Standing Rock: Native What Month?

https://www.facebook.com/john.bravebullbaker/posts/10211164522099066

I don’t have much to say. Too fucking sick at heart. What have we ever done to merit this ongoing treatment from colonial america? In John BraveBull’s account above, he mentions Charlie Plenty Wolf. It was Charlie who welcomed us to the camp our first time there. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. FUCK. It’s just a grand Native American Heritage Month, with all the people who just don’t give a shit, the continued efforts at genocide, and everyone else being all chucklefuck happy over thankstealing and good shopping deals!

Elder in Critical Condition after Going into Cardiac Arrest at Scene of DAPL Barricade Clash.

https://www.facebook.com/josuefoto/videos/1395596380452239/

I was privileged to meet Josué at the Oceti Sakowin camp, he gave me my first press pass.

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Water Cannons Fired at Water Protectors in Freezing Temperatures Injure Hundreds.

#nodapl, Simon-Moya Smith, Ruth Hopkins.

Yes, the cops are yelling “riot!” and claiming the protectors set fires. That is not true. It was another peaceful prayer circle, and some of the protectors went to move one of the burned out vehicles out of the way, when they were hit with gas grenades, batons, and water cannons.

Mainstream Media MIA as DAPL Action Is Met With Water Cannons and Mace.

“They want to kill people for clearing a road,” questioned Tara Houska, referencing police spraying people with water cannons in 26-degree weather. The national campaigns director of Honor the Earth reminded her friends and followers that November is Native American Heritage Month.

“When will our cries be heard?”

 

Native Appropriation Month and Indians Suck.

Just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Target is offering a gray and white “Southwestern Teepee” (as described on the Target website) for the low price of $89.99. Daniel Boyko.

Just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Target is offering a gray and white “Southwestern Teepee” (as described on the Target website) for the low price of $89.99. Daniel Boyko.

November is supposedly Native American Heritage Month. As usual, the majority of Americans don’t have the slightest idea, nor do they care. This is shopping and turkey month! Indians? Are they still alive? Let’s have a look at what Target is doing for NDN Heritage month, shall we? Oh look, a “Southwestern Teepee”. Gosh, that’s so right on the money accurate, you betcha. (If you are sarcasm impaired, that was fair dripping with sarcastic venom.)

Just in time for Native appropriation for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Target is offering a gray and white “Southwestern Teepee” [sic] (as described on the Target website,) for the low price of $89.99.

Target’s website describes the pillowfort teepee [sic] as “perfect for little imaginations during pretend play. The southwestern pattern has a realistic look and the poles are sturdy enough to last through endless rounds of make-believe.”

It’s are part of the Sabrina Soto Explorer Kids Bedding collection at Target. Though not available online, there is also a decorative teepee [sic] pillow for $12.48 on clearance. Soto is a HGTV designer and refers to herself as Cubana and is the popular host of The High/Low Project.

I guess exploiting that Cubana heritage was out of the question. Thanks ever for being yet another thoughtless dipshit, Ms. Soto, and ensuring that more Americans will have incredibly fucked up ideas about Indians, because there just isn’t enough of that going around, no, not at all. As bad as this isht is, it pales in comparison to the never ending racism of NDSU. We move on to Indians suck, as in Indians suck dick:

WDAY.com News - Screen Capture. A North Dakota State University supporter was spotted at a football game Nov. 5 with an obscene T-shirt, modified with the University of North Dakota’s new Fighting Hawks logo altered with a single-feathered Native figure on its knees before a phallus extending from the Bison logo.

WDAY.com News – Screen Capture.
A North Dakota State University supporter was spotted at a football game Nov. 5 with an obscene T-shirt, modified with the University of North Dakota’s new Fighting Hawks logo altered with a single-feathered Native figure on its knees before a phallus extending from the Bison logo.

A North Dakota State University supporter was spotted at a football game Nov. 5 with an obscene T-shirt, modified with the University of North Dakota’s new Fighting Hawks logo altered with a single-feathered Native figure on its knees before a phallus extending from the Bison logo. It was meant to represent the “Sioux suck” chant NDSU students developed when arch rival UND’s name was “Fighting Sioux,” a moniker it was forced to abandon by the NCAA. The Fighting Hawk logo debuted this year.

