Paging Gazhekwe

[gazhekwe]

September 7, 2012 at 7:32 am
EMU revives Huron mascot

Ypsilanti — "Once a Huron, always a Huron."

That's the mantra of some Eastern Michigan University alumni who still consider themselves Hurons even though the university dropped the mascot in 1991 to avoid negative stereotypes about Native Americans. Now, more than 20 divisive years later, EMU has sanctioned the Huron mascot to be back on campus.

The EMU Marching Band will sport the logo on its new uniforms Saturday, when the football team takes on Illinois State at the home-opening game at Rynearson Stadium. Although the uniform's Huron logo won't be easily visible, the move is part of several university efforts to unite EMU alumni — especially those who are still vocal about the dropped mascot and won't financially support the university. Band members are thrilled about the uniforms, and many say they are honored to be wearing EMU's mascot traditions.

The Eagles — the current mascot — is written on the back of the uniform's cap. On the front of the jacket is a large E. Open the jacket and two of the school's former logos appear: the Huron, along with the Normalite, used by the university when it was founded.

"We're such a united family," said Adam Sniezek, 21, a drum major from Dearborn Heights. "It's so special we can carry on the traditions of our alma mater."

Some alumni cheer the move.

"I am a Huron and always will be," said Jennifer Ramirez, a Shelby Township art teacher who graduated from EMU in 1996. "It's about time people stood up and said, 'Let's bring it back.'"

Reinstating the Hurons is just one of several ways the university is starting to nod to and celebrate its past, said EMU President Susan Martin, who came up with the idea with alumni to include the Huron mascot on the 275 new band uniforms.

"We still have Normalites who went to Michigan State Normal and are alive and wear their Normalite logo with pride," Martin said. "We have many, many Hurons who are still Hurons in their heart to this day. And, of course, we have been the Eagles for 20 years.

"It's showing respect to the past but embracing the fact that we are all together under the block E and love Eastern."

Not everyone likes seeing Native American mascots.

"I don't like native people being used as mascots in any situation," said American Indian Services Director Fay Givens, who was a vocal supporter of changing the Huron mascot in 1991.

When EMU was founded in 1849 as Michigan State Normal College, its athletic teams were known as the "Normalites" and "Men from Ypsi."

A contest was sponsored in 1929 to rename the mascot and two students submitted the winning name of "Hurons."

Mixed opinions

The Huron logo was used for 62 years until EMU changed it after the Michigan Civil Rights Commission recommended in 1988 that schools drop the use of Native American names, logos and mascots to avoid promoting negative images. At the time, there were about 100 Michigan schools using Native American mascots and scores more across the country.

When EMU dropped the Hurons in 1991, many were devastated — especially since some Native American leaders saw no reason for the change.

"Our stance has always been we didn't see it as anything but an honor to the Hurons and Wyandottes," said Billy Friend, chief of the Oklahoma-based Wyandotte Nation, the only federally recognized band that was once in Michigan and known as Hurons. "We never saw it as demeaning."

Jacki Miller, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, said it is the prerogative of Native Americans to support Indian mascots, but the commission made the recommendation for good reason, since they are often depicted negatively.

"It was considered inappropriate and insensitive to the Native American people to have mascots portrayed that way," Miller said.

Change includes all alumni

The Eagle, Huron and Normalite logos have recently been used together on EMU T-shirts, sweatshirts and caps for alumni.

But the marching band's uniforms are the first time the mascots have been featured on a university-sponsored organization.

The Huron mascot is considered "historical memorabilia" and does not violate a 2005 NCAA ban on using hostile or abusive mascots that are of racial, ethnic or national origin at the NCAA championships, said EMU spokesman Walter Kraft.
The uniforms replace ones that had been used for 16 years. Band members raised about half of the $150,000 for the uniforms, with the president's discretionary fund kicking in the rest. Fundraising continues.

The use of the three mascots on the band's uniforms comes as EMU has become more competitive athletically and is eyeing a bowl game this year, which would be a first in 25 years.

It also comes as EMU continues to reach out to alumni who still refer to the teams as Hurons.

"It's no secret there are still those disenfranchised people from the logo change," said Daniel Mathis, interim executive director of EMU Alumni Relations. "It still comes up at pretty much anywhere we travel the country. … There are still people who say, 'I will never give a dollar until they change it back.'"

But Martin said the intention of using the three logos is much broader than financial support from alumni. It's about opening the university's arms to all alumni when they come to campus.

There were many years when Huron-clad alumni were booted off campus and asked to leave sporting events, said Maynard Harris, president of the Huron Restoration Alumni Chapter.

But at a basketball game earlier this year, students sold Hurons T-shirts and also had a Hurons cheering section.

It was nice to see an attitude change, said Harris, a vocal Huron alumnus.
"At least they are taking into consideration the whole history of Eastern Michigan University," Harris said. "I can live with that."
kkozlowski@detnews.com

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz264D7sZVS

[gazhekwe]

A Short History Lesson for Matt Lauer and His Audience

By Ray Cook, ICTM Opinion Editor, September 14, 2012

A while ago someone asked me if we should ask for an apology from Matt Lauer for his Indian-giver slight that occurred during one of his programs covering the Olympics. I don’t think of it as a slight of racism. It’s more complicated than that. What is the true nature of the slight? Where’s the failure?

I see the Huff Post covered that gaffe extensively. That prompted me to do a quick search of at least four online language sites, and they produced similar translations of the offending phrase.

