Yakama Nation caravan–with Yakama flag flying–at North Dakota state checkpoint on way to Standing Rock. #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/OwwbEuLl5i
— Galanda Broadman (@NDNlawyer) August 30, 2016
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Yakama Nation caravan–with Yakama flag flying–at North Dakota state checkpoint on way to Standing Rock. #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/OwwbEuLl5i
— Galanda Broadman (@NDNlawyer) August 30, 2016
The protests at Standing Rock. Ruth Hopkins has a good column about watching the feds, and why they are so distrusted. If you hadn’t read it before, catch it now. Revos.2040 breaks the news that the Army Corp of Engineers do not have a written easement for Dakota Access. Mike Myers has a wonderful column up on the Ties That Bind, about the Haudenosaunee Confederation’s longstanding treaty with the Sioux Nations.
Black Lives Matter in solidarity with Standing Rock protectors. This makes me so happy. #NoDAPL #RezpectOurWater pic.twitter.com/M0nf53xRkT
— #NoDAPL (@N8VChey) August 29, 2016
Josue Rivas is doing incredible work, documenting the protectors and life at the camp.
A young warrior at the opposition to Dakota Access Pipeline.
School has started for the children at the camps. The 2016 Tribal Summit will take place as planned, and there will be discussion about the pipeline. Pow Wow is on, and Sacred Stone Camp will have information and education booths up. We still need help. Holler, shout, spread the word, signal boost, please! Join us, stand with us. Come to camps. If you can’t, please signal boost, send or drop off supplies, or donate. Sign the petitions, whatever you are able to do!
Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth. Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.
Flood it with calls! #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/9OQT9TI1vO
— Matt Remle (@wakiyan7) August 30, 2016
#BlackLivesMatter arriving at #NoDAPL camp pic.twitter.com/9hgi6ctGMM
— Ruth Hopkins (@RuthHHopkins) August 28, 2016
Me waiting for all those Cherokee princesses & NA culture "appreciators" to offer solidarity or amplify #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/2iCUnHu7cO
— #RezpectOurWater (@morniiiingstar) August 29, 2016
About this ^ last, because I’m sure someone somewhere will be offended. If you look at Etsy, or any other site where people sell stuff, you will always find a fucktonne of people happily appropriating all things Indigenous. Non-Indigenous people run around wearing Plains headdresses with abandon, people dress up as “Pocahotties” and all kinds of other thoughtless, bigoted isht. If you’re one of those people, this last applies. If you know one of those people, this last applies. If you’re busy making money and taking advantage of appropriating Indigenous culture, the very least you could do is to support those you rip off.
Pop star Beyoncé Knowles at the Mtv Music Awards on Sunday Aug. 28, 2016 (Screen capture).
Giuliani. Again. Someone needs to get this man distracted into doing something else. Please.
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani reacted angrily to pop star Beyoncé Knowles’ performance at Sunday night’s Mtv Video Music Awards, declaring that his anticrime policies have “saved more black lives” than any black performer.
Politico reported that the Republican mayor and longtime Donald Trump confidant appeared on Monday’s Fox and Friends to decry Knowles’ message and declare that he’s “saved more black lives” than any of the performers featured in the ceremony.
Knowles’ performance featured the group #MothersOfTheMovement — a group of women of color whose children have been killed by police — and stylized depictions of police violence.
“Her dancers were circling around her and one by one, they fell to the ground, and there were red lights underneath them. And that was supposed to symbolize cops killing black individuals,” said Fox and Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt.
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Giuliani replied, “because I had five uncles who were police officers, two cousins who were, one who died in the line of duty. I ran the largest and best police department in the world, the New York City Police Department. And I saved more black lives than any of those people you saw on stage by reducing crime and particularly homicide by 75 percent.”
Y’know, rattling off how many cop relatives you have is irrelevant. I have a cop relative myself, and boy, did I ever hear stories. They weren’t good stories, either. Cops are people, with all their inherent flaws and biases. There are a whole lot of cops who are busy murdering Native People, Black People, and Hispanic people, along with assorted brown people, the key being brown. This cannot be denied, nor can it be denied that cops have been sanctioned to murder people of colour, as they sure as hell aren’t being punished for it in any way.
