Nasty Team Name Being Dragged Out Slo-o-o-owly
7 Things That Convinced The U.S. Patent Office To Cancel The Redskins Trademark
BY JUDD LEGUMhttp://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/...rd_blue_16.png JUNE 18, 2014 AT 11:40 AM UPDATED: JUNE 18, 2014 AT 1:46 PM"
The landmark decision by the U.S. Patent Office, first reported by ThinkProgress, canceled the trademark “Redskins” for Washington’s NFL franchise. Ultimately, the decision hinged on whether the term Redskins “disparages Native American persons.” The law prohibits trademarks on disparaging terms. So the Native Americans challenging the trademark needed to convince the office:
1. The term was still referring to Native Americans, and
2. It was disparaging toward Native Americans. Here are seven things that persuaded the Patent Office:
1. This picture of cheerleaders
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/...0.19.42-AM.pngCREDIT: USPTO
From the decision: “The Redskinettes also had appeared wearing costumes suggestive of Native Americans, as shown in the 1962 photograph of them reproduced below, which contained the title ‘Dancing Indians’ and the caption ‘Here are the Redskinettes all decked out in their Indian garb and carrying Burgundy and Gold pom-poms.’”
2. This picture of the marching band
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/...0.19.34-AM.pngCREDIT: USPTO
From the decision: “The Washington Redskins marching band had worn Native American headdresses as part of its uniforms between the 1960s and the 1990s, as shown in the image below from the 1980s.”
3. This press guide
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/...0.19.54-AM.pngCREDIT: USPTO
From the decision: “Between 1967 and 1979, the annual Washington Redskin press guides, shown below, displayed American Indian imagery on the cover page.”
4. Its similarity to other racial slurs
The decision cited an excerpt from the 1990 book “Unkind Words: Ethnic Labeling from Redskin to WASP”:Nearly half of all interracial slurs …refer to real or imagined physical differences. … Most references to physical differences are to skin color, which affirms what we have always known about the significance of color in human relations. Asian groups were called yellow this and that and Native Americans were called redskins, red men, and red devils.
5. The dictionary definition of Redskins
We further note the earliest restrictive usage label in dictionary definitions in Mr. Barnhart’s report dates back to 1966 from the Random House Unabridged First Edition indicating REDSKIN is “Often Offensive.” From 1986 on, all of the entries presented by Mr. Barnhart include restrictive usage labels ranging from
“not the preferred term” to “often disparaging and offensive.”
6. The opposition by the National Congress of American Indians
The decision cites a 1992 resolution from the organization:
[T]he term REDSKINS is not and has never been one of honor or respect, but instead, it has always been and continues to be a pejorative, derogatory, denigrating, offensive, scandalous, contemptuous, disreputable,
disparaging and racist designation for Native Americans
7. Letters of protest from Native Americans
The Patent Office also considered letters protesting the name from individual Native Americans. One sample:
Since you continue not to believe that the term “Redskins” is not [sic] offensive to anyone, let me make this clear: The name “Redskins” is very offensive to me and shows little human interest or taste…If you think you are preserving our culture or your history, then may I suggest a change? To live up to your name, your team would field only two men to the opponents eleven. Your player’s wives would be required to face the men of the opposing team. After having lost every game in good faith, you would be required to remain in RFK stadium’s end zone for the rest of your life living off what the other teams had left you. [[Which wouldn’t be much.) Since you would probably find this as distasteful as 300,000 Indians do, I would suggest a change in name. In sticking to your ethnic theme, I would suggest the Washington Niggers as a start. … This would start a fantastic trend in the league. We would soon be blessed with the San Fransisco [sic] Chinks, New York Jews, Dallas Wetbacks, Houston Greasers, and the Green Bay Crackers. Great, huh? Mr. Williams, these would be very offensive to many people, just as Redskins is offensive to myself and others. You can take a stand that would show you and the team as true believers in civil rights, or you can continue to carry a name that keeps alive a threatening stereotype to Indian people. People, Mr. Williams. We don’t want the Redskins!
Another take on the mascot thing
A white man and an elderly Native man became pretty good friends, so the white guy decided to ask him:
“What do you think about Indian mascots?”
The Native elder responded, “Here’s what you’ve got to understand. When you look at black people, you see ghosts of all the slavery and the rapes and the hangings and the chains.
When you look at Jews, you see ghosts of all those bodies piled up in death camps. And those ghosts keep you trying to do the right thing.
“But when you look at us you don’t see the ghosts of the little babies with their heads smashed in by rifle butts at the Big Hole, or the old folks dying by the side of the trail on the way to Oklahoma while their families cried and tried to make them comfortable, or the dead mothers at Wounded Knee or the little kids at Sand Creek who were shot for target practice. You don’t see any ghosts at all.
“Instead you see casinos and drunks and junk cars and shacks.
“Well, we see those ghosts. And they make our hearts sad and they hurt our little children. And when we try to say something, you tell us,
‘Get over it. This is America. Look at the American dream.’
But as long as you’re calling us Redskins and doing tomahawk chops, we can’t look at the American dream, because those things remind us that we are not real human beings to you. And when people aren’t humans, you can turn them into slaves or kill six million of them or shoot them down with Hotchkiss guns and throw them into mass graves at Wounded Knee.
“No, we’re not looking at the American dream. And why should we? We still haven’t woken up from the American nightmare.
http://www.ya-native.com/nativeameri...minsports.html
A Look at Mt. Pleasant Industrial Indian School
A ceremony honoring those who attended Mt. Pleasant Industrial Indian School as a way of healing the pain took place earlier this month. This short video gives some teachings and shows some of the ceremonies, as well as a good tour of the grounds on a lovely day.
http://www.abc12.com/clip/10257432/s...oarding-school
Here is a picture of my Grandfather Willie and one of my Great Aunts, his sister Bella, at Mt. Pleasant. Grandpa trained as a tailor. I wonder if he made that natty suit he is wearing.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...04516192_o.jpg
Rez Film Short to hit festivals
With Spike Lee's Blessing, 'Rez' Film Sees the Light of Day
Vincent Schilling 6/16/14
A short film project entitled "Rez," which features an all Native American cast and tells the story of Daniel Nightbird, an Ojibwe teen living on the Leech Lake Reservation, has been released by Special Boy Films Ltd.
