Forcing the government to do their part in removing statues to white supremacy

Posted on July 5, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

The event, HEY! Come Get Your Racist Uncle, Remove Monuments to White Supremacy in Iowa, was held at the Iowa State Capitol yesterday, July 4, 2020.

Join us on July 4th from 1-3 pm to rally at the Iowa State Capitol and demand that monuments to white supremacy be removed in Iowa. Organizers will present Iowa legislators with a letter demanding that all racist, misogynistic, homo/transphobic, whitewashed historical depictions be removed from all state grounds and facilities. Local leaders will be speaking, but we will also provide time for testimony from the crowd.

COVID-19 is still an issue and we ask all who attend to wear masks and stand 6 feet apart. If you would like to testify and have access to a bullhorn or mic, please bring it.

In response to police brutality and racial injustice, monuments to white supremacy are being removed all over the country but People of the World Majority are being forced to put their safety on the line to carry out this long-overdue purge. Folx have been shot, arrested, and targeted. Now, #45 has signed an executive order to arrest anyone who vandalizes, removes a statue or threatens federal property and jail them for up to 10 years.

https://www.facebook.com/events/646738515925423/

One of the most important things I’ve learned about justice is I need to listen deeply, and follow the leadership of those who are impacted by the injustice. The leadership for this event comes from my friends Christine Nobiss and Donnielle Wanatee. I am so glad the event was video taped, so you can hear the wisdom of their words.

It is a lengthy video. I hope you might listen to the first few minutes, at least. You can hear Christine talk about the purpose of this gathering. And you can hear the wonderful prayers of Donnielle. When we were on the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March together, September, 2018, we stopped for prayers every time we walked over the Dakota Access Pipeline and often it was Donnielle who gave the prayers. They were some of the most significant parts of the March for me.

Des Moines Black Lives Matter protesters congregated at the Iowa State Capitol on the Fourth of July for a demonstration led by Black and Indigenous activists calling for the removal of “monuments to white supremacy” in Iowa.

The protest comes after weeks of protesters taking down statues of confederate leaders, slave owners, segregationists and others near government buildings across the United States.

1:31 p.m.: Protesters gather to call for the removal of statues which “represent colonialism, white supremacy and oppression” on the Iowa State Capitol’s grounds. Organizers plan to present Iowa Rep. Ako Abdul Samad, who has been an active presence in the Des Moines Black Lives Matter movement, a letter calling for the statues’ removal.

1:38 p.m.: Indigenous organizers address the crowd of nearly 250 people gathered outside the Capitol. Donielle Wanatee, a Meskwaki organizer with Seeding Sovereignty and Indigenous Iowa, said she had expected resistance to the idea of removing statues.

1:56 p.m.: Wanatee and Nobiss address the crowd. Wanatee said the idea to hold a demonstration to take down these statues had been planned for weeks, but only recently did organizers decide to hold it on the Fourth of July.

2:01 p.m.: Donielle Wanatee, a Meskwaki organizer with Seeding Sovreignty and Indigenous Iowa, said she and Christine Nobiss, another indigenous organizer, have received multiple threats of violence from white supremacists in the past few days.

“They threatened time bring their guns and told us not to bring our children today,” she said. “But I brought my daughter today.”

“The Declaration of Independence doesn’t apply to everyone,” Wanatee said. “Why not use this as a day to utilize our First Amendment rights?” 

“We knew we would have pushback, not only by police, but by white supremacists,” she said. “Because this is their holy day, and these are their holy relics.”

Activists call for removal of statues at Iowa State Capitol in Fourth of July protest by Robin Opsahl, Maya Miller, and Philip Joens, Des Moines Register, July 4, 2020
Pioneer statue, Des Moines Capitol, photo by Jeff Kisling

The earliest pioneer monuments were put up in midwestern and western cities such as Des Moines, Iowa and San Francisco, California. They date from the 1890s and early 1900s, as whites settled the frontier and pushed American Indians onto reservations.

Those statues showed white men claiming land and building farms and cities in the West. They explicitly celebrated the dominant white view of the Wild West progressing from American Indian “savagery” to white “civilization.”

Think Confederate monuments are racist? Consider pioneer monuments by Cynthia Prescott, The Conversation.

Racial justice protests are happening across the country during this Fourth of July weekend to challenge acts of police brutality perpetrated against Black people. These much-needed actions highlight not only modern-day police abuse but also the sordid history of white supremacy and racial violence in this country. Instead of celebrating a false narrative of American struggle for liberty and justice for all, we should be out in the streets protesting against the continued killings by the police of Black people and we should wrestle with this country’s true history of racial violence and oppression that has led us to this much needed reckoning.

Racial violence is embedded in the fabric of this country’s history. From Columbus first bringing enslaved Africans to the Caribbean (1490s) in the newly “discovered” lands; to the Spanish-controlled settlement first using slave labor on the mainland of North America (1526) in what would later become South Carolina, bringing in 100 enslaved Africans, all who shortly after revolted and escaped; to British colonial enslavement/indentured servitude (1619) starting in Jamestown that by the 1660s grew into the system of chattel slavery that would remain in this land for following 200 years. Racialized control and violence (branding, rape, separation of families, whipping) over Africans, later to be re-classified by many different names, has been the common thread of history for Black people in this country and hemisphere.