“Of which, of which maybe 4,000 or 5,000 were African-American young people who are alive today because of the policies I put in effect that weren’t in effect for 35 years. So if you’re going to do that, then you should symbolize why the police officers are in the neighborhoods and what are you going to go about it? To me it’s two easy answers: a much better education and good job, and what the heck have you done like in Baltimore, when they all stood in Baltimore,” Giuliani ranted.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I see cops in my neighbourhood, I run away. I don’t want anything to do with them. And please, don’t be pushing the “well, who are going to call if you’re in trouble?” My answer is I don’t know, but my first thought might not be cops.
He went on to attack politicians who stood in solidarity with demonstrators in Baltimore last year who were protesting the killing of Freddie Gray by Baltimore cops.
“I was sick when I saw all the politicians sitting, standing in Baltimore after the police situation and saying, nobody’s done anything for this community in 50 years,” he went on. “Well, that is a heck of a thing to say, because they’ve been in charge for 50 years. And they have failed the community. I didn’t fail Harlem. I turned Harlem around. I didn’t fail Bedford-Stuyvesant, I turned it around. Go there now. Go walk in Harlem. Then flash back to 25 years ago and go to Harlem before I was mayor, and one was a place where crime was rampant and no national stores and now there’s a thriving community in Harlem.”
I don’t live in NYC, but I hear things now and then, like about people being forced out of certain areas by hostile gentrification. They aren’t dancing in the streets, singing high hallelujahs to Giuliani.
Fox and Friends’ Brian Kilmeade opined that Knowles is sending the wrong message to the next generation of black youth, saying, “And Beyonce is an extremely popular and powerful performer, and when she does stuff like that, that message to the next generation is pretty indelible.”
“It’s a shame,” Giuliani replied. “It’s a shame.”
No. No, it’s not a shame, it’s the right damn thing. Just as Indians are standing up and saying no, the same with Black people everywhere. We have that right, and we’re more than a bit tired of our white colonial masters. Perhaps Giuliani has saved a whole lot of Black lives. Beyoncé is letting people know about injustice, about bigotry, and that yes, they have a voice, and a right to use it. I think that’s pretty important.
Via Raw Story.
Still Here. Still Standing. Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth. Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition. Dakota Access Pipeline Approval Disappoints by Dallas Goldtooth.
#Simon Moya-Smith. #NoDAPL. ICTMN.
Today’s favourite tweets:
When one uses the phrase "white nationalists" I immediately ask, "U mean Germany? Ireland? Italy?" B/c they're not indigenous to this land.
— Simon Moya-Smith (@SimonMoyaSmith) August 29, 2016
Wandering Washington, D.C. tonight. Eyeing monuments to slave-trading Indian-haters. Wandering still. These men, monuments to hypocrisy.
— Simon Moya-Smith (@SimonMoyaSmith) August 29, 2016
Cops kill Native Americans at alarming rates. Treaties violated. Natives are dehumanized in sports. We've always deserved better than this.
— Simon Moya-Smith (@SimonMoyaSmith) August 26, 2016
Colin Kaepernick — via Facebook.
I keep running into people who insist that Amerikka is post-sexist and post-racist. I have no idea how they keep this delusional illusion in their heads, because every day, we are drowning in evidence that’s not so. Rapists continue to receive slaps on the wrist, and racists continue to shout their bigotry to the skies. The latest example is the reaction to Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during the anthem.
In a post-game interview on the NFL Network, Kaepernick explained that he was taking a different kind of stand, referencing Black Lives Matter in a roundabout way.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told reporters. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
Criticism on Twitter ran from attacks on Kaepernick by questioning his patriotism in light of the millions he earns as an NFL star, to extensive use of the “N-word” from racists who are a source of many of the problems African Americans face in the U.S,.
Some of the tweets are below the fold, because they are explicit and vile.
The Lummi Nation of Washington held a blessing and send-off ceremony on Thursday for the 2016 Totem Pole Journey.
Master carver Jewell James created a 22-foot tall pole that will travel 5,000 miles to raise awareness of the impacts of fossil fuel development in Indian Country. One of the first stops will be the Camp of the Sacred Stones near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.
“We need to be heard as many people and one voice,” James of the House of Tears Carvers said in a press release announcing this year’s journey. “We need to let them know they cannot in the name of profits do this to the people, the water, the land, and to the future generations. We will never give up. They must not pass!”
