Senate, continues to refuse to recognize indigenous Hawaiians as native peoples (mainly upon Republican objection and post racial arguments).
The Longest Walk II was completed this weekend, where issues from the environment to Native Sovereignty and America's failures to honestly discuss race were raised. Patricipants walked over 8,000 miles to draw attention to these causes. http://www.longestwalk.org/ What becomes most apparent when viewing these issues together is that America has very, very far to go.
I am not a Redskin. I am a patriot, a critic, and Anishnabe. I am not a stereotype.
I will be organizing the Native American Caucus again this year at Netroots Nation in Austin.
Time and room assignments have not been issued yet but most likely will take place on Thursday, August 17th in the early afternoon at 9 a.m. I will update this diary when I receive this info.
Please comment below if you are going to attend the convention.
Also, if you are unable to attend please comment below on the topics you would like us to discuss.
I will diary a recap with photos after the event.
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Update:
Rain from Street Prophets will be doing a Star designed quilt this year with a Native American blogger focus. She has invited the members of this blog to stop by her table and sign a patch. I will be signing one. Please spread the word.
Update 2:
Rain has posted a photo of the Star Quilt below in the comments. It is beautiful!
Update 3:
The room location and time has been posted for our caucus:
Native American Caucus Thu, 07/17/2008 - 9:00am, Room 11
Connect with like-minded folks and talk with others from your community in our identity, issue and regional caucuses.
The White Mountain Apache Reservation is half the size of Connecticut with 10 registered Democrats for every one Republican. A key to winning AZ-01 is to increase the voter registration and turnout of Native Americans on the Apache Reservation and other reservations in the sprawling district.
ApachesVote.org has been formed to help fulfill this important mission. Our step-by-step plan is here. To contribute, please follow this link.. If you only have a moment to post a comment, it would really help to seed our blogs.
We would appreciate feedback from the community on our plan, on how to reach fund-raising sources and how to coordinate with other voter registration groups.
In the final paragraph of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, the Delaware sage Tamenund remarks, "The pale faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men has not yet come again." Despite hopeful signs, in the case of commercially viable movies, that time has still not come.
Although we've come a long way from those movies in which whooping, headdress-bedecked Plains Indians are depicted riding around and around circled wagon trains - a myth stolen directly from the performances of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show - the only places you can typically see Indians as more than savages or sidekicks is in films by Indians given attention by the American Indian Film Institute at the American Indian Film Festival, the 33rd annual of which will take place this autumn in San Francisco, and the Talking Stick Film Festival, which debuted two weeks ago in Santa Fe. The Talking Stick Festival opened with Older Than America, a Canadian film by director Georgina Lightning (Cree) about atrocities at Indian boarding schools, and Hopi director Victor Masayesva's Paatuwaqatsi - Water, Land, Life.
These festival films aren't the kind that make it to your neighborhood multiplex. Indeed, although Wes Studi (Cherokee), Gary Farmer (Cayuga), August Schellenburg (Mohawk), Michael Horse (Yaqui), Irene Bedard (Inupiat-Metis), Steve Reevis (Blackfeet), Adam Beach (Saulteaux), Kalani Queypo (Blackfeet), Graham Greene (Oneida), and a handful of others make a living as actors, only a single American Indian has managed to sustain a career as a director - Chris Eyre (Cheyenne-Arapaho), whose premier film was Smoke Signals a decade ago.
Critical Deadline Only Days Away! Please Act Now to stop the proposed Black Mesa Project: Peabody Coal Company's massive coal-mining expansion plans on the Dine' (Navajo) & Hopi peoples sacred ancestral homelands of Black Mesa, AZ. Your voices are urgently needed before the comment period closes July 7, 2008!
The following action alert is from The Black Mesa Water Coalition:
Dear friends and relatives,
Please take a few minutes to read and hopefully respond! We have being trying our best to handle the railroading tactics of Peabody, the Office of Surface Mining and its desire to mine more coal!
