First Nation leaders and 60s Scoop survivors press conference (Nov. 1, 2021)

++sorry to post this so late... TLH

Nov. 17, 2021

In The News

Indian Law Issues in the News (10/12/2021)

October 12, 2021Wenona T. Singel

MetroTimes: Activists urge Detroit to increase inclusion of indigenous communities

The Conversation: Land acknowledgments meant to honor Indigenous people too often do the opposite – erasing American Indians and sanitizing history instead

Oregon Public Broadcasting: Tribes: New evidence proves massacre was at Nevada mine site

NBC26.com: Gov. Tony Evers issues order apologizing for Wisconsin’s role in Indian boarding schools

White House: Executive Order on the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Native Americans and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities

KSTP.com: Minnetonka Moccasin issues apology for appropriation of Native American cultures

NYTs: A New Cookbook by Indigenous People, for Indigenous People

Great Lakes Now: Indigenous leaders face barriers to UN climate conference

USA Today: McGirt ruling’s ongoing impact on tribal youth and families

Democracy Now: “People vs. Fossil Fuels’’: Winona LaDuke & Mass Protests Call on Biden to Stop Line 3 Pipeline

NPR (11 min. audio): Native Americans Take Over The Writers’ Room and Tell Their Own Stories

Office of Gov. Gavin Newsom: On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Governor Newsom Announces California Truth & Healing Council Partnership to Support Philanthropic and Community Engagement

 

Native American in newsrooms

All of our issues of Native News since 1992, are now available online thanks to the Mansfield Library. Check them out here! https://t.co/lzQg0wOWen

— Native News MT (@NativeNewsMT) April 9, 2019

(2015) The following story is KEY to any discussion about Native Americans in news rooms and across Indian County. We need good stories and websites and newspapers who give accurate reporting and reflect the truth.

Police kill Native Americans at almost the same rate as African-Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Between 1999 and 2013, an average of .29 per 100,000 Native Americans were killed by police, compared to .3 per 100,000 for blacks and .11 per 100,000 for whites. “America should be aware of this,” argues Chase Iron Eyes, a lawyer and a leader of the Lakota People’s Law Project, which runs a publicity campaign called Native Lives Matter. But for the most part, America is not aware of this.

That may be changing, albeit slowly, as both mainstream media and Native American-run digital outlets begin to cover American Indian issues more robustly.

“We’re not necessarily focusing on the shadows and the sadness,” says Jason Begay, a Navajo who grew up on a reservation and runs the Native News Project, “but on how people are persevering.”
Tristan Ahtone, a member of the Kiowa tribe of Oklahoma who often reported for Al Jazeera America, won a following among Native Americans and others for writing about new topics, such as how one tribe is invoking treaty rights to stop another oil pipeline, the rethinking of the militant American Indian Movement that grew up alongside the Black Panthers in the 1960s, and an international indigenous basketball tournament. His approach: “Stop looking at Indian Country as a foreign place with foreign people doing foreign things. It keeps us apart from each other, and reinforces the idea that these people are different, that they’re victims, that they’re helpless. They get covered when there’s doom, gloom, or there’s blood. The cumulative effect is that you’ve got communities that are isolated from the rest of the country and generally distrustful of journalists, and that just creates a continuing cycle.”
Ahtone is one of only a handful of Native American journalists. There are 118 self-identified Indian journalists working at U.S. daily newspapers, according to 2015 data from the American Society of News Editors. That’s .36 percent of all U.S. newsroom employees.  Native American activists say there need to be more newsroom internships and training programs for aspiring Native American journalists.

READ ON…

And I’ll leave you with this quote about diversity in writing and publishing:

“You will be tokenized. Even when you get to write about your own experience of being a minority in America—you know, even that can be turned against you. Are you going to be used later on as leverage against an accusation of racism? Will you then be seen as a collaborator? In most cases the answer is yes….
“Hiring is a crucial step, but it is reformist. It’s not going to really fix anything, just sand off the rough edges, right? Because there is far more concern about appearing racist rather than not doing racist things. It’s not just a publishing thing. What else can I say but dismantle capitalism? And I don’t know that anything radical enough to do that wouldn’t hurt a lot of the people that we are trying to save. Barring world historical change, I don’t see really anything happening but a new paint job. It is systemic racism for a reason, it’s so essentially wound up with the system upon which everything is built.  You can ameliorate it.  You can palliate it.  But you can’t cure it.  This is what I sound like when I’m optimistic.” —Tony Tulathimutte, novelist, Private Citizens

