#occupation OF FEDERAL bureau of INDIAN affairs

[native-academia]

𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕔𝕙 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕛𝕖𝕔𝕥: 𝕓𝕦𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕦 𝕠𝕗 𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟 𝕒𝕗𝕗𝕒𝕚𝕣𝕤

When the factory fur trade of North America was abolished in 1822, the US Government was left searching for a way to maintain control in Indian territories. John C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, created the “Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)” on March 11, 1824. He did so without authorization from Congress, which is against the general practice although not expressly forbidden by the Constitution. John Calhoun would go on to become the Vice President of the United States the following year. 

1825 was an interesting year in US history, representing the end of the Era of Good Feelings that followed the War of 1812. The presidential election would split the previous first party system into the Democrat and Republican system we now know today. The country was taking its first steps to limit the expansion of slavery into its newly aquired territories. As Jacksonian Democracy extended the privilege of voting to most white men aged 21 or older, removing the previous requirement to own land, racist and colonial mentalities spread in the form of “manifest destiny”. The US needed to remove Indian peoples from their homelands and they needed a way to do it. 

The Bureau of Indian Affairs would go on to forcibly remove native peoples from their nations under the direction of Senator and then Secretary of State, John C. Calhoun. In the late 1800’s, after succeeding in removing many tribal nations from their homelands, the Bureau of Indian Affairs created the Residential Schooling system to assimilate Indian children into American culture. Missionaries had already established the practice, but the Bureau of Indian affairs built their schools specifically off-reservation and incorporated “students” from a variety of different tribes to aid in their goal of assimilation. Their model was the infamous Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

The 1960’s and 1970’s saw a rise in activism for and among American Indians. The Bureau faced a number of displays of public opposition by Indian people and those who supported them, like the 1972 Occupation of BIA Headquarters. Today, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is responsible for quite a few different things, all concerning the affairs of American Indian people on Tribal lands.

The Bureau as a whole is responsible for the federal recognition of tribes, most recently the Little Shell Tribe of Montana. The Office of Field Operations is responsible for regional operations, working with tribal governments on the management of natural resources, agriculture, fish and wildlife, and parks. The Office of Justice Services operates several programs and also provides funding for law enforcement, tribal courts, and detention facilities on federal lands. Their jurisdiction is surprisingly expansive, holding authority over all crimes committed on reservations and all federal crimes, as well as all crimes committed within “dependent Indian communities” or on trust lands. It is also the responsibility of the OJS to enforce tribal criminal codes and assist tribes in maintaining their courts and justice systems. They also operate the Indian Police Academy, where agents are trained to work specifically in Indian Country. The Office of Trust Services is responsible for overseeing land and resources that are recognized as tribal but owned in trust by the US federal government. Finally, the Office of Indian Services comprises a wide range of different programs, including social services and child welfare, transportation infrastructure, awarding federal funds to tribes, and providing resources to tribal governments. It is generally in their mission statement and enumerated responsibilities to uphold tribal sovereignty under the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act.

Sources: x.x.x.

#history #anthropology #native american studies #bureau of indian affairs #natives in academia #native history #indigenous #studyblr #natives on tumblr #indigenous people #native americans #land back #american history #john c calhoun

[captainmdhridoyhossain-blog]

[ad_1] Darren Cruzan was once teary-eyed when he delivered his retirement speech to circle of relatives and associates at a meeting in Washington, D.C., remaining Might. He was once finishing a 26-year occupation in federal regulation enforcement — greater than part with the Inner Division — and was once happy with his tenure as an administrator. "If I have been to return and rewrite my complete lifestyles and occupation from starting to now, I may alternate a couple of punctuation marks," he mentioned on the time. "However the issues that in point of fact mattered will have rarely labored out to be higher. I in point of fact do consider larger issues are nonetheless to come back." In reality, extra was once to come back. Not up to two months after retiring, Cruzan was once again at the federal payroll as a non-public contractor. He was once employed by way of the very company for whom he labored to check 16 in-custody deaths at tribal detention facilities. A minimum of two of them–and as many as 11 took place on Cruzan's watch, consistent with Inner Division information. "It simply turns out like a slap within the face," mentioned Chris Yazzie, a former correctional officer whose brother died in 2017 within the Shiprock District Division of Corrections facility in New Mexico. "It is in point of fact an insult to the individuals who died in those jails. This complete scenario must be reviewed by way of Congress." An NPR and Mountain West Information Bureau investigation printed in June discovered a trend of overlook and misconduct that ended in inmate deaths at tribal detention facilities overseen by way of the Inner Division's Bureau of Indian Affairs. A minimum of 19 women and men have died since 2016, the overview discovered. A minimum of 19 women and men have died since 2016 in tribal detention facilities overseen by way of the Inner Division's Bureau of Indian Affairs, together with the Shiprock District Division of Corrections facility, consistent with an investigation by way of NPR and the Mountain West Information Bureau. Sharon Chischilly for NPR conceal caption toggle caption Sharon Chischilly for NPR A minimum of 19 women and men have died since 2016 in tribal detention facilities overseen by way of the Inner Division's Bureau of Indian Affairs, together with the Shiprock District Division of Corrections facility, consistent with an investigation by way of NPR and the Mountain West Information Bureau. Sharon Chischilly for NPR Yazzie's brother, Carlos, died after regulation enforcement did not get him rapid scientific consideration when he was once arrested on a bench warrant. His foot was once swollen and his blood alcohol content material was once just about six instances the criminal prohibit. As an alternative, they put him in a cramped isolation cellular and left him unmonitored and unchecked for 6 hours. A guard handing out inmate jumpsuits the following morning discovered the 44-year-old day laborer from the Navajo Country useless. The investigation additionally discovered that correctional officials have been poorly educated; one in 5 had no longer finished the desired elementary coaching, which incorporates CPR, first help and suicide prevention. Additionally,

correctional officials at a number of detention facilities continuously violated federal coverage and requirements by way of no longer checking on inmates steadily or making sure that they gained hospital treatment. And a number of other of the detention facilities have been in disrepair for years, with rust within the water, damaged pipes and overflowing bogs. A minimum of one prison lacked potable consuming water, forcing prison directors to show to charities for bottled consuming water. Carlos Yazzie died after he was once booked into the Shiprock District Division of Corrections facility in 2017. Yazzie circle of relatives conceal caption toggle caption Yazzie circle of relatives Regardless of repeated requests, Inner Division officers declined to liberate main points of the deaths, together with names and the dates the women and men died. After months of questions and public information requests by way of NPR and the Mountain West Bureau remaining 12 months, Inner Division officers introduced they might search an "unbiased, third-party" overview of the detention heart program. 4 contractors submitted proposals, together with two with federal contracting revel in, information display. One has finished $15 million in federal contracts since 2008; the opposite $2.5 million. Cruzan's corporate, The Cruzan Staff, had no monitor file on the time. He shaped it in December 2020 whilst he was once nonetheless operating for the government, consistent with Virginia's State Company Fee information. His companions come with two former Inner Division directors. It was once the corporate's first federal contract, consistent with a central authority contracting database. Robert Knox, probably the most companions in Cruzan's corporate, and a former Inner Division assistant inspector normal, mentioned the corporate gained the $83,000 contract reasonably. "We now have completed not anything – completely not anything – mistaken," Knox mentioned in an interview. He mentioned, regardless that, that Cruzan performed a outstanding function within the corporate's overview of the tribal detention facilities. Their function was once to judge 16 closed in-custody dying investigations from 2016 to 2020 and resolve precisely what took place in each and every dying; whether or not the foundations have been adopted; and whether or not coverage adjustments are wanted, consistent with BIA paperwork. Knox mentioned Cruzan's intensive wisdom of Indian Nation was once crucial for the find out about, which he mentioned was once finished in December however hasn't been disclosed publicly. The Cruzan Staff and the BIA declined to liberate a duplicate to NPR and the Mountain West Information Bureau. Robert Knox, assistant inspector normal for investigations on the Inner Division, testifies on Capitol Hill in 2014. He's now probably the most companions within the Cruzan Staff. Win McNamee/Getty Photographs conceal caption toggle caption Win McNamee/Getty Photographs Robert Knox, assistant inspector normal for investigations on the Inner Division, testifies on Capitol Hill in 2014. He's now probably the most companions within the Cruzan Staff. Win McNamee/Getty Photographs

