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How did I not hear about France banning hijabs? What’s going on?

long story short, there’s legislation in the process of being passed that would

ban girls under 18 from wearing any form of religious head covering in public, and although it’s obviously aimed at muslim women, it would also affect other faith groups that practice similar forms of modest dress

ban islamic swimwear in schools and public (there is already a modest swimwear ban in place at public beaches, this just extends it)

ban mothers wearing hijab from entering schools or participating in school field trips or extra curriculars

ban the slaughter of halal poultry - the cheapest and most easily accessible form of meat protein for the muslim community

extend school hijab bans to universities

prevent muslim women from choosing healthcare providers based on gender (which many muslim women prefer to do, since many exams require removal of clothing, etc)

ban muslim parents from homeschooling

force halal markets to sell pork and alcohol or face closure

ban foreign flags at weddings

#ramadan mubarak #in case you didn't know france is absolutely disgusting

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In Indigenous lands where nuclear weapons testing took place during the Cold War and the legacy of uranium mining persists, Indigenous people are suffering from a double whammy of long-term illnesses from radiation exposure and the C0VID-19 p@ndemic. Yet, we have not witnessed in the mainstream media and policy outlets a frank discussion of how the two public health crises have created an intractable situation for Indigenous communities. The Diné are drinking poisoned water, putting them at risk for more severe coronavirus infections.

From 1944 until 1986, 30 million tons of uranium ore was extracted on Navajo lands. At present, there are more than 520 abandoned uranium mines, which for the Diné represents both their nuclear past as well as their radioactive present in the form of elevated levels of radiation in nearby homes and water sources. Due to over four decades of uranium mining that supplied the US government and industry for nuclear weapons and energy, radiation illnesses characterize everyday Diné life. […]

The nonprofit Navajo Water Project says the Diné are 67 times more likely to be without running water or a toilet connected to sewer lines than others in the United States. As a result, many are forced to drive or even walk several miles to the nearest communal water station. Some instead get water from an unregulated source, like a livestock trough. But research shows uranium mining may have contaminated many wells on the reservation. A large portion of the area’s groundwater has been contaminated with uranium as well as other mining by-products like arsenic that were mobilized by the mining operations, according to researchers who presented their findings at a 2019 American Chemical Society conference. […]

According to a 2019 report by the environmental groups U.S. Water Alliance and DigDeep about access to water, the number of cases for gastric cancers doubled in the 1990s in the Diné areas where uranium mining had taken place. […]

In a study published last August in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, researchers found a relatively high percentage of households on Native American reservations lacked complete indoor plumbing. While only 0.4 percent of homes in the United States lacked indoor plumbing, on Indigenous reservations that number was 1.09 percent. For the Navajo Nation, it was 18 percent. […]

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The Diné have paid a heavy toll during the pandemic.

According to the Navajo Times, there had been at least 27,887 reported positive cases of COVID-19 on the Navajo Nation by late January, including 989 deaths. […]

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The Navajo Nation Council banned uranium mining under the Diné Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005, but much of the mining contamination remains. While the Environmental Protection Agency says that $1.7 billion has been secured through legal settlements with mining companies and other agreements dating back to at least 2014 for cleanup at 219 of the 523 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation, the Diné say little of the work has been completed. “The biggest thing is that out of the $1.7 billion dollars I think the total amount that has been spent as of today is $116 million on studies. … Out of the 219 that were funded, not one site is 100 percent ready to be cleaned up,” Navajo Council speaker Seth Damon said last year, according to the Navajo Times. The newspaper reported that the Environmental Protection Agency hopes to begin cleaning up the sites by 2024.

Indigenous organizations are doing a tremendous amount of work to address radiation poisoning and water scarcity in the Diné community. These include the Red Water Pond Road Community Association where activists like Terry Keyanna are fighting for environmental justice every day. The Navajo Water Project, a section of the larger non-profit DigDeep, is doing valuable work to address the lack of access to clean water in the Diné community. Since last March, Gavin Noyes and Woody Lee at Utah Diné Bikeyah have provided food and supplies to more than 800 homes, and delivered “175,000 gallons of new water storage capacity to over 600 families without water.” The Navajo and Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund is another grassroots organization, started with a GoFundMe page created by former Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch that raises money for two weeks’ worth of food for Diné and Hopi families in self-quarantine. Their work is a pivotal lifeline in pandemic times.

