Paging Gazhekwe

[gazhekwe]

The original post telling the story of the Spring Beauties 3-7-10, Post #310

That year, they bloomed in my yard April 11, post #336.

The year after, they showed up April 27, 2011, post 665.

The next year, it was March 27, 2012, post 890.

Last year, it was April 20, 2013, post 1199.


Spring beauties in April 2010

[gazhekwe]

Some say LaCrosse was born in Iroquois country. There's a fairly recent movie about that, a formula movie, but lots of fun. We get to see Native actors celebrating a Native sport. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOqSi-_cXeE

Of course, we played it in Ojibwe country too. In fact, a game of bagatiway was the basis for gaining entrance to Fort Michilimackinac in one important battle of Pontiac's war. We almost won that war!

And now we see two Onondaga brothers dominating the sport.

Brothers Lyle and Miles Thompson, Onondaga, who play lacrosse for the University at Albany, were the two leading scorers in NCAA Men's Division I Lacrosse going into Friday's game against the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.Albany survived the match 18-14, and the Thompson brothers set two school records in the process.

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...d-books-154538

[Pam]

Happy Earth Day.

[gazhekwe]

Spring Beauties popped up today, April 23, 2014. Spring is finally officially here!

[Pam]

Another Keystone pipeline protest:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024881009

[gazhekwe]

It’s not likely the High Court will issue the final word on whether the Bay Mills Indian Community can run its casino in Vanderbilt. But it’s possible justices could issue a broad ruling with implications for tribal business across the nation, says tribal law expert Matthew Fletcher. He says the court could radically change the way tribes are, or are not, shielded from lawsuits.

[gazhekwe]

DH posted a picture of the Spring Beauties!

[gazhekwe]

The Awful History Behind Why Hipsters Think It's OK to Wear Headdresses

By DJ Lanphier May 6, 2014

• 6

When Christina Fallin, the lead singer of indie electronica band Pink Pony [[and daughter of Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin), posted a photo of herself to Instagram in March wearing a Native American headdress with the caption "Appropriate Culturation," thesocial media and Internet backlash was swift. Flaming Lips drummer Kliph Scurlock protested her stupidity. In a seemingly unrelated move, he was summarily fired by the alternative rock band.
Last week, though, the story came to light again. In a statement, Scurlock explained that: "I was fired for telling Christina to go fuck herself after her lame-ass 'apology' when people got upset at her stupid headdress photo." Wayne Coyne, a friend of Fallin's, wouldn't let it stand. Six days later, Fallin went onstage with her band at the Norman Music Festival. There were protesters in the crowd, demanding an apology. Instead, they got Fallin wearing a handmade shawl with the word 'SHEEP' stitched in the back [[she has since claimed it was an attack on journalists exaggerating her actions). Her mother — and her band — apologized almost immediately.


Image Credit: Christina Owen.
Whatever her reason for the shawl, Fallin isn't alone in this. Recently, popular music has really been sticking it to people who care about Native American culture. A few weeks ago, Coachella was crawling with hipsters wearing Native American headdresses, renting teepees for a small fortune and Instagramming it all. We're reaching a fever pitch of outrageous cultural appropriation.
At Fallin's concert, someone was holding a sign that read "Don't trend on me." But this isn't a recent trend — it's a problem America has encouraged for decades, and one with a deep musical past.


Image Credit: Instagram.
A long time ago, popular culture, the film and TV industry, the music industry and the general public decided that appropriating Native American culture such as the headdress was no big deal. It was common place. It was everywhere — in comics, on TV shows and popular movies, on playgrounds in games of Cowboys and Indians and shouts of "Indian Giver!"
The fact that Native Americans might take great issue with having their ancient cultural and spiritual heritage assimilated, misused and turned into pop culture fashion for sale has never really been discussed nor appreciated in a manner that would solicit real awareness because it's been taken for granted in our popular culture for so long.

Image Credit: Fury Comics.
That cultural appropriation has a deep root in music, specifically. Country Western music picked up where Westerns left off in its stereotyping of Native Americans. This kind of representation was dominant in the '50s and '60s. Just look at older country songs like Hank Williams' humorous Indian love ballad "Kaw-Liga." In fact, country music used Native- American stereotypes so heavily that in 1964 Johnny Cash felt compelled to record an album called Bitter Tears, comprised entirely of "Indian protest songs."
But even though Cash was at the height of his popularity, Columbia Records refused to release the LP, stating that it was not commercial enough. Privately, it was understood that many local radio managers and DJs considered the content "un-American" and were refusing to play it before its release. A very public fight ensued, culminating in its release, but with almost no support from Columbia. The record languished. So there you have it: resisting cultural appropriation is un-American.

"Music lies at the heart of Indian culture. From birth to death, all occasions, sacred and secular, personal and tribal, in the life of the Plains Indian are inextricably intertwined with musical performances." - The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains

But when, in 1969, pop group The 1910 Fruitgum Company released an album titled Indian Giver featuring a cover with each member wearing a different Native American headdress, no one complained like they had about the Cash record. The title song reached No. 5 on the Billboard chart. For the decades following, Native American clothing and similar references plagued rock as a poor, commercialized symbol of 'spirituality.'


