Oh, Canada, For Effing Shame.

Jennifer Dorner posted this image after dropping her kids off on the first day of school in Montreal. (Courtesy Jennifer Dorner/Facebook).

Jennifer Dorner posted this image after dropping her kids off on the first day of school in Montreal. (Courtesy Jennifer Dorner/Facebook).

A picture posted by mother Jennifer Dorner has started yet another conversation about why not to wear costume headdresses. She took the image while dropping her children off for their first day of school at Montreal’s École Lajoie on Monday, August 29. The image shows a Grade 3 teacher in a headdress in front of the children, and according to Dorner, smaller headdresses were being handed out for the children to wear.

Sarah Dorner, Zoe’s mother, told thestar.com that her daughter refused to wear the headdress.

“We have been teaching our children that costumes like that are inappropriate,” Dorner also said. “The other kids in the class were all wearing them.”

“A lot of children aren’t necessarily taught cultural sensitivity or have much awareness about indigenous cultures,” she went on to say. “But in our family we have many indigenous friends, so it’s a conversation we’ve had many times.”

Gina Guillemette, a Margeurite-Bourgeoys school board spokesperson, told news outlets that the two teachers seen sporting headdresses have backgrounds in anthropology and history and are introducing indigenous history into the curriculum. Guillemette also told CBC News the headdresses worn by teachers were a way for the kids to know which “family, or class, to go to.”

Guillemette told the Gazette that “the teachers decided to wear hats to symbolize that they were Native chiefs,” to separate their students from another Grade 3 class.

Right. So naturally, you could not be bothered, as educators, to thoughtfully choose a particular tribe, maybe one in your actual part of the world, find out what their traditional regalia might be, and actually ask members of that tribe if it would be okay to dress in a certain item. Oh, that would be bringing Indians into things, and I guess you can’t have that in a school, it might poison young minds with the truth or something. As Adrienne Keene wrote on Native Appropriations, this is not a lightweight matter:

Adrienne K of Native Appropriations writes that a non-Indian casually wearing an Indian headdress “furthers the stereotype that Native peoples are one monolithic culture, when in fact there are 500+ distinct tribes with their own cultures. It also places Native people in the historic past, as something that cannot exist in modern society. We don’t walk around in ceremonial attire everyday, but we still exist and are still Native.” She also draws attention to the deep spiritual significance of a headdress and maintains that when a non-Indian wears one “it’s just like wearing blackface.”

Getting back to the teachers at  École Lajoie, they seem to not only miss the point, they are determined to miss the point:

“No offence was intended—if any parents were offended, we apologize,” Guillemette told the Gazette. “We didn’t want to offend anyone. It was the opposite; we wanted to sensitize the students to the contributions of native communities.”

Oh For Fuck’s Sake! What about the children you offended, do they not count? And there’s that magical if – if you were offended, words of the classic notpology. You sensitize students to the contributions of native communities by appropriating a headdress unique to specific tribes, and mashing up all tribal cultures into one messy clump? You sure as hell don’t sound like educators to me, you sound like flaming assholes who live to perpetuate stereotypes.

“How can they possibly be teaching an authentic understanding of indigenous culture? Dorner asked thestar.com. “It doesn’t help their cause to say that. If anything, it makes it even more distressing.”

This isn’t the first time Dorner has addressed cultural sensitivity with the school either. In 2014, “they were doing a play where Santa goes to Africa and gets Ebola and gets sick and the local tribes are dancing around him and my daughter was going to be in blackface,” she told the Gazette.

“We managed to convince the school not to do blackface at the time, but they still kept the story line. Santa ends up being saved by scientists who come from the North Pole.”

She met with the school multiple times in 2014, according to the Gazette to discuss “cultural appropriation and this kind of insensitivity and was hoping that we had come to some kind of understanding, but apparently not. Which is why I’m particularly upset this time. The message doesn’t seem to be sinking in.”

Canadians, please, wake the fuck up. This school, and its staff, should be shamed into the ground by a whole lot of very angry people. Apparently, the open bigotry at this school strikes too many people as just fine, and that is seriously fucked up.

