Indigenous News Roundup.

The Sierra Club has a column up on No DAPL:

…In addition to its potential impacts on land and water, new analysis shows that building the pipeline would also be inconsistent with the United States’ climate goals. According to a new analysis by Oil Change International (OCI), the pipeline would lock in greenhouse gas emissions in an amount equivalent to the emissions of 30 coal plants. By reducing shipping costs for large amounts of dirty oil, particularly with current oil prices so low, building this pipeline would significantly increase the amount of crude oil getting to market. OCI calculated that, at typical utilization rates of 95 percent of capacity, total lifecycle emissions from producing, transporting, processing, and burning the products derived from the oil would amount to 101.4 million metric tons of CO2e per year. Given this estimated impact and the White House’s recent guidance on how federal agencies should assess climate impact, it is only logical that a climate test be applied to this project, but thus far none has been conducted by the Administration.

As the 8th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference (WHTNC) kicked off Monday in Washington DC, the White House released a massive plan of continued action, entitled “An All-of-Government Approach to Serving Indian Country.” Vincent Schilling.

Vincent Schilling has an in-depth look at the White House Outlines Massive Outreach to Indian Country at Tribal Nations Conference:

As the 8th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference (WHTNC) kicked off Monday in Washington DC, the White House released a massive plan of continued action, entitled “An All-of-Government Approach to Serving Indian Country.”

The White House Tribal Nations Conference is the result of the promise President Barack Obama made during a visit to the Crow Nation in May 2008 to host an annual summit with tribal leaders to ensure tribal leaders a seat at the proverbial governmental table…

Troy Williams via Flickr.

Fossil Fuels Investment Takes Nosedive:

A revolution is taking place in the global energy sector, with investments in oil and gas declining by 25 percent in 2015 while energy produced from renewables rose by more than 30 percent.

“We have never seen such a decline [in oil and gas investment],” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), at the London launch of its first ever report into world energy investment.

“Our findings carry a very important message for climate change and for the Paris agreement. Anyone who does not understand what is going on—governments, companies, markets—is not in the right place.”…

Trahant Photo.

Make No Mistake: Standing Rock Is On the Ballot:

TRAHANT REPORTS—On social media and in real life we hear this often: “What can I do to help Standing Rock?” Some answer the question by donating money, many send supplies, and hundreds of people jump in their car and travel to the camps near Cannonball, North Dakota. Once there folks pray, some engage in direct action, and all of us learn more about the challenges facing humanity.

There is something else that can be done: Vote.

Chase Iron Eyes, who is running for Congress from North Dakota, made that point on his web page this week. “I don’t believe North Dakota is racist, a certain percentage of the ReTrumplicans are—but we can vote them out—if you would only vote,” he wrote. “The majority of us are evolving in mutual respect. That’s our North Dakota.”

The congressional race is a stark example of these various differences: The incumbent, Rep. Kevin Cramer, wrote a position paper for Donald Trump that says any new climate policy should not “punish coal” or other fossil fuels. The Republican considers himself a climate change skeptic dismissing both international commitments made by the United States and the mountain of scientific evidence. …

‘Short! Winning Side’ What It Will Take to Capture an Election:

TRAHANT REPORTS—It’s time.

It’s time for politicians to treat American Indians and Alaska Natives as an important constituency, not an outside group living in our own homeland.

The words of North Dakota’s representative in Congress, Kevin Cramer, capture the old thinking perfectly. He told Oil and Gas 360 that the Dakota Access Pipeline will be built no matter what. “I think DAPL will be finished due to the investment and amount of construction already completed. Regardless of short-term decisions, I don’t see how you can’t eventually finish the pipeline. In the short-run, the question is whether the three agencies’ review will further delay the project by implementing a full-blown EIS or whether the review will approve of the process and apply any changes prospectively rather than retrospectively. I’m optimistic that [the work] will be up and running in a few weeks.”

And what about his constituents, the people of Standing Rock, who object? “I think the appropriate people at the tribe didn’t pay enough attention to the proceedings, but I don’t have any insight as to why they chose not to meet with the Corps of Engineers. I will say that the government to government expectations of tribal governments can sometimes get in the way of participation in more mundane, routine aspects of the regulatory process, which is unfortunate because they miss the opportunity to have their say in the matter.”