Image Credit: Buddah Records.
Fast-forward half a century of social and political achievement, and approximately nothing has changed. In 1994, Tim McGraw released a song called "Indian Outlaw." It was a pop crossover hit; the fastest rising country single since Billy Ray Cyrus's "Achy Breaky Heart." And it was every bit as stereotypical as it sounds. In 2012, Gwen Stefani's No Doubt, no strangers to controversy cashed in on some Native American cultural appropriation in a video. There's all those indie music fans supporting Urban Outfitters in its pursuit of the mysterious Navajo. And of course there are these picture from Heidi Klum a couple of weeks ago:



Image credit: Facebook
We need to wake up to why this matters.
For centuries, Native Americans have watched their culture disappear, its meaning and importance misunderstood, vilified and sold. It isn't hard to understand why Native Americans would want the significance of a headdress preserved — it's a spiritual item, used in musical rituals that help define Native American culture. If you wouldn't wear a yarmulke or a turban or a burqa as a costume, why would you wear a headdress? No one wants to raise their kids thinking they belong to a culture relevant only to people too old to be wearing kid-Halloween costumes and stoned festival goers.
As 70% of Native Americans now live in a metropolitan area [[8% in 1940) it's important to preserve symbols since America has left little else native to Native populations. Headdresses are not a toy to be bought, sold and worn for a drunk weekend then tossed aside. It's a long-standing problem — one we've needed to address for far too long.
But there is hope. When rappers like Christian Parrish Takes the Gun, an Apsáalooke American Indian from the Crow Nation Reservation, can become MTV's Artist of the Week, there's hope. American Indian voices are raising in their culture's actual songs. Centuries on, it's time America listened.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0jq7jIa34Y

http://www.policymic.com/articles/88941/the-awful-history-behind-why-hipsters-think-it-s-ok-to-wear-headdresses

[gazhekwe]

The United States Senate Votes 96-0 to Confirm Diane J. Humetewa to be a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
THE PRESIDING OFFICER: THE SENATOR FROM ARIZONA:
MR. McCAIN: I'D LIKE TO MENTION TO MY COLLEAGUES THAT WITH THIS VOTE, WE WILL BE MAKING HISTORY IN SOME RESPECTS AND I THINK WE SHOULD ALL BE PROUD OF THE FACT THAT THIS NOMINEE, DIANE HUMETEWA OF THE HOPI TRIBE, WILL BE THE FIRST NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN TO BE ON THE FEDERAL BENCH. IT'S A PROUD MOMENT FOR HER, HER TRIBE AND NATIVE AMERICANS.

[gazhekwe]

Honoring Navajo Code Talker Tom Jones Jr who selflessly served our great Country during WWII. Tom passed away on Monday. Please honor him so that he is not forgotten.

[gazhekwe]

LANSING Tribal casino fate may go to Supreme CourtThe fate of a proposed tribal casino in downtown Lansing could be decided by the nation’s highest court.Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette on Wednesday petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case involving an Upper Peninsula American Indian tribe’s plan to open a casino adjacent to the Lansing Center.Schuette hopes the justices will reverse a decision from a lower court and block the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians from opening the casino, called Kewadin Lansing, nearly 300 miles from its reservation.Schuette filed suit in September 2012, claiming the tribe violated federal law and a gaming compact it signed with the state.


Detroit Free Press, 5-15-14

[gazhekwe]

Super Dumb at UND: It's Hard to Shake the Racism You've Enabled For So Long




ICTMN Staff


5/14/14


The University of North Dakota has become a battleground in the fight for respect of Native Americans on college campuses. Now, with a t-shirt that says "Siouxper Drunk" and depicts an Indian chief sucking on a beer bong, some students have taken their insensitivity toward Native culture to a new level. When photos of a group of 10 young people assumed to be UND students began circulating on twitter and facebook, Natives at UND and on social media reacted with disbelief.
Some context: The UND mascot was the "Fighting Sioux" until the state legislature voted to scrap it in 2012, influenced by the NCAA's finding that the mascot was "hostile and abusive" toward the Native community.
To be clear,UND has done the right thing. The school has done away with the Indian mascot it adopted in 1930.
But as recent events show, these things never go away without resistance from nostalgic students and alumni who profess the name and image aren't racist. "It's a tribute to Native Americans," is a typical argument from those who'd keep names and imagery that many Natives find objectionable, whether it's the Fighting Sioux or the Washington Redskins.
But it's hard to claim a bunch of white kids wearing "Siouxper Drunk" t-shirts is a tribute to anything. This illustrates a point sometimes lost in debates over Native mascots: The players, coaches and school administrators [[or in the case of the Washington Redskins, team brass and owner Dan Snyder) may sincerely feel they do not bear American Indians any ill will. But they're only part of the story -- a team name or mascot doesn't just belong to the team and its authorized representatives. It also belongs to the fans. And by using a mascot that is based on someone's racial identity, the organization is setting the stage for fan behavior that is undoubtedly racist.
"Siouxper Drunk" t-shirts, fans attending games in redface, opposing fans comparing a football game to the Trail of Tears, restaurants touting team pride with talk of "scalping" and "firewater"-- these are all things that fans do, unsanctioned by the school or pro team they profess to like. And they're all racist.
And they could all be avoided if the organizations would do the responsible thing and abandon their Native team names and imagery.
Yes, there's a counter-argument here:The fans are adults whose behavior reflects their own views, not the team's. If fans say things or dress in ways that demean a group of people, they're just embarrassing themselves. It's not fair to ask the team to change its name so that fans will behave. They're not children, after all.
Really? We're talking about fans who dress in costume and paint their faces and bodies. Fans who find their own bad puns [["Siouxper"?) hilarious and t-shirt worthy. Fans who will throw a squid onto the ice at a hockey game and get in a fistfight over a foul ball that landed under an empty seat. Fans who will hurl obscenities at referees all game long and try to start a rumble with the opposing team's backers in the parking lot after the game. We count ourselves sports fans, and we will tell you that there are absolutely adult-sized children among us who desperately need supervision. Fansregularlydemonstrate that their judgment is less than ideal.
The Sioux Indians whose name was used by the University of North Dakota are more specifically known as the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota peoples. The Oglala Lakota Tribe is based on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a place that the media has made [[rightly or wrongly) a symbol of the issues Native people face today, particularly the struggles with poverty and alcoholism. The decision to portray a Sioux Chief drinking from a beer bong -- and there's evidence that the shirt's creators meant to cause this firestorm -- isn't lighthearted mockery. It's rubbing salt into an open wound.
"The tiny town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, located just over the border from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, rakes in millions of dollars for beer companies every year by profiting off the misery of Lakota addicted to alcohol, "writes Ruth Hopkins at LastRealIndians in a post that essentially broke this story. "These people who are sick live short lives full of pain and suffering. Families are destroyed. Now tell me again, how is 'Siouxper Drunk' funny?"