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Headline, images, captions, and text published by: Jayita Sarkar and Caitlin Meyer. “Radiation illnesses and COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 3 February 2021.

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@shianu I think David Stannard's American Holocaust is a pretty good place to start. My biggest gripe is that it uses textual references for body counts in some places, which tend to be semi accurate early on. Then he reverts back to the weird genocidal-make-believe numbers offered by bad faith anthropologists in other places.

I dismiss the low-ball population counts for Natives made by demographers and anthropologists because, and this is not bullshit, they use a formula based on how much a staple crop a region can produce and the average population that amount of staple can sustain. Those assumptions ignore the fact that every staple in the western hemisphere has a higher yield than every staple in the eastern hemisphere, they ignore indigenous agricultural practices, indigenous biodiversity, the fact that population can wax and wane regardless of crop yield for completely unrelated reasons. The fact that most of the population models rebuff any significant population north of mexico while acknowledging the fact that mexico has an enormous population but the plains or the US southeast or the river valley all have equivalently fertile environments or even superior and a better source of red meat but can't possibly have more than a few hundred thousand... ? Funny how basically anywhere you go you can find arrow heads and pottery shards too.

This is insane

#colonialism #genocide #native american #us history #spanish history

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#biden 2020 #vote2020

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Y'all ever notice how people still don't understand that all lands are indigenous lands? Like some woman in my class said "25% of superfund sites are on indigenous lands" but what she meant was that they're on reservations. 100% of these sites are on indigenous lands. We didn't abandon our homes, we were stripped of access.

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#indigenous #genocide #ndn #native

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people living on indigenous land: stop complaining we’re not that bad look at all these things we gave you

the indigenous people who built those things, wrote those books, started their organizations, made those newspapers, fought for their rights and for those systems to be put in place, and did everything they could to build themselves up after what was done for them: we did that.

people living on indigenous land: yeah but like we let you do that.

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The Miꞌkmaq people are facing hostility and threats in Eastern Canada over the right to fish to sustain themselves. 

This has included:

“In response to Mi’kmaq fishers setting up 150 out of their 350 allowed traps, non-Indigenous fishers gathered at the wharf in Digby to protest.”

“One of the ways Nova Scotian fishers have found it appropriate to protest Mi’kmaq harvesting practices has been to chase down boats and fire flares directly at them. There have also been attempts to ram small boats with much larger vessels.”

Two people being arrested and charged with assault.

“Lobster traps in St. Mary’s Bay were vandalized, their lines were cut, and the traps were left on the shore.”

“Some fishers have posted calls on social media to reimplement the Canadian residential school system, and for other harsh treatment of Indigenous peoples and their children.” 

A lobster boat belonging to a Mi’kmaq fisher has been destroyed by a suspicious fire at a wharf in southwestern Nova Scotia.

These people have the right to sustainably fish on their own land and support their livelihoods. Megan Bailey, professor at Dalhousie University’s Marine Affairs program, an expert, has said that there is no conservation concern as has otherwise been claimed. “The scale of the livelihood fishery as it exists right now with 350 traps is not a conservation concern.”

Ways you can support the Mi’kmaq people (both on this front + other issues):

Treaty Truckhouse Legal Fund - Grassroots Grandmothers, Mi'kmaw Rights Holders and others continue to stand united as water protectors of the Shubenacadie River in the Sipekne'katik District of Mi'kma'ki, where Alton Gas intends to dump salt brine equivalent to 3000 tonnes of hard salt every day.

Another donation link is here, or e-transfers can be sent to [email protected] 

Support for our Eskasoni Mi’kmaq Fishers - Supplying resources for the fishers to continue the battle to have access to moderate livelihood fishery.

Mi’kmaq Fishers: To show support you can donate funds via e-transfer to the following emails with the message “donation”:

[email protected]

[email protected]

If you have any useful additions, please let me know, and I will add anything that I find. Also please spread this around, awareness is also important so that these issues do not fly under the radar and get a pass.

