About That American Exceptionalism.

Two women dressed in traditional attire wait outside of city hall in Urubamba, Peru (Roxanne Cooper)

Two women dressed in traditional attire wait outside of city hall in Urubamba, Peru (Roxanne Cooper)

The Presidential candidates have been sounding off for almost two years now, pointing out (or in many cases manufacturing) all of America’s problems, and offering solutions they believe will make them the next President. The candidates, especially to the right of the political spectrum, extoll America as being exceptional, and they score empty points with voters by talking about how the rest of the planet looks to the United States to solve the world’s woes. It is surprising, then, to see how many of these seemingly intractable problems are being far more effectively tackled by the countries we are supposed to be “leading”. Maybe it’s time for America to start looking elsewhere for innovative solutions.

Here are 10  examples of problems being solved everywhere but in America.

Yes, I know that all these places have their own problems, and no, none of them is utopia. That’s not the point. The point is that at the very least, other places in the world are actively attempting to deal with serious problems, and trying to come up with solutions. Some of them are quite simple, like prosecuting criminals, something the U.S. is increasingly reluctant to do, unless you’re poor and some shade of brown. I’m only going to include a few here, click over for the full list.

1. Peru: free solar-powered electricity for the poor.

In 2013, in Peru, only about two-thirds of the 25 million people had access to electricity. The Peruvian government decided to do something about it, and instituted a program to provide free solar energy to the underprivileged. With the goal of providing at least 95% of Peruvians with electricity, Peru began the National Photovoltaic Household Electrification Program, installing free solar panels in impoverished communities. The program, which is expected to be completed by next year, has so far installed almost 15,000 photovoltaic systems.

2. Iceland: white-collar criminals go to jail.

In the wake of the collapse of the housing bubble in 2008, it was not only the United States that almost fell into a deep economic depression. The same criminal activity our banks engaged in, inflating the housing market and gambling away our money while saddling crippling debt on untold millions, was also occurring around the world. One country in particular, Iceland, almost imploded. It had a far different response to the crisis, however.

At the same time that the United States was bailing out our “too-big-to-fail” banks, Iceland was letting them suffer the consequences of their greed, namely bankruptcy and failure. Instead of bailing banks out, the Icelandic government bailed out homeowners by forgiving mortgages that were overvalued. While it is arguable whether a similar course of action would have been advisable in the far-larger United States, it may be more important to note that Iceland began prosecuting actual people who propagated the illegal activity. Unlike the U.S., where exactly zero bank executives have answered for their crimes, and prosecutions for white-collar crime are at a 20-year low, 26 bankers in Iceland have gone to prison for their misdeeds.

3. France: stop throwing away food.

While the United States may be the richest nation on the planet, more than 15 million children go to bed hungry. Digest this fact while also noting that 133 billion pounds of food, fully a third of the available supply, goes uneaten, eventually ending up in a landfill. France, facing a similar problem, made a very simple decision: stop throwing the food away. As of early this month, it became illegal in France for large grocery stores (4300 square feet or more) to throw out unsold food. Instead, French groceries must contract with charitable organizations, which will be responsible for collecting and redistributing the food to the needy. The law also mandates educational programs in schools to raise awareness among children about the problem of food waste.

Raw Story has the full list.

Real NDNZ Re-Take Hollywood.

NDNZ

In an effort to dismantle the film industry’s historically stereotypical portrayal of Native actors in buckskin, feathers and painted faces, Los Angeles-based media professional and photographer Pamela J. Peters (Navajo) has created a series of photographs entitled Real NDNZ Re-Take Hollywood, in which contemporary Native American actors recreate classic Hollywood portraits of movie stars such as James Dean and Audrey Hepburn.

[…]

The seven Natives involved in the project include actors from the Dakota, Cherokee, Crow, Blackfeet, Shoshone, and Seminole nations. They are Noah Watts (Crow /Blackfeet), Shayna Jackson (Dakota / Cree), Deja Jones (Shoshone), Kholan Studie (Cherokee), Krista Hazelwood (Seminole), JaNae Collins (Dakota) and Brian Vallie (Crow).

“All participants have a passion to work in the film industry, but they also have ties to their tribal communities and enjoy sharing their respective backgrounds with each other,” says Peters.

