Kevin Woster:


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?

I drive home from having been with the Earth Mother for any length of time and feel clarity about our artificial environment. The longer I’ve been with her, the more profound the clarity is. I stare straight in the face of “progress” as phone lines, gas stations, and eventually the hazy horizon over the city appears.

I can’t help the feeling of wrongness I feel, though I can see some progress is useful, schools are for example. Still, I can’t help the feeling of wrongness. This isn’t meant to be a judgment of the wrongness of civilization, but by the time I describe this feeling; it probably will be.

Free urges Oklahoma Indians to exercise power

Kalyn Free, the founder and president of the Indigenous Democrat Network, says Oklahoma Indians need to exercise their political clout.

– snip –

But Free, a member of the Choctaw Nation, says Oklahoma tribes aren’t doing enough to wield their political power. She also says Democrats aren’t reaching out to Indian Country, citing Republican efforts to target Native voters.

There’s a couple things I’d like Kalyn Free to know.

Source

The justification for Public Law 93-531 passed by Congress in 1974 was that the Navajo-Hopi land dispute is so serious that 10,000 Navajos near Big Mountain, Arizona, must be relocated, forcibly if necessary. It would be the largest forced relocation of U.S. citizens since the relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

But tradition-minded Navajo and Hopi claim there never was a land dispute. They say the dispute was invented to get the Navajos and their livestock off mineral-rich land in the Hopi reservation so it could be developed by mining companies such as Peabody Coal and Kerr-McGee.

Consolidated Indigenous Shadow Report. p. 34.

…the continuation and preservation of traditional Native American Religion is ensured only through the performance of ceremonies and rites by tribal members. These ceremonies and rites are often performed on specific sites…These sites may also be based on special geographic features…For most Native American religions, there may be no alternative places of worship since these ceremonies must be performed at certain places and times to be effective.

Such is the case at Pe Sla, “one of the five primary sacred sites in the Black Hills to the Lakota nation.”

How does history repeat itself? Let’s count some of the ways.

One.

Source

The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. During the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839, the Cherokees were forcibly moved west by the United States government. Approximately 4,000 Cherokees died on this forced march, which became known as the “Trail of Tears.”

In 1974 the U.S. Government legally endorsed genocide when Congress passed Public Law 93-531, which enabled Peabody Coal Company to strip mine Black Mesa by ripping the traditional Navajo and Hopi peoples from the land.

Two.

Carter Camp gave me his permission to repost his essay entitled “Mass Racial Taunting; America’s Weekend Sport” in the comments of “Stereotypical Elements (that) appear… in Athletic Contests” posted at Native American Netroots. I had mentioned that I wanted to cite the Shadow Report as an introduction, so here’s what the Consolidated Indigenous Shadow Report says about Indian Mascots on page 72.

Although the United States would probably respond that racist mascots and logos are an exercise of free speech that it has reserved under the Convention, they reveal the depth and pervasiveness of the racism against Indigenous Peoples so deeply engrained in the history and psyche of the United States and the dominant culture.

And over the break is Carter Camp’s essay entitled “Mass Racial Taunting; America’s Weekend Sport,” which he wrote “several years ago when people in Tulsa were protesting the Union High redskins.”

…but the Arctic is the scene for a new kind of international gold rush…

Arctic a potential conflict zone, Europe warned

BRUSSELS, Belgium – European Union leaders will receive a stark warning next week of potential conflict with Russia over energy resources at the North Pole as global warning melts the ice cap and aggravates international security threats.

See video

(At the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma)

Where are the Buffalo? Gone

The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. How can you buy or sell the sky? The warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people.

We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy and when he has conquered it he moves on. He leaves his fathers’ graves and his children’s birthright is forgotten.

If only those words weren’t so relevant today.