"There was once a planned effort to check out those unlucky losses of lifestyles and check out and perceive what took place and whether or not there have been any adjustments that may be made to take a look at and save you anything else of the similar kind taking place at some point," Knox mentioned. Cruzan was once the highest regulation enforcement officer on the BIA and the Inner Division for just about a decade. He additionally headed the BIA's Administrative center of Justice Services and products, overseeing greater than 70 tribal detention facilities around the nation. Cruzan left the Inner Division for the Division of Native land Safety in 2019. He declined 3 requests for an interview. In some instances, former workers are allowed to bid on contracts with the businesses they as soon as labored for. However Virginia Canter, a former affiliate recommend for ethics for Presidents Obama and Clinton, mentioned awarding the contract to any individual who oversaw a afflicted program however is now being paid to indicate the issues, raises struggle of passion problems. "This contract simply is unnecessary," mentioned Canter, who is now leader ethics recommend for Electorate for Accountability and Ethics In Washington, a nonpartisan govt watchdog workforce. "There are a large number of crimson flags right here that counsel it deserves an inspector normal investigation." Federal rules name for businesses to keep away from doable conflicts of passion when operating with contractors. That comes with contractors who're "not able or probably not able to render unbiased help or recommendation to the Executive, or the individual's objectivity in acting the contract paintings is or could be another way impaired," consistent with the rules. Scott Amey, a contracting skilled and normal recommend with the nonpartisan watchdog workforce Undertaking on Executive Oversight, agreed with Canter. "I've a troublesome time justifying each the award and the way Mr. Cruzan was once going so that you can carry out in this contract in an purpose method because of the truth that he have been in workplaces that have been concerned with the BIA's detention facilities," Amey mentioned. Bryan Newland, who was once tapped in September to be the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs on the Inner Division, mentioned awarding the contract to Cruzan's corporate didn't violate federal rules. "I shouldn't have any explicit reason why to consider that this contract was once awarded outdoor of the regulatory procedure," Newland mentioned in an interview. When requested why he idea it was once a good suggestion for the company to rent Cruzan's corporate, Newland deferred to the contract place of job. When Cruzan took over as director of the BIA's Administrative center of Justice Services and products in 2010, he established insurance policies and tips for working the jails. He additionally oversaw the inner affairs department, which investigated in-custody deaths below his authority. He later moved to the Inner Division however persevered to supervise the corrections methods, together with the jails. All the way through that point, there was once a minimum of one drawback that ended in the deaths of a minimum of 3 inmates: the loss of on-site docs or nurses, regulation enforcement information display. In July 2016, after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), was once lobbied by way of a nonprofit well being care group at the Navajo Country, he despatched a letter to BIA Director Michael S. Black in regards to the absence of scientific body of workers on the jails. Two months later, Black spoke back announcing that Cruzan's place of job was once addressing the problem and inspired McCain to succeed in out to him, consistent with a duplicate of the letter bought by way of NPR and the Mountain West Information Bureau.

It is unclear whether or not the senator's place of job ever reached out. The problem was once by no means resolved. McCain died of mind most cancers in 2018. Brandy Tomhave, a legal professional and member of the Choctaw Country who sparked McCain to jot down the 2016 letter, mentioned she advised Cruzan's place of job to supply onsite hospital treatment. He failed to take action, she mentioned. A handprint stays at the window on the Shiprock District Division of Corrections facility in New Mexico. Sharon Chischilly for NPR conceal caption toggle caption Sharon Chischilly for NPR A handprint stays at the window on the Shiprock District Division of Corrections facility in New Mexico. Sharon Chischilly for NPR "He was once the director of the store," Tomhave mentioned. "Those are conversations and communications that have been taking place proper below his nostril. And if he wasn't ready to plug in in actual time then, then I believe that raises questions on his competency to audit the consequences now." In 2017, as head of the Inner Division's Administrative center of Legislation Enforcement and Safety, he oversaw policing and corrections for 5 businesses: the Nationwide Park Carrier, Bureau of Land Control, the U.S. Fish and Flora and fauna Carrier, the Bureau of Reclamation and the BIA, the place he persevered having oversight of the jails. Because the Inner Division's best cop, Cruzan's place of job was once liable for deciding whether or not any in-custody deaths warranted additional scrutiny. If that is so, Cruzan would chair a bunch of best company officers referred to as a "critical incident overview workforce." This workforce would overview an in-custody dying investigation, vote on whether or not division coverage adjustments have been wanted, and convey a record. Inner Division officers mentioned in a letter to the Mountain West Information Bureau this week that they might no longer in finding any indication that the gang had convened right through Cruzan's tenure. Cruzan's prior paintings with the Inner Division and BIA, and his oversight of the tribal corrections program right through a lot of the span of this find out about, does not worry Knox, a spouse with the Cruzan Staff. "I do know [Cruzan] had relationships with the BIA," Knox mentioned. "[But] there was once by no means a second the place any attention was once ever voiced — nor would were tolerated. None people would ever do anything else ... to take a look at and hide any individual's malfeasance or misbehavior." However it does worry Amey, the federal government ethics skilled. "That is the very best instance of worst follow with regards to govt contracting," Amey mentioned. "That is the type of factor that makes folks mistrust the federal government and choices which are being made." This tale is a collaboration from NPR's Stations Investigations Staff, which helps native investigative journalism, and the Mountain West Information Bureau, a bunch of NPR member stations protecting the area. [ad_2] #Inner #hires #reliable #overview #tribal #prison #deaths #took place #watch #NPR

[best2daynews]

AP WAS THERE: The occupation at Wounded Knee - best today news

WOUNDED KNEE, S.D. — Militant Indians who took over this small town continued to hold 11 hostages Wednesday after one exchange of gunfire and unsuccessful attempts at negotiations, authorities said. Gunshots were exchanged between the Indians and federal marshals earlier in the day, according to a Bureau of Indian Affairs official, but there were no reports of injuries. An FBI spokesman said…

View On WordPress

[whatevergreen]

The Occupation of Alcatraz 1969-1970

From top:

- A group of Native Americans including Timm Williams (in headdress) of the Yurok tribe, on one of the trips to Alcatraz Island, c1969. Ralph Crane.

- Games outside the prison wall, with the sign altered from “United States Property” to “United Indian Property.” November 26, 1969. AP photo.

- Occupants cook and eat outside of the Alcatraz Cell Block, 1970 University of Illinois.

- John Trudell, a Sioux activist, looks out across San Francisco Bay from a tipi (aka tepee or teepee) on Alcatraz Island, 1969. AP photo.

- Another view of the tipi, looking towards the Golden Gate. 1970.

- Left to right, Richard Oakes, Earl Livermore, and Al Miller, leaders of the American Indian Movement hold a press conference at Alcatraz on December 24, 1969.

Richard Oakes and others photographed in the Exercise Yard on Alcatraz Island, in November 1970, Kent Blansett.

Alcatraz island was the location of a fort and military prison established during the 1850s, and later the infamous Alcatraz jail from 1934 until its closure in 1963.

Some years after its abandonment, over 120 Native Americans and other supporters siezed and occupied the vacated island from November 20 1969 until June 1971, seeking to reclaim it as indigenous land in accordance with treaties made between the US government and Native Americans. Alcatraz was part of the traditional territory of the coastal Ohlone, Ramaytush and Miwok peoples.

During the occupation period, it is estimated that over 10,000 indigenous people from across North America and beyond spent some time at the island to support the movement. The Black Panthers also provided assistance during the initial move to secure the island.