Read more athttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...so-long-154855

[gazhekwe]

New Discovery Confirms Native American Views on Their Ancestry

Alex Ewen 5/18/14

The discovery and scientific examination of one of the oldest human remains found in the Americas confirms what Native people have known all along, that they are the original inhabitants of this hemisphere.

For the past 15 years the question of whether modern American Indians were descended from the ancient people who lived in North and South America more than 10,000 years ago has been the subject of a contentious and bruising scientific debate. This debate has had profound legal implications, since under the current laws in the United States, the custody and control of human remains is dependent on whether or not there is a relationship to a modern Indian tribe.

The new discovery of “Naia,” as the human skeleton found off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico has been named, as well as the recent examination of the Anzick child, may have now put this debate to rest.

Naia, Greek for “water nymph,” was discovered by divers in 2007, in an underwater sinkhole called Hoyo Negro [[Black Hole), about 20 miles north of the ancient Mayan city of Tolum. Part of the Sac Actun underwater cave system, the largest underwater cave system in the world, Hoyo Negro also contained a trove of extinct prehistoric animal skeletons such as saber-toothed cats, gomphotheres [[elephant-like animals related to mastodons) and giant sloths.

Naia, believed to have been a young girl of 15 or 16, apparently fell to her death in the sinkhole sometime between 12,000 and 13,000 years ago. About 10,000 years ago, as the Ice Ages came to an end and melting glaciers raised sea levels around the world, the cave system was flooded. Her remains, now 130 feet below sea level, were preserved. Under Mexican law her skeleton could not be disturbed, even for scientific study, but the cave systems are a popular tourist dive location and divers had been found digging around her, prompting the government and scientists to recover her.

On May 15, a team of 15 scientists published the findings of their examination of the girl, “Late Pleistocene Human Skeleton and mtDNA Link Paleoamericans and Modern Native Americans,” in Science magazine. The remains of Naia are the most complete ancient skeleton that have been found to date. Assessing the skeleton’s age required a new approach as dating the bones was difficult because the collagen used for standard radiocarbon analysis had decayed away. The research team analyzed tooth enamel and bat-dropped seeds using radiocarbon dating and calcite deposits found on the bones using the uranium-thorium method, thus establishing the age between 12,000 and 13,000 years.

Although in facial appearance she did not seem to resemble modern Indians, mitochondrial DNA extracted from the skeleton’s wisdom tooth found it belonged to haplogroup D, the same as the Anzick child, and found in about 11 percent of living American Indians. The paper ascribes the differences in appearance between the ancient skeleton and modern Indians as the result of evolution.

The paper’s lead author, James Chatters, said, “this expedition produced some of the most compelling evidence to date of a link between Paleoamericans, the first people to inhabit the Americas after the most recent ice age, and modern Native Americans.” But even more important than the findings is the man who proclaimed it. Chatters was the anthropologist who first examined Kennewick Man, the remains of a prehistoric person discovered in 1996 on the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick County, Washington, and who set off the whole debate about whether or not modern Indians were descended from ancient “Palaeoamericans.” Chatters was the scientist who first asserted that since Kennewick Man’s facial features did not seem to resemble modern Indians, that there was no relationship between the two. Chatters’ findings led to a bitter legal battle between archaeologists, who wished to study the body, and the federal government, which was enforcing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act [[NAGPRA) on behalf of the Umatilla Tribe, which wished to rebury him, a battle won by the archaeologists in 2004.

Now, Chatters has done a complete about face. “For nearly 20 years, since Kennewick Man turned up, I’ve been wondering why these early people looked so different from Native Americans,” but after this new discovery, Chatters believes that, “Paleoamericans and Native Americans descended from the same homeland.” Even still, Chatters uses the new term Paleoamerican [[Ancient American), as opposed to the generally accepted term, Paleoindian [[Ancient Indian), which was the standard before this controversy ever started. The point is not small, as noted anthropologist David J. Meltzer observed in his book, First Peoples in a New World:

It used to be that the first Americans were referred to as Paleoindians [[from the Greek palaios or old). In the last decade in some circles, there has been a non-too-subtle change in language: Paleoindian is now insistently referred to as Paleoamerican. The terms may be synonymous in a very general sense… But the explicit effort to substitute one for the other is not just a matter of synonymy. The change corresponded with the Kennewick discovery and ensuing legal battle… Calling the first peoples Paleoamerican rather than Paleoindian is not just a statement about the genuine uncertainty of identifying ancient remains with modern tribes; it subtly implies the first people to the New World were not ancestors of American Indians.

It also blurs the distinction between Indians, to whom this hemisphere rightfully belonged and much of its still belongs, and those Americans whose claims to ownership come after those of Indians.