Geesh. No additional comments are needed. Add this quote to the dictionary as an example for “condescending.”

The “72 horas con Rodin” edit-a-thon in Mexico City was the longest ever completed and is recognized by Guinness World Records. There will be one in October focusing on Indigenous Peoples. Courtesy Wikipedia.

Wikipedia Wants Improved Content on Indigenous Peoples, Needs Your Help:

Wikipedia volunteers and the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that oversees the free encyclopedia, recognize and want to close content gaps that exist in race and gender topics on the site. One of those gaps includes coverage of all things having to do with Indigenous Peoples.

The goal, as Kelly Doyle, Wikipedian in Residence for Gender Equity at West Virginia University Libraries, told ICTMN is to make “Wikipedia more accurate, more diverse, and to fully represent the world around us… a lot of the articles about Indigenous Peoples are short and we want those be fleshed out.”

They are looking for anything and everything having to do with Indigenous Peoples, from articles about tribes to movements, and historical figures, or even Native American political figures, past and present.

“Any issue that has to do with Indigenous people, even creating new articles, as long as they are notable enough,” Doyle told ICTMN. “Anything that would be included in a regular encyclopedia.”

The upcoming WikiConference North America 2016 will include an edit-a-thon that will focus on those content gaps. …

A Kermode or Spirit Bear from the Great Bear Rainforest. The Kermode is a rare subspecies of the American black bear that holds a prominent place in oral traditions of many First Nations peoples in the British Columbia area. (Wikipedia)

Inclement Weather Doesn’t Stop William and Kate’s Bella Bella Visit:

Even though the visit didn’t go quite as planned, the coastal community of Bella Bella in the Great Bear Rainforest, welcomed Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge on September 26.

The royal couple took a bumpy flight into Bella Bella, but had to cancel boat-related tours of the Great Bear Rainforest because of heavy rains and gusting winds.

Bella Bella is home to the Heiltsuk Community of about 1,600 people, reports Metro News, and they gave the royal couple quite the welcome. Telegraph Video called the welcome they received “rapturous,” and Global News reported a “rousing cheer” as the couple arrived at Wawiskas Community Hall. …

As President Barack Obama took the stage at the 8th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference (WHTNC) National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby broke the age-old rule from Politico that presidents should never wear a hat. Alex Hamer.

A Cedar Hat for Obama! At His Final Tribal Nations Conference:

As President Barack Obama took the stage at the 8th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference (WHTNC) National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby broke the age-old rule from Politico that presidents should never wear a hat. Moments after the President took the stage, Cladoosby wrapped the President in a traditional blanket, then took off his own traditional cedar hat and placed it on Obama’s head.

With a huge smile, Obama tipped the cedar hat to the crowd while continuing to wear the blanket.

“What an amazing honor, and what a kind gesture for the honor song and the blanket and the hat,” said Obama. “I’m also very glad that you also have a blanket for Michelle so she doesn’t steal mine. She would, too. I’m just saying.”

Obama told the crowd of hundreds of tribal leaders and Native youth he mostly wanted to say thank you. …

Via ICTMN.

United Nations: U.S. Owes Reparations to Black People.

Credit: Shutterstock.

The United States should give African Americans reparations for slavery, UN experts said Tuesday, warning that the country had not yet confronted its legacy of “racial terrorism.”

Amid a presidential election campaign in which racial rhetoric has played a central role, the UN working group on people of African descent warned that blacks in the US were facing a “human rights crisis.”

This has largely been fuelled by impunity for police officers who have killed a series of black men — many of them unarmed — across the country in recent months, the working group’s report said.

Those killings “and the trauma they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynchings,” said the report, which was presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday.

Addressing the deeper causes of America’s racial tensions, the experts voiced concern over the unresolved “legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality.”

“There has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent,” the report said.

Just as there has no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for Indigenous people in the U.S. either. The uStates government has always been good at the gift of gab, with their constitution, freedom for all, blah blah blah. The trouble with it all is that it was aimed at white people alone. Other people were subjected to slavery, others to genocide. The aftermaths of both those things was nearly as terroristic as the initial events. Indigenous people are still dealing with that racial terror today, both the generational echoes of committed travesties, and the current assaults. The same can be said for Black people, who are still treated as little more than slaves, and always viewed through the lens of suspicion. We’ve all been herded, whether it’s into reservations, ghettos, or “that neighbourhood”.