The group was led by a young former ironworker and Akwesasne Mohawk called Richard Oakes, who was a student at San Francisco State College. Also by LaNada Means, a student at Berkeley who was a Shoshone/Bannock citizen from the Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho, and who had come to San Francisco as part of the Bureau of Indian Affair’s (BIA) inept relocation programme. They were leaders of the newly formed organisation, Indians of All Tribes (IAT). Another notable figure was the Sioux actor/poet John Trudell who later went on to lead the American Indian Movement (AIM).

They and others within the core of the group were also accompanied by their families.

Above: Activists view the main cell block, November 1969. AP photo.

Through the technical assistance of the occupiers and support from donors, IAT set about restoring water, sanitation and electricity to the former prison.

IAT created its own Bureau of Caucasian Affairs, requiring all whites to register with the bureau before setting foot on the island. It also staged a mock trial to hold the federal government responsible for past and contemporary injustices.

The occupation, though unsuccessful in restoring the land to Native Americans, did succeed in bringing together many of the indigenous (and non-indigenous) peoples in a common cause, and raised global awareness of the still unresolved issues: the theft from and the neglect, abuse, and racial discrimination against Native peoples.

Above: Some of the community gathered in the prison yard, November 26, 1969 Robert W. Klein/AP photo

After the end of the Alcatraz occupation, Richard Oakes and others of IAT organised several further occupations or takeovers. Many of them were successful. The takeover of Fort Lawton, a military base in Seattle that had been declared surplus property, led to the creation of the Daybreak Star Indian Center. The occupation of a former US Army communications centre in northern California resulted in the site being turned into a Tribal college, or D-Q University.

The occupation also encouraged indigenous movements across the world, from Mexico and Norway to Australia, to continue or revive their fights against discrimination and colonization.

Above: John Trudell on Alcatraz during the occupation with his family: his then-wife, Fenicia Ordóñez; Tara Trudell (left) and Mari Oja (right). At the time, Ms. Ordóñez was pregnant with the couple’s son, Wovoka, who was born on the island on July 20, 1970. Bengt af Geijerstam.

#alcatraz #indigenous #occupation #san francisco #native americans #1960s #1970s #protests #anti racism #colonisation

[gatheringbones]

[“The most ambitious of the occupations occurred when fourteen activists took control of Alcatraz Island on November 20, 1969. Among them were Richard Oakes, LaNada War Jack, Adam Fortunate Eagle, Stella Leach, and Grace Thorpe, the daughter of Jim Thorpe. They announced their plans to turn Alcatraz Island into an ecology center, training school, and Native American museum. The notorious prison had been lying vacant since 1963. The U.S. Department of Justice was trying to sell the property when Richard McKenzie of the Indians of All Tribes filed a claim based on the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which promised that dormant federal lands would automatically revert to Native ownership. The California attorney general ignored them and instead entered negotiations with Dragnet star Jack Webb to turn it into a permanent filming location. Director Victor Beaumont was promised use of the facility to film Baked Apples, an all-nude sex comedy.

The occupation of Alcatraz captured nationwide interest. Hundreds of Natives from around the country poured into the Bay Area in solidarity. Santee-Dakota poet John Trudell dropped out of Valley College in San Bernardino and joined the movement. He wrote a satirical manifesto that conveyed the feelings of the occupation:

We, the Native Americans, re-claim the land known as Alcatraz Island in the name of all American Indians by right of discovery. We wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings with the Caucasian inhabitants of this land, and hereby offer the following treaty: We will purchase said Alcatraz Island for twenty-four dollars in glass beads and red cloth, a precedent set by the white man’s purchase of a similar island about 300 years ago. We know that twenty-four dollars in trade goods for these sixteen acres is more than was paid when Manhattan Island was sold, but we know that land values have risen over the years. Our offer [is] $1.24 per acre.… We will give to the inhabitants of this island a portion of that land for their own, to be held in trust by the American Indian Government—for as long as the sun shall rise and the rivers go down to the sea—to be administered by the Bureau of Caucasian Affairs.… We will further guide the inhabitants in the proper way of living. We will offer them our religion, our education, our life-ways, in order to help them achieve our level of civilization and thus raise them and all their white brothers up from their savage and unhappy state. We offer this treaty in good faith and wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings with all white men.

Trudell’s humor impressed people like Charlie Hill but alarmed the FBI. The bureau opened a file on Trudell and noted in an internal memo, “He is extremely eloquent—therefore extremely dangerous.”]

Kliph Nesteroff, We Had A Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story Of Native Americans And Comedy

#kliph nesteroff #history stuff #currently reading

[freehawaii]

KE AUPUNI UPDATE - FEBRUARY 2021

Keeping in touch and updated on activities regarding the restoration of Ke Aupuni o Hawai`i, the Hawaiian Kingdom. Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka `Aina I Ka Pono.

We Are a NATION! We Are Not a TRIBE!

Maka`ala! Watch out! Here it comes again! Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz is the new chair of the US Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Sources say there will soon be yet another attempt to corral “Native Hawaiians” into an American tribal nation. It’s like: “Trust us, we know whatʻs best for you.”

Yes, itʻs hana hou “Akaka Bill” and “Fed Rec” (“fed wreck”), only sneakier and more dangerous. Bundling Native Hawaiians into a bill with real American Indian tribes that want Federal Recognition, practically guarantees passage. That means, Hawaiians would get swept along in a Fed Rec group plan.   Fed Rec gives American Indian tribes some degree of autonomy and access to U.S. government programs. But for Hawaiians it would mean further encroachment on our lands and other rights trampled under the heel of the US Government… On top of that, it would be administered by the infamously dysfunctional Bureau of Indian Affairs!   Everybody in Hawaii nei should oppose Fed Rec for the scam that it is. Even better, we should grab this opportunity to expose to Congress and the world that this is another example of international criminal acts by the United States in their ongoing unlawful occupation of our country. Not only are we not American Indians, we are not even Americans! This is an opportunity to tell them the Hawaiian Islands is a sovereign, independent country, not a fake state of the United States!   The only legitimate action that the U.S. can take is to Free Hawaii.   Please note we are neutral regarding Federal Recognition for actual Native American tribes. That is their business and their choice to make. Just leave Hawaiians out of it.

It’s time to hele mua...

This is the opportune time to move forward to initiate The Huli... to flip the tables and restore our Kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands. If we can muster the political will, we can do this! International mechanisms (like de-occupation) are available to help us restore our nation to reflect values and priorities rooted in aloha ʻāina, mālama pono, kapu aloha... ------ 

The more we stand as a nation and assert the Hawaiian Kingdom is alive and kicking, the more obvious the U.S. false claim becomes and the sooner we will be a Free Hawaii.

-------------- Please join the ku’e action to rename McKinley High School and to remove the offensive statue by signing this online petition. 

------- 

Ua Ola ke Ea – Sovereignty Lives A Year to Celebrate the Hawaiian Kingdom – Past, Present and Future Still in the process of ramping up… If you are (or if you know of someone who is) interested in helping facilitate any aspect of “Ua Ola ke Ea,” please contact: [email protected] 

-------  

The campaign to Free Hawaii continues to gain momentum ... 

Your kōkua, large or small, is vital to this effort...

To contribute, go to: https://GoFundMe.com/FreeHawaii ------ To contribute in other ways (airline miles, travel vouchers, clerical help, etc...) email us at [email protected] 

Also... Check out the great FREE HAWAII products you can purchase HERE  

All proceeds go to help the cause. Mahalo Nui Loa! 

-------- 

Malama Pono, 

Leon Siu 

Hawaiian National

#ke aupuni #leon siu #free hawaii #hawaiian kingdom

[kny111]

Wounded Knee, the Ghost Dance, and the Native American  Movement

“The white man says that the 1890 massacre was the end of the wars with the Indian, the end of the Ghost Dance. Yet here we are at war, we’re still Indians, and we’re Ghost Dancing again.”