“I would like people to think critically about my photos, and hear the young performers’ stories about how they navigate an extremely competitive field of entertainment.  Furthermore, I want society to know that we are many nations, with many stories, and that we can make a conscious choice to reshape perceptions of modern Indians today.”

The showcase will take place at These Days LA at 118 Winston Street, Los Angeles, 90013 from Aug 4th to 7th from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Information about the show can be found online. Her exhibit will showcase 24 images and a short video of her project. On Saturday, Aug 6th live art and drumming will be held from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

More information about Pamela J. Peters can be found on her website: www.PamelaJPeters.com.

Via ICTMN.

On Following the Sun.

LadySun1P

© C. Ford.

At dawn, whole fields of sunflowers stand at attention, all facing east, and begin their romance with the rising sun. As that special star appears to move across the sky, young flowers follow its light, looking up, then over and westward, catching one final glance as the sun disappears over the horizon.

At night, in its absence, the sunflowers face east again, anticipating the sun’s return.

They do this until they get old, when they stop moving. Then, always facing east, the old flowers await visits from insects that will spread their pollen and make new sunflowers. Those flowers too, will follow the sun.

The wonderful magic of sunflowers, it’s always a grand thing when this is explained to kids, who have their minds blown at the idea of a flower following the sun. It’s a great way to get in a dose of science.

It’s heliotropism, and sunflowers are not the only plants that track the sun. But until now, how sunflowers do it has been a mystery.

In a study published Friday in Science, researchers revealed that the sunflower’s internal clock and ability to detect light work together, turning on genes related to growth at just the right time to allow the stems to bend with the arc of the sun. The research team also showed that when fully grown, as tall as people in some cases, plants that always face east get a head start, warming up early to attract pollinators.

To get to the bottom of sunflowers’ pursuit of the sun, Stacey Harmer and Hagop Atamian, plant biologists at the University of California, Davis, and their colleagues studied sunflowers in fields, pots and growth chambers.

[…]

The fact that sunflowers switch directions at night to face east again, with no apparent cue, suggested an internal clock at work. The researchers put sunflower plants in a room with lights rigged to mimic the sun’s path on different light and dark cycles. The plants behaved as expected on a 24-hour cycle. But during a 30-hour day, they were confused. And when plants that had learned a 24-hour cycle outdoors were placed under a fixed light indoors, they continued to bend from east to west for a few days, as if following the sun. This meant that a 24-hour circadian rhythm was guiding the sunflowers’ movement. But without muscles, how did they move?

The answer was in their stems. Like those of other plants, the stems of young sunflowers grow more at night — but only on their west side, which is what allows their heads to bend eastward. During the day, the stems’ east side grows, and they bend west with the sun. Dr. Atamian collected samples of the opposite sides of stems from sunflowers periodically, and found that different genes, related to light detection and growth, appeared active on opposite sides of the stems.

You can read the rest of this fascinating story here. It’s nice to know how it all works with Sunflowers, and they remain wonderfully majestic and magical. Hat tip to Kengi for this one.

Simon Moya-Smith: Does the Liberty Bell Ring For Native Americans?

Peggy

Peggy Flanagan, White Earth citizen and Minnesota State Representative became first Native Woman to address DNC from the podium. Credit: Suzette Brewer.

If you missed Simon Moya-Smith’s first column on the DNC, it’s here.

DNC. Notes spanning days 2 & 3 & 4: All a blur now. This bar reeks of vomit. Old vomit. At a joint called Fridays in Philly. “I think the president or Hillary Clinton is staying across the street,” the black bartender tells me. “Right there. At The Logan.” Secret Service man the hotel doors. “That’s a lot of guns and sunglasses,” I utter. “Best to stay inside.”

[…]

Meanwhile, back here at the scene, the DNC, people can’t find a seat. Volunteers in yellow shirts block the doorway with their bodies against a hoard of excited Dems. “Try section 204. I hear they’re still letting people in there,” one says. I walk a full 360-degrees ‘round the Center. No luck. No seats. No hope. A woman in a Hillary hat, once excited, now stands in tears. No chance of getting in the arena. What’s left, then? The hallway. The muffled echo of the speaker blows in. For a moment I consider inviting the poor lady to a drink. Something to take the edge off. Dull the pain. But in an instant she’s gone, running into the fray, sobbing, asking God for a seat. “Please! Please!” Amen. Right. And to those who did land a seat they got watch Peggy Flanagan, Ojibwe, take the lectern and read a letter to her daughter where she affirmatively stated, “We (Native Americans) are still here.”