I was reading an article the other day, about my old stomping grounds in SoCal, where white people still build enclaves to keep them safe from all those Mexicans, except for the cleaning and maintenance staff, natch. A 15 year old was quoted as saying something along the lines of “it’s not racism, it’s not segregation! People prefer to be with their own.” Right. Well, that sort of thing is easy when you don’t allow anyone in. I was quite pleased to see that Santana (Santa Ana) is very majority Hispanic now. I wasn’t born there, that was in LA county, but I did grow up there, and I also grew up with the familial grumbles and complaints about all those Mexicans.

The States are a seething hotbed of racism, and it’s not new, it did not show up with our current President, it’s the blood, bone and skin of this country, built upon all those ruthlessly slaughtered so their land could be stolen, and built upon the backs of those people who were stolen and put in chains. Until the day the U.S. government fully acknowledges all the horrendous wrong it did, and agrees not to just reparations and the return of much of what was stolen, and goes well past that by actually addressing the problems caused by those past actions, we won’t be moving past the racism here. And for those who would respond to this with a sneer and a “if you don’t like it here, leave”, I’ll lob that one back atcha. As a person who is part Lakota, I’ll point out to all the white folks that we were here first, and if you don’t like it, you’re more than welcome to leave Turtle Island.

Via Raw Story.

You F*gs Are Destroying Family Values!

Neil Frias (left) and Jeff White were pepper-sprayed. Photo: Jeff White / Courtesy Jeff White.

What was supposed to be a weekend of revelry and excitement for two friends in town for San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair turned ugly Saturday night when five assailants attacked the men with pepper spray for no apparent reason other than they are gay.

The violence was particularly shocking for Neil Frias and Jeff White, both 28, because they were assaulted in a city lauded for its progressive values and broad acceptance of the LGBT community.

[…]

Frias and White said they were attacked at about 9 p.m. outside a McDonald’s at Golden Gate Avenue and Fillmore Street in the city’s Western Addition. As Frias left the fast-food restaurant, he said five men pulled up in a blue minivan. “They were saying, ‘You fags are destroying family values,’” Frias said. “I said I didn’t want any trouble, and one of them got out of the van. I thought he was going to take a swing at me, but he sprayed me across the face.”

Frias said he was hit with the unmistakable “searing sting” from the pepper spray as a second man came at him with another can of the aerosolized weapon. A third assailant, he said, attacked White, who crawled into a ball to protect his face from the painful blast.

“I was completely vulnerable,” he said. “I thought they were going to start beating me.”

A nearby woman shouted that she was calling the police, prompting the mob to jump back into the minivan and speed away. Police and paramedics responded to the attack, and the two victims returned to their Union Square hotel.

“The thing that was the most remarkable about the situation is how unprovoked it was,” White said, still reeling from the encounter Sunday morning. “I was literally tying my shoe when they came at me. It’s mind-boggling.”

“You fags are destroying family values”. Why don’t these assbrained individuals ever wonder just what kind of family values teach you that it’s perfectly okay to go out and assault people? Those are indeed values, and they are seriously bad ones. It’s past time that every person start pointing this out, in a very loud way – if your values are immoral, evil, unethical and harmful, you need to sit down, shut up, and figure out just what in the fuck is wrong with yourself. If you’re fueled by hate, sit down, shut up, and figure out just what in the fuck is wrong with you. If you think it’s a fine, upstanding thing to go out and stalk strangers and dole out violence, you need to lock yourself up in your residence until you can get that poor brain of yours exercised enough to figure out just what in the fuck is wrong with you.

Via SFGate.

Clinton, Trump, And Spit Buckets.

Courtesy globalresearch.ca

Simon Moya-Smith outlines the current plot lines in the political show. If you’re feeling a bit more serious, you can read Steve Russell’s take on the debate. Right now, I’m thinking maybe weed and ice cream are the way to go. Yep.

Right now, somewhere in America, Anthony Weiner is taking another dick pic.

In New York, however, earlier today, I imagine Hillary Clinton was popping throat lozenges like a Vicodin addict, and Donald Trump was backstage pulling on his fingers because he’s convinced that if he does this twice daily for 30-minute intervals, his puny digits will stretch and the jokes will cease.