-Russell Means, Pine Ridge Reservation, 1973

On this day in 1973, Native American activists surrendered to government officials, ending the Native occupation of the Pine Ridge reservation and Wounded Knee. Though the American Indian Movement was founded in 1968 to support the Native American community, the path to the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee started long before the 1960’s. In 1890, approximately 300 Lakota men, women, and children were killed by American troops at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. The 1960’s and 70’s saw a rising Native activism, what one historian called the shift from termination to self-determination.

The National Guardian was a radical leftist weekly newspaper published in New York City between 1948 and 1992. The Tamiment Library holds the photography files for the publication, which are a rich source of materials on activism, civil rights, politics, and Cold War America. The newspaper published many stories on AIM and the occupation of Pine Ridge, following the activists through the 1960’s into the turbulent 70’s and beyond. By 1970, few businesses and little farmland on the Pine Ridge reservation were Lakota-owned. Partly as a result, poverty rates were high for the Lakota on the reservation and national AIM activism sparked local action. On February 27, 1973, several hundred Native people, Oglala Lakota leaders, and AIM members made demands at Wounded Knee on the Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation as a part of what is known as the Trail of Broken Treaties, a traveling American Indian protest that started on the west coast in 1972 with a 20 point manifesto to be delivered to the United States Government.

The points were largely aimed at the restoration of Native American land, the enforcement or repeal of previous treaties, Bureau of Indian Affairs overhaul in light of corruption, and other legal safeguards to ensure Native sovereignty and authority. The federal government did not acquiesce to AIM’s 20 point manifesto, but instead rejected the organization’s claim to speak for Native American interests.

A 71-day standoff between activists and the United States government ensued, during which scores of Native activists were arrested on criminal charges such as arson and theft. Russell Means, an Oglala Lakota and one of the activist leaders prosecuted by the US government as a result of the events, stated during the Pine Ridge occupation that, “The white man says that the 1890 massacre was the end of the wars with the Indian, the end of the Ghost Dance. Yet here we are at war, we’re still Indians, and we’re Ghost Dancing again.”

The 1890 Ghost Dance was a syncretic Native American prophetic religious practice that spread throughout the West and the reservation system, in many ways uniting American Indians in a common tradition in the face of a tide of settler colonialism aimed at dispossessing many peoples. In a time of the aggressive widespread implementation of the reservation system, assimilation programs, and tragic massacres throughout the west, the Ghost Dance provided and, as this quotation shows, continued later to provide a spiritual language of resistance and solidarity.

The lasting impressions of pan-Native identity began with a Nevada-born Numu man whose message would spread across Native America and extend to this day. On January 1, 1889, the Ghost Dance prophet Wovoka experienced his first vision during a solar eclipse. He began to preach across the west and his teachings, historians have noted, were adapted by different Native peoples to incorporate traditions from any Native group. Though regional interpretations of Ghost Dance prophecies differed, some people believed that they heralded the end of Euro-American settler colonialism. Gregory Smoak, Historian of the Ghost Dance and Native identity found that an American investigator recorded a Paiute’s Ghost Dance-based belief that when, “Old Man [God] returned, all the Indians would climb up into the mountains to escape the flood that killed all the white people.”

A poster held here at the Tamiment from the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne included a similar sentiment in a run of identity politics-oriented publications during the 1970’s and 1980’s saying that, “There will come a time when we will take refuge in the mountains to escape the burning fires on the plains and there we will plan our return to that charred ground.”

Smoak argues that the Ghost Dance, the massacre at Wounded Knee, and larger continuing trends of Native American identity and ethnogenesis are inextricably linked, saying that, “The Ghost Dances and Wounded Knee have become synonymous. Yet the Ghost Dances did not necessarily lead to Wounded Knee, nor did they die there. The religion was far more than a tragic coda to the autonomous life that native peoples enjoyed before their dispossession. Ghost dances became part of a common process of identity formation that took place at different times and in different ways in Native communities across the United States.” In 1973 at Wounded Knee, AIM and the Pine Ridge activists invoked the language of the Ghost Dances to assert Native American identity and sovereignty.

On May 8, 1973, the protesters at Wounded Knee surrendered to federal officials. Trials and protests continued, but the occupation ended in a ten point treaty. The effects of Native activism from the 1960’s and 70’s, notably the continued imprisonment of AIM activist Leonard Peltier, reverberate to this day. Peltier was convicted of killing two federal officers in a standoff at Pine Ridge two years after the occupation. Activists argue that evidence was tampered with in the case and the trial itself was unfair. Peltier’s case remains a rallying point and symbol for AIM and for their supporters everywhere.

Peltier supporters rallied in New York after a 12 day and 710 mile run from Buffalo to draw attention to activists’ presentation before the UN Commission on Human Rights and Foreign Relations on Peltier’s behalf.

#history #american history #native american #native history #indigenousness #indigenous rights #indigenous history #wovoka #ghost dance #ghostdance

[qualitynightmarecrusade]

Blessing of the Government Taxes

Let me, Dear God, shift the paradigm on this day and blissfully give thanks for the gift of government, and thank the government for the gift of taxes. Bless my taxes, O God! Give me peace of mind as I rejoice in filling out forms and returning money to its rightful owner, the government. Keep me joyous, I pray, as I write out those checks. Yea, Lord, we know that there is little reason to be joyous with this Administration’s imperialism and impending rape of the Iranian peaceful energy program, but the thought of a new tax year still brings to us a swelling tear of joy. And whisper to me, Lord, all the good reasons that I send my money to my government every year.

Raise my awareness to the fact that I could not write this prayer, and would be a barely-functioning illiterate living in the gutter, if I had not received a free tax-subsidized education; my parents could not have afforded both my tuition and their own tax payments, so my tuition was supplied, at no expense to anyone, by the government. Never mind those student loans I’m shackled with, that I’ll be paying of for the rest of my life. Remind me of how my mind has been so wondrously calibrated by our free public schools!

Gently show me that the Internet, through which I send this prayer to others, was created by committees of civil servants. Help me to recall that my freedom to pray as I wish was purchased with tax dollars that paid for dairy price supports. Quietly kiss me as you raise my awareness that the only deserving people, the most noble among us, are those who subsist on government programs — paid for with our taxes. My Lord my God, fondle me as you energize me with the hopefulness of higher taxes that can pay for an even more effective Internal Revenue service, which in turn can collect even more taxes for an even more effective Internal Revenue Service, which will culminate in an ecstatic spiral of an all-encompassing tax-collecting mechanism that will be accountable to no one except to the spirit of economic justice.

Reveal to me, Lord, in my mind’s eye, the public health workers, the regulators of the environment and of commerce, the employees of the Department of Energy, and the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Education, and the Administration for Children and Families, and the Minerals Management Service, and the Rural Business-Cooperative Service, and the Minority Business Development Agency , and the Japan-United States Friendship Commission , and the Government National Mortgage Association, and the Housing and Urban Development Department, and the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements, and the Institute of Peace, and the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Small Business Administration, and the Superfund Basic Research Program , and the President’s Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission , and the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee , and the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, and the Stennis Center for Public Service, and the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation , and the Peace Corps, and the Office of Public and Indian Housing, and the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency, and the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, and the National Interagency Fire Center, and the Northwest Power Planning Council, and the Multifamily Housing Office , and the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer, and especially the Internal Revenue Service, and all the other things that my taxes and your taxes make possible.

And please, Lord, remind my brothers and sisters that they should liquidate their savings accounts and mutual funds, bonds and CDs, so that they too can be forced to turn it over to the greatest bargain of all that is Social Security. Educate me, Dear One, of how difficult life was for the sick and elderly before they paid throughout their entire careers, with threat of imprisonment, 14% of their wages for the iron-clad guarantees of Social Security. Please, Lord, make everyone realize that there is no investment more secure, and none that gives such a generous return, as Social Security.