The 19-minute film, which was directed by Dominque Deleon, a young African American filmmaker from NYU, has received praise and social media support from Spike Lee. Due to Lee’s support the project broke records on the Seed & Spark fundraising website as the fastest film to receive full funding within just 72 hours.
Rez Teaser Trailer: http://vimeo.com/28933886
The project's roots date back to 2006, when Deleon was a student at Harvard. His roommate, Duane Meat, an Ojibwe student who had been spending a semester at his home at the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, was tragically murdered by a gang member while walking on a South Minneapolis street.
Before Meat had been murdered, DeLeon had made a promise to his roommate to bring attention to both the beauty and the hardships faced in reservation life. To honor his friend, Deleon lived on Leech Lake for a summer in order to write his film.
“The first week I was on the rez I stayed in a small house with 7 adults and four dogs," DeLeon recalls. "Across the way in Tract 33, which is portrayed in the film, a jilted boyfriend walked over to the house where his girlfriend was staying and shot her in the face. They had kids together."
“I realized quickly that even though I’d done my research, even though I’d heard all the stories, nothing was going to prepare me to write this other than living there, being there. “
In addition to honoring his friend, DeLeon also expressed the need for the Native story in film.
“There is no question that the presence of Native American stories has been largely missing from American film narratives. Rez seeks to change that, by showing the humanity in us all,” said DeLeon.
“The film illustrates the plight of the 7th generation, the group of young men and women who have come of age in the time of the 7th fire -- present day," DeLeon says. "In the original prophecy, the task of the 7th generation is difficult: they are given the calling of returning to their people the spiritual ways that have been lost and righting the balance in the world, largely without the help of the older generation.”
“Though a story that originates in native culture, it has wider implications, as in the film, the main character is left to rediscover the nature of the circle, and in doing so find a way to trust and develop his innermost judgment on its own."
In the short film, which illustrates difficult choices faced by Native teens and the associated risks faced on reservation life, DeLeon made certain there were no overt references to specific gangs nor was their violence.
“There are gangs on the reservation," he explains, "They do sell drugs and commit acts of violence. But they also provide places to stay and protection for a lot of kids that otherwise would find themselves either homeless or in abusive situations. I don’t think I got it all right. But I do think that I got enough of it right that people really responded to it in that way. And I’m thankful.”
Currently REZ will be making its way through the film festival circuit. According to Executive Producer Tara Ryan of Tijer Lily Co, a Native American Arts and Entertainment Company, the film will available to view after the festival run.
“We are working on making sure as many people as possible can see it,” says Ryan. "''Rez' will be available for viewing at the crowdfunding site Seed & Spark after its festival run, people can pay for using 'sparks' or donations to the site.”
For more information and support, visit http://www.facebook.com/ontherez
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...325?page=0%2C1
One of 10 More Things Native Americans Can Do Better Than You
2. Turn the President of the United States into a babysitter
President Barack Obama is the fourth sitting president to ever visit an Indian reservation, and possibly the first to ever be made babysitter while the rest of us go get fry bread.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...ter-you-155535
http://d1jrw5jterzxwu.cloudfront.net...dent_obama.jpg
pictures
Grand Entry, Bay Mills Traditional Honoring Our Veterans Powwow today
Here is the Honor Guard in the Grand Entry, my 91 year old Dad carrying the Marine Corps colors. So proud of him I could bust.
Attachment 23838
Attachment 23839
Parsing AIRFRA (enacted to protect Native religious freedom) in Hobby Lobby
Supreme Court Used Indian Law to Prevent Birth Control for Women
Rob Capriccioso 7/2/14
In wake of the 5 – 4 decision by the Supreme Court in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby issued June 30, political commentary on religious freedom, abortion rights, and the war on women has been endless.
Less talked about in the mainstream has been that the court used an Indian-centric law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act [[RFRA) of 1993, to help it come to its opinion, which said that some family-owned and other closely held businesses, like the Hobby Lobby craft store, are allowed to opt out of the federal Obamacare mandate requiring such companies to pay for contraceptives in health coverage for their workers.
As the conservative justices wrote for the majority, the RFRA was enacted by Congress in 1993 in response to a 1990 high court decision,
Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, which found that a state could deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for using peyote, even if the drug was used as part of a religious ritual.
The Smith case came to fore after two members of the Native American Church were fired for ingesting peyote for sacramental purposes and then were later denied unemployment benefits by the state of Oregon because consuming peyote was against the law there.
Enter Congress and its RFRA, aimed at preventing such religious-based discrimination. It passed with almost unanimous support in both the House and Senate, and President Bill Clinton signed it into law in 1993.
One year later, the House Subcommittee on Native American Affairs and the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs further dealt with the narrow issue of
Smith on the specific issue of the sacramental use of peyote.
“We amended the American Indian Religious Freedom Act [AIRFA] in 1994 to allow for the sacramental use of peyote,” says Tadd Johnson, former director of the subcommittee and now the head of the American Indian studies department at the University of Minnesota at Duluth. “President Clinton signed it into law. This AIRFA amendment on peyote still stands.”
Using Peyote to Prevent Birth Control
Fast forward 20 years: The owners of Hobby Lobby and two other closely held for-profit corporations who believe life begins at conception and that it would violate their Christian beliefs to pay for birth control, sued the federal government under the auspices of RFRA.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito agreed with their argument: “As applied to closely held corporations, the [Department of Health and Human Services] regulations imposing the contraceptive mandate [of Obamacare] violate RFRA,” he wrote. “RFRA applies to regulations that govern the activities of closely held for-profit corporations like Conestoga, Hobby Lobby, and Mardel.”
The high court further offered that the federal government could find ways to pay for birth control coverage if it wishes to do so.