The confounding aspect of the recently spotted T-shirt that caused the minor uproar is that NDSU was not even playing against UND. The opposing team was Ohio’s Youngstown State Penguins.

[…]

The obnoxious shirt, reported on by the Grand Forks Herald, is an unfortunate way to kick of Native American Heritage Month at NDSU, but it did not surprise two of the 188 Native students attending the university, which has a total enrollment of more than 14,400.

James Henry, Turtle Mountain Chippewa, and Tyrel Iron Eyes, Standing Rock Lakota Sioux, knew of the overt slurs. Iron Eyes is a member of NDSU’s Native American Student Association, and Henry is its former president.

Henry, a mechanical engineering student, encountered the chant four years ago during his first year at the university when he joined his non-Native roommates at a football game. The people beside him started doing the “Sioux suck” chant.

“They kind of looked at me, and they wondered why I wasn’t chanting with them,” he said. Henry bluntly told them why. They were taken aback that he found it racist; to them, “Sioux” was just another sports team and the chant has a long campus history. After he confronted them he says, “They felt ashamed, in a sense.”

An offensive t-shirt labeled 'Buck the Bison Under' - Screen capture.

An offensive t-shirt labeled ‘Buck the Bison Under’ – Screen capture.

Henry stopped attending NDSU sporting events. Iron Eyes, who plans to study anthropology, also declines to attend.

It was during his freshman year while walking on campus that he first overheard a conversation with one NDSU fan explaining that his favorite part of the games was the “Sioux suck” chant.

“I get that it’s their mascot, but at the same time, it upset me. I used to call people out on it,” Iron Eyes said. Often his fellow non-Native students would stammer through an explanation of why they liked the chant.

“They don’t understand. A lot of people don’t realize that Native Americans still exist today. All they know is the Battle of Little Big Horn. They think we all died on the reservations, or that we never leave the reservations now.”

Both Henry and Iron Eyes agree that leaving their reservations to attend the university in Fargo, a city of about 114,000, has been a stressful transition.

“I am very much in the minority,” Iron Eyes said. “For the first, probably two or three months … I was unaware of other Natives on campus.”

In addition, he says, he went from a high school with a graduating class of 25 and classrooms of 35 students maximum to university classes with 300-plus attending.

“There’s a lot of helpful people on campus, but it’s still very much predominately white. It’s very nerve-wracking,” Henry agreed. “It’s one of the things I struggle with. … I’ve been asked multiple times if I live in a tipi.”

A 'Blow Us' T-Shirt from the fan site Bisonville.com - Screen Capture.

A ‘Blow Us’ T-Shirt from the fan site Bisonville.com – Screen Capture.

A student, Erik Jonasson II, penned an Oct. 6 opinion piece, “The Herd’s Chant: Racism Inside the Dome” for the NDSU Spectrum, the semi-weekly student newspaper, writing “As we sit in the stands cheering on our truly dominant football team, it is hard to not be sickened by this chant.”

The above is pointed to as a hopeful sign, and perhaps it is a bit of one. If you really want to see just how hopeful though, click over and read the comments. “Sioux Sucks Shit” retains its popularity.

Full story here.

Oh yes, lest I forget, the mighty Google did a doodle, and it speaks volumes, just how grateful so many Natives are for such a tiny notice. ASK N NDN: Was a Native Google Doodle Enough? Indian Country Responds.

Body Cameras: “we can make this disappear”

Shutterstock.

Shutterstock.

A whistleblower in Albuquerque, NM, has revealed all the nasty stuff done with SD cards and reports when it comes to body cameras. I don’t think this will surprise anyone in the least, but it does point to a big problem with body cameras: cops have control of them. If they are going to work in the way intended, cops, no matter how high up the chain, cannot be allowed control of them in any way. If not, it’s the same old problem of what the cops say goes.

