A signpost at the camp. Click for full size and readability.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
A signpost at the camp. Click for full size and readability.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
Alt right fliers were found littered around the University of Michigan campus. The university responded swiftly and well, and the fliers have been removed, but this is yet another sign of the supremacist cancer eating away at all decency here in uStates. Deplorable is too light weight of a description. The outright lies, old and new, are disgusting, repellent, and appalling. People who believe such shit or are willing to believe such shit are barren, empty beings, devoid of any good human characteristic.
Several racially charged fliers were found in buildings in the heart of the University of Michigan’s campus in Ann Arbor on Monday, causing outrage among students after images were shared on social media.
One reads, “Euro-Americans! STOP
— Apologizing
— Living in fear
— Denying your heritage
. . . BE WHITE.”
“Denying your heritage.” Right. I find this as profoundly stupid as people who insist on referring to all Indigenous cultures and traditions as “Native American”. There’s no such thing, any more than there is something known as “White heritage”. That sort of lumping is moronic and meaningless. If you’re a white person, and you want to embrace your particular cultural heritage, customs, traditions, and language, I’m all for it! I don’t know anyone who is against that, or why they would be. When you want to lump all white Americans into one bucket, that’s where it all goes wrong. And colonial whiteness is not a thing to be celebrated, and colonial whiteness wasn’t just the genocidal madness against Indigenous people and the enslavement of Black people – it was a wealth of bigotry, hatred and mistreatment of many other white cultures, such as Irish people, and Jewish people. The list goes on. There’s nothing prideful in that.
Another lengthy flier advised white women not to date black men, with lines such as, “Your kids probably wouldn’t be smart.”
Michigan was one of many campuses to start the school year with images and messages that offended many, at a time when racial tensions are high across the country with protests over race and police violence. At the University of North Dakota, four women apparently posted a photo of themselves in blackface with the caption, “Black Lives Matter.” At Eastern Michigan University last week, a professor found the wall of a building on campus spray-painted with “KKK” and a racial slur. And a racial slur and image at Kansas State University earlier this month went viral.
“White people exist. White people have the right to exist. White people have the right to exist as white people,” the flier added.
Has anyone been going around advocating that white people don’t have the right to exist? Has anyone been demanding that white people cease existing as white people? This isn’t just disgusting, it’s remarkably stupid, too. Quite honestly, the very last thing white people need is an exhortation to ‘be white’. Talk about being the worst person you can be.
Full story at The Washington Post, but whatever you do, seriously, don’t look at, read, or even allow the comments to load. BuzzFeed has more visuals.
Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Archambault (left) and Chief Arvol Looking Horse.
…North Dakota is not the whitest state in America, but it’s arguably the most segregated. More than 60 percent of its largest minority population, Native Americans, lives on or near reservations. Native men are incarcerated or unemployed at some of the highest rates in the country. Poverty levels for families of the Standing Rock tribe are five times that of residents living in the capital city, Bismarck. In Cannon Ball, the heart of the tribal community, there are rows of weathered government homes, but no grocery store. Tucked behind a lonely highway, this is where mostly white farmers and ranchers shuttle to and from homesteads once belonging to the Sioux.
Add to that a contempt that many Native Americans say they feel from North Dakotans and particularly from police, and many people of Standing Rock are not surprised by the extreme response of law enforcement against activists.
“We’ve run on empty for a number of generations,” said Phyllis Young, a former tribal councilwoman for the Standing Rock Sioux, the community that’s vowed to stop the pipeline in its path. “But now we’re taking a stand. We are reaching a pinnacle, a peak.”
Lucas Reynolds.
Two weeks after a joint announcement by the Departments of Justice, of the Army, and of the Interior called for the halt of construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in North Dakota, the three agencies invited representatives from all 567 federally recognized tribes to participate in government-to-government consultations on infrastructure decision making.
The agencies sent a letter to tribal offices, informing of their intent to seek tribal input on two questions specifically:
— How can federal agencies better ensure meaningful tribal input into infrastructure-related reviews and decisions, to protect tribal lands, resources, and treaty rights within the existing statutory framework?
— Should the federal agencies propose new legislation altering the statutory framework to promote these goals?
The plan for the initial consultation sessions was announced September 9 when the agencies called for the immediate, yet temporary halting of construction following federal judge James Boasberg’s denial of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request for an injunction of the DAPL.