And that is how a law rooted in protecting Indian religious freedom was successfully used by major companies to shield them from having to pay for birth control for employees covered under the companies’ health plans.
Say What?
It was a shocking development to many Indian-focused legal experts who were working in the trenches during the peyote-based foundations of RFRA, and who have since seen that very law applied by the federal courts in ways that they feel are unjust toward American Indian religious practices involving sacred sites.
Stephen Pevar, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union [[ACLU) who has long argued in favor of protections for Indian religious practices, said he never envisioned that the RFRA would be used for such a purpose. “[I]t never occurred to me,” he said. “I doubt if it occurred to anyone.”
Pevar followed the drafting of the RFRA and early Indian advocacy for it by respected Native American legal scholars including Jack Trope, director of the Association on American Indian Affairs, and Walter Echo-Hawk.
Trope, too, was surprised to see the RFRA used in such a manner. “I can’t say that I ever really thought about the issue of for profit corporations utilizing RFRA until these cases came up,” he says.
Using RFRA Against Indians & Women
In 1997, Indian-focused legal advocates were disturbed to see the RFRA watered down by the Supreme Court, which ruled then in City of Boerne v. Flores that the law was applicable to the federal government but not to the states. Thus, tribal citizens who have their religious freedoms usurped by states, as happened in the original Smith Peyote case, are left unprotected by federal law.
Of more concern to such advocates is that the high court has never used the RFRA to do what it was intended to do: protect Indian religious freedoms. Yet now, it is using the law to limit the rights of women who want to use their healthcare coverage to buy birth control.
Pevar sees a parallel between how the high court treats Indians and women. “The Supreme Court, with rare exceptions, has been insensitive to women's issues, and the Court's record is even worse—far worse—on Indian issues,” he says. “In the last 30 years, Indians and tribes have lost at least 75 percent of their cases in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is asked to review some 7,000 cases a year but selects fewer than 100.
“The fact that the Court selects so many Indian cases and then rules against Indians in those cases suggests a desire to harm Indian interests.”
A Silver Lining for Sacred Sites?
If there is any good news for Indians to come from the case, Trope says that it provides an outline to allow Native-focused lawyers to strengthen their arguments in the federal courts regarding the use of RFRA to protect sacred sites in future cases.
Trope notes that in the recent Navajo Nation case before the Ninth Circuit focused on the tribe’s contention that the San Francisco Peaks are sacred to the tribe and thus corporate development on them should be limited, “one of the main arguments made against us was that RFRA was meant to turn back the clock to the day before the Smith decision in 1990.”
Such rationale meant that decisions like the Supreme Court’s in the 1988 Lyng case – which interpreted the First Amendment in a way that did not provide protection to Indian sacred sites – would still be good law, despite the existence of RFRA.
[[The Lyng case centered on an American Indian religious-based challenge to the development of a road for timber harvesting.)
But “[t]he court in the Hobby Lobby case rejected the idea that the intent of RFRA was only to restore the law as it was in 1990 before Smith,” Trope says. “Instead, the court essentially held that RFRA provides broader protection than was provided by the First Amendment prior to the Smith case.”
Because the application of RFRA to Native sacred sites has been unresolved to date – notwithstanding the Ninth Circuit’s toiling in Navajo Nation’s San Francisco Peaks case – Trope finds in the latest decision a reason to be hopeful.
“[O]nly time will tell whether the interpretation of RFRA in
Hobby Lobby turns out to be helpful in future sacred sites cases or whether courts will continue to find ways to reject Indian religious freedom claims,” says Trope.
Read more athttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...618?page=0%2C1
There' still time to get in some culture this summer, Part I, East Coast
Best places to experience Native American culture
By Dana Joseph, for CNN
April 24, 2014 -- Updated 0307 GMT [[1107 HKT)
CNN) -- Think Native American culture has been co-opted by casinos, twisted by inaccurate films, relegated to the rez or buried with arrowheads?
No chance.
American Indian culture is alive and thriving in modern galleries, powwows, museum exhibits, film festivals and restaurants.
Here are some of the best places in the United States to experience Native America [[arranged in a roughly east-to-west geographic order).
The National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center [[New York)
The George Gustav Heye Center in New York is part of the National Museum of the American Indian.
"The Heye Center began as the personal collection of George Gustav Heye, a wealthy investment banker who collected nearly a million items that became the largest collection of American Indian items in the world," says NMAI director Kevin Gover [[Pawnee).
Heye's will stipulates that his collection always be made available to the people of New York, and since 1994, it's been on view for all to see in Lower Manhattan across from Battery Park, in the historic Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House.
Highlights of the collection include 10 headdresses from different Native tribes and duck decoys from Lovelock Cave, Nevada [[at ca. 400 B.C.-A.D. 100, they're the oldest known in the world).
Nursing moms will especially appreciate the Yup'ik jacket that holds junior on Mom's back till feeding time, when the jacket can be ingeniously turned forward.
Elsewhere in New York City, which, by the way, has the largest indigenous population of any city in the country, the Queens County Farm Museum holds the Thunderbird American Indian Mid-Summer Pow Wow, the city's largest and oldest [[July 25-27, 2014).
MORE: 10 easy ways to experience Navajo America
National Museum of the American Indian [[Washington, D.C.)
The National Museum of the American Indian is the Smithsonian Institution's great national repository of American Indian art and culture on the National Mall.
"Our world-class collection covers cultures from North, Central and South America and totals more than 800,000 items," says museum director Kevin Gover. "Our Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe was the first Zagat-rated museum cafe in Washington and has a devoted following."
The museum presents a full calendar of public programs, including concerts, festivals, symposiums and theater, along with one-of-a-kind temporary exhibitions featuring the likes of esteemed Native artists such as Fritz Scholder, George Morrison, Brian Jungen and Allan Houser.
It's Native inside and out: the design of the grounds has reintroduced a landscape indigenous to the Washington area before "contact."