Take me out of my selfishness and give me a spirit of gratitude as I write those tax checks! Remind me of my own virtue as I inform the IRS of cheaters. Inspire me to see that my sacred duty is to serve those who are unable to provide “value” to others, or are unwilling to provide anything for themselves. And that my highest calling is to ensure that others return whatever they have to the Government that You have created.

O Dear One, there are so many ways I wish my taxes could be spent! I’m willing, O Lord, to pay even more in taxes if it would work for the common good: We need a strong government to take back from the rich few and generously give to the many! Lord my God, please put the brakes on commerce, remove all profits from the pigs who “produced” it, and turn it all over to those who deserve it. So, more than ever, dear God, give me the strength and the vision to rise up and press my government to unapologetically take back what is ours. My sacred duty as a spokesperson for the working class can only be fulfilled if we organize, advocate, protest, resist, agitate, and speak truth to power by writing tax checks. I ask for your guidance, God, as I join with others to change the priorities and values of our government, so that they reflect more of our collective will, and my struggle, as expressed through your will.

Lord, you have created all men and wymyn as equals. Any disparity from your plan is an affront to decency. And so I pray, my Dear Lord, that you fulfill your vision for true equality, and remove all excess. In service to you, my Lord, we will not rest until everyone is truly equal. Strike down those that toil and work for a living; Tax the rich. Sicken the healthy. Scar the beautiful. Destroy the “successful”. Drown the bankers. Blind the stock traders. Cripple the athletes and sever the hands of the musicians. Plant carnivorous bacteria in the brains of those who score high on racist “IQ” tests. Deliver wasting diseases to the strong. Starve and stone the executives and managers. Show no mercy to the blood-sucking merchants as they suffer merciless deaths in the searing flames of gargantuan infernos. Smash capitalism and deliver us, Dear One, to our deserved socialist paradise.

May your blessing rest on my Form 1040, dear Lord, and may my taxes well serve you and my fellow citizens! Amen

[theculturedmarxist]

Dozens of giant US corporations, including 60 of the Fortune 500, used deductions, credits and other tax loopholes to avoid paying any federal income tax for 2018, according to an analysis issued by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The report was published April 11, just in time for the April 15 deadline for most American working people to file their tax returns.

The 60 companies in the Fortune 500 who paid no federal income tax had net incomes just from US operations of nearly $80 billion ($79,025,000,000, to be exact). They include such household names as Amazon, Chevron, Deere, Delta Air Lines, General Motors, Goodyear, Halliburton, Honeywell, IBM, Eli Lilly, Netflix, Occidental Petroleum, Prudential Financial and US Steel.

Meanwhile, millions of moderate-income families are finding that their income taxes have either increased or their expected tax refunds have evaporated because of restrictions on the itemization of tax deductions, the imposition of a $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions and a cut in the mortgage interest deduction.

Nearly all of the 60 companies that paid no taxes qualified to receive a refund from the US Treasury, although most will not collect a check, instead using the credit to offset future taxes. But whatever the bookkeeping process, American taxpayers are effectively paying money to them, despite their vast profits. The biggest refunds include those going to Prudential, $346 million (added to its $1.44 billion in profits); Duke Energy, a whopping $647 million (added to $3.02 billion in profits); and Deere, $268 million (added to $2.15 billion in profits).

Among the report’s most outrageous findings:

Amazon more than zeroed-out its tax bill on $10.8 billion in profits, making use of accelerated depreciation deductions on equipment as well as favorable tax treatment of stock-based compensation for executives like CEO Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world. The stock compensation deduction alone was worth $1 billion. Amazon will actually show a credit of $129 million from the US Treasury, not paying one cent in federal income taxes.

IBM is another corporate giant that has gamed the tax system by shifting earnings to its foreign operations to escape US taxation. The company reported worldwide profits of $8.7 billion, but only $500 million in the United States. It will reap a $342 million credit from the Treasury.

Delta Airlines accumulated $17.1 billion in federal pre-tax net losses as of 2010, partly as a consequence of a protracted crisis of the airline industry, partly as a result of the 2008 Wall Street crash. It has used these losses as well as the accelerated depreciation credit for purchase of new planes to “dramatically reduce their tax rates,” according to the ITEP report, receiving a credit of $187 million in 2018 despite net profits of more than $5 billion. According to Delta’s chief financial officer, the actual tax rate the company expects to pay going forward is between 10 and 13 percent, far below what a typical Delta worker pays on his or her income.

EOG Resources, a renamed remnant of Enron, perpetrator of the biggest corporate fraud in American history, can collect $304 million from US taxpayers on top of $4.07 billion in profits.

For one company, the federal tax refund would actually exceed net profits. Gannett made a $7 million profit, while showing an additional $11 million credit from the Treasury, giving the newspaper publishing giant an effective tax rate of negative 164 percent.

IBM’s tax rate was a negative 68 percent, while software maker Activision Blizzard and construction company AECOM Technology both posted effective tax rates of negative 51 percent.

Sixteen of the 60 companies made more than a billion dollars in net income on their US operations, to say nothing of foreign subsidiaries. Oil and gas producers and utilities comprised more than one-third of the total, led by Chevron and Occidental among the oil companies, and DTE Energy, American Electric Power, Duke Energy and Dominion Resources among the utilities.

The 60 companies profited enormously because the Trump tax cut bill cut the basic rate for corporations from 35 percent to 21 percent, while not eliminating the loopholes they had previously used to keep their taxes low. They had the best of both worlds, paying lower rates while still enjoying loopholes.

Overall, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, an arm of Congress, the cut in the corporate tax rate alone will pump $1.35 trillion into the pockets of the corporations over the next 10 years. For this year alone, corporate taxes have been cut by 31 percent.

For the 60 companies in the ITEP report, “Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21 percent corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion, blowing a $20.7 billion hole in the federal budget last year.”

This figure by itself is an irrefutable answer to all the bogus claims—made to workers in every part of the United States—that there is “no money” to pay for needed social programs, for wage and benefit increases, or to hire additional workers to reduce overwork and understaffing. The $20.7 billion would pay for a $7,000 bonus to every public school teacher in America.

The bonanza that these 60 corporations are enjoying is three times the amount that Trump proposes to cut from the budget of the Department of Education. It is 10 times the total amount budgeted for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which provides services for more than 2 million Native Americans. It is nearly 20 times the budget of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which conducts workplace safety inspections.

The ITEP report, issued by a group with close ties to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal Washington think tank, warns of the explosive political consequences of the corporate plundering of the Treasury. “The specter of big corporations avoiding all income taxes on billions in profits sends a strong and corrosive signal to Americans: that the tax system is stacked against them, in favor of corporations and the wealthiest Americans,” the report says.

At the same time, the tax cuts for big business are fueling the federal deficit, which will be used by both Democratic and Republican politicians to call for further cuts in social spending. The February monthly federal deficit hit an all-time high of $234 billion this year, as a result of a 20 percent drop in corporate tax revenue. The deficit for the first half of 2019 is projected at $961 billion, and the deficit for the fiscal year ending September 30 is expected to reach $1.1 trillion, as bad as the deficits posted in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crash.

#trump #tax break #taxes #wsws #corporate greed #us congress #1%ers #social programs #social justice #class warfare #capitalism #corporatism #socialism #utility companies #guillotine bait

[messoamerica]

American Indian Movement (AIM) activists occupy the headquarters of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington D.C., November 3 - 9, 1972, as part of an indigenous rights action called the Trail of Broken Treaties. Activists visited the bureau with the goal of addressing a number of concerns held by the Native American community. The issues presented by the activists, known as the Twenty Points, were:

Establishment of a treaty commission to make new treaties (with sovereign Native Nations).

Indian leaders to be permitted to address Congress.

Review of treaty commitments and violations.

Unratified treaties to go heard by the Senate for action.

All Indians to be governed by treaty relations.

Relief for Native Nations for treaty rights violations.