The basic line is that an Indian giver is someone who gives a gift and later wants it back, meaning the gift giver is greedy and rude. Or the Indian giver is someone who gives a gift and wants a gift of equal value in return, in which case the giver is selfish. Some say it could also mean that it was an act that preceded negotiations to get people into the mode of giving—in other words, deception. Lastly, it was the colonists who excelled at giving and then taking back. The giver is not a person of her word. She is unreliable.

Except for the last of the above interpretations, the phrase began as an observation of Indian [[Native) behavior. Not understanding the Native art of negotiation and diplomacy, the Colonists believed they were being given gifts—of land, resources, welfare assistance—not realizing the customs of the day among the Native peoples was based on reciprocity, of constant relationship management. Trade was the foundation of diplomacy.

So, it is here that Natives may find the phrase’s interpretation and the interpretation’s acceptance to be insulting. And that is a mistake of America’s education [[including social and citizenship) centers. America does not know their history with this land’s first peoples, to the point that insults go unnoticed. Worse, they are not worthy of introspection. The lack of will to explore, understand and embrace the Native reality, historically speaking, is in this case the true gaffe and insult to America’s first icons. Fertile ground for the language of privilege.

That one of America’s institutional interpreters of America’s events, even America’s history, would make such a blunder—and Lauer made it so innocently—illustrates how deep and insidious the amnesia of America runs. His statement, said in fun [[in his mind) was in fact an affront to many. To have made such a mistake shows America’s inability to find a place in its history to accommodate the ones who gave the most to America’s existence, either by friendship or by force. And in this, we find America to be the Indian giver, selfish in its hunger, unreliable in keeping its agreements and disrespectful to those they don’t understand.

Should Lauer have apologized? Did he see his error and acknowledge it honestly? His management team didn’t. They were contacted by ICTMN columnist and Native actor Sonny Skyhawk, and they said they see no harm and did not think it warranted an apology.

I and many others view the advanced educational institutions Lauer attended also to be part and parcel of his mistake. Their failure to include the true, complete history of Native nations in the history of America’s beginning—or failure to examine the near-forced supplying of our vast natural resources for the voracious maintenance of the American Dream—is the ultimate act of an Indian giver: to only take and then forget.

Read more: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...#ixzz26SMjBdWc

[gazhekwe]

Chris Stevens, the 52-year old ambassador who was slain September 11 as Islamists attacked a U.S. Consulate in the city of Benghazi in Libya has hit home in Indian country. Stevens, who has been referred to as a rising star in U.S. foreign policy is a member of the Chinook Indian Tribe in in Washington state.

On Thursday, September 13, the tribal newspaper, the Chinook Observer, shared statements from Ray Gardner, tribal chairman, following the news of Stevens’ death.

“To all of the Chinook members and all the friends of the Chinook Nation I am hopeful that you will include the family of Chris Stevens the former Ambassador to Libya that lost his life while working towards bringing lasting peace to the region, in your prayers.”

In an Associated Press story Stevens is responsible for brokering tribal disputes and conducted U.S. outreach efforts in Jerusalem, Cairo, Damascus and Riyadh. The story also says that his death “deprives the United States of someone widely regarded as one of the most effective American envoys to the Arab world.”

Stevens had been in Libya since April 2011, and jumped at the chance to be the next U.S. ambassador when President Barack Obama asked him earlier this year the AP reports. During his time in Libya, he witnessed the fall of Muammar al-Gaddafi which he had hinted to in a news conference in August 2011 – Gadhafi was killed in October.

“He was loved by everybody,” Ahmed al-Abbar, a Libyan opposition leader during the revolution that killed Gaddafi as reported by AP.

In a statement released by President Obama on September 12, he referred to Stevens as, “a role model to all who worked with him and to the young diplomats who aspire to walk in his footsteps.”

The president also said that, “[i]t’s especially tragic that Chris Stevens died in Benghazi because it is a city that he helped to save. At the height of the Libyan revolution, Chris led our diplomatic post in Benghazi. With characteristic skill, courage, and resolve, he built partnerships with Libyan revolutionaries, and helped them as they planned to build a new Libya. When the Gaddafi regime came to an end, Chris was there to serve as our ambassador to the new Libya, and he worked tirelessly to support this young democracy, and I think both Secretary [Hillary] Clinton and I relied deeply on his knowledge of the situation on the ground there.”

Stevens becomes the sixth U.S. ambassador to be killed on duty, the last one was Adolp Dubs, in Afghanistan in 1979 according to the AP.

“He risked his life to stop a tyrant then gave his life trying to help build a better Libya,” Clinton said at the State Department according to the AP. “The world needs more Chris Stevenses.”

In a Washington Post video interview, Martin Indyk of the Brookings Institution, when talking about Stevens said that it was a “big loss obviously for his family, but also for America, he was the best and the brightest.”

Read more:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...#ixzz26Tb2Rxe3

[gazhekwe]

I can't stop laughing about this one. Just really caught my funnybone.

[gazhekwe]

Since it is that time of year again, I want to share some things that have bothered me about it for most of my past life.

It is a lovely season, bright leaves, good smells, crunchy apples. It is cool enough to bake pies and make donuts. Most people can enjoy the wonders of fall, while griping about raking leaves and shivering in anticipation of the next season to roll around.

But we in the Native world have some special irritations with fall that are not visited upon other people. Teachers, sports fans, everybody that is not Native, this is for you.