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/15/travel/best-usa-indian-culture/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
Another Summer Journey -- Visit Our Beautiful Serpent Mound east of Cincinnati
Exiting new date information puts it hundreds of years BCE [[before Christian Era)http://d1jrw5jterzxwu.cloudfront.net...3.00.24_pm.png
History Got it Wrong: Scientists Now Say Serpent Mound as Old as Aristotle
Geoffrey Sea 8/7/14
Serpent Mound in rural Adams County, Ohio, is one of the premier Native American earthworks in the hemisphere. Its pristine flowing form was enhanced by major reconstruction in the 1880s. That reconstruction now appears to have been the second time in its long life that Serpent Mound has shed some of its skin.
Estimates of the age of the earthwork are now radically revised as the result of a new radiocarbon analysis, suggesting that the mound is about 1,400 years older than conventionally thought. The new date of construction is estimated at approximately 321 BCE, one year after the death of Aristotle in Greece.
Signs and other interpretive material have been made obsolete virtually overnight, along with ideas about the indigenous culture responsible for the astounding artwork. A paper by an eight-member team led by archaeologist William Romain has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science with a free-access summary available on Romain’s website.
The new data alters thinking about three things:
- the culture responsible for the mound;
- the Native groups that are direct descendants of those builders;
- and the purpose and iconography of the work.
Dispatching other theories about Serpent Mound’s origin, Romain’s summary concludes:
“Both the consensus of opinion and radiocarbon evidence suggest an Adena construction.”
Traditionally, Serpent Mound was attributed to the Adena Culture or Civilization, based on an adjacent conical Adena burial mound, and the similarity of style of the effigy with many other Adena earthworks of the Ohio Valley. Just 30 miles southeast of Serpent Mound were the Portsmouth Works, with only a few surviving remnants, interpreted by the pioneering archaeoastronomer Stansbury Hagar as representing the effigy of a rattlesnake 50 times larger than Serpent Mound, both with species identification features indicative of the timber rattlesnake.
However, an investigation in the 1990s found two charcoal samples in Serpent Mound that dated to the later time of about 1070 CE. Site managers then attributed construction to the Late Woodland “Fort Ancient Culture,” even though the so-called “Fort Ancient Culture” has been disassociated from the Fort Ancient earthwork in Warren County, Ohio, and is not known to have built large earthworks. Indeed it has been misnamed a “culture” and is now understood more as an interaction phenomenon involving multiple ethnolinguistic groups that came together in the Ohio Valley in the Late Woodland Period, between 500 CE and 1200 CE.
“Fort Ancient Culture” is neither a fort, nor ancient, nor a culture. Yet it has been identified as the author of Serpent Mound, except in those circles where the mound has been attributed to giants or space aliens or giant space aliens.
The “Fort Ancient” designation has been problematic, because as an unreal entity, the so-called culture has no clear descendants. Adena, on the contrary, is strongly identified from archaeology, genetics, and historical linguistics as Algonquian, its descendants being the Anishinaabeg, the Miami-Illinois, the Shawnee, the Kickapoo, the Meskwaki, and the Asakiwaki.
The new investigation by Romain and others found much older charcoal samples in less-damaged sections of the mound. The investigators conjecture that the mound was originally built between 381 BCE and 44 BCE, with a mean date of 321 BCE. They explain the more recent charcoal found in the 1990s as likely the result of a “repair” effort by Indians around 1070 CE, when the mound would already have been suffering from natural degradation. Late Woodland Period graves at the site suggest the earthwork continued to serve a mortuary function, and that this was the principal nature of the site, directing spirits of the dead from burial mounds and subsurface graves northward, not a place to conduct large ceremonial gatherings as has been suggested by tourism/promotion interests.
Without Serpent Mound as a “ceremonial center” at its geographic core, the notion of a “Fort Ancient Culture” has literally been gutted.
That the new date adds a very sophisticated earthwork to the corpus of the Adena, whom some had considered “primitive,” lends new weight to reconsideration of the non-distinction between “Adena” and “Hopewell” and the need for a general revision of the naming conventions for prehistoric cultures of the Ohio Valley. A simplified revised chronology would see the Adena Civilization leading straight to the historic Central Algonquian tribes in the heartland of the Ohio Valley.
The new study comes just as Serpent Mound is being advanced for addition to the UNESCO World Heritage List, a nomination that will have to be rethought as a result of the new date and its implications. Members of the Central Algonquian tribes now have scientific claim to be considered the heirs of Serpent Mound, raising questions about the structure of site management, now conducted by the Ohio History Connection and Arc of Appalachia Preserve System.
What is certain is that ancient Ohioans were not only building extremely sophisticated geometric works that rivalled or surpassed those of contemporary classical Greece, but they were also repairing or renovating them over millennia.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...ts-dirt-156268
Our water in danger from tailings potentially pouring into Lake Superior
I have very little confidence in the Michigan Supreme Court, a body that has shown itself to be extremely business friendly.
Eagle Mine Gets Court Nod as Keweenaw Bay Indian Appeal Overturned
ICTMN Staff 8/14/14
The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community has lost its 12-year legal battle to stop the construction of Eagle Mine on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
A three-judge panel on the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled on August 13 that state regulators were within their rights in allowing Kennecott Minerals Co. to build a nickel and copper mine, the Associated Press reported. The unanimous ruling said that mining and groundwater-discharge permits for the Marquette County mine were validly issued. The current owner is Lundin Mining Corp., based in Toronto.
The Keweenaw Bay Indians are concerned about the potential for groundwater contamination, as “wastewater discharges into an aquifer below the Yellow Dog Plains that discharges to freshwater springs and the Salmon Trout River,” according to a fact sheet compiled by the tribe. In addition there are worries about the stability of the mine pillar because “if collapse of the mine crown pillar occurs beneath the Salmon Trout River, there will be significant irreversible impact to the watershed.”
Access to traditional sacred sites and use of Migi zii wa sin, or Eagle Rock, “a place of cultural and spiritual significance to Native Americans,” has been all but cut off, the Keweenaw said. More than 500 members attended the appeals hearing in June, the tribe said in a press release at the time.
