I resigned from my University of New Mexico position a few months ago. Around the same time as my resignation I released a new album of music WINDING THROUGH THE MILKY WAY. Funny how much attention I've received over the resignation. Many have emailed or called, in solidarity, and wanting to know the story. As for the music, the CD is making it's way, huffing and puffing over the boulders of the native music police who kicked the CD out of the Grammy native category. Apparently I don't have enough native flute or powwow for it to qualify. Hey, the Creeks were there when jazz was invented!! And, by the way, the album has more then the required percentage to qualify as a native album, including flutes, Mvskoke language, etc. I guess there's sort of a blood quantum thing going on here for music,too..
(You can buy it NOW for Christmas on Paypal. I'll even send it Priority Mail and sign!)
Goes to show you however, how much we humans are drawn to controversy, to flashy story. Must have sex, betrayal, and people we know, or think we know and a peaks of highs and lows. Alexie knows this. It's an element of his success.
And almost to the day of my resignation I got word that I had been chosen for a Rasmuson USA Artists Fellowship. What a gift! It will help me live for a year, without university pay. And will help fund a writing/music workshop for Mvskoke students next spring or summer. At the same time, I was turned down for three proposals, including one I sent in to a national native organization. One of the reasons I was rejected was because my creative work, the panel decided, "was not the highest artistic quality" (This particular note is for the friend who was surprised I got rejected for anything. Yes, I have and do. As I've said, after I've been introduced by a long list of accolades, that my list of failures is much much longer.)
Because I keep getting inquiries, here's my version of what happened: a UNM female creative writing poetry professor colleague (not Diane Thiel) was discovered selling phone sex on a website with female students, all in s and m undress, complete with accoutrements and accompanying demeaning dominatrix language. She denied there was a site and proceeded to attack the creative writing program director for slander. The site in question was uncovered in internet archives after it had been quickly taken down. The university legal counsel came to the conclusion that all involved were consenting adults, even though the students were taking classes from the professor at the time of the interactions. The investigation became a castigation of the creative writing director whose credentials and contributions to the university were stellar. Most of the creative writing faculty and many of the English Department were surprised and stunned at the turn of events. Our concerns for the students were not addressed. The sex site was actually only a small part of the problem. We took the case, level by level, up the ladder of the university hierarchy to get the situation evaluated by the faculty ethics committee. We were refused, despite the many policies in place to address the behavior. We were then called "troublemakers" and those of us most outspoken suffered direct retaliation. The creative writing program director was forced from her position. Against a majority vote the then then department chair appointed someone, against our collective will to direct the program. At the beginning of fall 2008 the President of the university basically cleared the faculty member for teaching. There was no reprimand. We were told we had to continue to work with her. I hear that the poetry professor is quite proud of her "win".
I travel all over the country and I am contacted by many students who want to come and study with me and others of the mostly fine faculty in the writing program at UNM. I could no longer recommend the creative writing program. It was painful to come to this conclusion. I loved the program and my students. I had to walk away.
So there it is. All parties weren't served. Nothing was put to rest. And because there are complex reasons and forces behind everything, I chose to think that I needed to leave, so that I could turn my full attention to my creative work.
And I'm working to get the CD out there. I need a radio station in every state who will interview me and play the album. The last interview was with KAOS Radio at Evergreen College in Washington State. Please email me with any suggestions. Many of the songs will be in my one woman show, Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light, that opens in March at the Well Fargo Theater in L.A..
Come and see me there! And don't be shy. Come up and say hello. It matters.
12/16/08
12/10/08
SEEING IT THROUGH, SOME WORDS FOR THE KAMEHAMEHA PUBLISHING EVENT FOR LURLINE MCGREGOR’S NEW NOVEL, BETWEEN THE DEEP BLUE SEA AND ME
Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me came about because of the community story of the mishandling of sacred objects. In Hawaii we all read or heard about the story, or knew someone who knew someone who was related to so and so…. In Indian country we call it the “Moccasin Telegraph”. Here it’s called the “Coconut Wireless.” The story also made its way into larger indigenous circles and circulated through the world press. That how it became part of us. And how it was handled effected and continues to affect each of us here. Who do the “objects” belong to? Who has authority? Do they belong in a museum? Or must they be turned to a cave that may or may not have been the place in which they originally lived? And who is the final authority? There’s more to this complex story that we may never know or understand.