1. Thanksgiving is when we get to celebrate how the wonderful Pilgrims ate our food and shared with us. It is not when other people are taught what really happened, a starving bunch was saved by the generosity of people whose home they had invaded, only to treat these generous souls with disdain and double dealing, believing themselves to be much superior to these subhumans.

2. November, because of Thanksgiving, is the month schoolchildren get to learn about Indians, Native Americans, First Nations people. They make Indian things, like headbands, tipis, peace pipes. They "sit Indian" in a circle to hear stories. They color or draw pictures of stereotyped Native people in Native garb. They learn about Indians of the past, but little about the true history of the genocide that destroyed our Nations, and not much about our people today. After Thanksgiving, Native Americans go bye-bye til next fall.

3. With football season, we have to put up with the Redskins, Braves and now the Hurons again, with their mascots, fake Indian outfits, paint, dances and the good old Tomahawk Chop. [[Baseball season has its own outrageous depictions, of course.) Our objections are met with the patronizing attitude that we should "just get over it" as it is an honor to be depicted in such a way, and have our ceremonies belittled by misuse.

4. I saved the worst for Last -- Columbus Day. Some people actually get a day off work to celebrate this day. This is where a lot of teaching could happen about what Columbus and Spain meant to the millions who lived here when Columbus arrived, and what our people contributed to the Renaissance of Europe. Instead, our children are taught how wonderful it was that "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" and "discovered" America.

I hope educators these days are reaching out to teach more about Native people and our history, and not just in the fall. Thanksgiving and Columbus Day do not celebrate the best of our times.

[gazhekwe]

Racially-Charged Incident at Middle School Volleyball Tournament in Minot, ND: Turtle Mountain Chippewa Parents and Community Want Answers

September 21 , 2012 By : Ruth Hopkins

Minot, North Dakota- On September 15, 2012, at a middle school volleyball tournament at Minot Central High School, young Native girls, who were part of the Belcourt volleyball team, were accused of stealing an Ipod that was allegedly missing. As a result, witnesses say, the girls on the Belcourt team, who are minors, were singled out, verbally assaulted, subjected to racial epithets, and searched by police without a warrant or parental consent. The alleged missing Ipod was never found.

Belcourt, ND lies on the Turtle Mountain reservation, and is home to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. It is one of five Tribal Nations located in North Dakota.

Farrah Reopelle is the mother of Rylan Reopelle, a 13 year old girl who is part of the Turtle Mountain Community Middle School volleyball team. She spoke with Lastrealindians about the events in question. The Reopelles are Native American and live on the reservation in Belcourt, ND.

“I went to go watch my daughter's games and when I got there they were halfway finished with the first game. Once the game was over, the team came and sat in my area of the gym where their personal belongings were as well. As I sat there visiting with my daughter about her game, some girls came over to the coach and told her that a white iPod was stolen from one of the locker rooms. When the girls were leaving, they noticed one of our girls from the Belcourt team with a white iPod and immediately put the blame on her. About five minutes later a police officer and the director of the tournament came up to the coach and young girl, demanding that she give up the white iPod.”

Ms. Reopelle continues: “After the police officer inspected the iPod, he then went onto search a few of the [other] girls’ bags, continuing his search for the missing iPod. No other team was approached with this nor were any other teams’ bags inspected or searched, only Belcourt's. When the police officer was done searching the bags he left with the director of the tournament. Also, the police officer did not have the common courtesy to pull the coach aside and search bags in a separate room besides the gymnasium where a lot of other people were. It was actually pretty humiliating to witness.”

After these events, the girls on the Belcourt team were then expected to play in a game in another gym on the same campus. They lost that game. Farrah says her daughter came to her in tears afterward.

“My daughter was bawling and so upset she could hardly even get the words out to speak. She said one parent from another team had come up to her and called her a "f***ing thief" and that the team members were nothing but "f***ing thieves." My sister grabbed Rylan and brought her out to the commons area to point out the parent that said this but she was nowhere in sight. We told the coach what had happened, so the coach gathered all the girls to bring them outside to wait for the bus. Upon waiting, that same parent came walking up to enter the school and started talking all kinds of filth. Saying things like, "You're all ***ing thieves," "go back to where you came from," and "we don't owe you anything," calling out my sister, and flipping us off. At this point I was on my phone trying to find the number to the police department in Minot and called dispatch. While speaking to dispatch, some of the girls from the Mandan team had come outside and were throwing grapes at myself, while I was completely oblivious as I was furious and on the phone with dispatch.”

The director of the tournament came outside and made the girls apologize. Farrah says she felt as though the apology was insincere, because they lied and made excuses.

The police officer who arrived on the scene was the same police officer who had searched the Belcourt girls’ bags earlier.

Ms. Reopelle says, “We told him what happened. He said he'll be right back as he was going to talk to the parent who harassed my daughter. When the officer came back he said that the woman had a completely different story and also that she had other 'issues' going on. I asked the officer what was going to be done about this and he asked if we were leaving or going back inside to watch more of the games. I told him I would not subject my daughter to such treatment nor put her in that situation again. He said he also told the woman to stay away from the team and parents. In my opinion, the woman should have been removed and not permitted back onto the premises for verbally assaulting a minor with such filth. This scenario should not even have taken place and the way the officer handled it was completely unprofessional.”