The Albuquerque Police Department is coming under fire after former records supervisor, Reynaldo Chavez, gave a sworn affidavit claiming officers altered and deleted body camera videos.

According to New Mexico In Depth, after at least two police shootings, videos were deleted or edited so they didn’t show the incident.

[…]

He also said that video cards were easy to take or conveniently lose. He heard Assistant Chief Robert Huntsman confess “we can make this disappear” discussing the body camera videos that were on the SD cards.

The disappearances weren’t unique to patrol officers. Chavez revealed that officers in multiple divisions, including specialized units, were all told not to write reports until there was a review of the body camera videos. If the videos didn’t contain anything concerning, the officers could write up the report on what was recorded. If images were considered “problematic,” officers were told not to mention the recording in the report, write “the recording equipment had malfunctioned” or say that the officer failed to turn on the body camera.

If there were reports that detailed what occurred in the recording, “the video would be altered or corrupted if it was damaging to the police department,” Chavez said.

Full story here.

Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton.

Schuyler Sisters -- via Hamilton website.

Schuyler Sisters — via Hamilton website.

A performance of “Hamilton” was rudely interrupted in Chicago Saturday night when a theatergoer cursed the cast members on stage, reports Broadway World.

According to an audience member, a patron seated up in the balcony disrupted the play shouting, “We won! You Lost! Get over it! F*ck you!” during the musical number “Dear Theodosia,” startling the singers.

Reportedly the patron became enraged earlier by the well-known line from the musical: “Immigrants, we get the job done.” The man created a disturbance that lasted through two numbers, forcing nearby theatergoers to go in search of security. The man was taken into custody after a brief struggle and theater staff later told patrons the man was intoxicated.

[Read more…]

George Takei: We Can’t Go Back.

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My mother was born in Sacramento, the daughter of Japanese immigrants, and my father grew up in San Francisco. They met and married in Los Angeles, where I was born in 1937, and where we lived happily until December 7, 1941.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, life changed for our family and thousands of other families like us. Suddenly we were presumed to be the enemy. We were questioned, followed, suspected, and accused of being spies or saboteurs simply because of our ancestry. The government that was supposed to protect us against mob rule suddenly had become the mob. It is hard to describe a more gripping, more pervasive sense of terror.

Just a few weeks after my 5th birthday, the military forcibly removed us from our home. Two soldiers with bayonets marched upon our driveway on Garnet Street, pounded on the front door, and demanded we vacate immediately. We took only what we could carry. My younger brother and I both held a suitcase; my mother, tears streaming down her face, held my baby sister with one arm and a duffle bag with another. We lost our home, our car, my father’s book collection.

I will never forget that day.

George Takei’s full article is here, and it’s one everyone should take to heart.

A Fiery Attack on Gender Norms: Cassils.

The Creators Project meets with personal trainer-turned-performance artist Cassils, who uses the body as a form of social sculpture, examining strength, violence, power, and vulnerability by testing the limits of endurance and empathy. With a focus on physicality and a continual process of “becoming” through this powerful imagery, Cassils challenges deep-seated notions of gender binaries and is physically changing the landscape of contemporary art as we know it. The artist considers the human body as a raw sculptural material that can be transformed by strict physical training regimes and captures the metamorphosis through photography and video. In Cassils’ latest live performance, Becoming An Image, the artist physically attacks a 2,000 pound clay block, delivering an emotive and forceful display of the human will.

For more info on upcoming Cassils performances, click here.

Via The Creators Project.

Standing Rock Syllabus: Learn, Teach.

Credit: C. Ford.

Credit: C. Ford.

