I will be organizing the Native American Caucus again this year at Netroots Nation in Austin.
Time and room assignments have not been issued yet but most likely will take place on Thursday, August 17th in the early afternoon. I will update this diary when I receive this info.
Please comment below if you are going to attend the convention.
Also, if you are unable to attend please comment below on the topics you would like us to discuss.
I will diary a recap with photos after the event.
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Update:
Rain from Street Prophets will be doing a Star designed quilt this year with a Native American blogger focus. She has invited the members of this blog to stop by her table and sign a patch. I will be signing one. Please spread the word.
Update 2:
Rain has posted a photo of the Star Quilt below in the comments. It is beautiful!
Update 3:
The room location and time has been posted for our caucus:
Native American Caucus Thu, 07/17/2008 - 9:00am, Room 11
Connect with like-minded folks and talk with others from your community in our identity, issue and regional caucuses.
The White Mountain Apache Reservation is half the size of Connecticut with 10 registered Democrats for every one Republican. A key to winning AZ-01 is to increase the voter registration and turnout of Native Americans on the Apache Reservation and other reservations in the sprawling district.
ApachesVote.org has been formed to help fulfill this important mission. Our step-by-step plan is here. To contribute, please follow this link.. If you only have a moment to post a comment, it would really help to seed our blogs.
We would appreciate feedback from the community on our plan, on how to reach fund-raising sources and how to coordinate with other voter registration groups.
In the final paragraph of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, the Delaware sage Tamenund remarks, "The pale faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men has not yet come again." Despite hopeful signs, in the case of commercially viable movies, that time has still not come.
Although we've come a long way from those movies in which whooping, headdress-bedecked Plains Indians are depicted riding around and around circled wagon trains - a myth stolen directly from the performances of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show - the only places you can typically see Indians as more than savages or sidekicks is in films by Indians given attention by the American Indian Film Institute at the American Indian Film Festival, the 33rd annual of which will take place this autumn in San Francisco, and the Talking Stick Film Festival, which debuted two weeks ago in Santa Fe. The Talking Stick Festival opened with Older Than America, a Canadian film by director Georgina Lightning (Cree) about atrocities at Indian boarding schools, and Hopi director Victor Masayesva's Paatuwaqatsi - Water, Land, Life.
These festival films aren't the kind that make it to your neighborhood multiplex. Indeed, although Wes Studi (Cherokee), Gary Farmer (Cayuga), August Schellenburg (Mohawk), Michael Horse (Yaqui), Irene Bedard (Inupiat-Metis), Steve Reevis (Blackfeet), Adam Beach (Saulteaux), Kalani Queypo (Blackfeet), Graham Greene (Oneida), and a handful of others make a living as actors, only a single American Indian has managed to sustain a career as a director - Chris Eyre (Cheyenne-Arapaho), whose premier film was Smoke Signals a decade ago.
Critical Deadline Only Days Away! Please Act Now to stop the proposed Black Mesa Project: Peabody Coal Company's massive coal-mining expansion plans on the Dine' (Navajo) & Hopi peoples sacred ancestral homelands of Black Mesa, AZ. Your voices are urgently needed before the comment period closes July 7, 2008!
The following action alert is from The Black Mesa Water Coalition:
Dear friends and relatives,
Please take a few minutes to read and hopefully respond! We have being trying our best to handle the railroading tactics of Peabody, the Office of Surface Mining and its desire to mine more coal!
Best, BMWC
Black Mesa Project permitting process Re-opened! Deadline for commenting: July 7, 2008.
"We continue to believe that someone important someplace cares and will do something before our situation becomes impossible." Fools Crow from "Fools Crow," by Thomas E. Mails. p. 217
Rabbit-Proof Fence is my favorite big-screen movie of American Indians.
