Native Lives Matter.

I have mentioned, often, that in uStates, the highest percentage of extrajudicial killings are of Indigenous people. To say this isn’t well known would be quite the understatement. It isn’t known at all, and when people do find out, they don’t much care. The Guardian has kept track, along with all the other groups of people who are consistently killed by cops. Very few of these murders get any press at all. The murder of Loreal Tsingine got a little bit, and so did the murder of John T. Williams. Those people who read Indian publications are aware of most of the others, but they don’t get any write up at all. Indigenous people also have the highest rates of dying in captivity, and cops casually toss off excuses like “hey, she overdosed on meth”, as they did in the case of Sarah Lee Circle Bear, who was only 24 years old. The cops neglected to explain how she could have died from a meth overdose while in custody for two days. Sarah’s case, and that of so many others, has been a cause of deep outrage in Indigenous circles, but once again, if you aren’t reading native publications, you aren’t likely to know about any of them.

Chase Iron Eyes started NLM in 2014, but once again, it’s been a slow take because about the only people who care about native lives are natives. In These Times has a very good article about Native deaths at the hands of law enforcement, and the bigotry Natives face every single day. Please, go read. Please, share. I thank you.

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The Police Killings No One Is Talking About.

The Fuzziness of the Army Corps.

Major General Donald Jackson.

Major General Donald Jackson. Mary Annette Pember.

As with most issues between Indian country and the federal government, the important bits are steeped in legalese and long numerical references to laws and regulations. The very stuff of life and its protection, however, is referenced and hidden within these dryly-worded documents.

A set of regulations created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) called Appendix C is one such example, and it may determine the future of the Dakota Access Pipeline project as well as other projects for which the Army Corps is responsible for issuing federal permits.

It turns out that tribes have been complaining about the legality of Appendix C for a very long time, and with good reason. Appendix C spells out how the Corps will meet its obligation to fulfill Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), created to protect places of historic, architectural and/or cultural significance.

Part of the NPHA’s Section 106 requires that agencies carry out the process in consultation with Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPO) and identify and assess impacts to properties of traditional religious and cultural significance to tribes. Although all federal agencies are allowed to create their own means by which they fulfill the requirements of Section 106, the Army Corps chose to streamline the process by creating its own regulations that tribes and other federal agencies argue not only fail to meet the requirement of the NHPA’s Section 106, but are also in direct conflict with the law.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) is an independent federal agency charged by Congress with overseeing implementation of the NHPA. The Corps contradicts several of ACHP’s regulations through use of its own process spelled out under Appendix C.

The differences between Section 106 regulations and Appendix C are substantial. Chief among these differences includes the Corps’ decision in the Standing Rock case to review each river crossing of the Dakota Access pipeline as a separate project rather than consider the entire pipeline as one project.

“This allows the Corps to dismiss the potential for effects to historic properties that may be located within the broader project area of an undertaking,” according to an August 2, 2016 letter from the ACHP to the Corps.

The full story is at ICTMN.

It’s Indian, Okay?

I am sick to death of explaining to obnoxious assholes, most often found in a thread at Pharyngula, that yes, Indians use Indian, and I often go to fair length to explain why, but that’s just never good enough, oh no. So, here’s Simon Moya-Smith to explain, and say the exact same thing I do, but maybe some of the obnoxious assholes will get it now, because it’s coming from a man:

That’s all, folks.

Via Twitter.

Coming Full Circle: Tending The Wild.

Courtesy KCET.

Courtesy KCET.

Indigenous Peoples are increasingly being seen as having the keys to save our habitat from human-induced destruction.

A new series on KCET explores several aspects of Traditional Knowledge and the ways in which the most effective methods of caretaking this land we call Turtle Island originated with those who originally inhabited these lands. Tending the Wild began airing on Monday October 3 with “Fire” and had its second episode, “Salmon,” on October 17.

The series centers on tribes based in what is today California. Episode 1, subtitled “Cultural Burning,” explores “how Native California communities use fire as a natural resource to promote a healthy ecosystem and how plants and animals have evolved to need fire disturbances to survive,” according to a KCET statement. “Additionally, this episode will explore how fire is used in various cultures; and the negative effects of fire suppression, a western concept initially promoted by National Parks and Forest Services.”