Full story at ICTMN.

Dakota Access: Indigenous Round Up.

DAP

As the number of water protectors continues to burgeon on the banks of the Cannonball River in protest of the Dakota Access oil pipeline’s route across Standing Rock Sioux ancestral, treaty-protected lands, national media outlets are starting to pick up the story.

Both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have run pieces, and The New York Times published an op-ed by Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman David Archambault II, as well as a detailed explanation of the issues. But Democracy Now! has been out in front with in-depth reports on more than one night. Last week we brought you the independent news show’s initial report.

Anchor Amy Goodman has since interviewed both Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II and Ojibwe activist, journalist, author and sometime vice presidential candidate Winona LaDuke. Both reports aired last week, as support from Indian nations and people continued to grow to several thousand.

Watch Archambault and LaDuke below, and read the stories at Democracy Now!, including an August 30 report on the Black Lives Matter movement’s visit to the spirit camps..

Full Story.

[Read more…]

LePage: The Apology.

CREDIT: AP/MICHAEL DYWER.

CREDIT: AP/MICHAEL DYWER.

You didn’t think I was serious, did you? Okay, well LePage sorta kinda apologized, except not really. He’s sorry he made noises about stepping down.

All of this morning’s headlines focused on Maine Gov. Paul LePage apparently apologizing for an angry voice mail he left a state lawmaker, suggesting during a radio interview that he might even resign.

By the end of the day, the headlines were about LePage taking back the idea of quitting.

Lost in the political intrigue is that LePage didn’t apologize for using a gay slur. (He repeatedly called Rep. Drew Gattine a “cocksucker.”) He’s instead apologizing for losing his temper. LePage said he nearly couldn’t breathe after a reporter told him Gattine had said the governor is racist.

LePage also certainly isn’t apologizing for endorsing racial profiling. In a news conference Friday after LePage got caught leaving that short-of-breath, furious voice mail, the governor defended himself by saying “people of color” are “the enemy.”

[…]

LePage is aware that what he’s saying is considered racist, though he’s equally certain he’s not racist.

“Now they’re saying, ‘Well, you can’t do this,’ every day they’re saying, ‘You can’t do it because of the racially charged atmosphere in our country,’” he said. “But the same token is all lives matter. That’s the bottom line: All lives matter. And the majority of people dying are Mainers.”

Yes, yes, dying at the hands of those awful brown people from out of state. This, when he openly admits all the meth in Maine is being manufactured and dealt by white Mainers. But it’s the brown people’s fault, and no, he’s not racist, not one whit.

The governor issued a much less apologetic statement before his radio interview. In it, LePage acknowledged he’d purposely called Gattine “the worst word I could think of.” He didn’t apologize to LGBT people. He didn’t take back the proposal to racially profile people entering Maine.

“I make no apology for trying to end the drug epidemic that is ravaging our state,” he said. “Legislators like Gattine would rather be politically correct and protect ruthless drug dealers than work with me to stop this crisis that is killing five Mainers a week.”

The worst word you could think of was cocksucker? Really? Wow. I get the feeling LePage doesn’t think much of women, either. As for your crisis of five Mainers a week dying, perhaps you need to focus on more social programs which could help people when it comes to drugs. Are you working to make sure people have clean needles? Do you have needle drop off stations? Free clinics with counseling? Low cost rehab? Anything? Because just being a racist twit who wants an excuse to go homicidal on brown people is not going to help your problem, Gov.

The Advocate has the full story.

The Poor Get Everything Free. It’s A Disaster.

Donald Trump and Wayne Allen Root (YouTube/screen grab).

Donald Trump and Wayne Allen Root (YouTube/screen grab).

Wayne Allyn Root, a Donald Trump admirer who often claims to be in frequent contact with the GOP candidate has led campaign rallies for him in Nevada, said yesterday that people who receive federal benefits such as Medicaid, welfare and food stamps should lose their right to vote, as should women who use “free contraception” under the Affordable Care Act.