Though the new study didn’t deal directly with Kennewick Man, the findings raise questions about the fate of the skeleton that remains locked away at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum. A group of scientists led by Smithsonian anthropologist Doug Owsley was allowed to study the bones in 2005. Owsley, who declined to comment on the new report, said his team’s book-length manuscript will be published this fall. Owsley is steadfast in his belief, based on physical features, that Kennewick Man is not genetically linked to the tribes who wish to rebury him.

Washington State University anthropologist Brian Kemp, who deciphered Naia’s DNA, said that the results from Mexico add ammunition to the Umatilla’s argument that “just because his head is shaped differently from theirs, doesn’t mean they aren’t related.” He added that “If DNA is ever obtained from Kennewick Man, my prediction is that he’s Native American. I have no reason to believe that he could be anything else.”

Although the study may hopefully end the debate over the links between modern and ancient Indians, it argues that the DNA evidence shows that Naia and all American Indians are descended from “the hunter-gatherers who moved onto the Bering Land Bridge from northeast Asia [[Beringia) between 26,000 and 18,000 years ago, spreading southward into North America sometime after 17,000 years ago.” But the “Beringian Standstill theory,” the idea the Paleoindians made a 10,000 year long pit stop in the region of the Bering Strait, is highly controversial. There are a number of new studies that cast doubt on that hypothesis. The Beringian Standstill theory is in itself an attempt to reconcile conflicting evidence in an effort to prop up the Bering Strait theory, long a source of contention between scientists and Indians.

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...927?page=0%2C2r

[gazhekwe]

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/ne...ssion/9204133/

[Jimaz]

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/ne...ssion/9204133/

According to my meager English-to-Navajo dictionary, I want to say T'áá'ánółtso nihich'į' ahééh nisin, or, I feel gratitude toward all of you.

With deepest sincerity.

[gazhekwe]

Message from our former chairman Kurt Perron who presided through most of this fight:

Bay Mills today won a historic decision and legal battle in the US Supreme Court. Our Sovereignty was upheld and our land is Indian Land. I fought for two straight years years to defend this case, and I hired and worked with the former Chairman Jeff Parker who started the fight and who I would like to thank. Congratulations to Bay Mills.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-515_jq2i.pdf

Held: Michigan’s suit against Bay Mills is barred by tribal sovereign
immunity.
KAGAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a concurring opinion. Dissenting: SCALIA, J., THOMAS, J., ALITO, JJ., GINSBURG, J.


Way to go, cousins!

[gazhekwe]

...most recently with regards to its participation in the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 13th Session in New York to be held May 12-23, 2014.

Oh, the US Dept of State Bureau of Human Rights, Democracy and Labor DID invite tribal leaders to a "consultation" on May 9, three days before the UN Session began.

They imposed a complex entry/attendance format and gave no agenda or purpose until challenged. It appeared that each person who wished to speak must give advance notice and would be given two minutes to speak, with no coordination or discussion or advancement to any analysis or recommendations.

The only discernible benefit would be to enhance the US image by allowing it to say it had "consulted" with the indigenous people of the US.

In the years since the passage of UNDRIP, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, the US government has shown little interest in working with the tribal governments on any level. US hostility toward recognition of indigenous nations within its borders remains strong. The very idea of imposing a short deadline for preparation with no time allotted to discuss, analyze or propose any action from such an exercise demonstrates the US government's clear lack of respect for tribal authorities.

Paraphrased from Commentary here:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...ions-got-may-9

[gazhekwe]

Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources with Mree Russell Rafaell andSusanlynne Bonner
On This Day [[6/2/1924): In 1924 the Indian Citizenship Act was signed into law. Also known as the Snyder Act, the Act granted full U.S. citizenship to America's indigenous peoples, called "Indians" in this Act. [[The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to persons born in the U.S., but only if "subject to the jurisdiction thereof"; this latter clause excludes certain indigenous peoples.) The act was signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge on June 2, 1924 as seen in this photo with President Coolidge and four Osage.

Oh, my, the man to the left of Cal in the image is the spit of a friend of mine, a Potawatomi from the Prairie Band. Those people are the descendants of people "removed" in the 1830s from Michigan to Kansas. Osage were one of the dominant tribes in Kansas.

[gazhekwe]

Last original Navajo Code Talker Chester Nez passes away

Nez was in his 90s

UPDATED 11:44 AM MDT Jun 04, 2014



ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Chester Nez, the last original Navajo Code Talker, passed away Wednesday morning, family members told Action 7 News.

Walk in peace and beauty.

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...z-walks-155152

[gazhekwe]

Justice Scalia and the Racist Nature of Federal Indian Law

Steven Newcomb 6/6/14

A couple of years ago, US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was at a public function that Congressman Tom Cole [[R-OK) was also attending. Upon hearing that Congressman Cole is from the Chickasaw Nation, Scalia said: “Don't forget you belong to a conquered race.”

Justice Scalia’s use of the word “race” places his comment in an obvious racial frame of reference. The idea of American Indians being “conquered” evokes the theme of inferiority [[those deemed “conquered”), and superiority [[the racial group said to have conquered “the race” treated as “inferior”). In other words, Justice Scalia’s comment was predicated on the idea of racial domination: “We are the victorious race and you are the inferior, ‘conquered race.’” In short, Justice Scalia’s comment was an open expression of racism and is accurately re-expressed in this manner: “Don't forget you belong to a dominated race.”

The Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Oregon characterizes and studies racism as a system of domination. Racism is structured in terms of a top/down pattern of superiority and inferiority, of dominance and subordinance. One example of racism is automatically judging dark skinned people with “non-white” facial features as inferior to “white” people with a lighter skin hue and European features.