Official signs are cropping up across the city, with four of Toronto’s major streets now bearing signs with their Anishinaabe names. Spadina, or Ishpadinaa, is one of them. (Craig Chivers/CBC).
Toronto is joining a number of other places as far as street signs go, adding the language of the original inhabitants of the land.
“By doing this, it shows that the First Nations people are still here. We’re still on their land. We share it but we’re still on their land,” Grant said.
That’s the problem though, isn’t it, that all the colonial people are still on their land, dominating that land, and dominating the original inhabitants, and not in good ways. While I have been in favour of various street sign initiatives, I think they have little impact on on non-Native people. Oh, they might ooh and aah for a moment or three, and then it’s ignored and forgotten.
Indian Country Today reported on this effort in Toronto back in July of 2013:
Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby (Photo: Tulsa PD).
The white Tulsa police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man was charged with manslaughter on Thursday and a warrant has been issued for her arrest, Tulsa County District Attorney Stephen Kunzweiler said.
Officer Betty Shelby was charged with first-degree manslaughter for the death of Terence Crutcher, 40. The incident, captured on widely broadcast police videos, is one in a series that has raised questions of racial bias in U.S. policing.
“Although she is charged, she is presumed innocent until a judge or jury determines otherwise,” Kunzweiler said. “I don’t know why things happen in this world the way they do.”
Manslaughter? Really? How about 1st degree murder? “I don’t know why things happen in this world the way they do.” Oh for fuck’s sake! What kind of grade A idiot says something like that? A man was murdered for no reason at all by yet another cop out of control, and with a head stuffed full of stereotypical bigotry. We aren’t talking about some great mystery here, or an unexplained phenomenon. This is an all too regular occurrence, a cop murdering a person of colour. Depressingly fucking normal and typical. Don’t even start with such utter isht, making this out to be something remarkable. The only remarkable thing about this case is that it’s not in the least remarkable.
A lawyer for Shelby has said she acted because she feared for her life, believing Crutcher was reaching into his vehicle for a weapon during the encounter, which took place last Friday.
Yet another cop pleading scaredy-pants. Fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m sick of this. If you are so scared, you need to be stripped of your weapons and ersatz authority, stat. Find another job. Shelby’s partner had his taser out and armed. And her excuse for gunning Mr. Crutcher down? “I was scared.” This disgusting excuse must not be accepted, in any way whatsoever. Cops have all manner of weaponry besides their damn gun. How about they use it, instead of us getting to hear about yet another person of colour being murdered by cops? Instead of hearing about yet another family devastated by trauma and grief?
This constant narrative of cops having such an incredibly dangerous job has to stop. Policing doesn’t even make the top 10 in a list of most dangerous jobs. Lumberjack, deep sea fisherman, bush pilot, miner, personal transport driver, sanitation worker, search and rescue, welder and metal worker, mechanic, electrician, roofer, and firefighter are all dangerous jobs, and all of them are more dangerous than being a cop. That’s not to say that there’s no danger or risk in policing, of course there is, however, it’s not up to what is always claimed, either. This narrative of constant, extreme danger is mostly swallowed whole by cops themselves, and it whips them up into a froth of fear and deep paranoia, which amplifies implicit bigotry, and you get “scared, so I gunned them down.”
Tulsa police have said Crutcher was unarmed and there was no weapon in the vehicle. In a bid for transparency, they released the videos, one of which was taken from a police helicopter and the other from a dashboard camera in a patrol car.
The U.S. Justice Department has launched a separate investigation to see if the officers on the scene violated Crutcher’s civil rights.
:Chokes: Violated Mr. Crutcher’s civil rights? Is not being murdered in cold blood a violation of his rights? You have to check around to see if he was violated? Christ. This day, I seriously hate this damned country. (Yes, I know this can be used for additional charges. That does not take the inanity of it away.)
Via Raw Story.
Dave Archambault Sr. has a terrific column up at Native Sun News Today:
…Nothing much has changed for Indian Nations and their tribal members since Dee Brown’s book was written 46 years ago. Nothing – Until just recently! For some unexplainable reason, the book has miraculously come to life near a small Indian village in North Dakota, called Cannonball. In live and living color, just as the book revealed tragic treatment of Indian Nations in chapter after chapter, comes Tribal Nation after Tribal Nation announcing their arrival to the “Spirit Camp.” Here throngs of water and land protectors are gathering in a fight against corporate greed. Accounts of injustices and struggles in Indian country echoes throughout the camp and serves to strengthen the resolve to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. “I want to cheer and cry I’m so happy to see the support that arrives daily and hourly,” said Chairman of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Dave Archambault II.