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe established the Camp of the Sacred Stones to protest the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline, which comes within a half-mile of the reservation. The pole is expected to arrive at the site on Tuesday, August 30, before departing on Friday, September 1. This year marks the fourth Totem Pole Journey It comes after the Lummi Nation successfully defeated a coal export terminal on its treaty territory in Washington.
You can read more at Indianz.com, and the Journey’s route is here. Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth. Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.
New Stories: Dakota Access: Stars From Hollywood to Washington Support Water Protectors.
Important Message from Keeper of Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe.
Kim Ryu.
Near Cannon Ball, N.D. — It is a spectacular sight: thousands of Indians camped on the banks of the Cannonball River, on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. Our elders of the Seven Council Fires, as the Oceti Sakowin, or Great Sioux Nation, is known, sit in deliberation and prayer, awaiting a federal court decision on whether construction of a $3.7 billion oil pipeline from the Bakken region to Southern Illinois will be halted.
The Sioux tribes have come together to oppose this project, which was approved by the State of North Dakota and the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The nearly 1,200-mile pipeline, owned by a Texas oil company named Energy Transfer Partners, would snake across our treaty lands and through our ancestral burial grounds. Just a half-mile from our reservation boundary, the proposed route crosses the Missouri River, which provides drinking water for millions of Americans and irrigation water for thousands of acres of farming and ranching lands.
Our tribe has opposed the Dakota Access pipeline since we first learned about it in 2014. Although federal law requires the Corps of Engineers to consult with the tribe about its sovereign interests, permits for the project were approved and construction began without meaningful consultation. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior and the National Advisory Council on Historic Preservation supported more protection of the tribe’s cultural heritage, but the Corps of Engineers and Energy Transfer Partners turned a blind eye to our rights. The first draft of the company’s assessment of the planned route through our treaty and ancestral lands did not even mention our tribe.
The Dakota Access pipeline was fast-tracked from Day 1 using the Nationwide Permit No. 12 process, which grants exemption from environmental reviews required by the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by treating the pipeline as a series of small construction sites. And unlike the better-known Keystone XL project, which was finally canceled by the Obama administration last year, the Dakota Access project does not cross an international border — the condition that mandated the more rigorous federal assessment of the Keystone pipeline’s economic justification and environmental impacts.
The Dakota Access route is only a few miles shorter than what was proposed for the Keystone project, yet the government’s environmental assessment addressed only the portion of the pipeline route that traverses federal land. Domestic projects of this magnitude should clearly be evaluated in their totality — but without closer scrutiny, the proposal breezed through the four state processes.
Perhaps only in North Dakota, where oil tycoons wine and dine elected officials, and where the governor, Jack Dalrymple, serves as an adviser to the Trump campaign, would state and county governments act as the armed enforcement for corporate interests. In recent weeks, the state has militarized my reservation, with road blocks and license-plate checks, low-flying aircraft and racial profiling of Indians. The local sheriff and the pipeline company have both called our protest “unlawful,” and Gov. Dalrymple has declared a state of emergency.
Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth. Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.
Transcript, copied from Daily Kos:
Dakota means friend…friendly. The people who gave that name to the Dakotas have, sadly, never been treated as friends. The people whose language was used to name the Dakotas and Minnesota, Iowa, Oklahoma, Ohio, Connecticut, Massachusetts and other states, the Native American tribes, the people who were here before us… long before us, have never been treated as friends. They have been treated as enemies.. and dealt with more harshly than any other enemy. In any of this countrys’ wars.
After all of our major wars we signed peace treaties and live by those treaties. After world war II when we made peace with Germany we then did everything we possibly could to rebuild Germany. No Native American tribe has ever been treated as well as we treated Germans after World War II.
Donald Trump and his supporters now fear the country being invaded by foreigners who want to change our way of life. A fear that Native Americans have lived with, every day,… for over five hundred years.
The original sin of this country is that we invaders shot and murdered our way across the land killing every Native American that we could, and making treaties with the rest. This country was founded on genocide before the word genocide was invented. Before there was a War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague.
When we finally stopped actively killing Native Americans for the crime of living here before us, we then proceeded to violate every treaty we made with the Tribes. Every. Single. Treaty.