This conflict became the spark for the exploration of the story. That the Maori writer Witi Ihimaera’s Whale Rider story was brought successfully to the screen was also a major catalyst for Lurline. She began to consider the creation of a Hawaiian story with the power to heal. She asked me to collaborate in writing the screenplay and we set off on our journey with prayers, and the help of many around us both seen and unseen. Though this is a particularly Hawaiian story, the issues, characters, and sensibilities are similar to indigenous people all over the world. Lurline then took the screenplay and made the beautiful novel, Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me.
Most of what we do in this life, as individuals and organizations are not of us, but through us. Each of us, community and being, is a small part of a web of ancestral thoughts, beings, and knowing. This living being is always shifting according to our acts, thoughts and dreams. It is us. Western educations and religions have taught us that we are omnipotent rulers, given dominion over the earth and waters. Our indigenous educations, (and ultimately we are all indigenous for we can each trace our lineages back to a time and place when we remembered the original teachings in which we are related), remind us that everything is alive and of consequence. This conflict of understanding is at the root of Lurline’s novel Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me. It’s what drove Whale Rider, and perhaps is driving the fate of human beings in these times of cumulative destruction of our natural world. We, of this time and place, must make beautiful and diligent sense of all of it, for surely colonization has taken us away from ourselves so we could learn to see and know ourselves with absolute clarity.
Stories are alive and have the power to create bright openings into a larger, sacred sense, or destroy by wiping out peoples, languages and other ways of knowing. As the only indigenous person to ever win a Pulitzer Prize, Scott Momaday, of the Kiowa People of Oklahoma has spoken of the power of words, how they are alive, to speak is to call into being, to interact with power in the world. He says: “Words were medicine; they were magic and invisible. They came from nothing into sound and meaning. They were beyond price; they could neither be bought nor sold….”
Now the story called Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me is making its way into the world, and like any human creation it bears strengths and weaknesses. The story has come together through the efforts of many (many in this room). Mahalo Lurline for bearing this story into this time and place. May it continue its journey with aloha, or as my people say: vnvketckv. May we continue together beautifully in this world.
No Huli (in F)
We failed a little
Dip the wound in water
Wrap it in a song
Climb into the canoe
And paddle out from the weeping
Let the failing fail
Let the stars bear trouble
Let the canoe carry
What we cannot bury.
Ekahi
Elua
Ekolu
Eha
Elima
Eono
Ehiku
Evalu
Eiwa
Umi
No huli!
12/8/08
Focus
This morning when we left the house it was dark. We wound down the hill, Diamondhead direction to Hui Nalu Canoe Club at Maunalua Bay on the other side of the island. I’ve been on the road with intermittent landings in New Mexico, nowhere near warm seas. It was to be my first time paddling in months. We have a number of paddlers for a 7AM Sunday morning paddle, several canoes worth. I’m happy to be in Jeff’s canoe. He’s one of the best at surfing currents. After our New Year’s Eve debacle about six years ago, we are not allowed to surf in the six-man canoes; still, steering involves the agility and body/ocean knowledge to ride whatever is out there. We go out past the blinker buoy the water turned turquoise and clear. Beautiful. And because it’s relatively flat we keep going straight out past the point to the deep blue. Those waters are ultramarine.
(I look up “ultramarine” in the Compact Oxford English Dicitionary and discover that “ultramarine” means “1 a brilliant deep blue pigment originally obtained from lapis lazuli. 2. A brilliant deep blue color.—ORIGIN from obsolete Italian azzurro oltramarino ‘azure from overseas’ (because the lapis lazuli was imported) from Latin ultramarinus ‘beyond the sea’.)
Yes. It’s ultramarine. And deep.