Indeed, the theme of not only restoring but also

The second episode, subtitled “Keeping the River,” became available online on October 18 at KCET.org and LinkTV.org. This segment looks at dam removals, fishing restrictions and the controlling of runoff from agriculture and industry into the waters. Key members of the Yurok, Karuk and Hupa tribes appear in this one, KCET said.

Basketry takes up the third episode, set to air on October 31, in a story about using “Plants as Materials” and what that entails by viewing the process of basket weaving from the cultivation of the proper plants, to the end product.

Viewers will learn about the “decolonized diet” in Episode 4, “Plants as Medicine” in Episode 5, and how to love the desert in Episode 6. The series continues through mid-December.

Oh, I want to watch everything right now, but work calls. The importance of traditional ecological knowledge can’t be emphasised enough. Via ICTMN.  Tending the Wild at KCET.

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William Jefferson Clinton. Whitehouse.gov.

William Jefferson Clinton. Whitehouse.gov.

Fifteen months after taking office, President William Jefferson Clinton made history by inviting tribal leaders to the White House.

Of the 556 leaders invited, 322 attended the meeting, during which Clinton fielded questions about economic development, tribal sovereignty, health care, education and government-to-government relationships. The April 1994 event marked the first time since 1822 tribal leaders were invited to meet directly with a sitting president of the United States.

In an afternoon speech delivered on the South Lawn, Clinton reaffirmed Native rights to self-determination.

[Read more…]

From the Dakotas to the Desert.

A youthful supporter of the campaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. cool revolution via Flickr.

A youthful supporter of the campaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. cool revolution via Flickr.

Chris Clarke has an excellent article at ICTMN, covering the broad scope of how Indigenous people pay when energy enters the picture. To be truly mindful, you need to understand the big picture, and you also need to be able to see and understand when cleaner and greener energy is as much of a problem as the dirty type.

Commentary: An energy company plans a project that would destroy land Native people hold as sacred. Despite Native protests, neither state nor federal agencies intervene to protect those cultural sites. The project proceeds. The land is forever altered. Hundreds of Native people and their supporters converge on the site to protest and to grieve their loss.

Given recent news, not to mention the choice of photo at the top of this story, you could be forgiven for assuming I’m describing current events at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota. That’s where the company Energy Transfer Partners is trying to push the new Dakota Access Pipeline through burial grounds and medicine wheels sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The project has already destroyed important sacred sites, and threatens to pollute the Missouri River and local groundwater if it’s built and the inevitable spills ensue.

But I’m actually describing a gathering four years ago in the southernmost parts of the California desert. There, near the little desert town of Ocotillo, hundreds of Native people from across the southwestern United States gathered on June 24, 2014. They were there to mark the destruction of ancient cremation sites, ceremonial locations and other important cultural resources by Pattern Energy, which built the Ocotillo Express wind power facility in Imperial County.

Click on over to ICTMN to read the full story.

Solidarity: 19 Cities Say No DAPL.

Nineteen cities stand in solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux in opposing the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Nineteen cities stand in solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux in opposing the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Although more than 300 tribes have rallied in support of the Standing Rock Sioux’s stance against the routing of the Dakota Access oil pipeline under the Missouri River near their reservation, the support has not all been Native.

Nineteen U.S. city governments have passed resolutions or written letters opposing construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said in a statement on October 13.

From Seattle to Saint Paul and Minneapolis, to Cleveland, to Portland, Oregon, and all over Turtle Island, the resolutions have been streaming in for weeks. In California the cities of Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Oakland have sent in resolutions. So have Asheville, North Carolina; Sitka, Alaska, and Urbana, Illinois, the latter one of the four states that the pipeline will pass through.

The myriad resolutions being passed by city and municipal councils around the United States express solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux and Indigenous Peoples in general. They reference everything from treaty rights and broken promises, to the common need for drinking water and the burgeoning of distrust in oil companies’ ability to ensure the safety of their pipelines.

This is good news, and I’m thankful to have such allies. Full story at ICTMN.

Annie Pootoogook Has Walked On.

A photograph of a still at the IAIA Museum: Artist Annie Pootoogook. Alex Jacobs.

A photograph of a still at the IAIA Museum: Artist Annie Pootoogook. Alex Jacobs.