But that's an Australian movie, you say? Yep. The best film of American Indians is a Down Under 2002 movie about aboriginals without a loin-cloth, smear of war paint or drop of firewater in sight. It's the story of three young mixed-race girls who find their way home after being ripped away from their parents in 1931 by the government and trained to focus on their "white side" so they can become somebody's servants. A few critics have complained that this based-on-a-true-story movie goes overboard in demonizing the main white character (Kenneth Branagh) and depicting most other whites of the era as deeply bigoted, morally uncourageous paternalists. What could the director have been thinking?
The American version of Rabbit-Proof Fence has been out there for the telling ever since Thomas Edison showed his "movie" Hopi Snake Dance at the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893 on the brand-new kinetoscope his staff had developed. It's the story of how American Indian children were torn from their customs, religions, languages, tribes and parents by demons and paternalists who saw cultural genocide as the proper modern alternative to the centuries-old physical genocide that had become no longer an acceptable course of action. But of all the hundreds of movie Westerns depicting Indians, this story has failed to generate excitement among four or five generations of movie-makers. Instead, the Hollywood Indian has prevailed.
As Ted Jojola, an Isleta Pueblo Indian and associate professor at the University of New Mexico, wrote in his 1998 essay, "Absurd Reality II: Hollywood Goes to the Indians," Edison's choice presented a stereotypical view of American Indians that would ...
"...persist into contemporary times. Its longevity though, is explained by the persistence of myth and symbol. The Indian became a genuine American symbol whose distorted origins are attributed to the folklore of Christopher Columbus when he 'discovered' the 'New World.' Since then the film industry, or Hollywood, has never allowed Native America to forget it. The Hollywood Indian is a mythological being who exists nowhere but within the fertile imaginations of its movie actors, producers and directors. The preponderance of such movie images have reduced native people to ignoble stereotypes."
I've always acknowledged my Abenaki heritage and for a long time, I've wanted to take part in the tribal council and the political process it involves. However, the council in my opinion, is a puppet council.
There is no tribal democracy here. Instead, the chief came to power by nepotism and not a fair vote. Her father was chief and she became chief while he was on his last legs.
My email below is an attempt to shake things up and get the gears of change started.
Note: I originally posted this diary at Daily Kos as well.
Was losing Major Elliot's strategic location during the extermination of the Southern Cheyenne Arapaho at Washita by Lieutenant Colonel Custer acceptable by U.S. military standards? Captain Benteen thought not.
I am 27 years old and my name is Cassie. My roots lie with the blackfoot, and I have been a natural healer since I was born. I am currently tracking my roots to get acknowlegment among the blackfoot. I learned all the same things in school as everyone else, I know of the past pain that only now people seem to be able to put into words. I love mother earth, and all who live here to me are family no matter age, race, etc. I take things very personaly and have cried out of pain more times then I can count. Everytime I think that nothing new can be done to family (and u are, no matter who u are) then I always get surprised. What happened in Ohio was an outrage that was completely uncalled for. I thought the time of treating us like cattle to heard, or control ended long ago, or was that my wishful hopeing? To top it all off, everytime I turn around I am reading from someone that some political honcho in some state is trying to pass a bill to hurt and dibilitate tribal people (I care not of your tribe name, u are still family). All I have to say is...you can NEVER take away my pride, hope, or even my unwaivering ability to help others. You can make me cry, cause pain in my heart that will travel to the very bottoms of my soul, but I will NEVER stop doing what I can to help whomever I can. That is my life's purpose, my gift, and no one can take away that which my anciestors gave me.
This diary is an update on the Pretty Bird Woman House and a request for a few small donations. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this project, it's a women's shelter on the South Dakota side of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation that the netroots came together to help in its time of need.
Anyway, the shelter has been operating for about a month, and wonderful things have been happening since they closed on the house in February.
One exciting development has been that many members of the McLaughlin community have gone from being suspicious to being supporters. That's one reason we're raising money right now: a youth group from a local church as volunteered to paint the house.
The soldiers never explained to the government when an Indian was wronged, but reported the misdeeds of the Indians.
And especially having "never explained to the government when an Indian was wronged," was Custer. Distrubing is the fact that some people still try to spread his lies after 140 years.