The Fourth of July Must Be a Day of Protest Against White Supremacy by Kamau Franklin, TRUTHOUT, July 4, 2020

Also on this July 4th weekend, Native Americans blocked the entrance to the Black Hills monument, where the president was schedule to speak. My friends Foxy and Alton Onefeather were there. https://kislingjeff.wordpress.com/2020/07/03/actions-at-mount-rushmore-7-3-2020/

My live feed from today. Got maced and I would do it again helping to defend the Black Hills. Trump’s minion cops are bullies, that cop literally targeted us. Came in maced us then hid behind his military security. I apologize to my elders for my language in advanced.

Foxy Onefeather
Image may contain: text that says 'BHLEGALFUND.ORG DEMANDS Close Mount Rushmore as a monument Black Hills Bail and Legal Defense Fund On July 3rd, 2020 Indigenous People and our allies were arrested in the process of defending our sacred lands in the Black Hills. Acts of courage and civil disobedience resulted in arrests and criminal charges. We were protesting the desecration of sacred lands that were stolen from our people. FISCALLY SPONSORED BY NDN NDN COLLECTIVE'
Posted in #NDAPL, decolonize, First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March, Indigenous, Native Americans, Seeding Sovereignty, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“So, let’s get free!”

Posted on July 4, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

These are a few different thoughts about freedom on this July 4th. Police violence, the creeping authoritarianism of the current political administration, ongoing, systemic racism are attempts to constrain our freedom.

Constraining freedom is an oxymoron.

Freedom, generally, is having the ability to act or change without constraint. Something is “free” if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state. In philosophy and religion, it is associated with having free will and being without undue or unjust constraints, or enslavement, and is an idea closely related to the concept of liberty. A person has the freedom to do things that will not, in theory or in practice, be prevented by other forces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom

I met Mat Davis at the Kheprw Institute (KI). I’ve admired his work and how eloquently he writes. I like his expression, “so, let’s get free!” because it expresses freedom as something that must be fought for. It is usually not bestowed without a struggle.

Throughout the protests and demonstrations which have been taking place throughout the city for a month, organizers and leaders are calling on those in the crowds to understand the history of the United States and the systemic racism that many say still permeates modern society. 

At a demonstration at Military Park and IUPUI June 19, Mat Davis, an organizer from the Indiana Racial Justice Alliance, told the crowd about this history of Juneteenth — when individuals enslaved in Texas two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation learned they had been freed. Davis told the group of roughly 45 people that they were fighting for the same thing as enslaved individuals and those who fought during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s were fighting for: freedom. 

“So, let’s get free!” he exclaimed at the end of his address.

‘It’s not my day of independence,’ perceptions of July 4 changing By BREANNA COOPER BreannaC@indyrecorder.com, Indianapolis Recorder, Jul 2, 2020
Mat Davis

The president ignored multiple efforts by native peoples to tell him he is not welcome on the land that is even recognized by the courts as belonging to native peoples. As a last attempt to register their disapproval, three vans were parked across the entrance to Mount Rushmore. Wheels were removed so the vans would have to be towed away. My friends Foxy and Alton Onefeather were there. Warning, there is some strong language in this video.

My live feed from today. Got maced and I would do it again helping to defend the Black Hills. Trump’s minion cops are bullies, that cop literally targeted us. Came in maced us then hid behind his military security. I apologize to my elders for my language in advanced.

Foxy Onefeather
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Actions at Mount Rushmore 7/3/2020

Posted on July 3, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

The following are some live videos from Keystone, SD, near Mount Rushmore. My friend Foxy Onefeather began live streaming from the site of the action below. The photos were clipped from the only live televisions crew on site.

This action was to protest the president’s visit, where he is to deliver an address, followed by fireworks. For more see: https://kislingjeff.wordpress.com/2020/07/02/mount-rushmore-anti-trump-rally/

Three white vans parked across the road to Mount Rushmore. Then some of the wheels were removed. That meant the vans would have to be removed by tow trucks, as they eventually were.

Right Side Broadcasting is sharing live video from Keystone, South Dakota, 1 mile from Mount Rushmore.

Now police in riot gear are moving into the area (6:08 pm). The police are now up to the protesters. Protester’s signs are being taken and a few arrests are being made.

6:25 pm (Central)

Police are moving away from protesters.

7:00 PM Central time

7:15 pm Central. Finally getting the vans blocking the road onto tow trucks.

https://twitter.com/VoBo_USA/status/1279183262439571457?s=20
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The Declaration of Independence for White Males

Posted on July 3, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

This 4th of July holiday will see a confluence of interests and cultures in the land called the United States. Confluence generally implies a positive result when different events, interests or cultures come together. But confluence can instead lead to conflicts, which is the case this year.

Confluence

Definition: a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point

The joining of rivers—as at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers flow together spectacularly—was the original meaning of confluence, and in its later meanings we still hear a strong echo of the physical merging of waters. So today we can speak of a confluence of events, a confluence of interests, a confluence of cultures, and so on, from which something important often emerges.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/confluence

The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America in Congress, July 4, 1776, might more accurately be called The Declaration of White males.

Many forget the Declaration includes the phrase “the merciless Indian Savages”.

These are days of heightened awareness about structural racism. That includes demands for the removal of statues and art depicting Confederate soldiers and White supremacists. Join us on July 4th from 1-3 pm to rally at the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines to demand that monuments to white supremacy be removed in Iowa.