Annie was a very talented artist, and she will be most missed. This is a terrible loss, not only for all those who loved Annie, but for all those who love art as well. Annie has walked on at age 47, and hopefully, her death will be properly investigated now.  Like too many women, Annie found herself in an abusive relationship, and tried to get out.

Annie Pootoogook – an artist well-known for her lively, in-the-moment, brave, often disturbing and ground-breaking artwork – was a major star in Canada and appreciated by the Inuit, First Nations and art communities, Canadian citizens and contemporary art lovers around the world.

On September 19, Pootoogook’s body was found in the Rideau River in Ottawa, off a park 2 kilometers from Parliament Hill. She was 47 years old. Although the police did not suspect foul play, the major crimes unit is currently investigating.

Though she was not as well-known in the United States including the mainstream American press and most art magazines or critical forums, Ms. Pootoogook won a major Canadian artist prize, was acclaimed by the post-modern art critics at Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, and had a show at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City.

Within 10 years she was living on the streets in Ottawa and selling her drawings for survival. She had made several criticized choices regarding her male partners, the latest and last was William (Bill) Watt, who since 2010 tried to manage her, her celebrity and money-making capabilities.

Pootoogook told friends she feared for her safety and attempted to leave her situation. When she had left Watt and was going to a Shepherds of Good Hope shelter for assistance, she was later found in the Rideau River. Police have questioned Watt several times and continue with what has now become a high-profile case.

When she made art or engaged people over her art, she was very good and could light up a room. Although deeply shy, if given the occasion she could talk about her art to a room full of people for hours.

As it sometimes happens, she had removed herself from her support networks and ending up in Ottawa’s Inuit homeless community. Art, community and family situations were replaced with drinking, life on the streets and a series of abusive relationships..

To the media she was a celebrity and a story was expected. To the art community, there were many questions, few answers and a lot of speculation. The Native community added Annie to the missing and murdered indigenous women – #MMIW – and wanted answers, she was remembered at a MMIW rally where Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke.

The full story is here. Goodbye, Annie, and thank you for all your wonderful gifts to the world.

Pine Nuts.

Johnny Bob, a spiritual leader from Yomba Shoshone Tribe, gathering pine cones in a mountain valley in central Nevada. (Photo by Joseph Zummo).

Johnny Bob, a spiritual leader from Yomba Shoshone Tribe, gathering pine cones in a mountain valley in central Nevada. (Photo by Joseph Zummo).

There’s a very good article at ICTMN about the Western Shoshone tribes and a staple of their diet, pine nuts. A staple, which is considered sacred, and is healthy, it also treated with utter disregard by non-natives, who have been using any excuse to destroy the trees.

“Everything depends on the water and the trees,” said spiritual leader Johnny Bob, from the Yomba Shoshone Tribe, as he prayed for the start of a Western Shoshone pine-nut gathering. In September, members of several bands came together in a steep-walled mountain valley in central Nevada to collect the protein- and nutrient-rich nuts that were once the mainstay of their diet.

Some people took hold of long sticks and began to knock the sticky green cones off the tops of the pinyon trees. Others gathered fallen branches to chop up for the fire in which they would later roast the cones to release the sweet, creamy nuts. These can be eaten out of hand, added to soups and stews or parched and ground for gravy or mush.

“As we collect, we are pruning the trees to ensure there are even more cones next year. We are also cleaning the forest,” explained Joseph Holley, former chairman and now council member of the Battle Mountain Band of Te-Moak Western Shoshone.

[…]

This critical food source, along with game living in the forest, began to disappear during the late 19th century, as newly arrived settlers chopped down trees for fuel over many square miles around towns and mining operations. Starting in the 20th century, these losses were amplified by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, which together have uprooted more than 3 million acres of pinyon-plus-juniper woodlands.

To destroy the forests, the federal agencies use tractors to drag gargantuan chains through them, ripping up everything in their path. The ruined landscapes look like the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Sometimes, the agencies eliminate woodlands in order to increase rangeland for grazing, an activity that further damages the fragile arid lands where pinyons flourish. Scientists estimate that soil in an erosion-prone “chained” landscape may take 10,000 years to recover.

The full story is at ICTMN.

Amy Goodman Charged with Engaging in a Riot.

Amy Goodman.

Amy Goodman.