Root’s plan would cut a large swath of Americans from the voter rolls: Roughly one in five Americans benefit from means-tested benefit programs, while 67 percent of women with private health insurance use copay-free contraception through the Affordable Care Act (which, by the way, is paid for by insurance companies, not by the federal government).

Root told Virginia radio host Rob Schilling yesterday that much of the energy behind Trump’s campaign, as he discusses in his new book “Angry White Male,” is that the country is “evenly divided between the makers and the takers,” so “the middle class is basically paying, paying, paying and the poor get everything free, and it’s a disaster.”

One time, we needed to apply for help, because serious broke, no food, no anything. We sat in an office for over 8 hours only to see someone who wanted us drown in a swamp of red tape, when we explained that a new job was in the works, just needed help for two weeks. Much frowning, sighing, and grumbling. Then a pronouncement: if you have a job, you don’t qualify for aid. “We. have. no. food.” Frowning, sighing grumbling part II. Wanders off to talk to other people. Finally comes back with a “I really shouldn’t do this…” Okay, I can give you two food vouchers. We received paperwork for $80.00 worth of food to cover the two weeks. In return, we had to commit to 80 hours (each) of community service. Anyone who thinks poor people get anything for free needs to be most seriously smacked.

Root said that he had recently seen a map on the internet showing that if only “taxpayers” had been allowed to vote, the 2012 election would have been “a Republican sweep.”

“So if the people who payed the taxes were the only ones allowed to vote, we’d have landslide victories,” he said, “but you’re allowing people to vote. This explains everything! People with conflict of interest shouldn’t be allowed to vote. If you collect welfare, you have no right to vote. The day you get off welfare, you get your voting rights back. The reality is, why are you allowed to have this conflict of interest that you vote for the politician who wants to keep your welfare checks coming and your food stamps and your aid to dependent children and your free health care and your Medicaid, your Medicare and your Social Security and everything else?”

Root quickly amended his statement to say that receiving Social Security and Medicare shouldn’t disqualify someone from voting, but “in general most of the things I just rattled off should preclude you from voting.”

We could get landslide victories by denying Christian straight white conservative men from voting, too. Hmmm.

“Social Security should not, Medicare should not, because you paid into the system,” he said. “But all the other stuff, all the other goodies, free Obama phones, free contraception, you know what, you can get them but you shouldn’t be allowed to vote, it’s a conflict of interest. Take that away, we’d win every single election in this country.”

:chokes on tea: Free contraception? On what planet? Here’s a thought – you pick up the tab for 20 years of contraception for 5 women, plus the pink tax they have paid for those 20 years. Then tell me what you think about free contraception.

Via RWW.

The Last Word: Chairman David Archambault II.

The protests at Standing Rock. Ruth Hopkins has a good column about watching the feds, and why they are so distrusted. If you hadn’t read it before, catch it now. Revos.2040 breaks the news that the Army Corp of Engineers do not have a written easement for Dakota Access. Mike Myers has a wonderful column up on the Ties That Bind, about the Haudenosaunee Confederation’s longstanding treaty with the Sioux Nations.

Josue Rivas is doing incredible work, documenting the protectors and life at the camp.

A young warrior at the opposition to Dakota Access Pipeline.

A young warrior at the opposition to Dakota Access Pipeline.

proxy

School has started for the children at the camps. The 2016 Tribal Summit will take place as planned, and there will be discussion about the pipeline. Pow Wow is on, and Sacred Stone Camp will have information and education booths up.  We stand, not only for ourselves, but for all people. Please, don’t lapse back into resignation, don’t let weariness win. We have been fighting for hundreds of years. The camps in this one resistance have been standing for 5 months now, since April, and we are not going to stop now, so please, don’t you stop either. We must endure, and every voice, every signal boost, every supply, every donation, every person who comes to the camps, you hold us up, you brace the foundation of our obligation to and protection of our earth, our water. We still need help. Holler, shout, spread the word, signal boost, please! Join us, stand with us. Come to camps. If you can’t, please signal boost, send or drop off supplies, or donate. Sign the petitions, whatever you are able to do!

Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

About this ^ last, because I’m sure someone somewhere will be offended. If you look at Etsy, or any other site where people sell stuff, you will always find a fucktonne of people happily appropriating all things Indigenous. Non-Indigenous people run around wearing Plains headdresses with abandon, people dress up as “Pocahotties” and all kinds of other thoughtless, bigoted isht. If you’re one of those people, this last applies. If you know one of those people, this last applies. If you’re busy making money and taking advantage of appropriating Indigenous culture, the very least you could do is to support those you rip off.

I Saved More Black Lives Than Beyoncé! I Did!

Pop star Beyoncé Knowles at the Mtv Music Awards on Sunday Aug. 28, 2016 (Screen capture).

Pop star Beyoncé Knowles at the Mtv Music Awards on Sunday Aug. 28, 2016 (Screen capture).

Giuliani. Again. Someone needs to get this man distracted into doing something else. Please.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani reacted angrily to pop star Beyoncé Knowles’ performance at Sunday night’s Mtv Video Music Awards, declaring that his anticrime policies have “saved more black lives” than any black performer.

Politico reported that the Republican mayor and longtime Donald Trump confidant appeared on Monday’s Fox and Friends to decry Knowles’ message and declare that he’s “saved more black lives” than any of the performers featured in the ceremony.

Knowles’ performance featured the group #MothersOfTheMovement — a group of women of color whose children have been killed by police — and stylized depictions of police violence.

“Her dancers were circling around her and one by one, they fell to the ground, and there were red lights underneath them. And that was supposed to symbolize cops killing black individuals,” said Fox and Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt.

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Giuliani replied, “because I had five uncles who were police officers, two cousins who were, one who died in the line of duty. I ran the largest and best police department in the world, the New York City Police Department. And I saved more black lives than any of those people you saw on stage by reducing crime and particularly homicide by 75 percent.”

Y’know, rattling off how many cop relatives you have is irrelevant. I have a cop relative myself, and boy, did I ever hear stories. They weren’t good stories, either. Cops are people, with all their inherent flaws and biases. There are a whole lot of cops who are busy murdering Native People, Black People, and Hispanic people, along with assorted brown people, the key being brown. This cannot be denied, nor can it be denied that cops have been sanctioned to murder people of colour, as they sure as hell aren’t being punished for it in any way.

“Of which, of which maybe 4,000 or 5,000 were African-American young people who are alive today because of the policies I put in effect that weren’t in effect for 35 years. So if you’re going to do that, then you should symbolize why the police officers are in the neighborhoods and what are you going to go about it? To me it’s two easy answers: a much better education and good job, and what the heck have you done like in Baltimore, when they all stood in Baltimore,” Giuliani ranted.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I see cops in my neighbourhood, I run away. I don’t want anything to do with them. And please, don’t be pushing the “well, who are going to call if you’re in trouble?” My answer is I don’t know, but my first thought might not be cops.

He went on to attack politicians who stood in solidarity with demonstrators in Baltimore last year who were protesting the killing of Freddie Gray by Baltimore cops.

“I was sick when I saw all the politicians sitting, standing in Baltimore after the police situation and saying, nobody’s done anything for this community in 50 years,” he went on. “Well, that is a heck of a thing to say, because they’ve been in charge for 50 years. And they have failed the community. I didn’t fail Harlem. I turned Harlem around. I didn’t fail Bedford-Stuyvesant, I turned it around. Go there now. Go walk in Harlem. Then flash back to 25 years ago and go to Harlem before I was mayor, and one was a place where crime was rampant and no national stores and now there’s a thriving community in Harlem.”

I don’t live in NYC, but I hear things now and then, like about people being forced out of certain areas by hostile gentrification. They aren’t dancing in the streets, singing high hallelujahs to Giuliani.

Fox and Friends’ Brian Kilmeade opined that Knowles is sending the wrong message to the next generation of black youth, saying, “And Beyonce is an extremely popular and powerful performer, and when she does stuff like that, that message to the next generation is pretty indelible.”