Joining the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community were environmental groups and a private hunting and fishing club, all of whom objected on environmental grounds. They had been fighting since the mine was first proposed in 2002, and the appeal had been languishing since last year.
RELATED:Mine May Open Next Year as Last-Chance Appeal Languishes
There's still a chance the plaintiffs will appeal in Michigan Supreme Court, a spokesperson for the National Wildlife Federation told AP. But construction on the mine is nearly complete, The Mining Journal reported in mid-July.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...rturned-156401
We have so many dangers to our waters, the precious lifeblood of our planet. The pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac, the nuclear waste dump on Lake Huron where it pours on down through the St. Clair River to name some baddies. Are we responsible for preserving water to tide us all through times of shortage?
Book Review -- Empire of the Summer Moon
Boneheaded Errors Ruin NYT Bestseller About Comanche Leader
Peter d'Errico 8/19/14
I started to read S.C. Gwynne's book,Empire of the Summer Moon,about Quanah Parker and the U.S. war against the Comanche, but I don't know if I'll finish it.
It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and aNew York Timesbestseller. The cover blurbs say, "transcendent," "mesmerizing," "glorious," "riveting." Sounds like a no-brainer to read it. Unfortunately, there's a fair amount of no-brainer content in the first chapters, starting on page one, where the story about to be told is described as "the final destruction of the last of the hostile tribes…."
We've heard that before, numerous times. If the "hostiles" are the Indians, the attacking whites are telling the story. Page one concludes with a reference to "savage massacres" by Chivington and Custer, so maybe the book isn't going to be one-sided. But there's nothing "transcendent" about that.
But page two opens with a statement that "in those days [Chivington and Custer ] there was no real attempt to destroy the tribes on a larger scale." That is a flat-out wrong assertion.
The historical record of attempted outright destruction of the indigenous peoples starts with the earliest invaders: John Mason, commander of colonial forces, attacked the Pequot in 1636 so viciously as to effectively eliminate them as a nation. In hishistoryof the events, he praises "God" for helping "to cut off the Remembrance of [the Pequot] from the Earth."
Lord Jeffrey Amherst, of smallpox blanket infamy, in 1763, wrote that he wanted "Measures to be taken as would Bring about the Total Extirpation of [the] Indian Nations"; measures that would "put a most Effectual Stop to their very Being."
Page two also deploys the stereotypical adjectives so familiar to readers of white histories. The "bluecoats" about to enter Comanche lands are described as "at the edge of the known universe," a "trackless and featureless" place. The fact that this description concludes with the statement "white men became lost and disoriented" does not undo the stereotype; in fact, it reaffirms that the landscape itself, like its indigenous inhabitants, is presented from an invader's perspective.
Page three opens with a reference to the "homelands" of the Comanche, but goes on to describe this homeland as the "western frontier…an open and bleeding wound, a smoking ruin littered with corpses and charred chimneys…where anarchy and torture killings had replaced the rule of law, where Indians…raided at will."
Does it make any difference that the page also refers to Indian reservations as places of "abject subjugation and starvation"? Not really, because this is followed by a reference to the "razor edge of civilization," where "Indian marauders are "depopulat[ing]" the colonial invaders. Are the Indians ruining their own homeland? Or is it the invaders who are marauders?
The problem with this book, so far, is not that it doesn't mention white violence and "savagery." In fact, it describes American civilization as a phenomenon of "harquebuses and blunderbusses and muskets and…lethal repeating weapons and…endless stocks of eager, land-greedy settlers…elegant moral double standards and…complete disregard for native interests."
The problem, at least so far as the introductory chapters go, is that the author doesn't use his critical stance on the invaders to see through the stereotypes. His critique does not immunize him from the invader culture. Again and again, his knowledge that the whites are an "invading civilization," populated by "grim, violent, opportunistic men" whose slaughter of the buffalo became "the greatest mass destruction of warm-blooded animals in human history," does not prevent him from making such statements as that the whites were in "a truly anarchic place ruled entirely by Indians." He repeatedly refers to the Comanche as "primitive."
A key concept in his presentation is that the "American empire" was at war with the "Comanche empire." Yet he also admits that the Comanche "were content with what they had won," while the "Anglo-Americans, children of Manifest Destiny, were not." He also acknowledges that the Comanche "empire" was "not an empire in the traditional sense," and that it "was not based solely on military supremacy." Are these not such deeply significant differences that they undermine the notion of two empires?
I took a break from the book on page 27, where he refers to Texas as the place where "human settlement first arrived at the edges of the Great Plains" and encountered "Indians [who] were primitive nomads and superb riders." Do we have to debate whether the Indians, however "primitive," were "humans"?! Or do we have to parse his words so carefully to see that he may be using "human settlement" in a technical way, to mean those who build certain kinds of buildings and put up fences? If that's the case, we're still looking at a book that is confused and confusing, certainly not [[yet) "transcendent," "mesmerizing," "glorious," or "riveting."
Peter d’Errico graduated from Yale Law School in 1968. Staff attorney in Dinebeiina Nahiilna Be Agaditahe Navajo Legal Services, 1968-1970. Taught Legal Studies at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1970-2002. Consulting attorney on indigenous issues
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...omanche-leader
Revisiting Bitter Tears, new release of Johnny Cash work
Posted August 23, 2014 - 9:00pm
Star-studded album ‘Look Again to the Wind’ revisits Johnny Cash’s controversial ‘Bitter Tears’
By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times
On the heels of two of the biggest hits of his career in “Ring of Fire” and “Understand Your Man,” Johnny Cash was a hot commodity in 1964 when he gave his record company an ambitious new concept album, “Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian.”
But the label treated that album more like a hot potato because of its potentially controversial subject matter, prompting Cash to take matters into his own hands to promote a project that he consistently cited as one of the proudest moments of his storied career.
A half-century later, “Bitter Tears” is getting another shot at recognition through “Look Again to the Wind: Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears Revisited,” a new version recorded by a group of country and Americana stars. Released Tuesday, the album includes performances by Cash’s friends Kris Kristofferson and Emmylou Harris as well as singer-songwriters Steve Earle, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Native American musician Bill Miller, Carolina Chocolate Drops singer Rhiannon Giddens and L.A.’s quirky duo Milk Carton Kids.