Just a few posts ago, I mentioned how embarrassing Ndakota has been lately. Apparently, the state I live in isn’t finished in the quest to scrape the bottom of the barrel, when it comes to stupid, ignorant, embarrassing, cringe-worthy, asshole antics. I do not take any pride in being surrounded by ignorant assholes who proudly wallow in bigotry and willful ignorance.

Bismarck, North Dakota–October 15, 2016 — A North Dakota state prosecutor has sought to charge award-winning journalist Amy Goodman with participating in a “riot” for filming an attack on Native American-led anti-pipeline protesters. The new charge comes after the prosecutor dropped criminal trespassing charges.

State’s Attorney Ladd R Erickson filed the new charges on Friday before District Judge John Grinsteiner who will decide on Monday (October 17) whether probable cause exists for the riot charge.

Goodman has travelled to North Dakota to face the charges and will appear at Morton County court on Monday at 1:30 pm local time (CDT) if the charges are approved.

“I came back to North Dakota to fight a trespass charge. They saw that they could never make that charge stick, so now they want to charge me with rioting, ” said Goodman. “I wasn’t trespassing, I wasn’t engaging in a riot, I was doing my job as a journalist by covering a violent attack on Native American protesters.”

In an e-mail to Goodman’s attorney Tom Dickson on October 12, State’s Attorney Erickson admitted that there were “legal issues with proving the notice of trespassing requirements in the statute.” In an earlier email on October 12, Erickson wrote that Goodman “was not acting as a journalist,” despite that fact that the state’s criminal complaint recognized that, “Amy Goodman can be seen on the video …interviewing protesters.” In that email Erikson justified his quote in the Bismarck Tribune in which he had said that “She’s [Amy Goodman] a protester, basically. Everything she reported on was from the position of justifying the protest actions.” The First Amendment, of course, applies irrespective of the content of a reporter’s story.

The charge in State of North Dakota v. Amy Goodman, stems from Democracy Now!’s coverage of the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. On Saturday, September 3, Democracy Now! filmed security guards working for the pipeline company attacking protesters. The report showed guards unleashing dogs and using pepper spray and featured people with bite injuries and a dog with blood dripping from its mouth and nose.

Well, Mr. Erickson, thanks ever for helping to paint a picture of my state as one full of shit-for-brains bigots. Christ, I feel like I should just find a cave to hide in.

Via Democracy Now.

Standing Rock: Winter Wish List.

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Oct 14, 2016 — Winter is approaching fast here in North Dakota – and we’re not going anywhere. Dakota Access may think that they can simply wait us out, but we are here for the long haul.

That being said, we need supplies and support to survive here at camp. Dakota winters are no joke! We have created an Amazon wishlist with all sorts of gear for sleeping, staying warm, lighting our camp, and organizing our group. We’re hoping for tents, lanterns, phones for communicating between groups, and more. Take a look and see if there’s anything you can purchase and send to help us out: http://amzn.to/2dLiG1G

Thank you as always for your generosity!

Anna, Bobbi, and the Oceti Sakowin Youth.

Via Change.org. I will add my thank you thank you thank you to anyone who can help out. As usual, I’ll say that you don’t need money to help – spreading the word and signal boosting is incredibly important, so if you’re a social media person, please, pass this on, with all my gratitude.

The Senators Standing with Standing Rock.

Bernie Sanders (Good Morning America).

Bernie Sanders (Good Morning America).

Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and four other senators on Thursday called on President Barack Obama to order a comprehensive environmental review of a pipeline project that has stirred widespread opposition from Native Americans and environmental activists.

After a U.S. appeals court on Sunday night denied a request to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the senators asked Obama to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to complete a full environmental impact statement for a contested part of the route that includes stronger tribal consultation.

“The project’s current permits should be suspended and all construction stopped until a complete environmental and cultural review has been completed for the entire project,” said the letter by Sanders and Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein, Ed Markey, Patrick Leahy and Benjamin Cardin.

In recent weeks, protests against the Dakota Access pipeline led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota drew international attention, prompting the U.S. government to temporarily block its construction on federal land.

[…]

On Tuesday, anti-pipeline activists in four states closed pipeline valves to halt the flow of crude through arteries transporting 15 percent of U.S. oil consumption..

When fully connected, the 1,100-mile (1,770 km) pipeline would be the first to carry crude directly to the U.S. Gulf from the Bakken shale, a vast oil formation in North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada.