I head to the men’s room. A man in the stall sniffs once. Sniffs twice. He booms out the door. Bang! Ready, he is. Wired, for sure. Good idea. Coke and a stale hot dog it is. But the concession line’s too long. I’ve never seen a more dapper crowd clamoring for wieners. And what is the difference between something like the DNC and live theater? Is all of this just The Show? It has all the moving parts of a Broadway production. Lights! Make-up. Celebrities. Dance numbers. A script on the screen. Exhausted interns hoping to make it, break into the biz. And what does any of this have to do with Indian country? Everything, goddamnit. This is our land. Our ancestral home. The old country. “We never left,” Suzan Harjo said. During roll call a few days ago, a torrent of indigenous languages rumbled the walls of the Center in a roar of revitalization. Life again. But then on the final night of the DNC, presidential nominee Clinton failed to mention Native Americans when she spoke of systemic oppression. What a disappointment. Should we take this as an indication of her awareness of racial violence in Indian country? Has she heard the names Allen Locke or Sarah Lee Circle Bear or Mah-Hi-Vist Goodblanket or Rexdale Henry or (more names here) before? Not sure. Here’s hoping.

Note: Links added by me.

I slept four hours last night, and I don’t expect to sleep much again tonight. Delayed flight after delayed flight. People fleeing Philadelphia all at once. Bottleneck City. Where’s the Liberty Bell? It didn’t ring for Native Americans then. Does it ring for us now? … Something to contemplate over cheesesteak and fries and and pie at Reading Terminal, the massive market here in Philly where gluttony is god and the chicken sandwiches are good-not-great. But I digress. I always digress.

I met a Trump fan at pub on I think Broad St. A grumpy fucker. Later, I was denied service at an ostensibly straight bar. Can’t remember its name at the moment. Blurry. Ended up at Woody’s, a gay bar. Instant service. Intelligent talk. No ostentatious erudition in here. Just people woke. People aware. A drag queen blows me a kiss. I smile and nod, kinda dorky like. I am a dork, though. A socially awkward Hobbit. And I’m OK with that.

The epilogue to this story is this: When the GOP elected Donald Trump as their presidential nominee they officially became the party of racism and misogyny. No indigenous North American languages were spoken during roll call at the Republican National Convention last week. No recognition of Native American sovereignty at all. Just dystopian soothsayers in sandwich boards shouting “the end is near!” I’m convinced the Democratic Party is the party for Native Americans. We just have to convince Clinton that no good comes from fracking:

“Would you like a glass of water, madam nominee? … No, it’s actually not from this tap here. This is fracked water, madam. You can light it on fire if you want. … And since I have you, can we talk about Leonard Peltier? … Your husband, Bill, claims to be a descendant of the Cherokee. Has he been back home lately? How does he take his fry bread? … Yes, ma’am, I have had a several coffees – well, cappuccinos. The DNC was quite the spectacle, wasn’t it? Man, Bill loves balloons, doesn’t he? Peggy Flanagan was wonderful, wasn’t she? Debra Haaland, too. All the Natives there that night. So about that water. I see you haven’t taken a sip. I wouldn’t either. A filthy water is a filthy earth, and it’s our fault. Fracking. Just say no.”

The full article is at ICTMN, and as usual, is vividly brilliant. Click on over to read the whole thing.

When Will There Be a Native American President?

Pinterest.

Pinterest.

Gyasi Ross has a great article up on the possibilities and problems of a Native president, When Will There Be a Native American President? [Part 1] ‘Sigh,’ It’s Gonna Be Awhile…  Click over to read the whole thing, because I’m only going to include part here.

QUESTION:

Can we honestly tell our beautiful and brilliant Native children that, in 2016, they can grow up and be President of the United States of America?

SHORT ANSWER:

Probably not. Based upon the evidence (as opposed to optimism or good feelings), America does not seem to fully accept Natives as real-life human beings — thus it will likely be a few generations before we can seriously contemplate that.

After this, Ross takes some time to explain the normalization which has taken place in regard to Black people, Hispanic people, and Women. No, things aren’t all cherries and thornless roses with these groups, but they have been included enough in pop culture, normalized enough, that it’s not a complete shock for people to see any one of these peoples in high office.