We piled crime on top of crime against a people whose offense against us was simply that they lived where we wanted to live.
We don’t feel the guilt of the crimes because we pretend they happened a very long time ago, in ancient history. And we actively suppress the memories of those crimes.. but there are people alive today whose grandparents were in the business of killing the Native Americans. That’s how recent these crimes are.
Every once in a while there is a painful and morally embarrassing reminder, as there is this week in North Dakota near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation where hundreds of people have gathered and camped out in opposition to an interstate pipeline being built from North Dakota to Illinois.
The protest being led by this countrys’ original environmentalists. Native Americans.
For hundreds of years they were our only environmentalists. The only people who thought that land and rivers should be preserved in their natural state. The only people who thought a mountain or a prairie or a river could be a sacred place.
Yesterday a federal judge heard arguments from the tribes against the federal governments approval of the pipeline and said he will deliver his decision on whether the pipeline can proceed next month.
There are now over ninety tribes gathered in protest of that pipeline. That protest will surely continue even if the judge allows construction to proceed.
And so we face the prospect next month of the descendants of the first people to ever set foot on that land,.. being arrested by the descendants of the invaders who seized that land.
Arrested for trespassing.
That we still have Native Americans left in this country to be arrested for trespassing on their own land is testament, not to the mercy of the genocidal invaders who seized and occupied their land, but to the stunning strength and the five hundred years of endurance and the undying dignity of the people who were here long before us. The people who have always known; what is truly sacred in this world.
REUTERS/Carlo Allegri.
Two Florida hospitals will not seek payment of medical bills from the dozens of people treated for injuries suffered in the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June, officials at the health facilities said.
The move leaves the hospitals with estimated unreimbursed costs topping $5.5 million, they said on Thursday.
[…]
“It was incredible to see how our community came together in the wake of the senseless Pulse shooting,” said Daryl Tol, president and CEO of Florida Hospital. “We hope this gesture can add to the heart and goodwill that defines Orlando.”
Florida Hospital treated 12 shooting victims at a cost of about $525,400, it said.
Orlando Health said in a statement that it expects to absorb costs exceeding $5 million after payments from funding sources such as insurance plans. Its main hospital, Orlando Regional Medical Center, treated 44 patients at its trauma center located a few blocks from the nightclub.
[…]
“During this very trying time, many organizations, individuals, and charities have reached out to Orlando Health to show their support,” Orlando Health President and CEO David Strong said in a statement. “This is simply our way of paying that kindness forward.”
Another huge shoutout for people being great! My heart may have grown a size here.
Full story here.
Mother and child at the frontlines on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota on August 16, 2016. Courtesy John Heminger.
Sarah Sunshine Manning (Shoshone-Paiute, Chippewa-Cree) has a wonderful story up at ICTMN. I agree that in many ways, we have already won. This is a historical time, this is history in the making, and the tribes have not been this united since Victory Day (that would be the Battle at the Greasy Grass, aka Custer’s final fuck up). That is also the foundation of the government’s fear, and all the intimidation games they keep playing, not that many would admit to that, but the grudge runs deep. When we are together, we are strong. When all people unite, we are strong, and our voices are powerful enough to be heard.
We woke up to sounds of joy- laughter, conversation, and warm greetings of “Good Morning.” We woke up to lingering fragrances of camp fires, coffee, and smoldering sage and cedar. Near our camp was the central gathering place, where early risers were already congregating over coffee, while others were making huge amounts of breakfast over open fire.
People of all tribes and many ethnicities gathered. I admit, that I was a little giddy just at the site of a blond gentleman there with his family — a wife and two young children. I admit, that I have been conditioned if not traumatized while living in the Dakotas for the last decade to expect much less than warmth from the majority of non-Natives in the area. But what I immediately saw in the camps at Standing Rock was pure unity of humanity. Unity for Earth, and solidarity for life. And it was beautiful. There were several non-Natives present, standing with the Lakota and Dakota people of Standing Rock as fellow human beings.
The Oceti Sakowin youth are asking for help, as we continue in our fight for healthy land, clean water, and healthy people.
Construction for the Dakota Access Pipeline has begun in spite of thousands and thousands of people demanding a stop to the project and the 1,800-mile run we made across the country to deliver your signatures to the Army Corps.