According to Jeremy Leducer, this isn’t the first racially charged incident to occur on Minot school grounds. He says that one of Belcourt’s star wrestlers, as well as his mother, was verbally attacked by a man at a school event in Minot less than a year ago. After that racially-charged incident, the Minot Athletic Director and Superintendent were contacted. Mr. Leducer says they “made verbal assurances to the Belcourt School District that it would not happen again.”

The University of North Dakota was asked to retire its Fighting Sioux nickname after the NCAA found that it was hostile and abusive towards Native Americans.

Farrah reports that the girls were traumatized by the incident. “They had another game and while playing, they were out there like a deer in headlights. The coach, Marlene LaFloe, noticed as well. She even asked Athletic Director Shane Martin to come and give the girls a pep talk after their game.”

As of this morning, Lastrealindians has not received a comment from the Minot school administration in response to the incident.

http://www.lastrealindians.com/axCom...hp?postId=2083

[Pam]

"go back to where you came from,"

Aren't they already "where they came from"?

[gazhekwe]

Yup, just goes to show the ignorance of prejudice. Maybe she should go back where she came from, and take a relative under each arm along with her. That was my playground response to the dumbest of dumb comments. Start swimming, lots more people like you back on the other side of the ocean. You'll love it! I've outgrown the knee jerk reactions now, thank goodness. It does seem to me that there needs to be a whole lot done with schools and parents in NDN country. It is still bad up home, too. A relative was recently interviewed for a job as property manager, and was doing well, she was sure she was getting the job. Then the interviewer asked about her last name [[very common last name on the res, same as my maiden name). When she was connected to the res, the interview was over. The interviewer said she wasn't interested in hiring any of "those people." Strictly against both the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act and Title VII. Of course, all she has to do is deny she said it, and she wins these days.

[gazhekwe]

Alcoa Was Once a Friend to Akwesasne Mohawk Territory

By Ray Cook, Opinion Editor

September 24, 2012

I remember looking through a book on Massena [[Akwesasne Mohawk Territory) history, studying the pictures and seeing my uncle, Noah Cook. It was 1922. Uncle Noah had to have been 18 or so years old at the time. He was pictured in a blacksmith shop with a very old sod that was showing Noah the ropes.

How young Noah looked. He worked many years at the “plant” and, as many did then, also worked the family farm. He retired decades later, when there were no more horses or metal wheels to maintain. It was the industrial age and Massena and Akwesasne were an integral part of it. At that time, our communities became one economically. And Alcoa was part of that coming together of people, of skills.

A family of communities began. And Alcoa was part of that.

A few years ago, I had the grand opportunity to visit with Ana Thompson, the mom of iron worker union member Ray Thompson. She was 104 years old then.

She told me a story about waking up at 3:30 in the morning in the dead of winter to harness the horse to the family cutter [[winter sleigh). By 4 a.m. she was on her way to work, taking the frozen river from Cornwall Island west to the still new Alcoa plant. She was 16 years old and it was December 1917. And she was not alone. She said the river was a highway of women coming and going to work at the plant.

She was working at Alcoa was because the men were away, “over there.” World War I was raging and America had just joined the war effort—many of the men were gone. So, women were recruited to fill the void on the lines. They worked hard, not just for the war effort, but also for the company goals of Alcoa and for the economic needs of their own families.

During those trying times and many since, an unspoken social contract was established. The community takes care of Alcoa by providing man/women power and Alcoa takes care of the community.

Today, Alcoa forgets that history that we all share in this region. They forget the loyalty of the workers, the camaraderie of the workers and the communities Alcoa assisted in beginning and later sustaining. That reciprocal relationship today seems to be weakening. Separating the community of workers that sustains Alcoa from the management needs of the big corporation that Alcoa has become.

So this past week, it was heartening to see the picket lines grow as the Alcoa building trades join the line with the ironworkers. Our community of workers unite in a common struggle. To remind Alcoa management of the community they are reciprocally obligated to.

This community and this county provide a wide berth for Alcoa. Our collective community provides huge tax incentives for Alcoa by allowing Alcoa to pay only $2 million a year in taxes—a pittance—split between the state, county and municipality.

If that is not enough incentive, the collective community allows Alcoa basement-sale rates on electric power set-asides. That electricity could be used elsewhere to stimulate economic development in both St. Lawrence and Franklin counties. But no, the counties allow that allotment of potential developmental power to go to Alcoa so they can remain competitive in the open market by having a nearly cost-free source of energy to do their job.

And the young management team of Alcoa thank our communities by saying that they will no longer hire local. Alcoa believes that it will further cut costs if they buy foreign and out of state unskilled labor and move them here. How does hiring foreign workers assist our communities’ economic needs? It doesn’t, and that is the stick in the eye.

Sometimes, good neighbors turn bad. When a relationship goes bad, it’s best for the affected parties to either clear the slate and make up, or just part company and say goodbye.

What’s it going to be Alcoa? We have a vast community to sustain, and right now you are in the way. Are you part of this vast community with which you have a long history, or are you a bad neighbor?

Read more: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...#ixzz27OTBns00

[gazhekwe]

Or, how Scott Brown's staff took lemonade [[national reaction to Elizabeth Warren claiming native heritage -- is it a character issue?) and turned it into bitter lemons. This is also another way to seriously annoy Native voters, but I guess he doesn't count them, anyway. Maybe he thinks Natives are all in the past or out west in teepees somewhere.