“It’s a shame,” Giuliani replied. “It’s a shame.”

No. No, it’s not a shame, it’s the right damn thing. Just as Indians are standing up and saying no, the same with Black people everywhere. We have that right, and we’re more than a bit tired of our white colonial masters. Perhaps Giuliani has saved a whole lot of Black lives. Beyoncé is letting people know about injustice, about bigotry, and that yes, they have a voice, and a right to use it. I think that’s pretty important.

Via Raw Story.

Shut Up and Play Ball.

Tommie Smith, John Carlos at 1968 Olympics (public domain), Colin Kaepernick (Facebook).

Tommie Smith, John Carlos at 1968 Olympics (public domain), Colin Kaepernick (Facebook).

Lorraine Berry has an excellent article up at Raw Story about why white fragility explodes any time an athlete who is a person of colour acts on their principles. There really should not be any problem with any athlete (or other entertainer) using their position to point out very big problems. These people have all worked very hard to attain their present status and position, and yes, they earn a fucktonne of money. That money, however, is not a gift from the oh-so-magnanimous white folks to that slave on the field who happens to momentarily delight the owners. The reaction of white people over Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during the anthem is sickening. Shouts of “ni**er!” all over, people aghast that he’s given all that money, and is so damn uppity and ungrateful. For anyone with a conscience, for anyone with empathy and compassion, there’s an obligation to point out injustices, an obligation to do something, and to stand by your principles. It takes courage to do that, and it might be nice if a bunch of white people could figure that out.

Just a snippet from Lorraine Berry’s article, it’s excellent, click over and read!

…Kaepernick issued a statement through the NFL after the San Francisco 49ers first pre-season game, after he had failed to join the pre-game ceremony of standing for the playing of the national anthem. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

In the 1968 Olympics, two American athletes and one Australian athlete took on the entire International Olympic Committee in an effort to protest a variety of issues in which the IOC’s decisions were making it harder for black athletes all over the world to compete fairly and to live in a just world. Their actions were greeted by the American public — and by American journalists — as if they had attempted to burn the Olympic games down to the ground, and they were seen as men who had thought their egos larger than the supposed spirit of the Olympic celebration of international brotherhood (sic). Of course, the Australian athlete, Peter Norman, who took silver, was punished in Australia, which had its own abysmal human rights record toward its Aboriginal population, and the payback for his participation in the protest was that he was never allowed to represent Australia again. …

Previous posts about this: Post-Racist. Right. The Bigot’s Answer to Everything: Fire.

Dakota Access Pipeline Protest: All We Want Is Clean Water.

Still Here. Still Standing. Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition. Dakota Access Pipeline Approval Disappoints by Dallas Goldtooth.

#Simon Moya-Smith. #NoDAPL. ICTMN.

Today’s favourite tweets:

Prophet Trump.

Image Credit: Lance Wallnau: God is raising up Trump as a Cyrus to destroy political correctness.

Image Credit: Lance Wallnau: God is raising up Trump as a Cyrus to destroy political correctness.

Trump’s Wall ‘Isn’t About Mexico,’ it’s About Biblical Prophecy, so sayeth one Lance Wallnau. I hear a chorus of “whos?” In honesty, I don’t know, I hadn’t heard of Mr. Wallnau until today. It seems he’s not a pastor, but a Seven Mountains Dominionist theologian, or so people say. His current attempt at convincing Christians to vote for Trump is that Trump is just like Cyrus in the bible, an unbeliever who was used by god.

Seven Mountains dominionism advocate Lance Wallnau has been one of t he most creative defenders of Donald Trump on the Religious Right, explaining that Trump has an “anointing” from God similar to that of King Cyrus, whom God used despite the fact that he was not a believer.

Wallnau continued explaining his spiritual defense of Trump in two recent podcasts with Charisma magazine founder Steve Strang, explaining that Trump has an “unappreciated prophetic gifting” and that the candidate’s calls to build a border wall are not about the border at all but about instigating a revival among American Christians.