Recognition of the right of Indians to interpret treaties.

Joint Congressional Committee to be formed on reconstruction of Indian relations.

Restoration of 110 million acres (450,000 km2) of land taken away from Native Nations by the United States.

Restoration of terminated rights.

Repeal of state jurisdiction on Native Nations.

Federal protection for offenses against Indians.

Abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Creation of a new office of Federal Indian Relations.

New office to remedy breakdown in the constitutionally prescribed relationships between the United States and Native Nations.

Native Nations to be immune to commerce regulation, taxes, trade restrictions of states.

Indian religious freedom and cultural integrity protected.

Establishment of national Indian voting with local options; free national Indian organizations from governmental controls

Reclaim and affirm health, housing, employment, economic development, and education for all Indian people.

During the visit, a physical altercation broke out between government security forces and young Native Americans. The government forces were thrown out of the building and over 500 protesters subsequently took over the bureau by pushing desks and tables against doors to keep out police. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was occupied for a week and gained international attention, receiving messages of support from the Irish Republican Army and Black Panther Party. A settlement was reached on November 8th, and following the occupation President Nixon signed legislation allowing Native American tribes more control over their reservations. 

#trail of broken treaties #american indian movement #bureau of indian affairs #native american #indigenous #indigenous resistance #nixon #usa #resistance #1972 #social justice #protest #aim

[natesafety]

OSHA to Issue New COVID Emergency Temporary Standard Mandating COVID-19 Vaccination, Testing, Paid Time Off

Seyfarth Synopsis: President Biden announced a six-pronged, “comprehensive national strategy” to combat COVID-19, which will include a second OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard requiring vaccines or testing

On June 21, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), its first in decades, relating to COVID-19 that only applied to health care employers. On September 9, 2021, the Biden Administration announced the framework for a second OSHA ETS that will apply to all employers with 100 or more employees, and will mandate COVID-19 vaccination or weekly testing for employees who choose not to get vaccinated. The announcement explains:

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is developing a rule that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated or require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work. OSHA will issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to implement this requirement. This requirement will impact over 80 million workers in private sector businesses with 100+ employees.

No draft regulations have been released, and employers have no indication of compliance dates. When issuing an ETS, OSHA does not need to pursue notice-and-comment rulemaking; however, the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs held over 40 stakeholder meetings (known as “12866 meetings,” after Executive Order 12866) prior  to OSHA’s issuing its healthcare ETS, the development of which took approximately six months.

OSHA state plans will have 30 days to adopt their own regulations that are similar or more restrictive than OSHA’s vaccine ETS.

The new OSHA ETS will be part of a larger White House plan intended to address the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and high rates of infection, hospitalization, and death.

The President noted that there are still nearly 80 million Americans eligible to be vaccinated who have not yet gotten their first shot. The President’s plan will reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans by using “regulatory powers and other actions to substantially increase the number of Americans covered by vaccination requirements-these requirements will become dominant in the workplace.” In addition, the plan will provide “paid time off for vaccination for most workers in the country.” The regulations may put employers on the hook for those payments.

The six prongs of the White House Plan are:

1. Vaccinating the Unvaccinated

2. Further Protecting the Vaccinated

3. Keeping Schools Safely Open

4. Increasing Testing & Requiring Masking

5. Protecting Our Economic Recovery

6. Improving Care for those with COVID-19

Specifically, with respect to COVID-19 vaccines, the President’s plan will:

• Require all employers with 100+ employees to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested weekly.

• Require vaccinations for all Federal workers and for millions of contractors that do business with the Federal government.

• Require COVID-19 vaccinations for over 17 million health care workers at Medicare and Medicaid participating hospitals and other health care settings.

• Require staff in Head Start programs, Department of Defense schools, and Bureau of Indian Education-Operated schools to be vaccinated.

• Call on large entertainment venues to require proof of vaccination or testing for entry.

• Require employers to provide paid time off to get vaccinated.

If you are struggling with a company vaccine policy, see Seyfarth’s Vaccine Policy Playbook. An “essential resource in designing, communicating, and deploying your company’s vaccine policy.” The Playbook guides employers through types of mandates, policy creation and considerations, such as reporting, incentives, and local mandates, and perhaps most importantly, defining an accommodation strategy that reduces the risk of ADA and EEOC claims.

For more information on this or any related topic, please contact the authors, your Seyfarth attorney, or any member of the Workplace Safety and Health (OSHA/MSHA) Team.

Seyfarth Shaw LLP Workplace Safety and Health (OSHA/ MSHA) Team: James L. Curtis Benjamin D. Briggs Adam R. Young Patrick D. Joyce A. Scott Hecker Ilana Morady Daniel R. Birnbaum Craig B. Simonsen

[ciastov]

What Indigenous Really Means

While there is no single definition of “indigenous peoples,” they are commonly understood to be those who inhabited a country, land, or a geographical region at a time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived and “became dominant through conquest, occupation, settlement or other means” (UN Factsheet 1).  Indigenous peoples typically have their own unique languages and belief systems and have a special relationship to their ancestral land which is of “fundamental importance to their collective physical and cultural survival as peoples” (UN Factsheet 2).  There are currently nearly 600 federally recognized indigenous tribes in the United States, each making up the original occupants of the lands we now refer to as the various states we know to be the America (Bureau of Indian Affairs, Home).  The tribes, including the Cherokee, Sioux, Navajo, and many others, have their own unique stories to tell.  There is no one homogenous Native American experience as has been the convenient belief for most of white America (Yellow Robe 5:25-5:45).  Many people expect the word indigenous automatically assumes that people who hold the title are all people of color, and although that may be true for many indigenous tribes, such as Native Americans, race and the color of one’s skin are not defining factors as to whether or not they are indigenous.  Indigenous is a term that describes people across the globe.  Given this rich global cultural diversity, and diversity among indigenous Native Americans alone, it is essential to understand the varying roles that their individual rituals, ceremonies, and celebrations play in their society. 

[thenavajotourist-blog]

Your Hero is Not Untouchable Pt 1

Your Hero is Not Untouchable

A Monuments Study: Starting with Mt Rushmore

 By Rye Purvis 6/17/2020

(Photo from Rapid City Journal Archives)

The Four Thieves

In 1868 the United States signed the “Treaty of Fort Laramie” with The Oglala, Miniconjou and Brulé Lakota, Yanktonai Dakota and the Arapaho Nations. The Treaty defined seventeen articles, namely defining territory to tribal members and protecting the land from white settler intervention. That all changed when white settlers moved onto tribal lands despite the Treaty when the allure of “gold” in the Black Hills led to expeditions by George Armstrong Custer in 1874. Territory largely remained on paper as “Indian Territory” until the Great Sioux War of 1876 where the United States government “unilaterally annexed native land protected under the treaty.” The treaty would be “modified three times by the US Congress between 1876 to 1889, each time taking more land originally granted, including unilaterally seizing the Black Hills in 1877.”1

Now under United States control, the Black Hills long known as a sacred ground for the Lakota people, were prepped to undergo a large carving in a 1927 federally funded project secured by then US Senator from South Dakota Peter Norbeck. Concurrently, according to the Meriam Report  (a report on Indian “conditions” commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation), the Sioux reservations in South Dakota saw largely starvation and dismal conditions. In James Fenelon’s “Culturicide, Resistance, and Survival of the Lakota Sioux Nation,” Fenelon writes that one man named Black Horse described  such conditions: “we are starving…and eating our horses.” Another man, Fools Crow stated “the white population…was expanding; taking their land allotments, trading their ‘freedom for money and liquor’ with ‘no end to this curse.’”2 It had only been a mere 37 years prior that the United States Army massacred 250 Lakota men, women and children in the Wounded Knee Massacre. Food shortages were further heightened by years prior of European settlers hunting Bison (a staple for Lakota people) into near extinction. Cue Mt Rushmore:

“Sculptors were carving four faces of most famous Euro-American leaders, U.S. presidents, into a ‘great shrine of democracy and freedom’ on the monumental cliffs in the stolen Black Hills, in an area known to Lakota as ‘the six grandfathers.’ The Lakota dubbed the Mt. Rushmore result ‘the four thieves’ as each had engineered the taking of vast tracts of Indian land.”2

Did you know that Sioux Nation took the United States to Supreme court in a 1980 case to regain the Black Hills? The Supreme Court decided to instead give the “value of the land” in monetary value rather than the land itself. The Sioux has since declined the money (estimated to be over 1 Billion dollars, held within the Bureau of Indian Affairs) since this would “legally terminate Sioux demands for return of the Black Hills.”3 I know this fact isn’t related to monuments nor Mt Rushmore, but what is it is a testament to the resilience of the Sioux Nation despite years of war, famine, stolen land, broken treaties and the desecration of the Six Grandfathers.