Best, BMWC
Black Mesa Project permitting process Re-opened! Deadline for commenting: July 7, 2008.
"We continue to believe that someone important someplace cares and will do something before our situation becomes impossible." Fools Crow from "Fools Crow," by Thomas E. Mails. p. 217
Rabbit-Proof Fence is my favorite big-screen movie of American Indians.
But that's an Australian movie, you say? Yep. The best film of American Indians is a Down Under 2002 movie about aboriginals without a loin-cloth, smear of war paint or drop of firewater in sight. It's the story of three young mixed-race girls who find their way home after being ripped away from their parents in 1931 by the government and trained to focus on their "white side" so they can become somebody's servants. A few critics have complained that this based-on-a-true-story movie goes overboard in demonizing the main white character (Kenneth Branagh) and depicting most other whites of the era as deeply bigoted, morally uncourageous paternalists. What could the director have been thinking?
The American version of Rabbit-Proof Fence has been out there for the telling ever since Thomas Edison showed his "movie" Hopi Snake Dance at the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893 on the brand-new kinetoscope his staff had developed. It's the story of how American Indian children were torn from their customs, religions, languages, tribes and parents by demons and paternalists who saw cultural genocide as the proper modern alternative to the centuries-old physical genocide that had become no longer an acceptable course of action. But of all the hundreds of movie Westerns depicting Indians, this story has failed to generate excitement among four or five generations of movie-makers. Instead, the Hollywood Indian has prevailed.
As Ted Jojola, an Isleta Pueblo Indian and associate professor at the University of New Mexico, wrote in his 1998 essay, "Absurd Reality II: Hollywood Goes to the Indians," Edison's choice presented a stereotypical view of American Indians that would ...
"...persist into contemporary times. Its longevity though, is explained by the persistence of myth and symbol. The Indian became a genuine American symbol whose distorted origins are attributed to the folklore of Christopher Columbus when he 'discovered' the 'New World.' Since then the film industry, or Hollywood, has never allowed Native America to forget it. The Hollywood Indian is a mythological being who exists nowhere but within the fertile imaginations of its movie actors, producers and directors. The preponderance of such movie images have reduced native people to ignoble stereotypes."
I've always acknowledged my Abenaki heritage and for a long time, I've wanted to take part in the tribal council and the political process it involves. However, the council in my opinion, is a puppet council.
There is no tribal democracy here. Instead, the chief came to power by nepotism and not a fair vote. Her father was chief and she became chief while he was on his last legs.
My email below is an attempt to shake things up and get the gears of change started.
Note: I originally posted this diary at Daily Kos as well.
Was losing Major Elliot's strategic location during the extermination of the Southern Cheyenne Arapaho at Washita by Lieutenant Colonel Custer acceptable by U.S. military standards? Captain Benteen thought not.
Native American Netroots ...a forum for the discussion of political, social and economic issues affecting the indigenous peoples of the United States, including their lack of political representation, economic deprivation, health care issues, and the on-going struggle for preservation of identity and cultural history
Although we've come a long way from those movies in which whooping, headdress-bedecked Plains Indians are depicted riding around and around circled wagon trains - a myth stolen directly from the performances of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show - the only places you can typically see Indians as more than savages or sidekicks is in films by Indians given attention by the American Indian Film Institute at the 
The American version of Rabbit-Proof Fence has been out there for the telling ever since Thomas Edison showed his "movie" Hopi Snake Dance at the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893 on the brand-new kinetoscope his staff had developed. It's the story of how American Indian children were torn from their customs, religions, languages, tribes and parents by demons and paternalists who saw cultural genocide as the proper modern alternative to the centuries-old physical genocide that had become no longer an acceptable course of action. But of all the hundreds of movie Westerns depicting Indians, this story has failed to generate excitement among four or five generations of movie-makers. Instead, the Hollywood Indian has prevailed.