Wallnau recalled that Cyrus issued a decree that “opened a gate in heaven” and led the way for spiritual revival in Jerusalem.

“He opened a gate, Stephen,” Wallnau said, “he opened a gate in heaven with proclamation so that all the prophecies and prayers that were stored up for Jerusalem could suddenly begin to be manifested, beginning with the House of God getting revived and continuing on through Darius and to Artaxerxes until Nehemiah, on the basis of Cyrus’ decree, petitioned to build the wall.”

“And then I started looking at, my gosh, there’s more prophetic dialogue on Trump than Christians realize,” he continued. “This whole thing about building a wall isn’t about Mexico, it’s about in the Bible, from my perspective, Nehemiah’s project was to restore the boundaries around that which had collapsed where God’s people were concerned.

“I think that in the Bible, building a wall has to do with like Proverbs 25, ‘a man without self-control is like a city without walls,’ it’s broken down. Our fiscal situation is broken down, our race relations are broken down, our definitions of sexuality and gender are broken down. I believe that if Trump is allowed to be president, there will be a release of that stored up potential that we’ve been praying, fasting and prophesying into for the past 20 years for revival in America.”

Wallnau went on to describe to Strang how “if God can anoint a secular individual, then they are operating in a sense with God’s wisdom and guidance on them.”

Trump, he said, “has a remarkable and uncelebrated, I think, or perhaps I should say unappreciated prophetic gifting.”

He recalled how Trump told conservative religious leaders at a recent meeting in New York that “leadership is about seeing the future,” something that he said Trump had demonstrated with his predictions about radical Islam, the national debt, the inner cities, terrorism in Belgium and the fact that “he saw the Brexit before it happened.”

Liberals say that Trump’s rhetoric is “dark and dystopian,” he said, but “in fact, he’s merely describing, like a Churchillian gift, what is on the horizon.”

So, there you have it. Trump is an anointed prophet of Churchill’s caliber. Yes indeedy. Via RRW.  There’s a bit more information about Wallnau’s nonsense here, but you’ll need a tanker full of salt, and some way to guard yourself from fatal eyerolls. The comments, while depressing, are an interesting insight as to how christians are handling this political mess.

The Civil War Was About Free Speech.

Sid Miller. CREDIT: AP Photo/Eric Gay.

Sid Miller. CREDIT: AP Photo/Eric Gay.

For bigots, the Civil War was never, ever about slavery, oh my no. It was about everything and anything under the sun, but not slavery. Sid “Jesus Juice” Miller is pushing the “it was about freedom of speech!” button.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is planning to the restrict the display of Confederate flags by “amend[ing] our policy to make clear that Confederate flags will not be displayed from any permanently fixed flagpole in a national cemetery at any time.”

As expressed in a letter written by Roger Walters, interim undersecretary for memorial affairs, “We are aware of the concerns of those who wish to see Confederate flags removed from public venues because they are perceived by many as a symbol of racial intolerance.”

But a recent vote indicated a majority of House Republicans oppose the VA’s attempt to restrict where and when the Stars and Bars can be displayed. So does Sid Miller, the Texas Agriculture Commissioner who was recently tapped to be Donald Trump’s national co-chairman of his agriculture advisory team.

In a Facebook post published Thursday, Miller suggests the Civil War was first and foremost about protecting free speech — not slavery. He also strikes a skeptical note about whether Confederates who fought against the United States behaved treasonously.

Responding to a Washington Post column supportive of the VA’s move, Miller writes that the piece “makes my blood boil” and says the Post isn’t “entitled to… attempt to read the minds of my long-dead Confederate ancestors and determine that their actions and motivations during that awful war were treasonous.”
He also denounces “politically correct bureaucrats” pushing for the Stars and Bars to be banned.

“With all that is going on around our world and the serious threats that exist to our country and our constitiional [sic] freedoms by those who carry black flags with Arabic writing upon them, I would think that those in our national government would simply leave alone the flags marking the burial grounds of our Confederate dead,” Miller writes. “Unfortunately, I fear that is just wishful thinking on my part and highlights why the outcome of the upcoming election is so very, very important.”

https://www.facebook.com/MillerForTexas/posts/1884355138453315

Full story at Think Progress.