Here’s another fact. According to the Smithsonian, Gutzon Borglum the creator/sculptor of Mt Rushmore was a white supremacist sympathizer who once said “I would not trust an Indian, off-hand, 9 out of 10, where I would not trust a white man 1 out of 10.” Borglum also worked alongside the Ku Klux Klan, becoming “involved in Klan politics.”4 Of course, this information doesn’t necessarily have to do with Mt Rushmore, but it makes for an interesting backdrop doesn’t it?

 Lest We Forget

Art Historian’s Harriet Senie and Sally Webster remark in “Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy” the phenomenon of Mt Rushmore in displacing Sioux existence and history:

“It’s important to invent alternative pasts for a culture that finds it hard to accept the real one. It’s paradoxical that a Shrine of Democracy is placed in the center of land acquired through…the most blatant example of 500 years of genocide and hemispheric conquest. Rushmore implies that the European has always been here. It obscures a painful memory and eases racial guilt much the same way an individual represses thoughts that remind him of a painful experience.”5

 This paradox permeates throughout American culture today, setting stage for the current climate of a demand for accountability and anti-racism manifesting throughout the US after George Floyd’s recorded murder by a Minneapolis Police Officer set off the motion of action. In just the last two weeks of June 2020, the world has watched as communities around the world have toppled over sculptures and monuments long considered representations of a colonized history. In fact, this past Monday, in my home state of New Mexico a protester was shot during a protest in Albuquerque in front of an Juan de Oñate statue. Oñate was a Spanish conquistador who was involved in the Acoma Massacre of 1599 that resulted in 500 Acoma men and 300 women and children killed as a result. This isn’t the first time protests have been held around such a figure. In 1998, a group of Acoma peoples cut off the foot of an Oñate statue in Alcalde, New Mexico as an act of defiance against the 400th year anniversary/celebration of Spanish “founding of New Mexico colony.” That’s not even the interesting part: “At the Oñate Monument and Visitors Center, Estevan Arellano, the director of the site, supervised the attachment of a new foot to the statue. He later said, ‘Give me a break – it was 400 years ago. It's okay to hold a grudge, but for 400 years?’”6

I digress.

Erin Genia wrote a great thesis titled “Wokiksuye: The Politics of Memory in Indigenous Art, Monuments and Public Space” and in it delves into the erasure of memory within a colonized landscape:

“Monuments play an important role in this process by supplanting Indigenous presence with shrines to colonization and occupation. A key pursuit of colonial empire-building is the forced erasure of memory. In this, colonizing powers have been so successful that people in the Western world are generally ignorant of their origins or their natural connections to the continuum of life. Knowing where you come from and what sustains you should be staples of consciousness for people of any culture. But the practice of eliminating memory and language has been taking place for so long that this fundamental knowledge is increasingly absent. The trajectory of world history has been dominated by those who have used their might to subjugate and take power from others to enrich a few chosen ones, using methods that wipe out the memory of the subjugated.”7

I wish I had the bandwidth to unpack the levels of effects colonization has had on BIPOC in America – all within a short online article on monuments- especially where Genia left us in the previous quote. The entire existence of the United States has been based on eliminating the memory and language of BIPOC through acts of genocide that pervade through monuments. So going back to Mr. Arellano’s quote “It’s okay to hold a grudge, but for 400 years?” No, toppling monuments in June 2020 are not acts of grudge or ill will, nor was it a grudge in 1998’s foot removal. Instead these are acts of recognition of painful histories that the US is grappling with, amongst a climate of people who have yet to fully acknowledge the atrocities of war, slavery, and genocide. In the words of the Acoma statement on the 1998 foot removal: “We see no glory in celebrating Oñate’s fourth centennial, and we do not want our faces rubbed in it.”

 I will continue to write about other US Monuments in this series titled “Your Hero is Not Untouchable” including diving into contemporary artist responses.

Thank you for reading.

   Quotes: 

1 Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fort_Laramie_(1868)

2 Culturicide, Resistance, and Survival of the Lakota (Sioux Nation) James V. Fenelon

3 United States v Sioux Nation of Indianshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Sioux_Nation_of_Indians

4 Matthew Shaer, The Sordid History of Mount Rushmore, October 2016 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/sordid-history-mount-rushmore-180960446/

5 Harriet Senie, and Sally Webster, Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998), 249

6 Acoma Massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoma_Massacre

7 Genia, Erin, Wokiksuye: The Politics of Memory in Indigenous Art, Monuments and Public Space. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2019)

https://architecture.mit.edu/sites/architecture.mit.edu/files/user/attachments/Wokiksuye%20The%20Politics%20of%20Memory%20in%20Indigenous%20Art%20Monuments%20%26%20Public%20Space%20by%20Erin%20Genia.pdf

[freehawaii]

NATIVE HAWAIIANS TO DEB HAALAND - ʻWEʻRE NOT NATIVE AMERICANSʻ

Indian Country Today - April 12, 2021 - By Anne Keala Kelly

Aloha Secretary Haaland, and congratulations on your historic, groundbreaking position at the Department of Interior as the first Native American to hold a cabinet seat. Now that we have dispensed with the pleasantries, allow me to introduce myself. I am Kanaka Maoli, and I’m writing to remind you that the United States of America has been holding the Hawaiian Nation hostage for over a century. So, please don’t explore ways to further the cover-up by paying us off or racializing us into becoming a tribe. We want to exercise our rights through self-determination, not American pre-determination.”

Okay, that isn’t how Hawaiian activist, Kealoha Pisciotta, actually worded her letter to the new head of the Department of Interior. But that might be how it came across when Haaland finished reading it. 

My irreverent humor aside, Pisciotta’s letter is an important communication for Haaland to receive for some really good reasons, one being that it advocates for Hawaiian rights, something that has been denied us since the U.S. takeover. Another is that it came from a Hawaiian leader who is not employed by the state or federal government. There is a line between Natives who work for the government and those who do not.  

Haaland is on the other side of that line, and boy does she have her work cut out for her.

She now runs an agency that is one-part protection, and three parts exploitation and destruction. The DOI has been the delivery system for some really nasty laws and policies that have been anti-Native and anti-Mother Earth.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (previously known as Office of Indian Affairs, that was originally part of the War Department), the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and nine other land and resource-related bureaus are DOI’s responsibility. Most federal leasing of land and water for extraction by the energy industry is through the DOI. And now that Americans are ravenous for green-renewable energy, lithium is the new gold and mining is a priority. Elon Musk and other billionaires are enormously grateful, but I digress.

Many Natives, myself included, hope that Haaland, being a Native woman, can take some of the edge off that bloody blade white people have been carving up Turtle Island with since the Mayflower docked.

But Hawaiians, as a people, need to keep expectations real. Deb Haaland is eighth in line to the oval. She is a key player in the American business of government, not the Hawaiian struggle for self-determination, which is the focus of Pisciotta’s letter. 