But what about Natives?

Unfortunately, it looks like that’s still a long ways off. Here are a few reasons why.

First, Americans still have not normalized interactions with Natives.  This is manifest in many ways in pop culture today—pop culture is very important toward normalizing a group of people. For example, for decades there are have been movies where a black person plays a president on-screen, making folks more comfortable with the idea.  There have also been movies where women and Latinos/as, Asians play presidents, and every other role under the sun.  That gets rid of the sticker shock of seeing a person of that group in that position.  Moreover, it’s also not unusual to see folks from all backgrounds acting as a different ethnicity or in a leading role where race is not contemplated.  For Natives, though? Not so much. Natives are still a novelty, a character to be played on-screen and not just an ethnicity that a person happens to be. There is no Fresh off the Boat or Chico and the Man or Blackish or The Jeffersons or The Cosby Show for Native people. Plus, the prospect of a Native playing, for example, a President? Hasn’t been on the radar, even in the most subversive of films.

Natives have largely been only deemed competent to play a Native no matter how incredible that Native actor is. “How well can you be a Native, Native person?”

Similarly, in my work as a writer and commentator, I largely am asked to only comment or write about “Native stuff.”  Now, I love commenting and writing about “Native stuff” but I’ve also found that “Native stuff” is a HUGE category. It’s ALL Native stuff! Whether we’re talking about national politics to public school funding to infrastructure and trade policy.  Now, similar to acting black folks, women, Latino/a, Asians, etc. are all considered competent to speak about things that are outside their communities and universal. It is not one bit unusual for a black person, a woman, a Latino/a or an Asian to comment or write on national news. For Natives? Not so much. It’s still a novelty and Natives are not deemed competent to have opinions on matters that are universal and aren’t uniquely Native.

We can’t speak about things that are just “human” or “American.”  It would be hard enough for a Native person to get a role as a doctor or teacher on TV, much less a Native President.

We also see it in regards to our tragedy.  Simply stated, the mainstream largely does not care or cannot relate to Native pain or outrage. The mainstream ignores the structural and institutional barriers, for example, that allow Native women to be raped at a rate exponentially higher than other women. It likewise ignores those same structural barriers that forbid Native nations from prosecuting outsiders who peddle drugs and/or murder our people.  Those same structures then, adding insult to injury, refuse to utilize its own resources to prosecute those bad actors, allowing them to prey upon our communities with impunity.

But nobody mentions that outside of our communities. If they do mention our communities, they mention the poverty without explaining how those barriers help to create and sustain that economic poverty.

As shown above, there is a perception that Natives cannot partake in these larger conversations.  As we discussed, there is a lack of empathy or understanding about our communities.  When those two things are combined with the mathematical fact that Natives are a tiny percentage of the population, it doesn’t bode well for a Native rising to be President anytime soon.  At some point, it’s a humanity question as it was for women, black folks, Latino/as, etc.; are Natives reflective enough of America generally to sometimes not be considered “Native” and instead just “human?”

Can a Native person represent America?  Stupid question. OF COURSE. The truth is, Natives are the story of America and are more America than America. Natives are America’s dental record and thumbprint and spinal cord. You cannot intelligently tell the story of America without Native people being one of the main characters.  Yet, it seems like mainstream America is a ways away from recognizing that truth.

When Will There Be a Native American President? [Part 1] ‘Sigh,’ It’s Gonna Be Awhile…

Seceding Over Slavery.

fox_of_trump_jesus_160511e-800x4301-440x270Most people know about Bill O’Reilly’s unbelievably idiotic remarks about slaves building the White House, and his subsequent doubling down, attempting to justify his previous commentary and digging quite the hole for himself. O’Reilly spent a fair amount of time opining that liberals literally want him dead. I don’t want you dead, Bill, I want you off the air.

Anyroad, the idiotic remarks about slaves and the astonishing distortion of actual history inspired Marcus Ranum to do a very in-depth post about slavery. Here’s a little bit:

The Odious Institution

The colonies in America had been priming themselves for a revolution for some time. Unpopular legislation from England, in the form of taxes and regulations – notably The Stamp Act, The Sugar Act, The Townshend Act – had provoked protest, violence, tax collectors being brutalized, and civilian protestors shot down by redcoats. England was trying, simply enough, to extract some of the colony’s massive wealth through taxation, to pay for its various wars. The colonial leaders were trying, simply enough, to keep their wealth – a great deal of which was at best semi-licit: whenever the crown would levy a new tax, the colonial entrepreneurs would smuggle the goods, anyway.