The words to describe the happening are hard to find. Never in the history of the America’s has so many Tribes come together is such a unified way. This joining is about expressing solidarity in behalf of Mother Earth and to also condemn the number one enemy of Mother Earth – Greed.
It is here beside the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers, that it appears the world is watching. It is here, that the Standing Rock Sioux have drawn the line against a history of crooked dealings and disrespect for all Native rights.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II, flanked by (left) United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Andrea Carmen, executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council, at the 33rd Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on September 20. Courtesy Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II called on the United Nations on Tuesday to halt construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline through tribal treaty territory and formally invited United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz to visit the reservation.
“I am here because oil companies are causing the deliberate destruction of our sacred places and burials,” he told the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva on September 20. “Dakota Access wants to build an oil pipeline under the river that is the source of our nation’s drinking water. This pipeline threatens our communities, the river and the earth. Our nation is working to protect our waters and our sacred places for the benefit of our children not yet born.”
Speaking at the 33rd Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which runs from September 13 through 30, Archambault outlined the ways in which the pipeline and the treatment of water protectors by the company’s employees had violated the protectors’ human rights.
“Thousands have gathered peacefully in Standing Rock in solidarity against the pipeline,” he said in a statement from the tribe afterward. “And yet many water protectors have been threatened and even injured by the pipeline’s security officers. One child was bitten and injured by a guard dog. We stand in peace but have been met with violence.”
Trump will propose nationwide stop-and-frisk to address violence in black community 2nite on Hannity: pic.twitter.com/HDSPYtepqb
— Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) September 21, 2016
Audience Member: I had a question about, there’s been a lot of violence in the black community – I want to know, what would you do to help stop that violence, you know, black-on-black crime…
Trump: Right, well, one of the things I’d do, Ricardo, is I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to. We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically, you understand, you have to have, in my opinion, I see what’s going on in Chicago, I think stop-and-frisk. In New York city it was so incredible, the way it worked. Now, we had a very good mayor, but New York City was incredible, the way it worked, so I think that could be one step you could do.
Alexandra Jaffe: Trump will propose nationwide stop-and-frisk to address violence in black community 2nite on Hannity.
Trump will be yakking on tonight about instituting Stop ‘n’ Frisks, citing the disastrous, unconstitutional mess that took place in New York. He seems to think that’s just an incredibly brilliant idea, and that’s going to “cure” all that black violence, and of course, it will make black people vote for him. Yep.
I’m so livid!! We all know Racism is alive and well (whether you like to admit it or not). When said acts of racism happen at your school, it is infuriating and heart breaking. My friend left her phone in her room and the three kids pictured below took her phone and took the snapchat pictured below. The captioned it “locked the black bitch out”. My friend was not aware that they had done this and didn’t even realize they had put this on her snapchat story until another friend of ours pointed it out. The University of North Dakota needs to take action against these students for this blatant act of racism.
Once again, Ndakota demonstrates its jolly spirit of racism and sexism. Hey, girls – that’s not a joke. That’s not a prank. It’s rank racism and the vile stench is now wafting across the internet. Supposedly, you’re in university to learn something, not be caught up in toxic arrested development. Supposedly, you’re women now, and you should be forging chains of solidarity with other women. But no, you chose the racist, sexist idiot route. Thanks ever for making the place I live even worse.
Naturally, UND made some understated noises, all of which amounted to “in the process of gathering information.” Not much different from “well, we need to investigate.” Christ on a stick, I’m tired of those bloody shopworn phrases. I’ll hope something is done, but it will be a small hope. After all, this is Ndakota, where racism is considered a lively and cherished sport.
This was UND’s response:
— Univ of North Dakota (@myUND) September 21, 2016
Have a care reading the comments, because there’s a healthy amount of racist stupid on display:
@myUND Is pleasing the Twitter mob more important than preventing these girl's lives from being destroyed from making a harmless mistake?
— A. Wyatt Mann (@awyattmann19) September 21, 2016
Oh look, once again we see anything a white student does being relegated to a harmless mistake. FFS.
Via Raw Story.
State Sen. Jason Rapert (Facebook).