Scott Brown Staffers Mock Elizabeth Warren’s ‘Native Identity’ With ‘Tomahawk Chops’ on Video

By Mark Trahant September 25, 2012

On Tuesday the issue of Elizabeth Warren’s Native identity turned ugly. A Boston CBS station, WCVB, reported that staffers for Brown chanted “war whoops” and made “tomahawk chops” to show their distaste for Warren’s background.

When asked about it by that station. Brown said he didn’t condone it, but said “the real offense is that [[Warren) said she was white and then checked the box saying she is Native American, and then she changed her profile in the law directory once she made her tenure.”

The ugly side of this issue – racist imagery – has been with the campaign for months, just under the surface.

This spring headlines included “Sitting Bull***” to “Pinocchio-hontas.” The Native American Journalists Association issued a statement that said: “NAJA is disappointed that coverage of U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s claimed Native heritage has resulted in a series of disrespectful headlines and puns that show disregard for Native Americans and our history.”

Read more:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/09/25/scott-brown-staffers-mock-elizabeth-warrens-native-identity-with-tomahawk-chops-on-video-135695#ixzz27VI9IweE

Here's the video. I didn't include it earlier because I couldn't see the war whoopers and choppers. You can hear them though. They are there, like one guy at .08, hitting his mouth cowboy style to make the war whoop sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1XpA...yer_embedded#!


Published on Sep 25, 2012 by BlueMassGroup2012
9/22/2012, nearby Eire Pub in Boston, at a rally for Scott Brown including former Mayor Ray Flynn. Some supporters of Elizabeth Warren were also gathered around with signs. Here you can see Brown's staffers making "war whoops" and "tomahawk chops", presumably in reference to Warren's Cherokee heritage. Identified in video making the chop are Brown's Constituent Service Counsel Jack Richard [[camoflage shirt) and -- we believe -- Massachusetts GOP operative Brad Garrett, front and center with tan baseball cap and gray hoodie, leading the whoops and chops.

[gazhekwe]

This test was given last week by a high school math teacher in a school serving 22% Native students near Lac Du Flambeau Reserve in Wisconsin:



Anybody think this is a good idea?

The teacher had his eyes opened by the community reaction to this and profusely apologized. He was suspended for a day and agreed he should not be paid for the day. A Lac du Flambeau parent sent this reaction:

“Even if this was an oversight by one teacher, it reveals a problem that has plagued the Wisconsin Northwoods community for decades, and it ranks right up there with the mascot issue, the stereotyping of Native Americans,” she told ICTMN. “With Columbus Day approaching again, this would be an excellent topic of discussion for everyone. What word does your average American use in their daily vocabulary—Indian giver, for instance, or in this case ‘squaw’—without thinking that would offend us? How do they think WE feel when we see people dressed in an Indian costume for Halloween? This kind of thinking and oversight needs to be corrected. Public institutions such as our schools must take that first step.”

Read more:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/10/04/chief-short-cake-math-assignment-gaffe-has-lac-du-flambeau-members-urging-cultural-sensitivity-137521#ixzz28L5s6StH

[gazhekwe]

Did you know Native Americans can vote? Lots of people think we aren't citizens. We have dual citizenship, in our nation and in the US. This misunderstanding apparently fomented a voter fraud article about buses bringing hordes of people to the polls, some of whom do not appear to be from this country. I have actually seen the Head Start bus bringing my elder relatives to the polls. We take our right to vote very seriously, having been raised with grandparents who were adults when granted that right in 1924. They instilled that pride in our parents, who passed it along to us. One thing you need to know, in Minnesota, where this author lives, Native people are the principle minority group.

Indians, the Cavalry and the Tea Party

By Carter Meland, October 7, 2012

.....A story that these Tea Party activists cite as evidence of widespread fraud is the bus that magically appears at a polling place. Though election officials note that no one has ever been able to photograph such a vehicle or get its license plate number, this bus disgorges dozens of people who proceed to fraudulently register and cast illegal ballots.

Some of these riders who emerge from this bus don’t “appear to be from this country,” as one activist claimed in the story.

“Do you think they maybe registered falsely under false pretenses?” another activist asked of another supposed bus incident discussed in the story.

Her answer: “Probably so.”

One magic bus story contends that the bus is full of Indians from a reservation and it is easy to see in that image that some Tea Party activists see Native people as a threat to American electoral integrity. It appears these activists don’t know that Native people have a right to vote; it’s as if Native people don’t “appear to be from this country”[[!).

In response to this perceived threat, these activists are working to raise what they call a “cavalry” to save the integrity of the voting process in swing states. This rhetoric about sending in the cavalry to preserve order evokes classic imagery from the Hollywood Western’s heyday. Indians are a threat to the purity of the American project and the cavalry is the force that arrives to preserve that purity from being brutalized by the marauding savagery of those who live beyond the pale [[as it were).....

Tea Party wagons are now circling the polling places they imagine are under siege from forces inimical to the purity of the American voting process. They’ve raised the flag and are calling for a cavalry to ride to the rescue of the settlers who want nothing more than a good, pure vote, one that is safe from magic buses filled with Indians from reservations.

Voter fraud activists may not be consciously considering the ways that cavalry contains a cultural history that speaks to the righteous need to kill Indians to preserve [[white) American purity, but the word carries that weight. As a teacher in American Indian Studies it is one of my goals to help students see that misrepresentations of Native people are embedded in American culture so thoroughly that we sometimes fail to even recognize them. Explicit expressions of racism are generally easy to spot, but it is the subtle ones that tell us even more about the ways violent racialized discourse is acceptable in America.