For producer and roots music specialist Joe Henry, “Bitter Tears” isn’t just a high watermark in American popular music, but one whose exploration of the injustices suffered by Native Americans for much of the past four centuries opened “a window into a particular part of our history that remains open and unresolved.”
“You have to understand, Johnny Cash was my first conscious musical hero of my lifetime,” Henry said. “My consciousness of Johnny Cash and my debt to him is tremendous and far-reaching.”
But as much as Henry admired Cash, he acknowledged that “I did not understand the significance of the line he drew with his own record label and the music industry at large in 1964, when the record was released.”
That refers to the struggle Cash had with Columbia Records executives to promote “Bitter Tears” at a time when country music _ especially country radio _ had little interest in politically conscious music. Among the toughest sells was “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” songwriter Peter La Farge’s castigation of the disrespect the Native American Hayes received upon returning home from serving in the military during World War II and being part of the team that raised the flag at Iwo Jima, Japan.
“This is not something the record company wanted because the record company wanted hits — and John wanted to make music that he felt mattered, especially concept albums like ‘Bitter Tears’ and ‘Ride This Train,’” said Robert Hilburn, author of the 2013 biography “Johnny Cash: The Life” and former pop music critic for The Times.
“One of his greatest gifts was the way he empathized with people in need, especially underdogs, because he had been an underdog himself, coming from a poor dirt farm in Arkansas,” Hilburn said. “But that empathy stretched from convicts — hence the ‘Folsom Prison’ album — to struggling workers, to what he sensed was the greatest underdog of all, the Native American.
“He felt so strongly about the country’s mistreatment of Native Americans that he took out a full page ad in Billboard, the music trade publication, lashing out at pop and country disc jockeys for not playing the single ‘The Ballad of Ira Hayes,’” Hilburn added.
Cash went a step further, paying an independent record promotion company to push the “Ira Hayes” single to those DJs [[including a personal note reading, “I really need your help on this one, pal,” Hilburn noted). The efforts paid off, and the song reached No. 3 on the Billboard Country Singles chart in the summer of ‘64.
“John and I had the same social conscience, I think,” Kristofferson told The Times in a separate interview. Kristofferson performs “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” on the new version.
“I always respected that song because when he did it, it wasn’t so popular,” he said. “But John always did what he thought was right, and I thought that was a pretty great way to go through life ... John was one of the first celebrities who took up the Native American cause. He had so much respect that I think it made a big impression on people.”
It certainly did on Miller, the three-time Grammy Award-winning Native American singer and songwriter who performs the title track, the only song that did not appear on the original album, but was also written by La Farge, the New York folk artist who wrote the majority of the album’s original songs.
Miller was 9 when “Bitter Tears” was released, but he vividly remembers its effect on the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican reservation where he grew up in Wisconsin.
“It was unforgettable,” he said. “In 1964, not only did I tune in Feb. 9 to watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, but that was the year my dad bought me ‘Bitter Tears.’ So I’ve had that record since I was a little kid. …Whenever we would get on buses and go off the reservation, there would be kids laughing and calling you names. There was a lot of hard racial stuff going on up there.
“So at the same time you’d hear people talk about the Beatles and the music representing their culture, which I loved, we had this album that spoke about our culture,” Miller said. “I didn’t play it for everybody, but when I listened to it I felt lifted, and so happy, because I was such a Johnny Cash fan.”
For Cash, “Bitter Tears” wasn’t a narrowly focused bromide against the unfair treatment of Native Americans, but part of the broader political conversation that was front and center in the 1960s.
“My father didn’t only have sympathy for the Native Americans’ plight and needs; he considered himself to be one of them,” said John Carter Cash, Cash’s son from his marriage to June Carter, referring to his father’s belief at the time that he was part Cherokee, which turned out not to be the case. “His heart never felt so deeply as when he recorded ‘Bitter Tears’ and no greater afterward.”
Added producer Henry: “He was bewildered why more people couldn’t connect the dots. He thought the civil rights movement was not strictly an African American issue, it’s a civil rights issue, and why aren’t we considering this all under the same banner?
“At the end of the day,” Henry said, “I would say my great hope is that people will not only be moved by the music as song, but that they will really be reminded that this issue is not ancient history. Things are not better now than they were 50 years ago for Native Americans.
“We’ve not made strides like we’ve made elsewhere, and we shouldn’t all be so OK with that. There’s a relevant, and active conversation that needs to be engaged.”
- See more at: http://amestrib.com/entertainment/st....N3LX4jZn.dpuf
Cuba finds its Native leaders, "invisible" for many generations
The Cacique in Havana: Visible at the Dawn of the 21st Century
Jose Barreiro 8/26/14
A new consciousness of Cuban reality emerged as the cacique and his daughter stepped out from a 20-year trail and into indigenous and global history.
In Havana, Cuba, early August, Native delegations from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Trinidad, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, gathered at the Cuban intellectual center, Casa de las Americas, for a colloquium to examine the issues of indigenous peoples to be posed to the United Nations.
Formally and openly – officially – don Francisco Ramirez Rojas, el Cacique Panchito, and his daughter, Idalis, also a community leader, represented their people from La Rancheria, one of several dozen Indian communities and family “caserios” [[multi-family homesteads) scattered throughout the eastern mountains.
For Cuban history, it was a momentous occasion, as it marked the first time since the Spanish conquest, that an Indian cacique of the Cuban mountains stood before an international gathering, representing an actual Cuban indigenous community, the guajiro-taino gens, of the noted Indios de Yateras.
The visiting indigenous delegates were immediately elated to meet the cacique. An Aymara diplomat from Bolivia, Erwin Mamani, declared, “We were told Cuba had no Indians. So, we are very happy to meet you. Now we know it is not true.”
The Guatemalan ambassador to Cuba, His Excellency Juan Leon de Alvarado, a co-sponsor of the high-level indigenous event, formally greeted the Cuban cacique.