Iowa State Capitol building, Jeff Kisling

There seem to be so many ironies this year. Mount Rushmore is land stolen from Native Americans. And then to have carved massive images of four presidents, each considered a racist by some of us, into a national memorial, is yet another example of White supremacy, and disregard for Indigenous peoples.

So a racist president still plans to go to Mount Rushmore today. Native Americans have other objections. Fireworks will be displayed.

National Park Service officials have not allowed pyrotechnics at Mount Rushmore for more than a decade, out of concern that they could set off wildfires and contaminate drinking water supplies. The memorial is surrounded by 1,200 acres of forested lands and lies next to the Black Hills National Forest’s Black Elk Wilderness. Just last week, a wildfire erupted six miles south of the memorial, destroying about 60 acres before it was extinguished with help from 117 firefighters and eight aircraft.

Rocket’s red glare and protests: Trump’s Mount Rushmore fireworks anger tribes. Sioux leaders object to fireworks displays on sacred land by Juliet Eilperin, Darry Fears and Two Armus, Washington Post, July 2, 2020

It is also infuriating that a president who has endangered us all by his administration’s epic failure to respond to COVID-19, will bring together thousands of people where masks are optional and there will be no effort for social distancing. Native peoples are at high risk to contract the virus and have been taking many measures to try to protect themselves including checkpoints at entrances to the tribal lands. The president’s insistence on the 4th of July celebration today has all the makings of a coronavirus super spreader event.

But the best orators who have marked the day have understood that our nation’s laurels are not meant to be rested on. Fourth of July speeches tend to divide into two sorts. The predominant variety is commemorative, celebratory, and prescriptive—solemnized, as John Adams predicted in 1776, “with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other.”

But in his exuberance, Adams failed to anticipate that the Fourth, as it brought Americans together, would continually threaten to tear them apart. Over the years, celebrations of the Fourth have become a periodic tug of war between commemorations designed to affirm and even enforce the common identity of Americans—out of many, one—and subversive pushback from those obstreperous enough to insist that we are not all free, emphatically not all equal, and certainly not one.

But even in self-congratulatory Philadelphia, (July 4, 1876) not every iconoclast was quelled. Suffrage advocate Susan B. Anthony and several younger colleagues had managed to get into the square. After the Declaration of Independence was read to the multitudes, as the band struck up an anthem, Anthony and her followers rose and approached the speaker’s platform, carrying copies of a Declaration of Rights, including provocative “Articles of Impeachment” they had drawn up against “our rulers”—men—for denying women the right to vote or serve on juries and restricting them from full participation in the American democracy in many other ways. “The history of our country the past hundred years,” it proclaimed, “has been a series of assumptions and usurpations of power over women.”

The Best Fourth of July Speech in American History. It was delivered on the fifth of July. By JAMES WEST DAVIDSON, Slate.com, JULY 02, 2015. Referring to Frederick Douglas’s ‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
See the source image
https://www.indianz.com/News/2018/07/05/mercilessindiansavages.jpg
Posted in decolonize, Indigenous, Native Americans, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Mount Rushmore Anti-Trump Rally

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

President Trump and Vice President Pence plan to attend a fireworks display at Mount Rushmore tomorrow, July 3, 2020. Native Americans and their supporters have numerous objections to the visit. One is the continued irresponsible idea of crowds where no masks or social distancing will be enforced. Native American populations have suffered greatly from COVID-19 and have been making considerable efforts to protect tribal people, including checkpoints at the points of entry to the tribal lands.

Not only was the land stolen, but desecrated with the engravings of four racist presidents (see image below). Each either owned slaves, made racist remarks or initiated actions that contributed harm to Native peoples.

Of the four, Lincoln gives the greatest offense to Native Americans for ordering the largest mass execution in American history when 38 Sioux were hanged in Minnesota during the Dakota war of 1862.

“They don’t tell the true story and it’s wrong. We hear only the highlighted story of the good things these men have done for this country but they don’t tell that this land belongs to Native Americans, that the Black Hills belong to the Sioux nations, or the hanging of these Dakota men,” Bear Runner said.

Donald Trump should stay away from Mount Rushmore, Sioux leader says. The president’s planned visit to the monument on ‘stolen’ Native land risks spreading coronavirus, tribal president warns by Edward Helmore, The Guardian, July 1, 2020

This comes at a time when statues of Confederate soldiers and leaders are being removed from public spaces, one way or another. Join us on July 4th from 1-3 pm to rally at the Iowa State Capitol and demand that monuments to white supremacy be removed in Iowa. Organizers will present Iowa legislators with a letter demanding that all racist, misogynistic, homo/transphobic, whitewashed historical depictions be removed from all state grounds and facilities. The title of the event is HEY! Come Get Your Racist Uncle.

Photo by Jeff Kisling

A decade after being banned amid concerns about wildfires and groundwater pollution, and despite protests by Native Americans and recommendations from public health officials to avoid public gatherings, fireworks will once again be exploding over Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of western South Dakota on Friday, anticipating the Fourth of July.

Beyond being an implicit repudiation of recommended public health measures, the South Dakota pyrotechnics extravaganza also highlights Trump’s disdain for environmental measures adopted during the Obama administration.