“You Shoot the Enemy.” Guess Who the Enemy Is?

CREDIT: AP/MICHAEL DYWER.

CREDIT: AP/MICHAEL DYWER.

Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) has been mouthing off, a lot. He has frothed about every group he doesn’t like, and it seems if you aren’t a hetero christian white man, you’re in one of the hated groups. Mr. LePage has a particular hatred of anyone who is not verifiably pasty white, and he doesn’t seem to care who knows it, either. He is an ardent Trump fan, which I’m sure is no surprise. In his latest screed, Mr. LePage identifies the enemy: People of Colour, and what you do to the enemy: you shoot them.

In a Friday press conference following his homophobic remarks about a state lawmaker, Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) called people of color and people of Hispanic origin “the enemy” and implied they should be shot.

“A bad guy is a bad guy. I don’t care what color he is. When you go to war, if you know the enemy, the enemy dresses in red and you dress in blue, you shoot at red,” he said. “You shoot the enemy. You try to identify the enemy. And the enemy right now, the overwhelming majority of people coming in are people of color or people of Hispanic origin.”

The governor has offered a veritable potpourri of racist and homophobic remarks over the years. In his voicemail to state Rep. Drew Gattine (D) on Thursday, in an apparent attempt to convince people that he is not a racist, he said, “I want to talk to you. I want you to prove that I’m a racist. I’ve spent my life helping black people and you little son-of-a-bitch, socialist cocksucker.”

Oh, yes, helping black people, but you just can’t stand having them in your pristine state of Maine. I’d be willing to bet your idea of help is not the same as mine.

On Wednesday, he called Khizr Khan, the father of a fallen Muslim soldier, a “con artist.” During a town hall on that same day, he said nearly all of Maine’s drug dealers are black or Hispanic. “I don’t ask them to come to Maine (to) sell their poison, but they come,” he said. “And I will tell you, that 90 percent-plus of those pictures in my book — and it’s a three-ring binder — are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Connecticut, the Bronx and Brooklyn.”

LePage grabbed national headlines earlier this year when he said men named “Smoothie, D-Money, and Shifty” were dealing drugs in Maine. He added, “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue that we’ve got to deal with down the road. We’re going to make them very severe penalties.”

Among his other comments, he told the NAACP to “kiss my butt,” accused asylum seekers of bringing the “ziki fly,” and told the president to “go to hell.” LePage is an enthusiastic supporter of the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump.

It’s not just the presidential vote that’s important. It’s equally important to usher these asses who run on bigotry and stereotypes out of office, too.

Via Think Progress.

Lummi Totem Pole To Be at Sacred Stone Camp.

pa1_2676

The Lummi Nation of Washington held a blessing and send-off ceremony on Thursday for the 2016 Totem Pole Journey.

Master carver Jewell James created a 22-foot tall pole that will travel 5,000 miles to raise awareness of the impacts of fossil fuel development in Indian Country. One of the first stops will be the Camp of the Sacred Stones near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

“We need to be heard as many people and one voice,” James of the House of Tears Carvers said in a press release announcing this year’s journey. “We need to let them know they cannot in the name of profits do this to the people, the water, the land, and to the future generations. We will never give up. They must not pass!”

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe established the Camp of the Sacred Stones to protest the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline, which comes within a half-mile of the reservation. The pole is expected to arrive at the site on Tuesday, August 30, before departing on Friday, September 1. This year marks the fourth Totem Pole Journey It comes after the Lummi Nation successfully defeated a coal export terminal on its treaty territory in Washington.

You can read more at Indianz.com, and the Journey’s route is here. Support Sacred Stone Camp. Legal Fund Help. Support Native Youth.  Sign the Petition. Sign urgent petition.

New Stories: Dakota Access: Stars From Hollywood to Washington Support Water Protectors.

Important Message from Keeper of Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe.

When Man Changes the Land, It Is Changed Forever.