Indians die in Westerns, cavalries kill them, and by invoking a Western framed rhetoric these Tea Party activists are giving voice to the same kind of genocidal rhetoric that imagined “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

Perhaps I’m reading too much into one little word, but then it is the subtle forms of racism and racialized shorthand that are the hardest to root out, especially as American culture tries to mature into the diversity of peoples that call this place home and who vote here.

Carter Meland is a writer and teacher of White Earth Ojibwe heritage with a Ph.D. He has been teaching in the American Indian Studies Department at the University of Minnesota for more than 12 years.

Read more:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...#ixzz28cBYNbFX

[gazhekwe]

Columbus Day? True Legacy: Cruelty and Slavery
Eric Kasem, Founder of PeaceDog 10/11/10

Once again, it's time to celebrate Columbus Day. Yet, the stunning truth is: If Christopher Columbus were alive today, he would be put on trial for crimes against humanity. Columbus' reign of terror, as documented by noted historians, was so bloody, his legacy so unspeakably cruel, that Columbus makes a modern villain like Saddam Hussein look like a pale codfish.

Question: Why do we honor a man who, if he were alive today, would almost certainly be sitting on Death Row awaiting execution?
If you'd like to know the true story about Christopher Columbus, please read on. But I warn you, it's not for the faint of heart.
......
Columbus Day, as we know it in the United States, was invented by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service organization. Back in the 1930s, they were looking for a Catholic hero as a role-model their kids could look up to. In 1934, as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, Congress and President Franklin Roosevelt signed Columbus Day into law as a federal holiday to honor this courageous explorer. Or so we thought.

There are several problems with this. First of all, Columbus wasn't the first European to discover America. ... After all, the Native Americans discovered North America about 14,000 years before Columbus was even born! ...

Second, Columbus wasn't a hero. When he set foot on that sandy beach in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered that the islands were inhabited by friendly, peaceful people called the Lucayans, Taínos and Arawaks. Writing in his diary, Columbus said they were a handsome, smart and kind people. He noted that the gentle Arawaks were remarkable for their hospitality. "They offered to share with anyone and when you ask for something, they never say no," he said. The Arawaks had no weapons; their society had neither criminals, prisons nor prisoners. They were so kind-hearted that Columbus noted in his diary that on the day the Santa Maria was shipwrecked, the Arawaks labored for hours to save his crew and cargo. The native people were so honest that not one thing was missing.

Columbus was so impressed with the hard work of these gentle islanders, that he immediately seized their land for Spain and enslaved them to work in his brutal gold mines. Within only two years, 125,000 [[half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead.
...
Shockingly, Columbus supervised the selling of native girls into sexual slavery. Young girls of the ages 9 to 10 were the most desired by his men. In 1500, Columbus casually wrote about it in his log. He said: "A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand."

He forced these peaceful natives work in his gold mines until they died of exhaustion. If an "Indian" worker did not deliver his full quota of gold dust by Columbus' deadline, soldiers would cut off the man's hands and tie them around his neck to send a message. Slavery was so intolerable for these sweet, gentle island people that at one point, 100 of them committed mass suicide. Catholic law forbade the enslavement of Christians, but Columbus solved this problem. He simply refused to baptize the native people of Hispaniola.

On his second trip to the New World, Columbus brought cannons and attack dogs. If a native resisted slavery, he would cut off a nose or an ear. If slaves tried to escape, Columbus had them burned alive. Other times, he sent attack dogs to hunt them down, and the dogs would tear off the arms and legs of the screaming natives while they were still alive. If the Spaniards ran short of meat to feed the dogs, Arawak babies were killed for dog food.

Columbus' acts of cruelty were so unspeakable and so legendary - even in his own day - that Governor Francisco De Bobadilla arrested Columbus and his two brothers, slapped them into chains, and shipped them off to Spain to answer for their crimes against the Arawaks. But the King and Queen of Spain, their treasury filling up with gold, pardoned Columbus and let him go free.

One of Columbus' men, Bartolome De Las Casas, was so mortified by Columbus' brutal atrocities against the native peoples, that he quit working for Columbus and became a Catholic priest. He described how the Spaniards under Columbus' command cut off the legs of children who ran from them, to test the sharpness of their blades. According to De Las Casas, the men made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. He says that Columbus' men poured people full of boiling soap. In a single day, De Las Casas was an eye witness as the Spanish soldiers dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 native people.

"Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel," De Las Casas wrote. "My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write."

De Las Casas spent the rest of his life trying to protect the helpless native people. But after a while, there were no more natives to protect. Experts generally agree that before 1492, the population on the island of Hispaniola probably numbered above 3 million. Within 20 years of Spanish arrival, it was reduced to only 60,000. Within 50 years, not a single original native inhabitant could be found.

In 1516, Spanish historian Peter Martyr wrote: "... a ship without compass, chart, or guide, but only following the trail of dead Indians who had been thrown from the ships could find its way from the Bahamas to Hispaniola."

Christopher Columbus derived most of his income from slavery, De Las Casas noted. In fact, Columbus was the first slave trader in the Americas. As the native slaves died off, they were replaced with black slaves. Columbus' son became the first African slave trader in 1505.

Are you surprised you never learned about any of this in school? I am too. Why do we have this extraordinary gap in our American ethos? Columbus himself kept detailed diaries, as did some of his men including De Las Casas and Michele de Cuneo. [[If you don't believe me, just Google the words Columbus, sex slave, and gold mine.)