Revived Mount Rushmore Fireworks Will Feature Trump But No Social Distancing by David Welna, NPR, July 1, 2020

In South Dakota, the president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe has ordered President Trump to cancel a planned visit to Mount Rushmore on July 3 for his Independence Day celebration. Julian Bear Runner told The Guardian, “The lands on which that mountain is carved and the lands he’s about to visit belong to the Great Sioux nation under a treaty signed in 1851 and the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and I have to tell him he doesn’t have permission from its original sovereign owners to enter the territory at this time.”

Oglala Sioux President Says Trump “Doesn’t Have Permission” to Visit Mt. Rushmore, The Guardian, July 2, 2020

Donald Trump’s plans to kick off Independence Day with a showy display at Mount Rushmore are drawing sharp criticism from Native Americans who view the monument as a desecration of land violently stolen from them and used to pay homage to leaders hostile to native people.

Several groups led by Native American activists are planning protests for Trump’s 3 July visit, part of Trump’s “comeback” campaign for a nation reeling from sickness, unemployment and, recently, social unrest.

The event is slated to include fighter jets thundering over the 79-year-old stone monument in South Dakota’s Black Hills and the first fireworks display at the site since 2009.

But it comes amid a national reckoning over racism and a reconsideration of the symbolism of monuments around the globe. Many Native American activists say the Rushmore memorial is as reprehensible as the many Confederate monuments being toppled around the nation.

“Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism that’s still alive and well in society today,” said Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and the president of a local activist organization called NDN Collective.

“It’s an injustice to actively steal indigenous people’s land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide.”

While some activists, like Tilsen, want to see the monument removed altogether and the Black Hills region returned to the Lakota, others have called for a share in the economic benefits from the region and the tourists it attracts.

The four faces, carved into the mountain with dynamite and drills, are known as the “shrine to democracy”. The presidents were chosen by sculptor Gutzon Borglum for their leadership during four phases of American development: Washington led the birth of the nation; Jefferson sparked its westward expansion; Lincoln preserved the union and emancipated slaves; Roosevelt championed industrial innovation.

And yet, for many Native American people, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, Omaha, Arapaho, Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache, the monument is a desecration to the Black Hills, which they consider sacred. Lakota people know the area as Paha Sapa – “the heart of everything that is”.

Trump’s Mount Rushmore fireworks plan draws criticism from Native Americans. Native Americans view monument as desecration of stolen land. Activists planning protests for Trump’s Independence Day visit, Guardian staff, The Guardian, June 25, 2020.

Native Americans are expressing outrage over President Donald Trump’s planned fireworks display Friday at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, a monument on land they say was stolen from them more than a century ago.

They also question the timing of the event, scheduled during a period in which Americans struggle to come to terms with racism and police violence, and underfunded tribes battle the spread of COVID-19.

In 1868, the U.S. government signed a peace treaty with Dakota, Lakota and Arapaho leaders, designating as the “Great Sioux Nation” territory that stretched across parts of North Dakota, South Dakota and four other states and guaranteeing the tribes “absolute and undisturbed use and occupation.”

But that was before miners led by General George A. Custer found gold in the Black Hills, setting off a flood of prospectors who demanded protection by the government.

Under pressure from the miners, the U.S. Interior Department sent a commission to negotiate purchasing the Black Hills but refused the tribes’ asking price. Congress then passed an act in 1877 reclaiming the Black Hills and consigned the tribes, at threat of cutting off all their rations and supplies, to five small reservations in South Dakota.

Letter written by the South Dakota state historian to sculptor Gutzon Borglum [his name is misspelled in the letter] requesting he design and build a sculpture at Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota. (Image: Facebook)
Letter written by the South Dakota state historian to sculptor Gutzon Borglum [his name is misspelled in the letter] requesting he design and build a sculpture at Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota. (Image: Facebook)
Meme circulating on Facebook accounts of Native Americans, who view the four U.S. presidents carved on the face of Mt. Rushmore as architects of their oppression.

Native Americans Angry Over Trump Visit to Mount Rushmore By Cecily Hilleary, VOA News, July 02, 2020

Tribal leaders in South Dakota plan to protest President Trump’s appearance Friday at an elaborate Mount Rushmore fireworks display, arguing that the event could worsen the state’s coronavirus outbreak and violates Native Americans’ claims to the Black Hills.

The objections of seven Sioux tribal governments — all of which had raised concerns as Trump officials were planning the trip — underscore how the president has become a polarizing figure regardless of where he travels in the United States. Critics of the president demonstrated outside of his recent rallies in Tulsa and Phoenix, and they will greet him once he returns to Washington on Saturday for a “Salute to America” celebration he has orchestrated to commemorate Independence Day.

National Park Service officials have not allowed pyrotechnics at Mount Rushmore for more than a decade, out of concern that they could set off wildfires and contaminate drinking water supplies. The memorial is surrounded by 1,200 acres of forested lands and lies next to the Black Hills National Forest’s Black Elk Wilderness. Just last week, a wildfire erupted six miles south of the memorial, destroying about 60 acres before it was extinguished with help from 117 firefighters and eight aircraft.