Sent to Haaland on behalf of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, the Mauna Kea Hui and the Mauna Kea ‘Aelike/Consensus Building Ohana, three groups composed of cultural practitioners and activists, Pisciotta also cc’d some heavies in the letter. At the top of that list are President Biden and the UN’s Secretary-General. Talk about putting it out there.

The letter highlights some often-cited historical wrongs committed by the U.S. against Hawaiians, starting with the U.S. military coup of 1893 that ousted Queen Liliuokalani.

Then it winds its way to, “You may recall the mass protests that have taken place in recent years.” And don’t forget the 2014 DOI hearings when “thousands of Hawaiians testified in person and were opposed to becoming a tribe, like our kupuna who signed the 1897 [Ku‘e] petitions were opposed to becoming American.”

To further emphasize what the U.S. pretends not to know, Pisciotta added a truth-bomb cherry to that sundae, with “We, the Hawaiian people, have never consented to the U.S. occupation of our beloved country.”

But Pisciotta’s motivation for presenting Haaland with the skinny version of “Hawaiian Sovereignty 101” is as important as the letter’s content. She wrote it because Congressman Kai Kahele, who was sworn into office with his hand on Senator Akaka’s bible, said that he and Congressman Ed Case will push for reparations. 

One can only speculate how absurd the dollar amount will be when geniuses in DC calculate “fair” compensation for the theft of our nation-state, our land, our rights and our dignity. And any deal would reanimate the Akaka Bill or manufacture something else like it, resulting in pseudo federal recognition of Hawaiians, and more false justification for keeping the Hawaiian nation in chains.

Although reparations aren’t the same as a lawsuit, the idea of paying off Hawaiians brings to mind the pitiful settlement from Eloise Cobell’s monumental case against the DOI.

When it comes to Indigenous peoples, the American tradition has been to withhold as much justice as possible, and then lie about it. With regard to Hawaiians, the goal of the U.S. hasn’t changed one iota since the first criminal act it perpetrated in 1893. And it is not likely to change now because a new Hawaiian is in congress or a Laguna-Pueblo is running the DOI.

Pisciotta and others are standing at the frontline in advance of another attempt by the U.S. to extend generations of injustice into an eternity of injustice.

Collectively, as a force of one, those Hawaiians are proof that we don’t have to wait for, and then react to, the American agenda.

We can assess the threat and acknowledge the urgency without waiting for validation from the state or the media. We can practice self-determination now, use the wisdom of our experience and take evasive action before the axe is swung.

Hawaiians have been on the receiving end of nearly 130 years of American aggression. There have been some very dark times, and there will likely be more. But we have the mana of ancestral memory to draw from. We can look at the horizon with eyes and minds that hold generations of knowledge about the winds and the currents. Our people used to navigate by the stars from the deck of a canoe in the middle of the largest ocean on earth with no canned food or electronic gadgetry. And the darker the night the better they could see their way.

That’s us guys. We determine our own fate. We are the navigators.

#fed wreck #federal recognition #us department of interior #free hawaii #hawaiian kingdom

[jwood718]

“The fight has constantly been, ‘These are sacred sights.’ But the non-indigenous power is like, ‘Well prove to us these are sacred sites.’ How can we prove that when it’s our beliefs?”

While many in the US and around the world act, or react, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, or wonder what’s happening with COVID-19, the federal Bureau of Land Management presses onward with plans to lease more land to natural gas and oil drilling companies.

Chaco Canyon: the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, looking southeast along the park road.

A few winters ago, Sam Sage started getting strange phone calls.  Families living in rural areas south-west of Counselor, New Mexico, were telling him they saw sickly bull snakes and near-death rattlers above ground during the snowy, winter months of the south. Sage, the administrator at the Counselor Chapter House, a Navajo local government center, was incredulous.

“In February? There’s no snakes in February,” he said.

Sage had a theory for what was happening: underground vibrations from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, forced the snakes from their dens and on to the surface.  Over the years, he’s noticed other changes. Vegetation died off and the climate became drier. People living in homes with dirt floors told him they had felt vibrations from the ground late at night, from 2 to 4am.

The BLM is opening up more and more public land for leases in northewest New Mexico, where Native Americans have lived for thousands of years.  Private land owners have signed leases before and been paid, but for vertical oil wells.  Now the leases are largely for horizontal fracturing (fracking) though it’s not stipulated what manner of drilling will occur when leases are proffered, and many Indigenous are now refusing because of the effects to the land that fracking causes.

Pueblo Bonito: the largest of the Great Houses built circa 1,000 AD in Chaco Canyon.

The Four Corners area (northwest New Mexico, northeast Arizona, southwest Colorado and southeast Utah) already has a high concentration of methane in the atmosphere from wells; archaeology has barely scratched the surface (pun intended) in seeking the historical evidence of Native occupation of the region; and the landscape and its sites remain sacred to the Indigenous who still live there.

Under the Trump administration, the amount of US lands up for lease to oil and gas companies has skyrocketed – 461m acres across the country, as of earlier this year. To New Mexico environmentalists and indigenous activists, the new plan is just another instance of the administration’s energy dominance agenda threatening some of the country’s most pristine lands.  The new proposal would encroach further upon the Chaco culture national historical park — a network of historic archaeological sites that today hold Unesco World Heritage status and are of spiritual importance to Navajo and Puebloan people in the region.

Pueblo del Arroyo, Chaco Canyon.

The historical park itself is protected, but a lot of land in the region could be used to continue extraction of fossil fuels.  Having seen the degradation attendant to drilling in the past, many are very concerned at further pursuit of oil and/or gas.

Mario Atencio, a Navajo organizer, said he was overcome by headaches when visiting an orphaned well by his grandma’s land near Counselor last year...It seemed as if BLM authorities try swaying Native people to favor drilling, leaving out certain facts, Atencio said. “That by the very definition is environmental racism and environmental injustice,” he added. 

Google maps

In a statement, Jillian Aragon, a BLM spokesperson, said the agency is developing the Mancos-Gallup Amendment “in coordination with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to ensure the proper fulfillment of our obligations to Tribal communities”, adding that tribes, Pueblos and others’ comments will inform the final document. 

Full story by The Guardian’s Cody Nelson (minor editing for space).

Photos: R. Jake Wood, 2019.

#The Guardian #society #Environment #chaco canyon

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Obituary: Longtime American Indian activist Dennis Banks

Dennis Banks, a longtime national American Indian activist who was acquitted in the famed 1970s Wounded Knee uprising trial, has died, his family said early Monday. Banks was 80 years old.

"Our father Dennis J. Banks started his journey to the spirit world at 10:10 p.m. on October 29, 2017," reads a post on Banks' Facebook page signed by his children and grandchildren.

"As he took his last breaths, [son] Minoh sang him four songs for his journey," the notice continued. "All the family who were present prayed over him and said our individual goodbyes. Then we proudly sang him the AIM [American Indian Movement] song as his final send off."

Native News Online, a national website covering American Indian issues, reported Sunday in a dispatch from Rochester that Banks developed pneumonia following open heart surgery 10 days earlier.

In 1968, Banks was among the founders of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis, an activist movement that spread nationwide. Under Banks' leadership, marches and takeovers became AIM's signature tactics for years to come.

Banks participated in the 1969-71 occupation of Alcatraz, a Bay Area island that had been home to a federal prison. In November 1972, he led AIM in a takeover of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs building in the nation's capital.

Banks and other AIM members made their biggest mark, though, in 1973, when federal agents clashed with hundreds of protesters occupying Wounded Knee in southwestern South Dakota, the site of an 1890 massacre of Indians by federal troops.

Protesters and federal authorities were locked in a standoff for 71 days. Before it was over, two tribal members were killed and a federal agent seriously wounded. Banks and fellow AIM activist Russell Means were charged in 1974 for their leadership roles in the uprising.

After a trial in federal court in St. Paul that lasted several months, a judge threw out the charges on grounds of government misconduct.

#Dennis Banks #obituary #AIM #Indigenous #Wounded Knee #Alcatraz #Minneapolis #Ojibwe