Imagine beginning to walk from San Francisco in order to raise awareness about American Indian concerns in a good way and having walked over 2,400 miles since February; but then, you get to Ohio where eight police cars come swooping at you while one does the blocking. Suddenly, an officer comes and reaches into the window, grabbing the wheel.
COLUMBUS Ohio - Unprovoked Columbus, Ohio police, attacked Long Walkers, by first pointing a taser at the head of Michael Lane and then forcing Luv the Mezenger to the ground and handcuffing him.
The Longest Walk Northern Route was walking this prayer through Columbus on Monday, June 2, when squad cars and arrest wagons arrived. Without discussion of the purpose of the prayer walk, or even verify that the Ohio Department of Transportation had been notified of the prayer walk, police attacked the walkers.
Last summer, Kid Oakland did what many of us kinda, sorta, in our mental wanderings had pondered but utterly failed to put into action. He began raising money to help people who wanted to attend the Yearlykos Chicago gathering but couldn't afford it.
He'd met many such people on-line in his ongoing outreach efforts with state and local blogs. Like others of us in progressive wwwLand, KO was a true believer in the "50-state strategy" before it became Howard Dean's goal. Before Howard Dean was even a candidate for the Democratic nomination. Before there even was a progressive blogosphere to help make that organizing strategy more than wishful thinking.
A key aspect of such a progressive strategy is inclusiveness. While we all have little trouble applauding diversity when it comes to gender, orientation, age, ethnicity or disability, there's not infrequently a blind spot when it comes to class, something the powers-that-be have tried to erase from the national consciousness without erasing its reality from daily life. KOwent about trying to ensure a modest remedy by doing what plenty of us hate doing even when the cause is righteous: actually asking for money. What he raised would provide a few "scholarships" to Yearlykos. When he was done asking, 19 people, 17 of whom you can read about here, people who otherwise could not have attended, were in Chicago, enriching themselves and everyone else in attendance with their presence.
One of last year's attendees subsequently got herself chosen as a delegate for the Denver Democratic Convention this year. Another was involved in the recent imbroglio over blogger credentials at the Convention.
This year, the successor to Yearlykos, Netroots Nation, is happening in Austin. The NN Scholarship Program drive has gotten underway six weeks earlier than last year.
The Democracy for America folks originally committed to contributing nine scholarships, but enough additional money has already been contributed to raise that to 16. You can apply for a scholarship here. The deadline is June 9. You can apply under your "real" name or your screen moniker. You'll have to tell why you deserve a scholarship and provide some other information.
At the same site, you can vote for nominees - at last count there were 87 - whom you think are most deserving. Votes matter, but other criteria - ethnicity, gender, urban/rural, et cetera - will be taken into account when the scholarships are awarded.
If you click on the right-side icon, you can contribute money to provide additional scholarships. That's extremely important. There's no reason we shouldn't improve on the number of scholarships from last year. Let's say 35.
Scholarships cover the entire cost of Netroots Nation registration and hotel charges (except the minibar and adult channels). But "scholars" will have to pay for a few things themselves, including getting to Austin, food and beverages while there, that "Don't Mess with Texas" tee-shirt, and "incidentals."
There are other ways to contribute besides cash:
Land of Enchantment is coordinating a supplemental program for donating frequent-flyer miles. Contact her at her gmail account, which you can find on her user profile page here.
If you registered and have since learned you can't attend Austin or you've been approved for a panel and won't be using your registration, you can donate it, again by contacting Land of Enchantment.
If you know someone who you think is worthy, encourage them to apply.
What are you waiting for? Go vote. Go contribute. Go apply.
Via Deoliver47 on Daily Kos, Native Times is reporting that Billy Mills, a Lakota Sioux Olympic gold medalist born and raised on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation came out today in support of Barack Obama -- all the more notable because Mills is a Republican:
Mills, who won the 1964 Olympic gold in the 10,000-meter run in one of the greatest upsets in Olympic history, said that he was a lifelong Republican, but that he had been inspired by Obama's track record of uniting Americans from all walks of life. He also noted Obama's background as the son of a single, working mom and his youth in Hawaii and Indonesia as predictive of his ability to understand and work for people in underserved communities.