But he’s wrong. The jokes will never cease, and his fingers will never grow, and Clinton will keep on coughing for reasons unknown (to us, anyway), and Weiner will snap pic after pic after pic of his dick – because if there’s anything he loves more than sexting strangers it’s seeing his phallic name in headlines for doing so.

There’s been an overwhelming shared and looming sense of loss and fear in this country since Bernie Sanders dropped out of this rotten presidential race at the Democratic National Convention in July. How did the fracking lady and the reality television shill make it this far?

“How could it be that these two are the best America has to offer?” a man muttered into his Lefthand Milk Stout at a pub here in Denver recently. He looked like a sports fan who has lost all hope in his team. So I bought him another beer and said, “Hey, at least we’ve still got legal weed and ice cream, huh?” That cheered him up a bit, I think.

I was recently at a local pot dispensary on the west side where they’ve got tightly-rolled joints and edibles that would calm a rhino, or at minimum, Chris Christie.

But that’s another story for another day. About tonight’s debate:

[Read more…]

Disney does something right, more or less.

DisneyStore.com’s Halloween costume depicting the Polynesian demigod Maui from the upcoming movie ‘Moana.’ Disney said it would stop selling the costume which some had compared to blackface. (DisneyStore.com via AP).

Disney is pulling a Halloween costume from its website and stores after accusations of racism.

The costume, which is based on a character from the upcoming movie “Moana,” is a body suit with Polynesian tattoos. The character, Maui, is inspired by a Polynesian demigod.

In “Moana,” due out in November, the titular character, played by Auli’i Cravalho — a native Hawaiian — follows a teen who meets the muscled Maui, played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, on a journey through the Pacific.

CNN reports that Disney has issued an apology for the costume.

“The team behind Moana has taken great care to respect the cultures of the Pacific Islands that inspired the film, and we regret that the Maui costume has offended some,” the company said in a statement.

I really wish I could believe that last sentence. Once again though, when it comes to an Indigenous people, the thinking is less than stellar. If there was so much care to respect the cultures, then why wasn’t there at least a discussion about the deep significance of the cultural tattoos prior to a costume being manufactured? Where was the discussion of slipping on a cultural skin as a plaything, to be discarded at will? Indigenous people are not costumes. I’ll just go with the assumption that this was basic Disney, engaging the marketing machine without a single thought in that collective, not so respectful head. I’d really love it if Disney would just fucking stop trying to constantly make more money on the backs of Indigenous people. Try coming up with your own original stuff for once, maybe? At least until you figure out how to deal with Indigenous peoples and cultures in an appropriate manner.

Why yes, I do know there were mixed reactions to the film, I posted about it.

Via NJ.com.

J.K. Rowling: The Colonial Heart of an Indifferent Bigot.

This is not the first time Ms. Rowling’s bigotry has come up, far from it, but it turns out it it’s much worse than I thought. Ms. Rowling is now far past the doubling down stage, she’s pretty much etched her bigotry and indifference in stone now. I would never have read any of the Potter books if it hadn’t been for the astonishing reaction of Christians, all in a frenzy of “Witchcraft and Demons, Oh My!” I was an adult, and don’t have kids. Anything that got Christians so remarkably riled up deserved a look, though. I enjoyed the books, even though they were repetitive, and on the problematic side of seriously white and straight along with tokenism. I probably enjoyed the movies more, which were fun, because who doesn’t like magic? They were fun, a nice nerdy escape. Also, I’m a massive Maggie Smith fan, I’ve had a crush on her since early sproghood. I had planned on seeing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but that’s not going to happen now. I already know just how angry and upset that would make me.

In April this year, I posted about Dr. Adrienne Keene’s post on Native Appropriations regarding Magic in North America. If there’s one thing I’d like to make very, very clear, it’s that there are many Indiginerds who love the Potterverse, which makes it all the more heart-breaking and infuriating to see Ms. Rowling’s use of bigotry to further her own ends, and refusal to listen to the many Indigenous fans she has, and her apparent indifference to all the bullying and stereotyping she is subjecting Indigenous people to by sticking to her bigotry. As Dr. Keene said:

It actually makes me kind of want to cry. Harry Potter was such a formative series for me, and holds such a deep place in my heart–and to see and hear this feels like such a slap in the face to me and other Native Potter nerds.