Then we turn toward Diamondhead and ride the blue. When we turn back we race. This means picking up the time and intensity of the stroke, and focusing. Focusing means to look ahead, so that your vision places your canoe ahead of the rest.
I am in seat two behind an inexperienced stroker. I notice that when we can hear the competition coming up alongside (we hear the person calling the stroke changes in seat three) she turns. When she turns her stroke deteriorates. When the stroke deteriorates, everyone else’s stroke suffers, because we follow her lead. I also notice that when she looks anywhere besides directly ahead the canoe falters. I deliberate whether to say anything or not because I am not the steersman, the person in seat six, who directs the canoe. Then, because we’re falling back, I do.
“Focus! Look straight ahead. Your eyes carry energy. You are the canoe’s eyes.”
It’s almost magic the way the canoe responds.
And this becomes a lesson for me, something the stroker and the spirit of the canoe is teaching me. Our attention literally goes in the direction we look or spend our time.
And p.s. and/or by the way, when we near the blinker buoy we stop to enjoy a pod of dolphins. They leap and arc in and above the water.
Sweet.
December 7, 2008
(I look up “ultramarine” in the Compact Oxford English Dicitionary and discover that “ultramarine” means “1 a brilliant deep blue pigment originally obtained from lapis lazuli. 2. A brilliant deep blue color.—ORIGIN from obsolete Italian azzurro oltramarino ‘azure from overseas’ (because the lapis lazuli was imported) from Latin ultramarinus ‘beyond the sea’.)
Yes. It’s ultramarine. And deep.
Then we turn toward Diamondhead and ride the blue. When we turn back we race. This means picking up the time and intensity of the stroke, and focusing. Focusing means to look ahead, so that your vision places your canoe ahead of the rest.
I am in seat two behind an inexperienced stroker. I notice that when we can hear the competition coming up alongside (we hear the person calling the stroke changes in seat three) she turns. When she turns her stroke deteriorates. When the stroke deteriorates, everyone else’s stroke suffers, because we follow her lead. I also notice that when she looks anywhere besides directly ahead the canoe falters. I deliberate whether to say anything or not because I am not the steersman, the person in seat six, who directs the canoe. Then, because we’re falling back, I do.
“Focus! Look straight ahead. Your eyes carry energy. You are the canoe’s eyes.”
It’s almost magic the way the canoe responds.
And this becomes a lesson for me, something the stroker and the spirit of the canoe is teaching me. Our attention literally goes in the direction we look or spend our time.
And p.s. and/or by the way, when we near the blinker buoy we stop to enjoy a pod of dolphins. They leap and arc in and above the water.
Sweet.
December 7, 2008
12/4/08
Muscogee Nation News Column November 2008
Last Thursday I flew into Columbia, South Carolina. As a Mvskoke person from Oklahoma, returning East is always going home. When I stepped out onto the earth the mist of breath was thick with medicine plants. The trails of our peoples go back and forth through the South. The towns, rivers and other places still have our names. The indigenous people are everywhere in the spirit of the place, yet there isn’t the tangible physical presence of Indian people as there is in Oklahoma, or Florida. The Catawba is the only federally recognized tribe in South Carolina, with at least ten tribes or groups who have received or are in process of receiving recognition from the state. I met Cherokee storyteller, photographer and cultural ambassador Will Moreau Goins for lunch the day after I arrived. He reminded me that we met years ago in Nebraska when we worked together on a narrative film project for the Omaha people; we gave Wes Studi his first film job. Will caught me up on what is going on in Indian Country in South Carolina. The story is familiar: diabetes, tribal politics, state politics, the politics of black and white, and just trying to make it…Later I got to meet Monty Branham, a fine Catawba potter, and his wife, and saw a display of some of his fine pottery. All made me feel at home. That is the best gift you can give any traveler. Mvto.