Columbus' reign of terror is one of the darkest chapters in our history. The REAL question is: Why do we celebrate a holiday in honor of this man? [[Take three deep breaths. If you're like me, your stomach is heaving at this point. I'm sorry. Sometimes the truth hurts.
...
True, Columbus' brutal treatment of peaceful Native Americans was so horrific... maybe we should hide the truth about Columbus until our kids reach at least High School age. Let's teach it to them about the same time we tell them about the Nazi death camps.

While we're at it, let's rewrite our history books [to celebrate] true heroes, men and women of courage and kindness who devoted their lives to the good of others. There's a long list, starting with Florence Nightingale, Mahatma Gandhi, Rev. Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy.

Why don't we create a holiday to replace Columbus Day?

Let's call it Heroes of Peace Day.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-k..._b_742708.html

[gazhekwe]

[gazhekwe]

[Pam]

I googled protests for today and found this:

http://www.facebook.com/events/545611662131958/

I think I first read the truth about Columbus in Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee.

[Jimaz]

Then there's Pat Paulsen's tongue-in-cheek aphorism:

All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian.

[[Talk about "blaming the victim." )

[Jimaz]

See also beginning at 5:00 in DetroitYES Home » Non Detroit Issues » Thom Hartmann » Thom Hartmann on the News - October 8, 2012.

[gazhekwe]

Here is something fun! A book written by my big cousin, Les Kinney.

http://www.amazon.com/K-Street-Boys-...9734706&sr=1-1

[Jimaz]

Thom put out several more vids for you, gazhekwe. They're over there.

[gazhekwe]

I had a look at the videos, Jimaz. Interesting! I've never seen Thom Hartmann at work, as I prefer news without opinion.

The one that sticks in my mind of the three is the one about the Iroquois Confederacy. Thom has read a book and gave his synopsis of some of the teachings of the book in his brief spot with the best of good intentions, but either he or the book took a hopelessly Euro approach to the subject.

His whole premise of how Hiawatha came along to fix a community in disarray does not fit with the Iroquois experience, nor does it have anything to do with the loss of the mound builders in the south. There were numerous "Vision" teachings around building community strength, seeing every living being as a relative, respect for all living things and a balanced approach to hunting and fishing for sustenance but not for pleasure.

The Seven Fires teachings of the Anishinaabe [[discussed upthread) fit within the Vision teachings, taking a strong community and moving it westward from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the Upper Great Lakes and beyond. During that move, the Anishinaabe went through Iroquois territory, and some of the hostility they fostered and encountered lives on to this day.

Thom's talk did present valuable information into what is likely a void. The distinctly non-Native point of view skews the whole perspective on the teachings.

[gazhekwe]

124 Remains in 9,000 Boxes with 103,801 Bone Fragments

Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Challenges



ISABELLA INDIAN RESERVATION – Representatives of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan journeyed to the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor earlier this week to bring the remains of 124 of their ancestors back to be properly buried on the Isabella Indian Reservation.

Once at the University of Michigan, the representatives were given 35 boxes from the university. They were not quite prepared for what they discovered inside the 35 boxes. Inside the larger boxes were some 9,000 white smaller boxes with 103,801 human bone fragments spread throughout the boxes. The white boxes were marked with various bone parts, such as fibula and so on. Others contained remains that had been cremated.

The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Men's Society and several Tribal Women Carry Ancestral Remains to their Final Resting Place on the Isabella Reservation These human remains were unearthed at an ancestral burial site in 1973 when a contractor was putting an addition on a private residence near Pleasant Lake in Lapeer County, Michigan. The unearthing of the 124 remains that ensued then became known as the Fisher Site excavation.

“These remains were deemed to be 4,000 years old,” said Sonja Atalay, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.

“They were buried during a time in what is known as the Late Archaic period.”

Dr. Atalay was present on Friday to lend her expertise in the handling of human remains as they were prepared for a proper burial.

“These ancestors were disrespected in the most profound way,” said Willie Johnson, Ojibwe, curator of the Tribe's Ziibiwing Center of the Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways, to a crowd of who gathered to assist the Tribe in the recommitment of their ancestors.

Dennis Banks, Ojibwe, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, who was on the reservation to assist in the recommitment ceremony and other tribal business, was much more candid about the fact 124 remains were broken into 103,801 bone fragments.

“This is adding insult to injury. What did they do, take hammers to our ancestors?” questioned Banks.

“I am angry about this. The university people are culture vultures. I think our Indian students need to question each and every university to see if they have any our ancestors' bones. I would tell those universities that think they need our bones for scientific reasons to start digging up white peoples' bones.”

The University of Michigan still has some 1,300 American Indian ancestral remains in its possession, according to Dr. Atalay.

Tribal representatives and others worked feverishly until 3 am Friday to properly process the ancestral remains. The hard work continued into Friday, delaying the planned noon "Recommitment to the Earth" ceremony by several hours.

Once properly processed, the ancestral remains made their last journey from the Ziibiwing Center. Members of the newly founded Men's Society, a group of tribal men from the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe wearing black shirts, and several women tribal citizens carried and walked the ancestral remains to their final resting place.

The 124 were joined by one more ancestor that has been held at the Robert S Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Phillips Academy since 1901. It was originally unearthed from an unknown location near Bellevue, Michigan and donated to the Robert S Peabody Museum in Andover, Massachusetts.