Rocket’s red glare and protests: Trump’s Mount Rushmore fireworks anger tribes. Sioux leaders object to fireworks displays on sacred land by Juliet Eilperin, Darry Fears and Two Armus, Washington Post, July 2, 2020
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Posted in #NDAPL, Black Lives, climate change, decolonize, Indigenous, Native Americans, Seeding Sovereignty, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Standing Rock Stands with #BlackLivesMatter

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

The Lakota Peoples’ Law Project is preparing a series of videos to tell the story of the militarized police response against water protectors at Standing Rock. To stand in solidarity with those who are in the streets now, protesting against police brutality and for racial justice. To share lessons learned.

I trust that, as a supporter of Lakota sovereignty, you believe in justice and equity for all people. So I hope you’ll join me in standing with the #BlackLivesMatter movement. My experience as a lifelong activist gives me insight into what a moment that shifts society looks like. It can look messy, it can look dangerous — it can look just like this.

Lakota Law’s Madonna Thunder Hawk, OG warrior woman, discusses her history of activism and expresses solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

Lisa Skye and I stand with BLM at the Cheyenne River Reservation border. Photo courtesy of Warrior Women Project. Please click the play button above to watch this video message from me.

As you are no doubt aware, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police on a Minneapolis street, our nation is on fire. This follows the recent murders of Breonna Taylor by police in her home and Ahmaud Arbery by white vigilantes on a Georgia street.

Now, every day and every night, thousands march and kneel and vocalize to end police brutality and demand a new respect for Black bodies, lives, and communities. A few days back, Lakota Law’s Chase Iron Eyes and his daughter, Tokata, helped lead one such protest in Rapid City.

As a nation, many of us are listening to, and gaining further understanding of, the pain suffered by communities of color for centuries in this land. With that understanding, hopefully we will feel compelled to offer support and advocacy in whatever ways are most appropriate or asked of us. Whatever lane each of us occupies, we can find our role in the struggle.

I and many people of the Oceti Sakowin and other Indigenous nations can empathize with the pain wrought by institutional racism. Seeing the young people of today demonstrating and standing up for what is right takes me back to my own youthful days organizing for Red Power — once upon a time, right there in that same place, the Twin Cities. It reminds me of our American Indian Movement, born from Lakota, Dakota, and Ojibwe activism in that northern midwest metropolis.

And, of course, it reminds me of the #NoDAPL protests at Standing Rock. Anyone surprised to see the president unleash militarized police, security forces, and tear gas on peaceful protesters wasn’t paying attention in 2016 and ‘17. For decades, from Sitting Bull to MLK, from the American Indian Movement to Black Lives Matter, Black and Brown communities have taken turns leading the movement for understanding, equality, and justice.

The struggle is now being live-streamed, and it’s not easy to watch. We know that a few irresponsible people on our side and, more often, counter-protesters with hate-filled hearts are infiltrating, looting, and trying to paint legitimate civil disobedience with the brush of violence. But we know the difference. We know that we are not terrorists, and neither is anyone who truly seeks justice and calls out tyranny.

The world is changing, and it’s long overdue. I hardly need to remind you that Black and Native people die at the hands of police and are incarcerated at far higher rates than white folks. So yes, I empathize. And I offer you my deep gratitude for your compassion. Thank you for standing with us through our struggle. I hope we can all say we also stand arm-in-arm with Takomni Hesapa Wiconi Heĉha — #BlackLivesMatter.

Wopila tanka — Thank you for your friendship and your support,

In solidarity, always,
Madonna Thunder Hawk
Cheyenne River Organizer
The Lakota People’s Law Project

Our video tells the story of the Standing Rock protests and provides an in-depth analysis of the movement and legal battle to stop the Dakota Access pipeline.

With a mix of indignation and hope, I call on you today. Militarized police roam the streets of America, much as they traversed our treaty lands during the #NoDAPL protests a few years ago. Once again the world is watching and standing in solidarity with communities of color.

In this time of uprising, my organization has a duty to do whatever we can to help. And in the wake of my successful legal defense three years ago, we interviewed dozens of attorneys, activists, water experts, tribal officials, and government personnel to ensure that the full Standing Rock story can always be told.

Now, as we await a ruling from Judge James Boasberg on whether to suspend the flow of oil through DAPL, our team is releasing videos as quickly as we can. Please watch our flagship mini-documentary and donate to help ensure that, over the coming months, the release of all these key assets becomes a reality.

In 2017, we did exclusive interviews with participants in the NoDAPL effort, including Harold Frazier, Julian Bear Runner, and Rodney Bordeaux — the respective leaders of the Cheyenne River, Oglala, and Rosebud Nations. We videotaped interviews with witnesses and deposed law enforcement personnel. And afterwards, the state’s attorney tried to suppress those depositions, knowing them to contain troubling truths about what really happened at Standing Rock.

For example, you’ll see Kyle Kirchmeier, the incident commander for law enforcement during NoDAPL, acknowledge that when he arrested me and 75 other water protectors in February of 2017, he didn’t even know he was on treaty land.

Your continued support is critical. You can help us show the power of protest and expose the legal absurdity of oil flow through a pipeline ruled to be environmentally suspect. We’re 100 percent committed to releasing our unique footage so that attorneys, activists, academics, and tribal leaders can access it forever.

Wopila — thank you, always, for standing with Standing Rock and all Earth’s children!

Chase Iron Eyes
Lead Counsel
The Lakota People’s Law Project

P.S. Please give today so you can help us continue to engage the public, lift the people and preserve the planet. With your support, we’ll tell the real story of Standing Rock, lend support to the movement for justice, and maybe — prayers up! — stop the Dakota Access pipeline once and for all.