“You are now and forever part of this history. As indigenous people, we greet you; we are so very happy to finally meet the Cuban Indian leadership.” The ambassador is Maya-Quiché. He formally greeted Cacique Panchito in his language.
The indigenous women leadership at the event, particularly Marta Sanchez, Amuzga people, from Mexico, and Ruth Buendia, Asháninka from Peru, quickly embraced Idalis Ramirez. Idalis expressed her mountain Indio culture strongly, and was resolute in the survival to the present and future-orientation of her Indian generations in Cuba.
“Here we are, deeply planted [[plantao). Here we are going to stay.”
From the onset, when Panchito thanked the president of Casa de las Americas, signal Cuban poet, Roberto Fernandez Retamar, and welcomed the “Indian people, like us, from other countries,” the cacique was well ensconced as spiritual host of the event. Fernandez Retamar and the intellectual core at “Casa”, steeped in Cuba’s half century of revolutionary tradition, gave the Cuban Indian community leaders generous respect. Centuries of denial and invisibility lifted as fog to reveal the smiling and sincere faces from La Rancheria.
In 1995, the cacique had told us: “We want to let ourselves be known.” He also said: “We want to meet the other Indian people, see if they are like us.”
Alejandro Hartmann and I had arrived, after years of intent, at their community base of La Rancheria. Thus began a twenty-year journey, adventures of joy and sorrow, danger and reward, and always on the trail of self-discovery and self-revelation that the cacique had signaled. Some day the full story of that journey will be told. For now suffices this point of emergence, the beloved cacique at the core of hemispheric indigenous representation, and also of Cuban intellectuality, with the message and aspiration of the Taino ancestors.
The Cuban Indian emergence, as invited by the colloquium organizers, notably indigenous studies program director, Jaime Gomez Triana, was granted generous and central space. Our twenty years of orality research and documentation with the cacique and with other elders and leaders of the Cuban Indian community, was allotted a full two hours for presentation and discussion. The hall was crowded with many standing as Panchito and Idalis intoned their songs and appreciations and delivered their messages. Panchito, as always, spoke of the Madre Tierra.
“I plant,” he said. “I am campesino. I am obliged to hurt our mother, to cut her, to burn on her. How do I repay you, how do we, the human beings, repay our mother, who is so generous and who loves us so?”
As Gomez Triana pointed out, indigenous peoples as the UN are directly aligning their own rights with the “construction of alternative paradigms for the protection of the Mother Earth.”
Panchito and Idalis’ traditional knowledge, of herbal medicines, the properties of trees and the many intricate cropping practices of the ancient Cuban Taino tubers, most notably the yucca, or manioc, is apparent. A sense of respect and audience appreciation for their particular orality is not long in surfacing. This is most important as it belies the notion espoused by some that while the Rancheria folks may have “some biological inheritance,” they must not have any “cultural” legacy that marks their own indigeneity.
In our dual presentation, Hartmann and I got the chance to review the deep history of Cuban indigeneity. From the very indigenous Taino name of Cuba, survivor of persistent Spanish intents to rename the island, to the recent genetic studies showing quite high [[33 percent) Native American Mitochondrial DNA for the Cuban population, to the substantial Taino homesteading knowledge that transfers into and molds our foundational culture, the invisible thread becomes palpable. This orality mounts and deepens in reviewing the documentation on Panchito’s people, whose extensive numbers, their sustaining of an office of cacique, and, in particular, their extensive repertoire of community music and dance and their central Ceremony of Macuyo, the ritual prayer of the tobacco, reveal rich cultural matria.
As the week progressed, other Cuban personalities, academics and diplomats of note, passed through the sessions of the colloquium. There was a diplomatic corps reception by the Bolivian embassy, at the plush Hotel Nacional. Cacique Panchito, modest and circumspect, was particularly sought out, including a heartfelt conversation with Bolivian Ambassador, Mr Palmiro León Soria Saucedo, and with the circle of indigenous delegates.
As always in these adventures, with Panchito on travel mode, many telling episodes, spiritual teachings, great exchanges among peoples – too much for this short space. The prize was his presence, at nearly eighty years, still vibrant and to the point, representing a reality – a way of being and a way to be -- that will not die.
One day, there was an honoring for the Cuban international jurist, Miguel Alfonso Martinez. The panel included the former Cuban minister of foreign affairs, Ricardo Alarcon and other Cuban diplomats and hemispheric indigenous delegates. In the 1990s, Miguel Alfonso conducted a major study of American Indian treaties, a praiseworthy contribution, among others, to the United Nations advocacy by indigenous peoples.
A young Cuban diplomat at the panel, readying for United Nations duty, commented on consistent Cuban support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. His clear analysis was well received. But when in passing, he mentioned that Cuban Indians had nearly disappeared, even though there are “some Cuban Indian descendents,” [in the eastern mountains], and that, “here the genocide was overwhelming …” implying a finality … the awkward moment was punctured neatly by Jaime Gomez. Aquí estan, he told the Cuban diplomat “Here they are.”
But Panchito and Idalis were already on their feet, with their hands up, “Aqui estamos,” Idalis repeated.
Surprised by their presence, yet after the panel, the young Cuban diplomat appeared more than pleased to meet Panchito in person. A circle formed around the two, and both men requested a photograph. Others joined. Recognition is a process; the revitalization of a whole people is an even longer process.
Later there would be a ceremony, in a cave at Mayabeque – all the Native delegates; the Cuban personnel; local healers and authorities. It is an ancient cave, inhabited by many bats, a ray of sunlight coming through the rock. All together, in a circle of consciousness, the fire delivered and Panchito called the spirits of the place, the smoke of copal and tobacco blending to signal to the sky the message of Indian survival.
Jose Barreiro is the assistant director for research [[history and culture), Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...n-21st-century
Indian Country version of Ferguson, White Cop tazes Native Elder 17 times
Why? Apparently because he could not get up when she ordered him to. She was going to charge him with resisting arrest for not getting up. Not a tribal member, self described as a "white mutt."