Arkansas Senator Jason Rapert went on another screedfest on facebook, had his posts removed, and the Bully of Bigelow proceeded to whine about it so much that FB restored his nasty bigotry rants. Mr. Rapert isn’t like very much by his constituents, who appear disgusted but not in the least surprised.
Arkansas Times reports that Rapert is claiming vindication after Facebook has decided to restore posts he wrote over the weekend where he declared his support for rounding up and deporting not just Muslim extremists, but “every single Muslim extremist sympathizer and other anti-American crazies.”
“Regardless of who is responsible for these events today – we need to round up every single Muslim extremist sympathizer and other anti-American crazies and detain them or deport them,” wrote Rapert in response to the mass stabbing that occurred in a Minnesota mall and the dumpster bombing in Manhattan. “And for goodness sake – stop bringing more Muslims into this nation.”
Rapert also said that Muslims “wait for every opportunity to convert Americans to Islam or kill the infidels — that is what their holy book the Koran instructs them to do.”
I can’t even work up an eyeroll for this isht anymore. Just what does your bible tell you to do, Mr. Rapert? It wouldn’t have anything at all to do with converting people, preaching that gospel, saving souls or constantly committing genocide on people who were somewhat different (or had something “god’s people” wanted). It’s the same fucking religion, you idiot! Same god! Oh, and I’m fairly sure the Quran doesn’t specifically mention America, anymore than any version of the bible, you flaming idiot.
Well, in the end, FB caved to this genocidally minded puffbag of idiocy. Shame, that, because I think these posts are terror-focused. They are certainly filled with hate and the desire to harm.
Via Arkansas Times, Arkansas Online, and Raw Story.
Alex Jacobs has an excellent column up at ICTMN.
The Optics Say Birmingham 1963, but It’s Standing Rock 2016, Or could it be Selma 1965, Bloody Sunday, when the President had to federalize the National Guard. Many of the water and land protectors may feel it’s like the Greasy Grass Fight in 1876, Alcatraz 1969 or Wounded Knee 1973. A new generation of activists are being passed the drums and pipes. But right now they need lawyers and funds to bail them out of North Dakota jails. Dozens more were arrested at the Red Warrior Camp including media with their cameras (probably to be used as evidence). If hundreds of the protectors went in to get arrested that would shut down the system. Perhaps shut down the camps too, but more people will come to sneak past the checkpoints, just like 1973.
The land they are on, folks keep calling it private property or Army Corps of Engineers land. But the Oceti Sakowin say the land was theirs until the Army Corps of Engineers at the behest of North Dakota politicians came in and flooded Standing Rock and Cheyenne River lands where Lake Oahe is now. There was no consultation and no compensation for their homelands, for this violation of the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868. Now it’s where the Dakota Access Pipeline threatens to be built 100 feet below, crossing the Missouri River three times. The Indians say the whites flooded the river, stole their land and left them nothing but poverty.
What we Natives are fighting, among many things, is the perceived numbers against us. We cannot deny that we are the very bottom 2% of the population. For every person talking about #NoDAPL and #Standing Rock, nine are arguing over various media distractions. But don’t get mad, just get even. Keep talking, texting, tweeting, posting, writing about #NoDAPL, Sacred Stone, Red Warrior, the indigenous activists coming from around the world and Lawrence O’Donnell too. Billionaire Kelcy Warren set-up his Energy Transfer Partners as a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) company which does not pay taxes. North Dakota politicians are in lock step with the oil & gas industries, Congressman Kevin Cramer as an energy advisor – and climate change denier – to Donald Trump (see no evil), Senator John Hoeven who sits on both Native American and Energy Committees (hear no evil), and Senator Heidi Heitcamp’s non-sequitur responses who also sits on a Native American Committee (say no evil). Is this a pattern of conflict of interests in North Dakota?
Natives are told to go home, do your protest legally, petition the government as citizens do and depend on the courts. Sovereignty, treaties, environmental justice?
Kelcy Warren and the ETP strategy is to keep buying up weaker pipeline, oil & gas companies, because the price of oil is low. The plan for DAPL/ETP in Iowa was all this dirty fracked Bakken oil in the pipelines was for domestic consumption. But Congress changed the 40 year ban to allow U.S. companies to export crude oil, this dirty fracked Bakken oil, to counter the oil price war the Saudis have unleashed on the world. All thanks to Warren’s friend, ex-Texas Governor Rick Perry who joined the board of ETP and lobbied to end the ban.