Posted in #NDAPL, Black Lives, decolonize, Indigenous, Native Americans, solidarity, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Can Confronting Spiritual Bypassing be a Tool for Change?

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

Anyone who has worked for change quickly learns how difficult that is. We are born into cultures which teach us right versus wrong. Conflicts between cultures occur when what is considered right in one culture is considered wrong in another.

The weight of what is acceptable in a culture is the product of many years of experience, beliefs, and history. As children we are indoctrinated with our cultural norms. [indoctrinate: teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically]. Disillusionment can occur when a person applies critical thinking to some cultural norms.

A person who expresses or acts in a way their culture defines as wrong faces very strong peer pressure to conform. May face the possibility of criminal penalties. Such defiance often leads to being ostracized from society.

Difficulties can also arise when what is considered right changes with time. For example, I’ve been studying about the Indian boarding schools. Indian children were subjected to forced assimilation into the White settler culture. White men invaded tribal communities and forcibly took the children to the boarding schools.

In particular, I’ve been learning about those Indian residential schools that were run by Quakers. I imagine most Quakers today, if they even know about the Quaker Indian boarding schools, assume Quakers were involved because they wanted to help the Indian children. I imagine those Quakers were compassionate and probably did not foresee the terrible consequences of what they were doing. Nonetheless, significant traumas occurred. And it is important to know this trauma has been passed from generation to generation. Is deeply felt in tribal nations today.

More than 100,000 Native children suffered the direct
consequences of the federal government’s policy of forced
assimilation by means of Indian boarding schools during the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their bereft parents,
grandparents, siblings, and entire communities also suffered.
As adults, when the former boarding school students had
children, their children suffered, too. Now, through painful
testimony and scientific research, we know how trauma can
be passed from generation to generation. The
multigenerational trauma of the boarding school experience
is an open wound in Native communities today

Quaker Boarding Schools, Facing our History and Ourselves by Paula Palmer, Friends Journal, October 2016

Many Quakers today are beginning to learn about this history of forced assimilation and the multifaceted, intergenerational damage done in the Indian boarding schools. I learned a lot from the presentations that are part of Paula Palmer’s ministry, “Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples”.

This is painful for Quakers to face, because working for peace and justice is a focus of our work in the world. A number of us have ancestors who were involved with the Quaker Indian boarding schools.

On numerous occasions I’ve heard people say, in various ways, they are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors. There are several reasons why I believe we do have some responsibility.

  • The excuses for the Indian boarding schools are a glaring example of White Supremacy. The idea that the White settler way of life is better than Indigenous ways. This has been built into the White culture. Indigenous peoples today continue to be oppressed by the ongoing White Supremacy. This is an example of structural racism.
  • Native peoples continue to suffer from the trauma that occurred generations ago.
  • We White people cannot decolonize ourselves until we acknowledge the harm done by our ancestors and ourselves. Realize the benefits we continue to receive just because of our skin color. Benefits Native, African, Latin, and Asian Americans continue to be denied because of their skin color.
  • We White people cannot deepen relationships with Indigenous people living today, until we can share with them our sorrow for what happened. Share what we think about what that means to us today. We can pray and hope that eventually native people might begin to forgive us.

When I learned about spiritual bypassing recently, I recognized this applies to Quakers and the Indian boarding schools. Attempts to discuss this among White Quakers have resulted in extreme discomfort, which meant no discussion could even begin.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

The question is, will we let painful feelings prevent us from doing the work that needs to be done to move toward justice? “ I am calling on each of you to start doing the work. Sit with the discomfort, work through it.” Tia Salih

… spiritual bypassing is characterized by an active avoidance of pain and reality. It is deliberately deciding to cut out the discomforts of life, backed by a privileged perspective of spirituality and life.

The inaction of the spiritual healing community during times of injustice not only betrays the very principles of the 8-fold path, but helps maintain the system of white supremacy whose foundation is maintained through indifference and minimizing. What do I mean by this?

  • Walking away from the discomfort of dismantling your privilege.
  • Not understanding the negative impact of avoidance language like “good vibes only.”
  • Being complicit in a system that does not see all lives as worthy.
  • Actively choosing to turn a blind eye to injustice.
  • Not recognizing that remaining overly detached and idealistic is what enables discrimination, mass incarceration, police brutality, lynching, hate crime, the school to prison pipeline, etc.

“But,” you ask, “I’m not the cause of these problems. How can I possibly be in the wrong if I’m encouraging positivity?”

Here is the hard fact: your good vibes are doing nothing. It doesn’t matter that you aren’t showing up to KKK meetings dressed in white sheets. It doesn’t matter that you do not kill the individual yourself. It doesn’t matter if you have a black friend. It doesn’t matter that you hold egalitarian beliefs internally. Remember what your school teachers told you? A bystander can be just as bad at the bully. If you choose spiritual bypassing you are choosing to avoid the topic of such painful realities that allow these atrocities to exist… and it is killing us.

Let that sink in for a moment… that choice of pain and reality avoidance is killing us.

No amount of sage*,essential oils, chanting, meditation or yoga is going to change that fact.

So, one more time, I am calling on each of you to start doing the work. Sit with the discomfort, work through it, and recognize that your decision to be a spiritual healer means that it is your purpose just to spread “love and light” — your purpose is to show up.