For a racist, darker skin and “non-white” racial features serve as “proof” of the inferiority of “black” people. A racist judgment of inferiority can also be based on some other categorization, such as some “group” identification. Simply being “other than white society,” and, therefore, “lower than” the supposedly superior “norm” of “white people” is enough to be judged by racists as “lesser than.”

Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team has been embroiled in a firestorm of controversy over what has been characterized as his racist comments about “black people” to his “mixed-race” girlfriend. His comments were anonymously leaked to the media through the gossip monger program TMZ, and this has resulted in a condemnation of racism in the media. The universal attitude seems to be: “How dare Sterling talk in such a racist manner about African American National Basketball Association [[NBA) basketball players.”

The consequences were swift: Sterling is probably going to be compelled to sell his Clippers franchise [[which he will no doubt profit from). He has been banned for life from the NBA. He has been fined some $2.5 million dollars. This is likely to hurt Sterling a great deal since it will take such a huge chunk of his estimated net worth of some $900,000,000. After the fine, that leaves him with a mere $897,500,000 net worth. That kind of punishment will surely teach him a valuable lesson.

One white male pundit on CNN said he believes the outrage over, and universal repudiation of, Sterling’s comments, sends a clear signal that racism has pretty much ended in the United States. And it makes sense that in many ways African Americans in the United States have obviously come far since the days of separate bathrooms, drinking fountains, and back-row bus seats during the separate but equal days of the Jim Crow laws. However, for the most poverty stricken sectors of African American society, the daily problems they continue to face from institutional racism abound.

While privately expressed racism toward wealthy African Americans who play pro-basketball will not be tolerated, especially if it so happens that the privately expressed racist views are widely publicized, it is an entirely different matter when it comes to the expression of racism towards the poorest sectors of African American society, and toward other so-called “ethnic groups.” A case in point is the comment by Justice Scalia to Chickasaw Nation citizen Tom Cole. The fact that Cole is a duly elected and seated U.S. Congressman did not temper Scalia's acidic and racist tongue.

While I refuse to think or write of our Original Nations and Peoples as a “race” or “ethnic groups,” it is clearly a problem for a sitting Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court to avow that he regards us as a “race” that is inferior as a result of that claim that we have been “conquered,” or, in other words, “dominated.”

Certainly there is a vast difference between Donald Sterling and Antonin Scalia. After all, Donald Sterling was never going to referee any NBA games. It was not as though he has been forced out of the NBA to prevent him from being able to use his racist frame of reference to judge African American NBA players on the court, or use his racist views to influence the outcome of specific basketball games.

As for Justice Scalia, he has been on the U.S. Supreme Court for almost twenty-eight years, and during that time he has been using in his racist mental frame of our Original Nations [[“Indians”) as a conquered [[dominated) race in his decision-making in cases involving Indian issues. Why has his openly racist comment to Congressman Cole resulted in no public expression of outrage from the leadership in Indian Country? Why hasn't there been any persuasive campaign to have Scalia remove himself from any case involving American Indian nations and peoples?

The white male pundit on CNN who said that racism has pretty much ended in the United States has obviously never read Robert A. Williams' book Like A Loaded Weapon: The Rehnquist Court, Indian Rights, and the Legal History of Racism in America[[2005). Professor Williams makes it abundantly clear that U.S. federal Indian law is an entire sector of U.S. law that is a product of racist thinking that has been institutionalized in the United States. Where's the outrage over that in the U.S. media?

While I prefer to frame the discussion more in terms of “religious racism” based on what I term the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination, Williams clearly demonstrates that U.S. federal Indian law is a system of ideas structured in terms of white superiority and non-white inferiority, which continues to be used by the U.S. Supreme Court in an anti-Indian manner to this very day. Anyone who would claim that racism has pretty much ended in the United States has no clue that the U.S. Supreme Court continues to make federal Indian law decisions based on racist precedents against our Original Nations and Peoples.

With regard to Justice Scalia's statement, Congressman Cole's office told me that he will not comment “on a private conversation.” His office did not say that the incident never happened, or that Scalia did not make that statement to representative Cole. His office simple characterized it as “private,” even though the congressman evidently later recounted Scalia's comment at a conference of lawyers in Oklahoma.

Steven Newcomb [[Shawnee, Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery [[Fulcrum, 2008). He has been studying federal Indian law and international law since the early 1980s, and has published several law review articles.


Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...ral-indian-law

[gazhekwe]

Press Release: “Keweenaw Bay Indian Community stands 500 strong at Eagle Mine Court of Appeals Hearing”

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Matthew L.M. Fletcher



Baraga, MI – About 500 members of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community [[KBIC)stood united around the importance of keeping their waters clean from contamination associated with sulfide mining on June 3, 2014 at the Michigan Court of Appeals. Oral arguments were heard involving the Eagle Mine, Michigan’s first permitted sulfide mine in the Upper Peninsula.

“This is the first time in our generation that the community as a whole came together to fight for true sovereignty and engage in spontaneous government participation. The goal of the new moving-forward Tribal Council is to bring transparency and involvement to the Anishinaabeg [[the people),” said Donald Shalifoe, Sr., KBIC’s Ogimaa [[Chief).

Many tribal members carpooled and traveled about eight hours to line up for the 10:00 a.m. Lansing hearing. KBIC’s remarkable presence overwhelmed the Michigan Hall of Justice whose staff reported it was their largest turn out ever for a court hearing.

Tribal leaders and elders observed the hearing from within the court room, while hundreds watched and listened to the proceedings in an overflow video conferencing room.

Traditional drumming and singing resounded outside the building following the hearing.
KBIC’s Vice President Carole LaPointe remarked “it was a very educational experience for our membership and youth.”

The Anishinaabeg band has opposed the Eagle Mine development, located on Treaty of 1842 ceded homeland, since it was first permitted by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality [[MDEQ) in 2006.