It’s no longer about American Energy Independence but outright profits for the U.S. and foreign banks who’ve invested in a futures deal to get cheap oil to their countries. The biggest problem for the citizenry (and for ETP) is that these huge pipelines need to be full to maximize profits. Bakken crude is dirty and needs to be heated to move better. This bakes the soil and along with oil and brine spills, the once black fertile land becomes useless. ETP heats, cools, or liquefies the oil & gas for its 70,000 miles of pipelines and is aiming for a goal of 150,000 miles. ETP says, “this is a growth project” and they are “exceptionally well positioned to capitalize on U.S. energy exports.” So forget any carbon reduction and pollution treaties, this sets the stage for more fracking and environmental degradation for years.
[…]
But the nation and the world is watching now. I remember the story, the Crow scouts told Lt. Col. Custer the day they looked down at the biggest gathering of Indians anyone had seen. You don’t have enough bullets for all the Indians down there. Custer didn’t believe, didn’t care about those numbers.
We got to think like that, that whatever they think they got, we got more. They fight for a paycheck. We fight for all we got and all we will have and all that we lost. We got them now. Now it’s them stuck in the past trying to impose a nationwide system of pipelines that will degrade the environment for the next 50 years. The Native water and land protectors, #NoDAPL, the Raging Grannies, farmers and ranchers of Iowa, Bold Nebraska now Bold Alliance that took down Keystone XL, all need to prepare to fight for the future. The country needs to rebuild its infrastructure, go into debt if need be to create millions of jobs not just thousands, with new transmission lines for all manner of green energy projects and not just pipelines. This is the time to start the switch to renewables.
Remember The Greasy Grass River 140 years ago. They don’t have enough “bullets” if we all stand up.
I’m just going to add a reminder here: when you read or hear “light and sweet” or “like olive oil” in regard to oil, remember that you’re drinking oil’s kool-aid. It’s marketing. They want people to think of honey or other food, because in our minds, we consign honey, syrup, or plant oils to the good category. If this oil was that manner of good, it wouldn’t poison land and water. If this oil was that manner of good, the white people of Bismarck wouldn’t have gotten upset about the pipeline running north of them. It’s toxic. It’s poison. It kills. It renders water into death, not life. It is inimical to life. Oil is invested in this type of marketing so that people won’t question, won’t try to stop them. They count on such marketing to keep the majority of people on their side of things.
Via ICTMN.
National Guard and wounded during 1921 Tulsa race riots (Tulsa World/Wikimedia Commons).
A brief look at Tulsa’s history, and it’s not at all a good one.
The black neighborhood in Tulsa was known as “Greenwood” because Greenwood Avenue ran through it. Approximately 10,000 African Americans lived there. While there were large numbers of black people who lived in poverty in the area, the business district was its own complete city. There were dozens of black-owned businesses. Every kind of small business — grocery stores, beauty shops, jewelry stores, photography studios, tailor shops, and much more — a large number of restaurants, and a 750-seat theatre, the Dreamland Theater “that offered live musical and theatrical revues as well as silent movies accompanied by a piano player.” There were two black-owned newspapers. There were 15 African American physicians’ offices. A hospital. A large number of churches. A library. And a 54-room hotel, the Stradford Hotel.
[…]
During the night and the following day, the white mob invaded Greenwood. They pulled residents out of their homes and beat and killed them, including old people and children. They torched every building. Black people escaping Greenwood were arrested by the Oklahoma National Guard, who locked masses of them up in holding centers and only released them when white people stepped forward and vouched for individual black people.
The best estimates are that 300 people died during the riot, and 1256 structures were torched. While the Red Cross provided relief efforts for those thousands of people who had been burnt out of their homes, for which the city and county paid into the Red Cross relief fund, no compensation was paid to the victims of the violence. In addition, not a single white person was held accountable for any of the crimes committed May 31-June 1.
I had never heard of this before, and it’s unconscionable that to this day, it’s barely acknowledged, and no restitution or compensation was ever offered. Tulsa’s history with people of colour is a dark and shameful one. It’s time to bring it all out into the light in the spirit of change, and one of those should be a vow to stop murdering people of colour. It’s been going on much too long, as the recent murder of Terence Crutcher demonstrates all too well.