The “triangle trade” was taking place “off the books” to a significant degree, and was at least partly designed to facilitate smuggling. It was a hugely profitable trade-route, and underpinned much of the New England economy as well as that of the American south’s most powerful and wealthy state, Virginia. From 1770 to 1780 the people who became the political leaders in the colonies were all wealthy, and that wealth depended on smuggling, slavery, land speculation, tobacco or cotton farming, or “trade” (which meant: buying and selling alcohol, tobacco, slaves, etc) – the unhappiness the colonial political leaders were feeling with England was that their tax-sheltered existences were threatened. They were already hugely wealthy, in terms of the time, with some notable exceptions (Jefferson was really really good at spending money!) George Washington was the largest land speculator in the colonies, John Hancock was a smuggler “trader” of large but unknown fortune, Jefferson owned lots of land, slaves, and farmed tobacco and cotton.* They had time and inclination to get involved in politics because they had a great deal of wealth at stake and had enough wealth that they could take the time – literally afford – to travel about protecting their interests.

For the colonial elite, the Somerset decision had the attention-riveting effect of a dagger pressed against the throat. It was immediately seen as a threat to their interests for the simple reason that: the colonies were under England’s law. If English law had finally come down on the issue of slavery as odious, immoral and – what really mattered: unenforceable – the colonial elite had a serious, serious problem on their hands.

So they did what any justice-loving group of leaders would do: they worked out how to emancipate the slaves, apologized and compensated them with grants of land** and started tithing a reasonable percentage of their gains to England.

Of course they didn’t.

It’s an excellent read, so click on over for the full article.

One Year in the Life of Earth.

Video Player

On July 20, 2015, NASA released to the world the first image of the sunlit side of Earth captured by the space agency’s EPIC camera on NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite. The camera has now recorded a full year of life on Earth from its orbit at Lagrange point 1, approximately 1 million miles from Earth, where it is balanced between the gravity of our home planet and the sun.

EPIC takes a new picture every two hours, revealing how the planet would look to human eyes, capturing the ever-changing motion of clouds and weather systems and the fixed features of Earth such as deserts, forests and the distinct blues of different seas. EPIC will allow scientists to monitor ozone and aerosol levels in Earth’s atmosphere, cloud height, vegetation properties and the ultraviolet reflectivity of Earth.

The full story is here, and a full transcript is available.

Summer Slide Reading for Kids.

Six great books for kids to read over summer, when learning is definitely not on their minds. If you can request these books at your local library, that would be great because a lot of books by Native authors don’t make it in library reviews, and librarians can only respond to what readers want. If you want these, librarians will make the magic happen.

In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse by Joseph Marshall III

Joseph Marshall III’s In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse (Harry N. Abrams, 2015) has a lot going for it. First off, it’s set in the present day. The main character, Jimmy, is Lakota. But, he has blue eyes and light brown hair because his lineage includes people who aren’t Native. That means he gets teased for his looks. In steps his grandpa, who takes him on a road trip. As they drive, Jimmy learns about Crazy Horse, but he also learns that Native people have different names for places. One example is the Oregon Trail. Jimmy’s grandpa tells him that Native people call it Shell River Road. Marshall’s storytelling is vibrant and engaging, and the perfect tone for kids in middle school.

 

 

 

 

Arigon Starr’s “Super Indian” comics poke fun at many topics.You can’t miss with Arigon Starr’s Super Indian (Wacky Productions Unlimited) stories. She’s got the inside track on telling it like it is. Or, could be, if eating commodity cheese could give you super powers. In other words, every panel of Starr’s comics is a reflection of Native life, and she brilliantly pokes at the uber popular Twilight books and movies, and testy issues like blood quantum. There’s a ka-pow to this super power series (two volumes at this point) that will have you and your kids laughing out loud.

 

 

A Blanket of Butterflies by Richard Van Camp.Richard Van Camp’s A Blanket of Butterflies (HighWater Press, 2015) is riveting. This graphic novel opens with a boy who looks to be in his early teens, standing in front of a samurai suit of armor in a display case in his tribe’s museum. That suit is going to be returned to its original owner, but the sword is missing. That launches this fast-paced story in which Van Camp provides us with an opportunity to think about museums and who owns items in them.