Now we’re going to the front lines of the fight against this pipeline and we want to bring other youth leaders with us to join the struggle!
What we’re doing is risky, but we’re willing to do it for our future. Will you help us bring youth leaders from surrounding reservations to the Sacred Stone Camp where we are staying? Your donation will go towards renting buses and buying food and camping gear for young activists.
We’ve already helped to disrupt construction of the pipeline by peacefully using our bodies to block roads – but we need more support!
We believe that young people should be on the front lines of the movement to protect our water and our future. Donate $5 today to invest in youth leadership and the protection of our planet!
If you can kick in, please do. I don’t have much myself, but I kicked in because this is so very important. If you can’t, please signal boost, can’t stop the signal!
https://www.change.org/f/send-native-youth-leaders-to-block-the-pipeline
Oh, I am loving all the small stories of accepting, loving pushback. In this very stressful and trying time, these are good to see, and we all need this, we need to know that our fellow humans are, and can be, truly terrific people.
A same-sex couple has received a colorful show of support from neighbors.
Rainbow flags were unfurled at over 40 houses in Natick, a suburb of Boston, after the home of Cari and Lauri Ryding was vandalized, according to The Boston Globe.
While the couple was on vacation, the house had been egged. And a rainbow flag, which the Rydings had ordered after the Orlando shooting, had been stolen.
The neighborhood was quick to act after the couple reported the incident to the police last Wednesday, and no suspects were immediately identified.
“We said, ‘Why don’t we all have the flags? They can’t take them from all of us,’” said Dennis Gaughan. A response team sent a flurry of donation and requests to the Rainbow Peace Flag Project, which offers free flags to local residents.
“It just happened so quickly — the whole neighborhood said, ‘Get me a flag. Get me a flag. Get me a flag,’” said Penni Rochwerger. “If we can stop whatever hate is out there, I think that’s really important.”
On Sunday, a group of children on bicycles delivered the rainbow flags across the neighborhood. Lauri Ryding was awed to see the bright banners unfurl after cleaning up the damage from her porch.
“One person’s act of fear and maliciousness created such a powerful statement of love,” she said. “We are very blessed, very fortunate.”
“Somebody’s fear called them to action,” she added of the vandals. “But our neighbors support and love called them to action, and love conquers hate. Love wins. We win.”
A huge shout out to this neighbourhood, you did great!
Via The Advocate.
The Dakota Access Pipeline. Photo by criminalintent on Flickr.
ShadowProof has given us some much needed coverage. Still asking mainstream media, where the hell are you all? There are a thousand stories to be told, at least. So many stories. And there is one hell of a big story, if you can manage to pull your heads out of oil’s backside.
The Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota will not only impact the environment but also lead to an influx of out-of-state workers and increase crime, drug use, and sex trafficking, according to an indigenous columnist.
If completed, the pipeline, also known as the Bakken Pipeline, would travel from North Dakota to Illinois through 50 counties in the United States and transport crude oil. A data sheet published by Dakota Access, LLC, indicates it is a $3.7 billion “investment” intended to run some 1,172 miles, or 1,886 kilometers. It is expected to “transport approximately 470,000 barrels [of crude oil] with a capacity as high as 570,000 barrels per day or more.”
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe launched a protest encampment called the Sacred Stone Spirit Camp back in April, but in recent weeks, demonstrations against the pipeline have intensified, as thousands have traveled to the camp to support the struggle of indigenous people against Dakota Access.
Ruth Hopkins, a Lakota and Dakota of the Oceti Sakowin, or Great Sioux Nation, and an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Nation, told Shadowproof oil development tends to bring in a lot of non-Native men from out of state who do the work, often on a temporary basis. This influx of transient workers “brings an increase in crime, drug use, and sex trafficking. The Bakken is a perfect example of that.”
As the oil boom began, North Dakota saw a major population spike, and the state’s law enforcement, particularly on reservations, wasn’t prepared.
“We don’t have the kind of funding necessary to combat crimes waves, and there are special concerns regarding jurisdiction on tribal lands,” Hopkins said. “As a tribal judge on a nearby reservation, I witnessed the effects of this oil boom. It pushed the tribe to the point of declaring a State of Emergency due to rampant drug use.”
