Indian Country

The Conquest of Native America… Continues

May 28, 2010

One of the favorite argumentative gambits of conservatives and those otherwise unsympathetic to the making of present amends for past national crimes, is just that point – it’s in the past. It’s over. Let it go. And let me tell you something: I didn’t commit any crime. Leaving aside the validity of that argument, which [...]

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Apologizing to Native America – in a Whisper

May 21, 2010

Reader Yuras Karpau, from Belarus, asks in the comments section what I think of Wednesday’s official apology by the United States government to American Indians. Yuras has an interest in Native American issues and is an ardent advocate of the cause of Leonard Peltier. My first answer to such questions is always that it doesn’t [...]

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Honest Injun

May 11, 2010

Image by United Nations Photo via Flickr It can be difficult to assess progress in the movement to recover from the history and consequences of indigenous culturcide. Great symbolic and conceptual achievements are growing. In the former category is the Australian apology to its aboriginal population. In the latter is the 2007 U.N. Declaration on [...]

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Developments in Indian Country

April 30, 2010

The Ninth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues concludes today after eleven days.  Among the documents produced, according to Indian Country Today was a “groundbreaking report examining the roots of Christian domination over indigenous peoples and their lands”: North American Representative to the Permanent Forum Tonya Gonnella Frichner, an attorney and [...]

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Earth Day Climate Change Conference

April 21, 2010

Officially titled the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, the conference, running from April 19 though tomorrow is being hosted by President Evo Morales of Bolivia, which has the only majority indigenous population in the Western Hemisphere, at approximately 55%. The following press release from the Indigenous Environmental Network [...]

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Indian Rights, Human Rights

March 26, 2010

I was going to post on Israel today. Recent developments are much in the news (Jeffrey Goldberg is even pausing to consider – “This is big stuff,” he says), and more than is generally the case, there is a sense of urgency, though nothing in particular is about to happen. But this is the point. [...]

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Cobell (Individual Indian Money Trust Fund) Settlement News

February 25, 2010

Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff and driving force behind the now fourteen-year-old Individual Indian Money Trust Fund suit has been issuing periodic reports since news of a settlement of the case back in December. I wrote about it in The Nature of Things. Although the “Ask Elouise” letters, sent to those on the litigation listserv [...]

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People of Earth 1

February 5, 2010

An interview with Pamunkey Indian Chief Kevin Brown. (The first in a new series.) Spanish soldiers made often brutal explorations into the southeastern area of North America, including Virginia, all throughout the sixteenth century. The English themselves attempted a colony at Roanoke long before succeeding at Jamestown, where the colonists came in contact with the [...]

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Culture Matters

January 29, 2010

The late comedian Sam Kinison had a classic, foul-mouthed routine about common sense advice to the regular victims of famine in certain remote areas of the world – something to the effect of YOU KNOW WHY YOU’RE STARVING? YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! THERE’S NO FOOD THERE! NOTHING GROWS THERE! NOTHING IS GOING TO GROW [...]

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Indian Country Betting on the Future

January 28, 2010

Indian Gaming, like reservations, is a complex subject. I address it now because of the coming premiere at the Sundance Film Festival of Casino Jack and the United States of Money, Oscar winner Alex Gibney’s documentary on Jack Abramoff and his lobbyistg scamming of everyone, including, as always, his own clients – various Indian Tribes [...]

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Indians Caught in the Middle

January 26, 2010

It is generally observed by those who believe that Native Americans receive far too much sympathy for the effect on their cultures of the European arrival in the Western Hemisphere – as if it served as the argumentative coup de grâce – that Indian Tribes throughout the Western Hemisphere warred with each long before and [...]

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The Nature of Things

December 14, 2009

Cobell v. Salazar, the thirteen-year Individual Indian Money Trust Fund litigation, was settled on Friday for $3.4 billion. I have taken some time to sort through reports and my own reaction. The New York Times provided background: The Interior Department now manages about 56 million acres of Indian trust land scattered across the country, with [...]

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New Work

November 11, 2009

BloodLotus Issue 14 October 2009 ————————————————————————————————— Global Viewpoints Indigenous Peoples My poem “Myth” appears in the latest issue of BloodLotus, just hitting the screenstands. “Aboriginal Sin,” which originally appeared in Tikkun, is now reprinted in Global Viewpoints: Indigenous Peoples. The textbook anthologizes significant works and statements on the situation of indigenous peoples around the world, [...]

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The Tribal Nations Conference

November 10, 2009

Reports Indian Country Today, on November 5: “More than 400 members of federally recognized tribes gathered today at the Department of the Interior at a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by President Barack Obama, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Cabinet Members.” This was the largest gathering ever of Native leaders. In Salazar’s and Obama’s [...]

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Opening Mouths, Closing Minds

October 15, 2009

In response to The Open Mind I: Wrap Up, which was my assessment of the debate with ShrinkWrapped and his commenters regarding Native America, a new commenter wrote, in part Your last few paragraphs are civil but, unless I’m misreading you, they imply a thorough rejection of your opponents’ positions as being no better than [...]

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Picturing the Pamunkey

October 13, 2009

The Pamunkey Indians were the leading tribe of the Powhatan Confederacy, led by Chief Powhattan, father of Pocahontas, at the time of first contact with English colonists at Jamestown, in 1607. Estimates are that the confederacy then numbered between 14,000-21,000, with the Pamunkey numbering about 1000. Powhatan died in 1618, after which his brother and [...]

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The Open Mind I: Wrap Up

October 10, 2009

So I have posted, on the subject of Native America, “Call Me Irresponsible,” and ShrinkWrapped has riposted. His commenters have contributed in full measure. We’ve had a couple of other voices. Where do we stand? One ShrinkWrapped commenter had some sage advice at the start: let’s practice listening carefully to each other and asking clarifying [...]

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The Open Mind I: Riposte

October 8, 2009

ShrinkWrapped has replied to The Open Mind I: Call Me Irresponsible.  While there has not been much liberal contribution in the commenting (I am a master of understatement) what comment has been made has been highly civil. It is a matter of importance to me, and SW has requested it of his own commenters. I [...]

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The Open Mind I: Call Me Irresponsible.

October 6, 2009

Dear Shrink, By this point I’ve enjoyed my long draft of Alka Seltzer (extra strength – and lemon-lime, to obscure that particular bitter taste), and brought up the deep grepts that expells the heavy load of indigestion. I confess, I had hoped for a different beginning. But then I, according to some, am a liberal [...]

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The Dominating Mentality of Conquest

September 26, 2009

There, I said it. Conservatives have sometimes been annoyed by my use of that term – dominating mentality of conquest. It is not the kind of language I like to use. It bespeaks a manner of, in this case postcolonial, academic jargon I disdain. Heidegger said that “Language is the house of being.” Jargon closes [...]

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Redskins Redux

September 24, 2009

Indian Country Today reports that the litigants in the suit to force The Washington Redskins football team to change its name have decided to take the case to the United States Supreme Court. They filed a writ of certiorari petition with the court on Sept. 14. Readers of this blog will recall that I first [...]

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