 

 

 

 

 

[Read more…]

Trump’s Border Wall Would Work, In All the Wrong Ways.

Javelinas in the creosote | Photo: Dave Hensley, some rights reserved.

Javelinas in the creosote | Photo: Dave Hensley, some rights reserved.

Chris Clarke at KCET has an excellent article up about the far reaching effects of Trump’s wall.

California’s border with Baja California is a complex region with unique environmental issues. Our Borderlands series takes a deeper look at this region unified by shared landscapes and friendship, and divided by international politics.

A female arroyo toad shelters under a streamside cottonwood in early March, twenty years from now. It’s unseasonably warm, and there’s something ancient stirring inside her. She listens. A male is singing. She finds his song beautiful. Everything in her wants to follow that sound, to find the male and mate with him. She would release her eggs for him to fertilize. Those eggs would grow in long submerged strings, until a new generation of arroyo tadpoles hatched from them a week later. Her drive to find that male is irresistable. But she cannot reach him.

A month and a half later, three hundred miles east, a small group of javelinas cools its collective heels in the shade of an ironwood tree. The engaging, pig-like beasts are hungry. A couple of them root in the soil of the wash, looking for tubers. Not far away, a mesquite hangs heavy with last year’s crop of pods. The javelinas can smell those pods, even after a season of drying on the branch. The one tree could feed the entire pack for two days, and the javelinas would disperse a few of the seeds elsewhere to make new mesquites. But that’s not going to happen. There’s something in the way.

In July, wild eyes scan and a pair of slitted nostrils sift the desert breeze. The jaguar finds no good news in the air. He curls back his upper lip and tries again, head held high. He’s not looking for food. Here in the Patagonia Mountains of southern Arizona, game is plentiful enough to keep his ribs well hidden. It’s plentiful enough, in fact, to support a few more jaguars, to provide a launch pad for North America’s largest wild cat to reinhabit the southern Rocky Mountains. But that would require the cooperation of one or more female jaguars. And thanks to a project propelled by destructive politics and fear, there won’t be any lady jaguars in the Patagonia Mountains anytime soon.

In previous articles in this series we’ve looked at a some of the likely unintended environmental consequences of the gigantic border wall proposed by Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, from the climate impacts of such a massive construction project to the wall’s inevitable disruption of stream courses resulting in massive floods.

But some of the longest-lasting environmental consequences of the proposed border wall would result from the wall doing precisely what it’s supposed to do: stop migration across the border. The wall will impede a lot more than just human beings from migrating. It will stop animals as well, and their genes, and even the plant species they disperse.

This excellent, eloquent article can be read in full here. This is a discussion too few people are having, and it is a vital one. If humans are good at anything, they are absolutely great for being self-centered and consumed by the short term. Trump’s wall is a good example of that, but so is the complete lack of concern for just how far out such an abomination would ripple. Read up, learn, pass it on.

Texas Textbook: Mexicans Want to Destroy Civilization.

(Momentum Instruction/Texas Education Agency)

(Momentum Instruction/Texas Education Agency)

A proposed textbook about Mexican-American history that would be read by Texas high school students is filled with inaccuracies and stereotypes about Mexican Americans, said a coalition of educators opposing the publication of the textbook.

Latino activists and educators have been urging the Texas State Board of Education to allow for more coverage of Latino Americans in the textbooks it reviews, so when a textbook on Mexican Americans was included among the textbooks to be considered for the school year of 2017-2018, it appeared to be a win for those advocates. But when excerpts from the textbook were released, it became clear to advocates for more inclusion of Latino American history that the book was far more harmful than helpful.

Among the issues educators, scholars, and activists take with the book is its representation of Mexican Americans as lazy. The coalition, called The Responsible Ethnic Studies Textbook Coalition, includes the ACLU of Texas, Texas Latino Education Coalition, and Mexican American School Board Members Association. On Monday, this newly formed coalition criticized what they called “offensive cultural stereotypes,” according to The Washington Post, that were found in excerpts that called Industrialists “driven” but said Mexican laborers “were not reared to put in a full day’s work so vigorously.”