Unsettled concerns involve the mining regulatory process, improper permitting and inadequate assessment of impacts to the area environment, cultural resources and water quality, including groundwater contamination and the potential for perpetual acid mine drainage upstream from Lake Superior.

Tribal member Jeffery Loman said “the hearing today is another testimony to the fact that inadequate regulation and collusion between industry and government results in endless litigation.”

One aspect of the evolving case questions what qualifies as a “place of worship” under Michigan’s sulfide mining statute. An initial ruling by Michigan Administrative Law Judge Richard Patterson recommended mitigation of impacts to an Anishinaabeg sacred place, Migi zii wa sin [[Eagle Rock), but the MDEQ made a final permit decision asserting only built structures are places of worship.

Discriminatory enforcement of Michigan law has led to substantial degradation to KBIC’s sacred site. This includes obtrusive mine facilities and a decline access ramp into the base of Eagle Rock, non-stop noise and activity, and hindered traditional access and use. Spiritually significant high places like Eagle Rock are used in solitude by the Anishinaabeg for multi-day fasting, vision quest and ceremony.

Despite the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, Native people still struggle to protect their remaining sacred places in the face of extractive development agendas. “It is a shame that the United States of America, proudly founded upon values of religious freedom, has trouble guaranteeing this right to all of its nation’s first people,” said tribal member Jessica Koski.

KBIC anticipates a decision from the Michigan Court of Appeals within six months. The Eagle Mine’s timeframe for production start-up is the end of 2014. “While the court deliberates, it is important to remember that regardless of the outcome, we are in the right for standing up for the Yellow Dog Plains. We hope the court understands their decision will have long lasting implications for this place, as well as other areas that are slated for mining,” said Emily Whittaker of Big Bay, Michigan who gathered alongside KBIC and other locally affected residents.

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruling will be an important precedent for additional sulfide mining proposals threatening Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and waters of the Great Lakes.

http://turtletalk.wordpress.com/2014...peals-hearing/

[gazhekwe]

A QUIET GATHERING ON MACKINAC ISLAND
Honoring the memory of
Company K and Lieutenant Garrett Graveraet
June 4, 2014 – 150^th Anniversary

[Submitted by Chris Czopek]

One of the great events in Company K history was the daring daylight raid on an artillery position. The Date was June 17. The Place was Petersburg, Virginia.

The situation was Desperate. One lone Union regiment had to hold the line against a counterattack by two Confederate regiments. As if those odds weren’t bad enough, a Union officer with a telescope spotted the Johnny Rebs moving forward two cannon to support their impending attack. The situation was hopeless.
Unless… somehow those two guns could be quickly put out of action. Desperate times call for desperate plans. The commander of the 1^st Michigan Sharpshooters called for Lieutenant Graveraet, the leader of Company K, and asked him to lead his Native American sharpshooters on a surprise attack. Not the usual “Form a line in plain sight of the enemy and march forward” style assault. What he had in mind was a stealth attack by a small, silent group, using trees and bushes to screen their advance. Nobody could do this better than Indians. The young Lieutenant listened to the plan in silence, and nodded his head.

Exactly 150 years later, word went out across Michigan about a gathering on Mackinac Island. We were going to meet at the grave of Lieutenant Graveraet to honor his memory. The date was June 4. The place was St. Anne cemetery. As I rode the ferry boat to the Island I wondered, who would be there?

By my count, there were 80 people waiting in front of the gravestone. They came from Traverse City, Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Marquette. They were joined by day trip visitors to the Island, who heard about this quiet event and made the long, uphill walk from the Fort to join us. The summertime contingent of Boy Scouts from the nearby Scout Barracks arrived in a group, leading a parade of more visitors. Re-enactors from the historic Fort showed up in their 1886 uniforms and stood in line at attention. The Stars and Stripes waved in the wind, held by members of the Island’s American Legion Post. At the appointed time, the formal Ceremony began. It was conducted by the Sons of Union Veterans, Lyons Camp 266. Their mission is to remember the soldiers of the Civil War, and they did a fine job organizing and advertising this event. They invited me to be the Main Speaker. Like Graveraet at Petersburg, I volunteered without hesitation.

Ten minutes. They gave me ten minutes to tell the story of Company K and the life of Lieutenant Garrett Graveraet. I did my best. Spoke of his Native American background, his fine European style education. How he turned down chances for a profitable career in business, and chose instead to teach at a government school for Native American children. When the Civil War began and his former students were volunteering for the army, the reluctant school teacher volunteered to be their officer. Not for glory and excitement, but to personally look after his students and “his people”. On his gravestone is carved the date “June 17, 1864”. During my talk I pointed to it, and told the story of that fateful day. I told how the young Lieutenant led an attack on an enemy artillery position. How he found a shallow ravine that ran from the Union line to a place near the gun emplacement. How the Confederates, busy positioning their cannon, did not notice the silent approach of the men of Company K. How the deadly fire of those Michigan Indians drove away the gun crews. Minutes later, when the Confederates attacked the Union line, the guns were silent. Thanks to Company K, the attack failed. But there was a price to pay. In the fighting, Lt. Graveraet was mortally wounded. He died in a hospital in Washington, D.C. The last thing he did was write a letter home to his mother, assuring her that he did not mind giving his life for his country. The government arranged for his body to be sent home for burial on Mackinac Island. Here I ended my talk. There was a reverent silence for one, long minute, broken only by the sound of the flag waving in the wind.