This happened August 15. She is already indicted and under FBI investigation. -- Gazhekwe
Female Tribal Officer Caught Tazing Native Man 17 Times Is Indicted
Vincent Schilling, 8/28/14
Rebecca M. Sotherland, an Oglala Sioux Tribe police officer, has been indicted for the use of “excessive force,” following a video that went viral last week showing her tazing an unresponsive man approximately 17 times.
According to a release issued by United States Attorney Brendan V. Johnson from the District of South Dakota, Sotherland, 32, was indicted on August 26, 2014, by a federal grand jury for violating the constitutional rights of a man in her custody [[on August 15) by repeatedly using her Taser on him without justification and for Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law and Assault with a Dangerous Weapon.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe made no formal comment to ICTMN other than to confirm that a meeting between OST Tribal officials, the BIA and the OST Department Public of Safety was held and reports from the OST DPS have been turned over to the BIA Internal Affairs office for the start of an investigation. The FBI is conducting a separate investigation.
OST President Bryan Brewer did comment publicly on Facebook stating, “Good Morning people who live in the Wounded Knee district and the Pine Ridge reservation. Office[r] Sutherland has been placed on suspension until further investigation. This investigation will happen very soon. The video camera she carries has yet to be reviewed. I will notify the people when further action is taken. Wopila”
The video, which shows Sotherland repeatedly tazing an unresponsive man with onlookers swearing, counting the amount of audible tazings to 17 – was shot on a cell phone and was shared thousands of times on Facebook within hours. The video, entitled “Sadistic Cop Tazes Man 17 times” and other similar titles has since hit news agencies all over the world and the video has been uploaded all over the internet.
On Facebook, several commenters claim they witnessed the incident as well as knew of the victim and/or Officer Sotherland.
Sis Cliff on Facebook says her daughter recorded the video and remarked about Officer Sotherland, “I hope this girl is no longer a police officer. All she had to do was let him up, he was asleep when she started to taze him.”
Cliff further responded to a woman who thanked her for recording the incident, “Don’t thank me, thank my baby. She stopped her from doing more if she didn't stop and see this [[THIS MAN PROBABLY WOULD OF GOT KILLED BY THIS SO CALLED OFFICER) the man was intoxicated & could not help his self he was handcuffed as well.”
Another commenter on Facebook Otto Cuny responded to the video in a curse-laden post, “[Deleted]…she threw my dad in mud and was going to charge him with resisting arrest if he didn't get up. Hope something is actually done about this...this [deleted] will hurt elders so for damn sure she'll hurt a kid.”
Another woman who says she was a witness, Laura Clifford commented, “The kids even said, ‘that's the 17th time she tazed him’ so sad they were watching & had to count each time. I saw it too. It was sickening.”
According to a May 29, 2014 story on MSNBC entitled, “Law and disorder on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, ”Officer Sotherland was featured and described as an “oddity” on the OST police force because she is a “blonde-haired, blue-eyed, former hair salon-owner, former city coroner who describes herself as a “white mutt.”
According to the MSNBC article, Sotherland grew up about an hour northeast of the reservation, in Hot Springs and joined the tribal police department last year. She also patrolled alone, often on foot as it was “easier to get the drop on unsuspecting drinkers and other lawbreakers.”
Penalties in accordance to the actions of Sotherland if convicted include a maximum 10 years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine, three years of supervised release, and a copy 00 assessment to the federal crime victims’ fund. Restitution to the victim may also be ordered.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...ndicted-156636
Anishinaabe Hockey Legend speaks out on Washington team name
[The Nolans are from Garden River, Ontario, just across the St. Mary's River from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Before the boundary, Garden River and Bawating were the same community. We are all connected. -- Gazhekwe]
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Ojibwa Hockey Legend Ted Nolan Doesn't Like the R-Word
ICTMN Staff 6/19/13
In a column posted this afternoon,The Buffalo News's Tim Graham writes about talking to former Buffalo Sabres head coach Ted Nolan, Ojibwa, about theR-word. In short, Nolan does not like it.
"There are certain things you can't call black people or Chinese people or Jewish people. We as Native Americans, or First Nation people as we're called in Canada, we find it offensive," Nolan said.
"Sure, the Redskins name has been around for generations," Nolan said, "but when you're a person of that race and someone calls you a redskin, they don't know why they're saying it, where the word comes form or what the word means."
Graham wrote a column last week in which he committed to never again writing or saying the R-word that Washington uses as its nickname. "I believe it's a slur, and Merriam-Webster agrees with me by definition," he wrote.
"I was interested in what Nolan had to say because he's one of the most prominent Native American sportsmen in recent decades and easily the most notable around Western New York."
Nolan was named NHL coach of the year with the Sabres in 1997 and later led the New York Islanders to the playoffs. He's now coach of the Latvian national team that will play in the 2014 Winter Olympics. His son, Jordan Nolan, won the Stanley Cup with the Los Angeles Kings last year.
Read Graham's entire column, "Go ahead and tell Ted Nolan your theories on why the R-word is OK," by clicking here.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...-r-word-150003
Pictures to show some of the sad history of our nation
Taken in the years following the Massacre at Wounded Knee, 1890.
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The caption says: Famous Battery “E” of 1st Artillery. These brave men and the Hotchkiss gun that Big Foot’s Indians thought were toys, together with the fighting 7th what’s left of Gen. Custer’s boys, sent 200 Indians to that Heaven which the ghost dancer enjoys. This checked the Indian noise and Gen. Miles with staff returned to Illinois. [[J.C.H. Grabill/Library of Congress)
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What’s left of Big Foot’s Band. Taken near Deadwood, South Dakota in 1891. [[This was after the Massacre of Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. This was all that remained of Big Foot’s Band.) [[J.C.H. Grabill/Library of Congress)
[One of the three women is Blue Whirlwind who survived with her two sons. All were wounded, Blue Whirlwind had 14 wounds.]
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See all 25 pictures and article here: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...e-ridge-152654