So, if you’re a Potter fan, all prepared to be bristly in offense or defense, don’t. Just listen, please, because these criticisms are not coming from a place of hate. They are coming from a fellow place of love, and a deep well of disappointment. The Problematics of Potter came up on Ask N NDN at ICTMN, and Loralee Sepsey answered, in passionate detail. Here in the States, a great many people think Indians are dead and long gone, an almost mythical race of people, so everyone can play and be as bigoted as they like. I’ve encountered the belief of “oh, I thought Indians were dead” myself. There’s an article up at ICTMN about a young Indian, 12 years old, who wants to cut his braid off, because he lives in a primarily white suburb, and it’s not acceptable to be an ethnic Indian, and he’s tired of being teased, bullied, and stereotyped, at 12 years old. Non-native people, no matter how well intentioned, rarely think about such things. If they happen to be aware of the fact that Indians are not dead, they are rarely interested in the particular cultures, traditions, or languages of Indians. A great many non-natives are content to enthuse about “Native Americans” in the most embarrassing manner. There’s no knowledge to be had there, either. Quite the opposite, in fact. The ignorance can be appalling, and no, enthusiasm does not make up for it. Learning about a particular people, that would be a good thing to do. Understanding that there’s no such thing as one lump of ‘Native Americans’ would be a good thing. Understanding that Indigenous people care about how they are represented, and how their particular mythologies, cultures, and traditions are represented, that would be a great thing.

Ms. Rowling had a great opportunity in front of her. She could have not only learned herself, and met with members of the tribes she planned to write about, she could have helped to empower native people, along with showing basic respect, by allowing natives to own their own stories, their mythologies, their cultures, and their traditions. This story could have been a rich, strong, empowering, respectful, and accurate one. Instead, it’s the same old business of stealing from native people, disrespecting them, and promoting an appalling ignorance, deliberate lies, and propagating stereotypes. What will this latest installment teach children about Indigenous peoples? Nothing true. Ms. Rowling chose to go with using people as costuming, and having the same old colonial, white “saviours”, while not even bothering to give any native character a prominent role, let alone names, as only one native character is deemed worthy of a name. We get to be Ms. Rowling’s red shirts.

J.K. Rowling, with the release of the Ilvermorny School and Magic in North America stories on her website Pottermore, has joined the long list of people who portray indigenous cultures in a contextless and offensive manner, but she could become one of the most dangerous people on that list.

[Read more…]

Another Dirty Business: Coal.

The bed of the Chuitna river is littered with several-ton lumps of coal. Paul Moinester/Alaskans First.

Oil is hardly the only threat to Indigenous people. Along with oil billionaires, there are many other people who don’t need another dollar to see them through 10 lifetimes who seek to not only destroy Indigenous land, but the very life of those people. This is going on all over the world, not just in uStates and Canada. The rapacious desire for Coal, oil, gold, and more is threatening Indigenous populations everywhere. Corporations destroy everywhere they set their sights, with no thought past the bottom currency. The Tyonek have been waging a fight against coal for a very long time. You can start with this search page at ICTMN, just for some background. Almost every tribe in uStates who have depended on salmon for their main source of food, and have done so for thousands of years, have either lost that, or are fighting against that loss. Everywhere, it’s either coal, or a state damming rivers in order to steal water, leaving one tribe after another resourceless. There’s a very long article at the Grist about the current fight the Tyonek in Alaska are facing. I’m just to include a small bit here, click over to read the whole thing.

Art Standifer is talking about the Chuitna mine project at a tribal council meeting in a log cabin in July. He’s wearing a shirt that says “World’s Greatest Papa.” There’s a gumball machine to his right, and he’s eating Pringles.

I want to take a moment, and point out a fine example of colonial thinking and implicit racism in the above. It must be pointed out that “oh, look – those Indians are using modern things, and eating modern stuff, but fighting for all that primitive traditional stuff!” If you happen to be a writer, and wish to cover indigenous issues, you might want to ask yourself why you think it’s ever so necessary to write something like that. You must be willing to confront your own colonial thinking and implicit biases. Yes, Indigenous people are a part of the world, just like everyone else. There’s more than a whiff of “eh, they could just assimilate if they really wanted to” there.