That evening, as the sun was setting, I stood on a beach and lit a cigar. Thought about the events of the day. Hoped with all my heart that I did justice to the memory of that gallant soldier. And thought about the people I met, and the Thank You notes to write. In the midst of these thoughts, some people nearby pointed to a treetop and said “Look! The Eagle is back!” At the top of a tall tree was the unmistakable outline of a large Eagle. It was looking over the water towards Mackinac Island. They said it had been there all day, watching something. That got me thinking: Native Americans have a tradition that says, the Eagle is a messenger between Earth and Heaven. At the end of each day, it gives a report to The Great Spirit on all that it sees. And the Eagle sees everything. When the sun dropped below the horizon and the cars on the Mackinac Bridge turned on their headlights, the Eagle spread its wings, flew West, and disappeared in the darkness.

[old guy]

Press Release: “Keweenaw Bay Indian Community stands 500 strong at Eagle Mine Court of Appeals Hearing”

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Matthew L.M. Fletcher



Baraga, MI – About 500 members of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community [[KBIC)stood united around the importance of keeping their waters clean from contamination associated with sulfide mining on June 3, 2014 at the Michigan Court of Appeals. Oral arguments were heard involving the Eagle Mine, Michigan’s first permitted sulfide mine in the Upper Peninsula.

“This is the first time in our generation that the community as a whole came together to fight for true sovereignty and engage in spontaneous government participation. The goal of the new moving-forward Tribal Council is to bring transparency and involvement to the Anishinaabeg [[the people),” said Donald Shalifoe, Sr., KBIC’s Ogimaa [[Chief).

Many tribal members carpooled and traveled about eight hours to line up for the 10:00 a.m. Lansing hearing. KBIC’s remarkable presence overwhelmed the Michigan Hall of Justice whose staff reported it was their largest turn out ever for a court hearing.

Tribal leaders and elders observed the hearing from within the court room, while hundreds watched and listened to the proceedings in an overflow video conferencing room.

Traditional drumming and singing resounded outside the building following the hearing.
KBIC’s Vice President Carole LaPointe remarked “it was a very educational experience for our membership and youth.”

The Anishinaabeg band has opposed the Eagle Mine development, located on Treaty of 1842 ceded homeland, since it was first permitted by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality [[MDEQ) in 2006.

Unsettled concerns involve the mining regulatory process, improper permitting and inadequate assessment of impacts to the area environment, cultural resources and water quality, including groundwater contamination and the potential for perpetual acid mine drainage upstream from Lake Superior.

Tribal member Jeffery Loman said “the hearing today is another testimony to the fact that inadequate regulation and collusion between industry and government results in endless litigation.”

One aspect of the evolving case questions what qualifies as a “place of worship” under Michigan’s sulfide mining statute. An initial ruling by Michigan Administrative Law Judge Richard Patterson recommended mitigation of impacts to an Anishinaabeg sacred place, Migi zii wa sin [[Eagle Rock), but the MDEQ made a final permit decision asserting only built structures are places of worship.

Discriminatory enforcement of Michigan law has led to substantial degradation to KBIC’s sacred site. This includes obtrusive mine facilities and a decline access ramp into the base of Eagle Rock, non-stop noise and activity, and hindered traditional access and use. Spiritually significant high places like Eagle Rock are used in solitude by the Anishinaabeg for multi-day fasting, vision quest and ceremony.

Despite the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, Native people still struggle to protect their remaining sacred places in the face of extractive development agendas. “It is a shame that the United States of America, proudly founded upon values of religious freedom, has trouble guaranteeing this right to all of its nation’s first people,” said tribal member Jessica Koski.

KBIC anticipates a decision from the Michigan Court of Appeals within six months. The Eagle Mine’s timeframe for production start-up is the end of 2014. “While the court deliberates, it is important to remember that regardless of the outcome, we are in the right for standing up for the Yellow Dog Plains. We hope the court understands their decision will have long lasting implications for this place, as well as other areas that are slated for mining,” said Emily Whittaker of Big Bay, Michigan who gathered alongside KBIC and other locally affected residents.

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruling will be an important precedent for additional sulfide mining proposals threatening Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and waters of the Great Lakes.

http://turtletalk.wordpress.com/2014...peals-hearing/

Glad to see the interest in preservation by any group of people. Kudos.

[gazhekwe]

The Dangerous Dissent in State of Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community

Steven Newcomb 6/14/14

On May 27, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a 5-4 decision in the case State of Michigan v.Bay Mills Indian Community. A five justice majority issued a ruling that works in favor of the Bay Mills Indian Community. While a great deal of commentary is likely to be focused in the majority decision, this column is about the dissent by justices, Thomas, Alito, Ginsburg, and Scalia, and their tacit acknowledgment that a system of domination has been and is still being used by the United States against our nations and peoples. Here’s the damning sentence:
Despite the Indian tribes' subjection to the authority and protection of the United States Government, this Court has deemed them "domestic dependent nations" that retain limited attributes of their historic sovereignty. [[emphasis added)

A question arises: What kind of existence did our nations have before the onset of what Thomas, Alito, Ginsberg, and Scalia characterized as the “subjection” of our nations by the United States government? Answer: Our nations existed originally free and independent of any “subjecting” domination by political powers from Europe or by the U.S. government on the basis of a distinction between unbaptized “heathens” and “infidels” [[our ancestors) and Christians [[their ancestors).

Christian political powers considered themselves to have the right to take over, dominate, and subjugate lands that were inhabited by unbaptized nations and peoples so long as the lands were uninhabited and, or, not possessed by Christians. It is this history that the four dissenting justices are invoking by their use of the word “subjection” in their Bay Mills dissent.