The $3.7 billion project is being built by the Dakota Access subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, which has vowed to complete construction.

“There must be a serious consideration of the full potential climate impacts of this pipeline prior to the Army Corps of Engineers approving any permits or easements for the Dakota Access pipeline,” the senators said.

Experts say that the full environmental review requested by the senators could take several months.

The U.S. appeal court’s ruling was the second time the federal judiciary rejected the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s request to halt construction of the pipeline. On Sept. 9, a U.S. judge rejected a similar request.

Oh, so scrutiny would take a couple of months, golly, the agony for those poor, poor billionaires. Cry me a river, oil wašichu, cry me a river of clean, untainted water. Once again, we see just how much, and how easily Indigenous concerns are brushed aside, and treaties broken, again. And again. And again. My thanks to Senators Sanders, Feinstein, Markey, Leahy, and Cardin. Please, please keep the pressure on. I think everyone should remind the President of his visit to Standing Rock two years ago. How can it possibly be, in any way, to turn away from people who keep asking for justice? How long for people to wake the fuck up to all the lies, all the crimes committed by DA and Energy Transfer Partners? Remember when they swore up and down that the oil running through this travesty of a pipeline was “sweet and light”? The only people pointing out that that was a lie were Indigenous people who live in the Dakotas. I posted about that, and heard arguments and “oh no, you’re wrong.” No, we aren’t wrong. Oil lies, and it would be great if people would wake up to that fact, and stay woke. This is a disaster waiting to happen, to all of us.

Via Raw Story.

Reno Truck Assault On Protesters: Update.

https://youtu.be/x0D-BgU82jI

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Detectives are preparing legal documents for possible criminal charges after an 18-year-old man drove a pickup truck through a crowd of protesters rallying in support of Native American rights in downtown Reno, Police Chief Jason Soto said Wednesday.

Soto made his remarks to the Reno City Council as a parade of American Indians, local clergy and others expressed their outrage over the fact no one’s been arrested after five protesters were struck Monday night by the truck on the street beneath the city’s famous arch with the slogan, “Biggest Little City in the World.”

Soto said an affidavit is in the works that could lead to prosecution. But he said he won’t discuss the possible charges or any other details because the investigation is ongoing.

In a different article, Soto was making noises about the protesters being in the street, rather than on the sidewalk, heavily implying they deserved to be run over, because street. It has been stated that people gathered in this spot to take photographs. It’s more than obvious that the police chief does not want to press charges in this case, and it’s also obvious he doesn’t think much of anything done was wrong. I’d like to see the Mayor address that little problem.

The Rev. Luther DuPree, an African-American bishop who oversees the Northern Nevada Churches of God in Christ, questioned whether the driver remains free because he is white.

“If it was any other culture, I believe an immediate arrest would have been made,” he said.

Kitty Colbert, 59, the most seriously injured woman who remained hospitalized Wednesday, was accompanied at the rally by her grandchildren who “saw her run over like a bag of beans,” said Ray Valdez, who was drumming and leading the group in prayer just before the incident.

Soto said the activists did not have a permit to protest in the street, but some had gathered in the travel lanes of Virginia Street on the main casino drag.

Jessica White, a local artist, said the activists were gathering in the crosswalk for a group photograph when “the driver began honking and revving his truck’s engine in an obvious attempt to frighten us.”

“I saw a driver purposely drive into a group of people and continue until there were injuries and terror,” she said Wednesday.

Tara Tran said the driver and passenger were yelling “racist” remarks before she was struck by the truck.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say the protesters deserved it… they were blocking traffic,” Tran told the council. “We were not blocking their direction. They were following us. They were not scared. I looked into their eyes. It was not a look of fear. It was a look that they were having fun.”

Grace Potorti, ex-leader of the Nevada Conservation League, said she was driving the opposite direction on Virginia Street when she saw the truck “plow into people, stop and — while people were lying on the road — continue to run over them.”

“This happened under the very symbol of Reno,” she said. “It happened under the arch!”

Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve said in a statement Tuesday Reno police “will hold anyone responsible accountable for their actions once the investigation has concluded.”

“The city does not condone hate,” she said Wednesday.

Full story at The Santa Cruz Sentinel.