My writing on this blog (and publishing new books here) is my humble attempt to broaden perspectives about Indigenous People/American Indians/First Nations… Thank you all for reading and following this blog! You matter to me! xoxoxo  Blog Editor Trace Hentz

“Yellowtail” | Indian Country News | #ICWA | Food Insecurity

In "American Indians"

Change Is Coming: Youth Suicide Pacts, Canada’s Move Away from the 141 Year Old Indian Act and more news

In "End Human Trafficking"

Soul Wound: The Legacy of Native American Schools

In "American Indians"

(2015) Breaking News for Tribes in South Dakota #NativeLivesMatter #ICWA

Support for Lakota children and families is building. After years of working to get national attention on these serious problems, all of the work we have done together is bearing fruit! Here is a quick update on exciting national developments.

We are not only on the right path, we are gaining momentum. Our "Free the Lakota Children" petition to Obama just clicked over 50,000 signatures. We are in close contact with officials in the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Interior, and we will foray the petition to further leverage the discussion around federal planning support for the South Dakota tribes. With each signature, our combined voice gets louder and harder to ignore. Please sign, share, and encourage at least one of your friends to sign the petition: http://lakotalaw.org/action. Let’s go from 50,000 signatures to 100,000 as fast as we can!

 

Native Lives Matter: Two recent incidents in Rapid City inflamed the Indian community. First, the police shot and killed an Indian man in his home doorway because he had a small parring knife in his hand. No justice was forthcoming. Second, fifty-four Native honor roll kids between eight and twelve years of age were taken to a hockey game as a reward for all their hard work. In a VIP box above them, the people started pouring beer on the kids, saying “go back to the res” and other slurs. As this got worse, the teachers took the kids, who were being emotionally traumatized, out of the stadium. No justice was forthcoming.

 

 

Following these incidents, the Lakota People’s Law Project released a fifteen page report, “Native Lives Matter”, detailing the unequal treatment of Native Americans by the national criminal justice system. The release paralleled a passionate march, led by Lakota People’s Law Project Attorney Chase Iron Eyes, who has spearheaded the Native Lives Matter movement that is gathering momentum in Rapid City, South Dakota. “This fact-based report unequivocally shows that at best the institutions in South Dakota are culturally biased, at worst they are blatantly racist and bent on perpetuating a slow genocide,” said Chase Iron Eyes. “The recent anecdotal incidents along with the statistics presented in this report demonstrate that racism against Native Americans is palpable. It will not go anywhere unless we unite as a people and stand together against it.”

Please read the full report by clicking here.

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Updated ICWA Guidelines: On February 24, Kevin Washburn and the Bureau of Indian Affairs released new guidelines for the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) to ensure that the rights of Native American families and children are met. Some of these guidelines, among many others, include:

• State courts and agencies must ask in every child custody proceeding whether ICWA applies
• Courts should follow ICWA procedures even when the Indian child is not removed from the home in order to allow tribes to intervene as early as possible to assist in preventing a breakup of the family
• Information on how to contact a tribe
• Notice is required for each proceeding in a child custody case, and tribes have the right to intervene at any time

For the entire updated guidelines to ICWA, please go to: http://www.bia.gov/cs/groups/public/documents/text/idc1-029447.pdf

Relevant news coverage: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com and http://www.redlakenationnews.com

We applaud these guidelines, and we know they will help many people in Indian country. We and our tribal allies, however, have stopped hoping that South Dakota will ever follow the ICWA and are working on “Moving the Money” from the state to the tribes for Child and Family Services.

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Although Attorney General Marty Jackley has publicly stated that he was not connected to the Mette case, Black states, "For Jackley to say that he was not involved in the decision making process with respect to my investigation is ludicrous."

Black states that, "I will not pretend to have any solutions to correct the plight of Native American children in the South Dakota Justice system, I will say, it is obvious that changes need to be made now and that the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act needs to be readdressed by the U.S. Congress."

For the entire interview, go to:

http://broughttolight.com/2015/02/24/extra-mark-black-statement-on-mette-rape-scandal/

Click here to read our report on the Mette Scandal, "Abandoned and Forgotten,"

We do have the solution: Create foster care for Lakota, by Lakota. The corruption will not stop until this solution is realized! We have been working daily with the Department of Justice since our delegation returned from their trip to Washington DC in December. Please help us if you can by donating to keep the work moving forward. Our Lakota staff and the five remaining tribes are depending on your compassionate heart.

Blessings and thanks to all who watch over these efforts.

Lakota People's Law Project