“What will we be left with?” he asks, his white mustache in contrast with his straight black hair. “The leftovers of their tailings, their coal dust? No salmon, no moose, no nothing.”

If approved, the Chuitna coal mine would be a leviathan. Standifer and the rest of the council painted the scene throughout the meeting: PacRim’s power shovels and dump trucks would trundle over the grasses, pulling down the shore pines and balsams, rolling them over the river’s watery bogs. The drills would dig into 14 miles of stream and send salmon fleeing one of two ways: upriver, back toward the spawning grounds where they were born, or downriver, toward the ocean where they spend their adult lives. One group will die, trapped upriver; the other will never make it back to reproduce.

Where the salmon once swam would sit an enormous coal mine, surrounded by an access road, a 10,000-foot elevated coal conveyor, an airstrip, a logistics center, and a brand new export terminal. The machines would burrow into the surface to reach a sparkling, black seam of ultra-low sulfur sub-bituminous coal — 300 million metric tons of it, to be exact. Layer by layer, the coal would tumble into trucks that would drive it to a conveyor belt to the sea. Some 500 workers in hard hats would gut the land like a salmon, and then float its innards 3,000 miles away to be burned in “countries in the Pacific Rim, Indonesia, India, and Chile,” according to PacRim’s website.

The first stage of the project is scheduled to last 25 years, but that wouldn’t be the end of it. The surrounding land, leased from the Alaska Mental Health Trust property, is expected to yield 1 billion metric tons of coal. PacRim owns a total of 20,571 acres of coal leases in the area — a swath that it could continue to mine decades into the future.

Tyonek is what’s known as a “closed tribe,” meaning outsiders cannot visit tribal property without signed consent from tribal leadership. But once a guest is invited onto the tribe’s land, that intimidating veneer slides right off. The residents are welcoming and friendly, though not overly eager to appease outsiders. The coastal village is pleasant and sleepy, with soft winds blowing down from the mountains, off the beach, and over the dusty roads. Members of the tribe meet at the tribal center, where women sit, share waffles, and chat about this year’s salmon run.

“Taking everything from the land is like taking the blood out of your vein,” says Janelle Baker, a member of the tribal council. She pulls up her sleeve and gestures to her wrist. “You can only take so much before it shuts down.”

PacRim has promised that the salmon run will be recreated decades from now, after the coal has been extracted. Mark Vinsel, executive administrator of the United Fishermen of Alaska, tells me that the project would “obliterate” the fishery, and that he is “not confident that it is possible” to restore the river after the damage is done.

In the near-pristine wild of Alaska, it’s not easy to dig something up and then put it back together, as Lance Trasky, a now-retired habitat biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, wrote in an email. “I am confident that the salmon habitat that would be mined in the proposed Chuitna coal lease area could not be restored to its former level of productivity after coal mining,” he says, adding that what PacRim is proposing has never been done before.

Another looming specter: The Chuitna region is one of many coal-rich sites in Alaska, and opening a mine there could open the floodgates for more down the line.

The full article is here.

University of North Dakota: How To Be A Racist Ass.

More University of North Dakota students wear blackface (Photo: Facebook).

Just what in the fuck is being taught at UND? How to be the very best racist you can be?

The University of North Dakota is investigating another racially-charged photo that was posted to social media. This time, the photo contains four white people wearing black facial masks with the caption “Black Lives Matter”.

A facebook user posted the picture on her page, tagging UND saying “the problem is growing worse here at UND.”

UND spokesperson tells Valley News Live that police and administration were notified Wednesday about the picture and they are investigating. The spokesperson tells us the students in the picture attend UND.

This picture comes just 24 hours after another one. The first picture was posted on snapchat. It showed three white students smiling and holding up a peace sign with the caption of “locked the black b*tch out.”

UND President Mark Kennedy sent out statement on Thursday saying he is appalled that within 48 hours two photos have been taken and that the university has much work to do.

Nice you think so, Mr. Kennedy. I’d say you haven’t been paying much attention to what’s happening right under your nose. I’m really not sure why you’re all of a sudden appalled, as you do live Ndakota, and surely you must be aware of the rampant racism problem here, first and foremost against us Prairie ni**ers (Indians), then anyone else who isn’t a lovely shade of pasty white.