White Privilege In Yoga Pants: Spiritual Bypassing by Tai Salih, CYT, Medium, 6.18.2020

These are some of the areas where I think spiritual bypassing occurs,

  • White supremacy and racial injustice. Including Black and Indigenous oppression
  • War and peacemaking today
  • Environmental damage from our lifestyles
  • Border imperialism and separating children from their families

Many Quakers tend to avoid confronting these issues.

A spiritual, justice center of my life has been praying to find ways to help Quakers and others become more aware of the environmental damages from fossil fuel use. And then to do something about that, such as giving up personal automobiles. I was taught our lives should be examples of our beliefs. For that reason I gave up having a personal car almost fifty years ago. As far as I know, I haven’t convinced one person to give up their car. That’s not to say what I did was worthless. At the very least it helped me feel a little better about my carbon footprint, even knowing it is much larger, even without a car, than that of people in many other parts of the world.

In light of that apparent failure over many decades to create change, I’m wondering if using the idea of spiritual bypassing could provide a new way to discuss our environmental practices. We have all been inundated with seeing increasing environmental chaos, and increasingly aware of our contributions to that. Making it even more difficult to face.

I’m interested in having some gatherings of Friends and others that would be similar to worship sharing. Or would actually be worship sharing, where we ask ourselves, and share with each other, what we are bypassing spiritually. That takes the focus away from “what you are doing wrong”, to, instead, “this is what I’m bypassing spiritually”. Then others can indicate if they are feeling similarly, and what they have been doing in response. Different Friends might have different things they are bypassing. Sharing things we avoid should be easier to do in a gathering like this.

As it says above, “remaining overly detached and idealistic is what enables discrimination, mass incarceration, police brutality, lynching, hate crime, the school to prison pipeline, etc.”

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HEY! Come Get Your Racist Uncle

Posted on July 1, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

July 4th is a fitting occasion to call for the removal of monuments to White Supremacy in Iowa.

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HEY! Come Get Your Racist Uncle
Remove Monuments to White Supremacy in Iowa

Join us on July 4th from 1-3 pm to rally at the Iowa State Capitol and demand that monuments to white supremacy be removed in Iowa. Organizers will present Iowa legislators with a letter demanding that all racist, misogynistic, homo/transphobic, whitewashed historical depictions be removed from all state grounds and facilities. Local leaders will be speaking, but we will also provide time for testimony from the crowd.

COVID-19 is still an issue and we ask all who attend to wear masks and stand 6 feet apart. If you would like to testify and have access to a bullhorn or mic, please bring it.

In response to police brutality and racial injustice, monuments to white supremacy are being removed all over the country but People of the World Majority are being forced to put their safety on the line to carry out this long-overdue purge. Folx have been shot, arrested, and targeted. Now, #45 has signed an executive order to arrest anyone who vandalizes, removes a statue or threatens federal property and jail them for up to 10 years.

This is an Indigenous-led rally and we do not want any more People of the World Majority to put their bodies on the line so this is a permitted event with the intent of making the state–the colonizers–do the job for us. All we should need to do is ask, especially when these monuments fall into the realm of hate propaganda and make folx feel unwelcome in public spaces. However, this colonially enforced government is built upon white supremacy and human rights violations and, thus, will not budge unless we make them take action on the issue. If they won’t protect those that are doing the right thing to create a better society then we demand legislation that removes all monuments, murals, and depictions of white supremacist persons, acts, and ideologies from all Iowa state grounds and state-funded institutions.

To start, we insist that the following statues and mural be removed from the Iowa State Capitol Building and grounds.

On the West Lawn, there is a 15-foot bronze statue on a large pedestal that stands in front of the Iowa State Capitol Building. According to the Iowa State Government website, the statue depicts “The Pioneer of the former territory, a group consisting of father and son guided by a friendly Indian in search of a home. The pioneer depicted was to be hardy, capable of overcoming the hardships of territorial days to make Iowa his home.” The father and son settler invaders are standing tall and proud, looking west, as the “friendly Indian” sits behind them in a less powerful, dejected position.

photo by Jeff Kisling

Inside the capitol is a piece that overwhelmingly encompasses this sentiment called the Westward Mural, which covers a massive wall. The artist writes that “The main idea of the picture is symbolical presentation of the Pioneers led by the spirits of Civilization and Enlightenment to the conquest by cultivation of the Great West.” He also speaks about overcoming the wilderness with plowed fields–as if the current Indigenous inhabitants, such as the Ioway and the Meskwaki, had not already created capable and efficient land management systems.

On the South Lawn, there is a Christopher Columbus Monument that was celebrated in 1938 by five thousand people who showed up for the dedication of the statue on Columbus Day. The statue was put up just a couple years after the Columbus Club of Iowa successfully lobbied to have Walker Park renamed to Columbus Park and have a Columbus monument placed there.

*This is a peaceful event led by Indigenous Folx. Please do not take actions that will put Brown and Black folx in jeopardy.

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We are the land speaking for itself

Posted on June 30, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed actions related to the Wet’suwet’en people’s efforts to stop the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline from being built on their territories. Unfortunately the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were recently seen patrolling a Wet’suwet’en cultural site with assault rifles.

There are related stories below, about systemic racism in Canada, and solidarity with Black Lives Matter and the work of Indigenous peoples.

Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidimt’en Territory
Monday, June 29, 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – PHOTOS: RCMP Patrol Wet’suwet’en Cultural Site With Assault Rifles

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June 29 2020, Smithers (BC) – Photographs taken on Wet’suwet’en territory show RCMP armed with assault weapons conducting foot patrols of a cultural site belonging to Hereditary Chief Woos of Cas Yikh (Grizzly House). Security cameras belonging to the Gidimt’en clan recorded images of heavily armed police patrolling Chief Woos’ smokehouse on June 10 and June 18.

The smokehouse belongs to the Cas Yikh people and is critically located at the headwaters of the Wedzin Kwa river to harvest fish and feed Wet’suwet’en families. Food fishing is an inalienable and protected Aboriginal right. Food fishing has also been declared essential in BC during the COVID19 pandemic. Wet’suwet’en people must be able to exercise this right without fear of police intimidation or violence.

Since January of 2019, RCMP have conducted several large scale, militarized assaults on Wet’suwet’en territory and made dozens of arrests of Wet’suwet’en people, Hereditary Chiefs, and our supporters. RCMP continuously surveil our Wet’suwet’en home sites, and continue to occupy a remote police detachment on Gisday’wa territory in stark violation of our Chiefs’ wishes. We are unable to visit our territories with our elders and families, to hunt, or to harvest our foods and medicines without the threat of police violence.

We are deeply concerned with excessively armed police conducting foot patrols through remote parts of Gidimt’en yintah which are subject to active cultural use. We have seen too frequently, on our own territories and across Canada, that police readily use lethal force against our people and seldom face any consequence.

Hereditary Chief Woos expresses his concern for his clan members and guests on his territory and states, “if we are to communicate effectively with respect, all levels of this project need to show respect and understand our culture, using a police force who show automatic rifles is concerning…”

Images from June 18 show three RCMP members patrolling the smokehouse, including one with a fully automatic assault rifle, followed shortly after by a group of Coastal Gaslink workers. Coastal Gaslink has not obtained free, prior, and informed consent to undertake any work on Wet’suwet’en territory, and do not currently have all the permits required to do work in this area.

On January 4, Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs representing all five clans of our nation collectively evicted Coastal Gaslink from our territories. While the eviction is still in effect, Coastal Gaslink continues to trespass on our lands with RCMP acting as an auxiliary private security force.

The Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, joined by the United Nations’ Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, have repeatedly called upon the RCMP to withdraw from Wet’suwet’en territories, to prohibit the use of force and lethal weapons, and to cease the forced evictions of Wet’suwet’en people from our unceded homelands.

We are seeing examples all across North America of systemic racism and violence perpetrated by the police. Here we see just one more example against Indigenous people living a cultural and traditional lifestyle being targeted with assault rifles. We call on all parties involved in this campaign against the Wet’suwet’en people to stand down.

For media inquiries please contact:

Woos, Cas Yikh Dini ze’- 778-669-0070
Or
Jennifer Wickham, Gidimt’en Camp Media Coordinator-
778-210-0067

#WetsuwetenStrong #NoTrespass #WedzinKwa #DefundthePolice #LandBack #CancelCanadaDay #CGLofftheYintah

George Floyd’s death reverberates in Indian Country. Follow our coverage: https://indiancountrytoday.com/

Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidimt’en Territory

June 16 at 12:05 PM · 

In order to make progress/move forward, we must ensure that those in decision-making positions align with the progressive steps we are taking (as a whole).

The RCMP commissioner has not been able to show progress by taking steps to understand what systemic racism is. This is counterproductive & problematic. We can no longer have people who are detrimental to movement forward.

Those who support addressing of systemic racism must call for those who fail to understand, to step down (or be removed). These weights can not hold us back any longer

.Lillian Dyck
June 13 at 2:14 PM

Statement on RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki
Senator Lillian Eva Dyck
Saskatchewan
June 13, 2020

Commissioner Brenda Lucki’s statements in the last few days reveal that she does not possess the necessary knowledge or skills to remain as the RCMP Commissioner. She should step down or be removed immediately. This will benefit all Canadians, including the members of the RCMP.

Her recent statements show that she does not fully understand what systemic racism is; thus, she will not be able to implement or envision the way forward to eliminate systemic racism in the RCMP. Her unexplained about-face yesterday on whether or not systemic racism exists in the RCMP is paradoxical and unacceptable as a leader – as the RCMP Commissioner.

Two years ago at one of the hearings of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, girls, and 2SLGBT (NI MMIWG), Commissioner Lucki apologized for the way we were treated by the RCMP. She promised that “we (the RCMP) will do better.”

It is clear now that she does not possess the knowledge or leadership skills to keep her promise.

Canadians and Indigenous women, in particular, deserve to have the best possible Commissioner who will be able to initiate and lead the necessary changes in the RCMP to keep us safer and protect us from violence. This will benefit all Canadians, including the RCMP themselves.

All Canadian citizens deserve better. We deserve to have the best possible RCMP Commissioner with the best possible competencies and the best possible leadership skills.

At the NI MMIWG hearing, Commissioner Lucki herself said “You are entitled to nothing less than our best work in your communities”.

Commissioner Brenda Lucki should resign or be removed immediately, so that Canadians can get the best possible RCMP Commissioner who is capable of doing the best work not only in Indigenous communities but in all communities.