The New York City Stands with Standing Rock Collective then met again and we talked at length about the syllabus and how to curate emergent sections. We want our readers and future teachers to understand that we take Sioux notions of history seriously but came to impasses with certain materials that we wanted to include, but felt inadequate to interpret. So we direct educators and students to the crucial archives of Lakota Winter Counts. One of the founders of the resistance camps at Standing Rock, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, has devoted her life to the interpretation of these counts and any responsible curriculum will point to them and invite students to think about and with them. Recognizing then, our limitations, we volunteered to work with our strengths and to curate specific sections of the syllabus, to take charge of, so to speak, the content and the form. Matthew Chrisler managed the group and ordered the text with Jaskiran Dhillon, New School Assistant Professor of Global Studies and Anthropology who stepped in at certain points to read over entries. Along with Matthew Chrisler, Sheehan Moore, a doctoral student in anthropology at CUNY, organized all of the PDFs to attach to our website for syllabus readers to view and download. In this way, there were multiple eyes on each section as it took shape. We also asked curators to narrow their selections to book chapters and specific articles to further focus the syllabus and keep it accessible for people who would read and download it in short amounts of time. We wanted people to read the syllabus and teach the material, but also to have access to the readings for themselves and their students and/or community members.

Although a “work in progress,” the current #StandingRockSyllabus places what is happening now in a broader historical, political, economic, and social context going back over 500 years to the first expeditions of Columbus, the founding of the United States on institutionalized slavery, private property, and dispossession, and the rise of global carbon supply and demand. Indigenous peoples around the world have been on the frontlines of conflicts like Standing Rock for centuries. The syllabus foregrounds the work of Indigenous and allied activists and scholars: anthropologists, historians, environmental scientists, and legal scholars, all of whom contribute important insights into the conflicts between Indigenous sovereignty and resource extraction. It can be taught in its entirety, or in sections depending on the pedagogic needs. We hope that it will be used in K-12 school settings, community centers, social justice agencies training organizers, university classrooms, legal defense campaigns, social movement and political education workshops, and in the resistance camps at Standing Rock and other similar standoffs across the globe. As we move forward, we anticipate posting lesson plans on our website that will be derived from individuals and communities using the syllabus in their respective locales.

While our primary goal is to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, we recognize that Standing Rock is one frontline of many around the world. This syllabus can be a tool to access research usually kept behind paywalls, or a resource package for those unfamiliar with Indigenous histories and politics. Please share, add, and discuss using the hashtag #StandingRockSyllabus on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media. Like those on the frontlines, we are here for as long as it takes.

The #StandingRockSyllabus and accompanying PDFs can be found here.

The full story on the syllabus is here.  #StandingRockSyllabus. As Peter D’Errico says:

True to the purpose of digging to the roots of events, “#StandingRockSyllabus places what is happening now in a broader historical, political, economic, and social context going back over 500 years to the first expeditions of Columbus, the founding of the United States on institutionalized slavery, private property, and dispossession, and the rise of global carbon supply and demand. Indigenous peoples around the world have been on the frontlines of conflicts like Standing Rock for centuries.”

Importantly, #StandingRockSyllabus aims for audiences beyond the standard academic world: The authors built it for use “in K-12 school settings, community centers, social justice agencies training organizers, university classrooms, legal defense campaigns, social movement and political education workshops, and in the resistance camps at Standing Rock and other similar standoffs across the globe.”

This is an invaluable opportunity for teachers, please take advantage of it. This is also an invaluable resource and opportunity for those who wish to understand. As this is supposedly Native American Heritage Month (more on that later), spreading this everywhere would be be a great gesture. Lila wopila to all who do. (Many Thanks).

Pence: “Who Cares?”

An Indian man reads news of Trump’s election. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.

An Indian man reads news of Trump’s election. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.

Donald Trump may not be taking his $400,000 presidential salary, but his business meeting this week with Indian real estate developers suggests his company will profit far more just because he’s the president. Asked about this unprecedented conflict of interest Sunday morning on Fox News Sunday, Vice President-Elect Mike Pence shrugged it off, quoting Trump, “Who cares?”

Pence insisted that there would be a “legal” separation between the presidency and the Trump business, but host Chris Wallace pressed that it was more than a legal question. There was no response regarding that conflict. “The President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, is completely focused on the people’s business,” Pence said, “and I promise you and I can assure the public that they’ll have the proper separation from their business enterprise.”