Mills rose to prominence at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo where he came in as a virtual unknown and stunned the world by surging forward from third place in the final lap to capture the gold medal. He has since been inducted into the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.
The 1983 film "Running Brave" starred Robby Benson as a young Mills.
Mills concluded his endorsement by saying, "Barack Obama is the right choice for Indian Country and all of South Dakota."
This is an attempt, by using the Eight Stages of Genocide by Gregory H. Stanton, to show how climate change is a human rights issue in our own backyard.
My stepfather's brother died with other Marines on the beach at Guadacanal during World War II.
My best high school friend was killed in the early days of the Vietnam War.
These men will be honored at next Monday's Memorial Day ceremonies along with nearly a million of their soldier, sailor, marine, coast guard and air force compatriots who gave their lives in military service. No distinction is made between the hundreds of thousands who died fighting in wars most Americans would consider righteous and the hundreds of thousands who were killed in the furtherance of bad causes or died in vain because their criminal or reckless leaders sent them into harm's way for greed, stupidity or empire. Those who fought in gray uniforms in a war of secession are given the same reverence, the same moments of silence, the same commemoration of sacrifice as those who wore blue into battle.
It doesn't matter whether they were white boys from the First Tennessee Infantry Regiment who fell in the land-grabbing war with Mexico in 1847, or black soldiers of the 93rd Infantry Division fighting Germans in the war to end all wars, or Japanese-Americans of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team slugging their way through Italy while their relatives lived incarcerated in camps back home.
It doesn't matter whether their name was Hernández, or Hansen, or Hashimoto. Nor whether they caught enemy shrapnel or a bullet from friendly fire. Nor whether they were drafted or volunteered. Nor whether they died fighting for liberty more than 200 years ago at Bunker Hill or crushing it more than 100 years ago in the boondocks of the Philippines. On Memorial Day all American warriors who lost their lives are honored because they did lose their lives.
Barack Obama was formally adopted into the Crow Nation today -- and given the name "One Who Helps People Throughout the Land."
I was shocked (although I shouldn't have been) to learn that he is the first presidential candidate who has ever visited the reservation of the Crow Nation, located in the state of Montana.
Many years ago, the federal courts ruled that the Black Hills of western South Dakota had been taken illegally from the American Indian tribes -
As governor, would you consider transferring Bear Butte State Park land and management to a consortium of American Indian Tribes as a gesture of reconciliation from the state?
Mike Rounds, Republican candidate in 2006:
"I do not believe that Bear Butte State Park, and it is a state park, should be transferred to a Native American tribe.
I'm not sure which Native American tribe you might suggest (that) you hold that they are all sovereign.
SD Governors Discuss Bear Butte
Why is the Bear Butte issue more critical than ever?
Native American Netroots ...a forum for the discussion of political, social and economic issues affecting the indigenous peoples of the United States, including their lack of political representation, economic deprivation, health care issues, and the on-going struggle for preservation of identity and cultural history
Although we've come a long way from those movies in which whooping, headdress-bedecked Plains Indians are depicted riding around and around circled wagon trains - a myth stolen directly from the performances of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show - the only places you can typically see Indians as more than savages or sidekicks is in films by Indians given attention by the American Indian Film Institute at the 
The American version of Rabbit-Proof Fence has been out there for the telling ever since Thomas Edison showed his "movie" Hopi Snake Dance at the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893 on the brand-new kinetoscope his staff had developed. It's the story of how American Indian children were torn from their customs, religions, languages, tribes and parents by demons and paternalists who saw cultural genocide as the proper modern alternative to the centuries-old physical genocide that had become no longer an acceptable course of action. But of all the hundreds of movie Westerns depicting Indians, this story has failed to generate excitement among four or five generations of movie-makers. Instead, the Hollywood Indian has prevailed.