The following statement is from UND President Mark Kennedy:

I am appalled that within 48 hours two photos with racially-charged messages have been posted on social media and associated with the UND campus community. It is abundantly clear that we have much work to do at the University of North Dakota in educating our students, and the entire University community on issues related to diversity, inclusion, and respect for others.

The UND Police Department and the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities are going through their processes in investigating these two incidences. We are moving as fast as we can. I understand that we all would like a swift resolution. However, our society, our legal system, and campus conduct processes are predicated on due process. We must maintain the integrity of our policies and procedures by following due process.

I have been disappointed to learn that we have people in our university community who don’t know that the kind of behavior and messaging demonstrated in these two photos is not ok, and that, in fact, it is inexcusable.

Our mission is educational in nature. Our student conduct process is educational in nature. This is our opportunity to provide an education to all members of our campus community, especially those who may not understand the gravity of their actions. Based upon my conversations with students and others, I can assure you that the messages of the two photos are painful to many individuals.

I have heard from many within our campus community, as well as alums and individuals not directly connected to the University, who are encouraging us to use this situation as an opportunity to address what some see as long standing issues within our community and across the country.

We must demand better of ourselves and our university community. I am directing my team to explore best practices for diversity education amongst premier institutions and will work collaboratively with the AVP for Diversity and Inclusion and University Senate to bring it to reality at UND.

As I have said before, we value diversity and inclusion and take seriously respect for others as well as the exchange of different thoughts and ideas. To achieve the vision of One UND, we must take steps to demonstrate these values across our university community.

You really want to do something, Mr. Kennedy? First, dump the UND cops. There isn’t a cop shop anywhere in Ndakota that isn’t a hotbed of bigots. Next, lose the mealy-mouthed, “well, we must investigate for a really long time” bullshit, because what that says is that you’re going to use that line until this conveniently blows over, assuming more open bigotry doesn’t pop up on student social media. For once, stand up, tell the truth, and fucking do something, because you have a bigger problem than you think – not only are you rife with white students who are asshole bigots, they appear to be quite fucking stupid, too. At the very least, you may wish to seriously up the standards for white students, just to insure minimal intelligence.

Via KYFR.

North Dakota: Climate Justice Meets Racism.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Archambault (left) and Chief Arvol Looking Horse.

…North Dakota is not the whitest state in America, but it’s arguably the most segregated. More than 60 percent of its largest minority population, Native Americans, lives on or near reservations. Native men are incarcerated or unemployed at some of the highest rates in the country. Poverty levels for families of the Standing Rock tribe are five times that of residents living in the capital city, Bismarck. In Cannon Ball, the heart of the tribal community, there are rows of weathered government homes, but no grocery store. Tucked behind a lonely highway, this is where mostly white farmers and ranchers shuttle to and from homesteads once belonging to the Sioux.

Add to that a contempt that many Native Americans say they feel from North Dakotans and particularly from police, and many people of Standing Rock are not surprised by the extreme response of law enforcement against activists.

“We’ve run on empty for a number of generations,” said Phyllis Young, a former tribal councilwoman for the Standing Rock Sioux, the community that’s vowed to stop the pipeline in its path. “But now we’re taking a stand. We are reaching a pinnacle, a peak.”

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Oh, There’s An Idea. A Really Bad One.

Trump will propose nationwide stop-and-frisk to address violence in black community 2nite on Hannity: pic.twitter.com/HDSPYtepqb

— Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) September 21, 2016

Audience Member: I had a question about, there’s been a lot of violence in the black community – I want to know, what would you do to help stop that violence, you know, black-on-black crime…

Trump: Right, well, one of the things I’d do, Ricardo, is I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to. We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically, you understand, you have to have, in my opinion, I see what’s going on in Chicago, I think stop-and-frisk. In New York city it was so incredible, the way it worked. Now, we had a very good mayor, but New York City was incredible, the way it worked, so I think that could be one step you could do.

Alexandra Jaffe: Trump will propose nationwide stop-and-frisk to address violence in black community 2nite on Hannity.

Trump will be yakking on tonight about instituting Stop ‘n’ Frisks, citing the disastrous, unconstitutional mess that took place in New York. He seems to think that’s just an incredibly brilliant idea, and that’s going to “cure” all that black violence, and of course, it will make black people vote for him. Yep.