The exact opposite seems to be true. Trump’s meeting with three Indian executives to discuss their partnership with the Trump Organization had nothing to do with the transition. It was not about advancing the American people, but advancing Trump’s profits.

According to interviews some of those execs gave in Indian papers, it had to do with how much more the Trump name is worth now that he’s been elected president. Many of the buildings that bear Trump’s name internationally are not actually owned by his businesses. Generally, his name is licensed by others to inflate their property value. As president, his name is worth more, so Trump stands to make more money from these licensing deals.

[…]

The line between his business and his duties as president is further blurred by the prospect that foreign diplomats might stay at the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C. They could brag to Trump that they stayed there and fed into his profits in an attempt to literally buy his favor and the ability to influence him.

There have been many promises that there will be a separation between Trump’s presidency and his business holdings, but it’s essentially too late for any such promises to be reassuring. He’s continuing to hold meetings related to his business, and his kids, who were supposedly going to run the business without his involvement, are already participating in meetings related to his administration. Given the people in these business meetings already know he’s about to be president, the conflict of interest is already playing out. Trump is leveraging his election to make his company money across the world, and his administration literally doesn’t care.

Full story at Think Progress.

The Trump Investigative Fund.

Resist.

Resist.

There are journalists who are determined to report facts and make a constant effort to disclose the truth. That’s very important right now. Think Progress has started a fund, and if you are able to drop a few pennies, this is a good place to do so.

[Read more…]

Double Plus Ungood News.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

If you are young, you might not know what “double plus ungood” means. It’s Newspeak, from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It means terrible; very bad. I first read Orwell’s novel when I was in my early teens (I think, it’s all a bit fuzzy these days), and by the time the actual 1984 rolled around, I was 26 years old, and everyone was having fun with jokes about Big Brother and all the rest. Magazine covers all did plays on the novel. People were still optimistic then, and relieved, I think, that Orwell’s novel hadn’t come true. It hadn’t come true in 1984, but it rather looks like we’re heading that way in 2016. Today, I’m 59 years old, and the gift I’d like the most is to have that optimism back.

Friday evening, the Washington Post reported that about 100 foreign diplomats gathered at President-elect Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington, DC to “to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect’s newest hotel.” The tour included a look at the hotel’s $20,000 a night “town house” suite. The Post also quoted some of the diplomats saying they intended to stay at the hotel in order to ingratiate themselves to the incoming president.

[…]

The incoming president, in other words, is actively soliciting business from agents of foreign governments. Many of these agents, in turn, said that they will accept the president-elect’s offer to do business because they want to win favor with the new leader of the United States.

In an exclusive exchange with ThinkProgress, Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who previously served as chief ethics counsel to President George W. Bush, says that Trump’s efforts to do business with these diplomats is at odds with a provision of the Constitution intended to prevent foreign states from effectively buying influence with federal officials.

The Constitution’s “Emoluments Clause,” provides that “no person holding any office of profit or trust under” the United States “shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”

The diplomats’ efforts in seek Trump’s favor by staying in his hotel “looks like a gift,” Painter told ThinkProgress in an email, and thus is the very kind of favor the Constitution seeks to prevent.

Emolument. There’s a new one for the vocabulary.

…Assuming that Trump does not divest from his hotel, however, it may prove difficult to enforce the Constitution against him. There are few court cases dealing with the Emoluments Clause. Typically, the country has relied on internal safeguards within the executive branch and fear of political embarrassment to prevent violations by the president. […] There is, however, at least one remedy under the Constitution for such a violation of the public trust by the president: impeachment.

I think we can rule out any fear of political embarrassment on the part of Trump or his appointees. They don’t seem to be capable of such a sense. The possibility of impeachment might get through to one of them, but whether or not it gets through to Trump is a different story, as right now it appears as though he doesn’t understand the slightest thing about politics or government. As I noted in a previous post, It’s becoming increasingly clear that Trump does not plan to work as a president, or to treat the presidency as an actual political office. The full story is at Think Progress, well worth reading. Also see: Government watchdogs demand Trump put business holdings in ‘blind trust’.

[Read more…]