The word “subjection” in the Webster’s Third New International Dictionary is defined in an “obsolete” sense, as, “the exercise of lordship or control : lordly sway or rule; the act of subduing or subjection : SUBJUGATION.” Language of dominating lordship is apt in the context of federal Indian law because the ideas that constitute that system of “law” are traced back to Vatican Holy See papal bulls and royal charters of various Christian monarchs of Western Christendom in the fifteenth, sixteenth and later centuries.

In a more contemporary sense, “subjection” is defined as, “the quality or state of being subject esp. under the power, control, or government of another.” Because the term is derived from the Latinsubjectus, “to throw under,” I define subjection as “to throw or force under domination.” In that context, the phrase in the Bay Mills dissent, “Despite the Indian tribes’ subjection to the authority and protection of the United States Government” [[notice the small ‘t’ on “tribes” to symbolize a lower level or “sub” existence and the capital ‘G’ on “Government” to symbolize a dominating existence), is an admission by the four dissenting members of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The admission by the four U.S. Supreme Court justices in their Bay Mills dissent is that the United States government has used and continues to use a subjecting conceptual system of domination against our originally, and still rightfully, free and independent Nations and Peoples. On the basis of a presumed right to dominate [[subject) Indian nations to the dictating conceptions [[ideas and judgments) of the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court has for more than two centuries been presuming an authority to define the nature of our nations. It was on the basis of that presumed right to dominate us--by defining and categorizing us—that the Supreme Court first deemed our nations to be, “perhaps,” accurately termed “domestic dependent nations.”

Ever since Johnson & Graham’s Lesseev.M’Intosh [[1823), the Supreme Court has used that same domination/subjection framework against our nations. It was on the basis of a claimed Right of Christian Discovery and Domination that for the first time the U.S. Supreme Court metaphorically deemed our originally free Indian nations to have lost, through a supposed process of “diminishment,” our rights to “complete sovereignty, as independent nations.” In other words, by supposedly being “discovered” by the carriers of Christianity, our nations were presumed to have lost the right to ever again be free of domination and subjection imposed in the name of Christian theology.

The U.S. Supreme Court deemed all that to be true on the fictional and metaphorical basis of what Chief Justice John Marshall called an “extravagant pretension” of “converting the discovery of an inhabited country into conquest.” Eight years later, the Supreme Court used that same Christian premised “right of discovery” and domination [[“subjection”) to create the category “domestic dependent nations.”

Now the four dissenting justices in the Bay Mills Indian Community case have officially put Indian Country on notice. They are going to be looking for a fifth member of the Court to join them so they can use the domination/subjection framework—or what I call ‘the Domination Code’—to altogether eliminate “tribal sovereign immunity.” Perhaps someday Indian leadership in Indian Country will come together and directly challenge the bogus U.S. claim of a right of domination and subjection over our nations and peoples.

Steven Newcomb [[Shawnee, Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, and the author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery [[Fulcrum Publishing, 2008). He has been studying U.S. federal Indian law and international law since the early 1980s.

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwor...dian-community

[gazhekwe]

Navajo Code Talker Sidney Bedoni passed away Sunday, marking another death in the remarkable fraternity of more than 400.


[[Photo: Bedoni family photo)

NAVAJO CODE TALKER SIDNEY BEDONI DIED SUNDAY. HE WAS 91. FLAGS ON THE NAVAJO RESERVATION WERE ORDERED TO FLY AT HALF-STAFF TO HONOR THE HIGHLY DECORATED U.S. MARINE.

Bedoni served in the Marines from 1942 to 1946 after enlisting at 16 years old when recruiters came to Tuba City, where he was attending boarding school, according to relatives.
Up until that point, he had been encouraged by instructors not to speak the Navajo language his parents had taught him. It would be his knowledge of the language that would help him transmit coded messages and thwart enemy eavesdroppers as a Code Talker during World War II, family members said.
Bedoni hitchhiked 80miles from Tuba City to Navajo Mountain, Utah, to ask his father for permission to join the Marines, according to his surviving family members. He departed for the South Pacific months later.
Bedoni would receive paratrooper training, though his status as a Code Talker would prevent him from joining one of the parachute regiments.
He later served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.
Bedoni's grandson, Eric Mantanona of Mesa, remembers his grandfather's patriotism.
"He would wear his red Marine Code Talker hat everywhere he went out," Mantanona said. "He was extremely proud of his service to his country and loved sharing stories with people."
Mantanona said Bedoni's Mormon faith was also of great importance to him, and he recalled a story his grandfather told him about discussing religion in a fox hole with a fellow soldier who was also an LDS member.
Bedoni married his wife, Lena, in 1952, and the two eventually settled with their four children in the Flagstaff area.
Bedoni worked at the Navajo Army Depot in Bellemont as an explosives operator for 35 years before retiring, Mantanona said.
"The Flagstaff community regarded him highly, and really everyone did," Mantanona said. "He served as grand marshal for numerous parades and was highly decorated by the time he passed."
Bedoni's decorations include a Korean Service Medal and Army of Occupation Medal.
In 1988, he was promoted to sergeant major for his exceptional service and Code Talker contributions.
He died Sunday of complications from pneumonia and influenza, according to family members.
The last of the original 29 Code Talkers, 93-year-old Chester Nez, died last week of kidney failure.
Other groups of Navajos would eventually become Code Talkers and, by the end of World War II, there were about 420 Code Talkers. The code had expanded to more than 500 words.
Bedoni's funeral will be at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Winslow at 11a.m. Monday, said Royce Greer, funeral director at Greer's Mortuary. A viewing will begin at 9 a.m.
His burial service will be at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix.

Navajo Code Talker Sidney Bedoni passed away Sunday, marking another death in the remarkable fraternity of more than 400.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/...abrk/10251029/