The long journey for 125 ancestors ended near dusk as their remains were buried in the Nibokaan Ancestral Cemetery on the reservation.

updated 3:10 pm edt; posted October 13, 2012 8:30 am edt

http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/124...fragments.html

[gazhekwe]

GAP put a black T-shirt with white lettering "Manifest Destiny" on its racks recently. After much distress in NDN country, they allegedly quit making the shirts but did not pull them from their shelves.

Here is an interesting Opinion from the UK Guardian. It is truly amazing to read some of the comments ridiculing this opinion and trivializing the idea that manifest destiny cause any grief:

Gap's 'manifest destiny' T-shirt was a historic mistake

The phrase is drawn from the racist rhetoric of American history – why did the company put it on its clothing?

James MacKay 10/16/2012

The art of creating new T-shirt slogans is a delicate one. Most difficult to imagine must be the phrase that doesn't aim to sloganeer or make its readers laugh, but rather to make the wearer look deep, the very embodiment of hipster cool. In a crowded marketplace suffering badly in the recession, no major retailer would launch such an item of clothing without extensive market research, brand-compatibility assessment and in-depth discussion of the statement's meaning – which makes Gap's decision to market a T-shirt associating the wearer with ethnic cleansing, aggressive territorial expansion and cultural and material genocide more than a little peculiar.
The T-shirt sold by Gap. Photograph: screengrabThe item in question was a cool black number with the words "MANIFEST DESTINY" printed on the front. It was designed by Mark McNairy and formed part of the "Gap x GQ" line, a collaboration with GQ magazine to showcase the "best new menswear designers in America". The only other slogan T-shirt in this line is a rather wan "LIBERTÉ", presumably drawing on the French revolutionary slogan.
The phrase "manifest destiny" has a history. It was coined in 1845 by magazine editor John L O'Sullivan, first used with reference to the annexation of Texas and then again referring to negotiations over the boundaries of Oregon. O'Sullivan argued that other nations should not prevent "the fulfilment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions".
American history is littered with grandiose statements of a higher purpose for the nation, continuing from John Winthrop's shining "city upon a hill", through to Abraham Lincoln's insistence on a nation "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal". But the ideal of a "manifest destiny" differs from these in its focus not on moral responsibilities but on rights to territory: specifically, territory that was recognised to be that of the indigenous peoples of the continent. Rhetorically, its function was identical to Hitler's "Lebensraum", the racial element being pointed up by the foundation of Oregon with a "whites only" constitution.
As American expansion unfolded, the idea of a destiny for Euro-Americans made manifest by God, in which Native American tribes were seen as inconveniences to be expunged, grew ever more popular. The principle of manifest destiny was used to justify the forcible acquisition of territory, the deliberate destruction of food sources and events such as the Sand Creek massacre [[before which Colonel Chivington declared "I … believe it is right and honourable to use any means under God's heaven to kill Indians").
America has never really come to terms with the contradiction between this bloody origin and its rhetoric of exceptionalism, and American popular history thus remains dependent on a now largely unarticulated form of manifest destiny logic. That said, it seems astonishing that nobody during the product launch process said "Hang on … doesn't this basically mean 'white pride'?" Artist Gregg Deal suggests the Gap should now launch "AMERICAN IMPERIALISM" or "FORCED ASSIMILATION" lines.
Though commenters have assumed that the offence was unintended, designer Mark McNairy certainly seemed aware of the term's meaning. When activists contacted him to ask for the line's removal, he responded on by tweeting "MANIFEST DESTINY. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST" [[the tweet has been removed, but a screengrab is archived here). This seems to show that he is quite comfortable with a social Darwinist explanation for the destruction of indigenous nations. A petition calling for his dismissal, the T-shirt's removal and a formal apology from Gap reached over 2,500 supporters [[McNairy has since apologised).
The emotions sparked by this ignorant provocation have to be seen in a wider context of Indian appropriation, from sports mascots, through Halloween costumes to hipster headdresses. One only needs to think what the reaction would be to caricatured Chinese mascots, blackface costumes or hipster hijabs to understand just how culturally marginalised Native Americans are. Coll Thrush's beautifully thoughtful blog entry provides reasons to believe that this is changing, as does the company's decision last night to withdraw the T-shirt under pressure. Gap spokeswoman Edie Kissko states in an email that "our intention was not to offend anyone", which falls somewhat short of the apology requested in the petition. But the fact that such an item could go on sale at all speaks volumes about Euro-America's ignorance of its history with the continent's original inhabitants.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...hirt?fb=optOut

[Pam]

Why did they think that would be a hot seller? Is racism more "in" this year than last year? Weird.

[gazhekwe]

I am mystified myself, but then, after reading some of the comments to that article, I guess I should not be so surprised that people are so ignorant of the history of this nation, and indeed of the world. Manifest Destiny was just a name slapped on the Doctrine of Discovery codified in the Papal Bull of 1452.

Pope Nicholas directed King Alfonso to "capture, vanquish, and subdue the saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ," to "put them into perpetual slavery," and "to take all their possessions and property."
...
Thus, when Columbus sailed west across the Sea of Darkness in 1492 - with the express understanding that he was authorized to "take possession" of any lands he "discovered" that were "not under the dominion of any Christian rulers" - he and the Spanish sovereigns of Aragon and Castile were following an already well-established tradition of "discovery" and conquest.

http://ili.nativeweb.org/sdrm_art.html