Via Twitter and Raw Story.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, A History of Hate.

National Guard and wounded during 1921 Tulsa race riots (Tulsa World/Wikimedia Commons).

A brief look at Tulsa’s history, and it’s not at all a good one.

The black neighborhood in Tulsa was known as “Greenwood” because Greenwood Avenue ran through it. Approximately 10,000 African Americans lived there. While there were large numbers of black people who lived in poverty in the area, the business district was its own complete city. There were dozens of black-owned businesses. Every kind of small business — grocery stores, beauty shops, jewelry stores, photography studios, tailor shops, and much more — a large number of restaurants, and a 750-seat theatre, the Dreamland Theater “that offered live musical and theatrical revues as well as silent movies accompanied by a piano player.” There were two black-owned newspapers. There were 15 African American physicians’ offices. A hospital. A large number of churches. A library. And a 54-room hotel, the Stradford Hotel.

[…]

During the night and the following day, the white mob invaded Greenwood. They pulled residents out of their homes and beat and killed them, including old people and children. They torched every building. Black people escaping Greenwood were arrested by the Oklahoma National Guard, who locked masses of them up in holding centers and only released them when white people stepped forward and vouched for individual black people.

The best estimates are that 300 people died during the riot, and 1256 structures were torched. While the Red Cross provided relief efforts for those thousands of people who had been burnt out of their homes, for which the city and county paid into the Red Cross relief fund, no compensation was paid to the victims of the violence. In addition, not a single white person was held accountable for any of the crimes committed May 31-June 1.

I had never heard of this before, and it’s unconscionable that to this day, it’s barely acknowledged, and no restitution or compensation was ever offered. Tulsa’s history with people of colour is a dark and shameful one. It’s time to bring it all out into the light in the spirit of change, and one of those should be a vow to stop murdering people of colour. It’s been going on much too long, as the recent murder of Terence Crutcher demonstrates all too well.

Full Story.

Cop Unions, What Are They Good For?

Colin Kaepernick.

Actually, that should be: Cop Unions, What in the Fuck Are They Good For? It would appear that they simply sit around, twiddling their thumbs until someone manages to hurt their collective feelings. “Woe is us” goes the shout, whereupon they start acting like tiny aggrieved children on the brink of a tantrum. They moan. They whine. They spill crocodile tears. They extort.

I’m not one to be terribly surprised by cop behaviour, but I’ll admit to surprise with the blatant move into extortion by cop unions over the tiniest hint that they might not be earth’s mightiest heroes. No, cops, you are not earth’s mightiest heroes. In this particular case, you aren’t San Francisco’s mightiest heroes, either. You might make the cut for San Francisco’s mightiest villains, if that makes you feel better. The SFPD has been exposed as corrupt, and racist as all hells. So, no one at all will be shocked that the SF cop union is issuing threats along with their extortion. (You can read the full letter here, scroll down.)

The union representing Santa Clara police threatened on Friday to boycott San Francisco 49ers games because of Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality, KNTV-TV reported.

“The board of directors of the Santa Clara Police Officer’s Association has a duty to protect its members and work to make all of their workings environments free of harassing behavior,” the group said in a letter to the team, which plays its home games in that city.

If the team does not take action against the quarterback, the letter stated, “It could result in police officers choosing not to work at your facilities.”

So, now it’s harassment and a hostile work environment if one person sits during the anthem, or wears socks cops don’t like. Wow. Who knew a gigantic sportsball stadium could turn completely hostile by the actions of one person in a crowd of, what, thousands? Seems to me that private security could be hired for as much, or possibly less, than cops. Or, perhaps cops who don’t want to work the stadium don’t have to, and those who want to work can do so. Oh, but that would end up with the working cops being subjected to an actual hostile work environment, wouldn’t it? I sincerely hope the cops are given a polite fuck off, with private security hired, so they can go back to twiddling their thumbs while writing racist texts to one another, often about their own co-workers:

However, Kaepernick also took note of the findings regarding San Francisco officers’ tendency to send one another racist text messages. A panel of three judges also determined that the department showed “institutionalized bias” against communities of color.

“The SFPD has had a lot of issues,” Kaepernick said on Thursday, adding that the officers in question were “not only talking about the community, but talking about colleagues that work in the same department.”

Via KNTV and Raw Story.

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