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If you’re genuinely interested in learning more about settler colonialism and answering questions like “wait what does land back look like?” “What can I do?” and “What are the contexts informing this and why do Indigenous people reject being part of the US/Canada?” there are free syllabi online which can answer these questions (they will not answer it directly, the point is to get you to think for yourself and ask more questions that can lead you to thinking more deeply about this and how you can personally take action towards better practices of solidarity) 

Here’s the Standing Rock Syllabus: 

https://nycstandswithstandingrock.wordpress.com/standingrocksyllabus/

Allyship and Solidarity Guidelines of Unsettling America:

https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/allyship/

Towards Decolonization and Settler Responsibility:

https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/2016/10/04/towards-decolonization-and-settler-responsibility-reflections-on-a-decade-of-indigenous-solidarity-organizing/

Sample Syllabi of the DEcolonization Resource Collection:

https://nationalhistorycenter.org/decolonization-resource-collection-sample-syllabi/

Further Readings:

https://decolonization.wordpress.com/decolonization-readings/

These are limited resources that mainly deal with North America and English-speaking countries, because that’s the context I am coming from. If you have resources from other regions and other languages, I welcome them here, or anything from your local context. 

#ndn tag

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also, here is your reminder this indigenous peoples day… make sure to help us and respect us during the rest of the year as well. 

follow indigenous news organization on social media.

follow news on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. 

help us claim sovereignty over our land again.

donate to our organizations.

support our businesses.

reblog our art, writing, and creative works.

stand up for our peoples.

come to our rallies and be there for us.

help boost our voices.

i’m not the best for finding links so i apologize, but fellow indigenous bloggers feel free to add links in your reblogs! check the notes for these links if you want to help us! don’t just reblog donation posts one day a year, but do as much as you can to help us out!

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today is indigenous peoples day and it’s a great day to give to the sovereign bodies institute

it’s a database and info hub for missing and murdered indigenous women. it’s trans inclusive and doing vital work.

i kicked them 10bux. i’m not telling you this because i want to humblebrag about how performatively woke i am, but because there’s research to suggest that the more visibly common/popular an act is, the more likely other people will do it.

as usual, thanks to @the-blackfoot-contessa for the rec

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this is fucking awful. i have no words. i can’t even think right now. i’m so tired.

“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has granted the state of Oklahoma regulatory control over environmental issues on nearly all tribal lands there, TYT has learned. This strips from 38 tribes in Oklahoma their sovereignty over environmental issues. It also establishes a legal and administrative pathway to potential environmental abuses on tribal land, including dumping hazardous chemicals like carcinogenic PCBs and petroleum spills, with no legal recourse by the tribes, according to a former high-level official of the EPA.“

#PLEASE SPREAD THIS ISNT GETTING REPORTED #THIS IS HUGE #THIS IS GENOCIDAL #INDIGENOUS RESERVATIONS HOUSE MOST OF THE BIODIVERSITY LEFT ON THE PLANET #THIS IS A LAST STAND IM SERIOUS #all that fucking work in oklahoma is just gone #i want to literally break things im so furious #BOOST!!! #ndn #native american #their tags

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one of breonna taylor's murderers was charged with wanton endangerment for firing into her neighbors' apartments. not for murderering a young woman in her home. but for property damage. no other charges were filed.

if you can, now would be a good time to donate to the Louisville bail fund. hundreds of protesters are currently marching with a long day ahead.

black lives matter.

#police brutality tw #black lives matter

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Jesus Christ...

#corona #covid19 #donald trump #biden #biden 2020

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jacob blake was shot seven times in the back by cops in kenosha, wisconsin, on 23 august 2020. he is currently in critical condition and fighting for his life. here are a few links to support him and aid the pursuit of justice:

gofundme for jacob blake and his family

petition to charge the cops who shot jacob blake

milwaukee freedom fund: bail funds for protesters in kenosha

call or email kenosha state officials, compiled by twitter user @ankita_71

split a donation to bail funds across the country

feel free to add updated information or other links!

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I just took psychic damage