Scholars have also objected to a passage of the textbook that equated the Chicano Movement in the 1960s that encouraged Mexican Americans to fight for better working conditions and voting rights with a “revolutionary narrative that opposed Western civilization and wanted to destroy this society,” according to The Washington Post.

[…]

As for how it has been received by the board members themselves, reactions have been mixed. According to the Austin-American Statesman, Texas Board of Education member Ruben Cortez Jr. said of the textbook, “Based on the initial conversation with these experts, I don’t believe that this book should see the inside of any classroom in any shape, form, or fashion… If it’s as bad as they’re all telling me, there’s not a chance in hell I’m going to support this book.”

However, fellow board member David Bradley, who didn’t want a Mexican-American heritage textbook in the first place, according to the Statesman, said, “It’s really kind of amusing. The left-leaning, radical Hispanic activists, having pounded the table for special treatment, get approval for a special course that nobody else wanted… Now they don’t like their special textbook?”

Christ, I loathe smug morons like Mr. Bradley, dedicated in every way to obscurantism. No, no one has pounded the table for special treatment, this is a simple request to be accurately included in history texts, rather than having the standard “white men good, everyone else bad” version of history. This does not mean padding a book full of bigotry and harmful stereotypes, then calling it good. Considering the high percentage of Hispanic people in Texas, perhaps you don’t want those children absorbing the “lazy, can’t work” poison, you might get what you paid for. Not that bigots are good at thinking past their own noses.  Can we get textbook proposal and approval the fuck out of Texas, please?

Full story here.

29.

29th President Warren Harding promised Indians he would look out for their indigenous rights, but did little to that end. Whitehouse.gov

29th President Warren Harding promised Indians he would look out for their indigenous rights, but did little to that end. Whitehouse.gov

Less than three months before Warren Gamaliel Harding was elected 29th president of the United States, he stood on his front porch in Marion, Ohio, and promised Indians he would look out for their indigenous rights.

Harding, then a U.S. senator, announced his bid for president in June 1920 and subsequently gave hundreds of official and off-the-cuff speeches to audiences numbering in the tens of thousands—all from the comfort of his front porch.

This “front porch campaign” reached a total of 600,000 visitors who traveled to Harding’s crushed-gravel lawn “by car or chartered trains, representing Republican state delegations or farmers or veterans or businessmen or blacks or women or first voters, or, even, traveling salesmen,” David Pietrusza wrote in his 2007 book, 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents. “Each contingent, properly escorted by a brass band, would march up ‘Victory Way,’ festooned every twenty feet by white columns surmounted by gilt eagles.”

On August 19, Harding met on that porch with about 20 delegates of the Society of American Indians who, “arrayed in tribal feathers and beadwork,” attended the speech to plead “for extension of their racial rights,” the Lancaster Eagle reported. Harding, who would inherit a country still recovering from World War I, replied that the United States “might do well to bestow ‘democracy and humanity and idealism’ on the continent’s native race rather than to ‘waste American lives trying to make sure of that bestowal thousands of miles across the sea.’”

[…]

Eight months after taking office, Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, a monument for service members who died without their remains being identified. Crow Chief Plenty Coos (or Plenty Coups) was invited to participate in the ceremony and, “attired in full war regalia, feathered bonnet, furs and skins of variegated colors,” was seated on the platform with Harding and military leaders from Europe, the Associated Press reported on November 14, 1921.

“Thus the uniform of the first American took its place with those of its Allied Powers in the last war,” the AP reported. “A group of Indian braves appeared in the audience, tiptoeing in their beaded moccasins down the aisle to their seats.”

Warren Harding meets with Indian chiefs in Washington D.C., the day before he dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, Va., in November 1921. (Courtesy Library of Congress)

Warren Harding meets with Indian chiefs in Washington D.C., the day before he dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, Va., in November 1921. (Courtesy Library of Congress)

After the burial ceremony, Plenty Coos laid a coup stick and the war bonnet from his head on the tomb. Although organizers had insisted that Plenty Coos remain silent during the ceremony, the chief addressed a crowd of about 100,000 spectators in his Native language.

“I am glad to represent all the Indians of the United States in placing on the grave of this noble warrior this coup stick and war bonnet, every eagle feather of which represents a deed of valor by my race,” he said. “I hope that the Great Spirit will grant that these noble warriors have not given up their lives in vain and that there will be peace to all men hereafter.”

Full Article at ICTMN.