An elder friend of mine from a local pueblo is heading up a campaign to include tribal members of quarter blood as tribal members. “If this isn’t done, then in a few years there will be no more pueblo, and the U.S. government will have accomplished what they set out to do long ago when they instituted racist blood quantum rules”, she told me. How can we deny our children their place, refuse them a home? When we base our tribal identity on blood quantum then we have truly been colonized. We don’t need the BIA anymore. We can do the job ourselves. Who are we really as tribal nations? Is it skin color that makes a Mvskoke citizen? Or is it language? Identification with the land? Being a known member of the community (whether that community be in Oklahoma or California?) Do we maintain tribal grounds or tribal church membership? When do our grandchildren cease to be our grandchildren? Think about it: U.S. policies of eradication of Indian identity have roots in the same ideas of racial purity that motivated the Nazis. Is this who we want to become? I have received many emails about this issue, more on this issue than anything else I have written about in this column.
And further South on October 14th in the Cauca Valley in Columbia the government of Columbia moved against native demonstrators who want the government to set aside more land for Colombia’s 1.3 million Indians, and to provide more money for better education and healthcare. They demonstrated to ask the government to prevent corporations and multinational companies from encroaching on their land. The government responded by killing five peaceful protestors. Many more have been injured, my friend, the Columbian native poet Fredy Chicangana has been giving me updates via email. Now you know. And what do we do with all of this knowing?
I’ll never forget the striking Bolivian Indian woman who stood up once during an historic meeting of indigenous peoples from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego in 1990 outside of Quito, Ecuador. After welcoming everyone she said, “This hemisphere is one body, one soul.” If we truly understood and believed these wise words, all of us, there would be no killing, no diabetes, no internal or legalized racism. Think about the true feast we could hold to honor the eradication of ignorance and misunderstandings! Now that would be a Thanksgiving.
October 28, 2008 Albuquerque
An elder friend of mine from a local pueblo is heading up a campaign to include tribal members of quarter blood as tribal members. “If this isn’t done, then in a few years there will be no more pueblo, and the U.S. government will have accomplished what they set out to do long ago when they instituted racist blood quantum rules”, she told me. How can we deny our children their place, refuse them a home? When we base our tribal identity on blood quantum then we have truly been colonized. We don’t need the BIA anymore. We can do the job ourselves. Who are we really as tribal nations? Is it skin color that makes a Mvskoke citizen? Or is it language? Identification with the land? Being a known member of the community (whether that community be in Oklahoma or California?) Do we maintain tribal grounds or tribal church membership? When do our grandchildren cease to be our grandchildren? Think about it: U.S. policies of eradication of Indian identity have roots in the same ideas of racial purity that motivated the Nazis. Is this who we want to become? I have received many emails about this issue, more on this issue than anything else I have written about in this column.
And further South on October 14th in the Cauca Valley in Columbia the government of Columbia moved against native demonstrators who want the government to set aside more land for Colombia’s 1.3 million Indians, and to provide more money for better education and healthcare. They demonstrated to ask the government to prevent corporations and multinational companies from encroaching on their land. The government responded by killing five peaceful protestors. Many more have been injured, my friend, the Columbian native poet Fredy Chicangana has been giving me updates via email. Now you know. And what do we do with all of this knowing?
I’ll never forget the striking Bolivian Indian woman who stood up once during an historic meeting of indigenous peoples from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego in 1990 outside of Quito, Ecuador. After welcoming everyone she said, “This hemisphere is one body, one soul.” If we truly understood and believed these wise words, all of us, there would be no killing, no diabetes, no internal or legalized racism. Think about the true feast we could hold to honor the eradication of ignorance and misunderstandings! Now that would be a Thanksgiving.
October 28, 2008 Albuquerque
11/18/08
Riffing on Miles Sketches of Spain in Stockholm
In this mid November in Stockholm it's dark at six p.m.. I just walked through cold rain on cobblestones in the Old City with Madeleine. We talked spirits, poetry and history. Now I'm packing in my hotel room, listening to Miles Davis "Sketches of Spain". And as I did the first time I heard it in that crummy cinderblock housing in Iowa City, I flew from the center cord of my heart into the weather of heartache and beauty. The architects of mythic structures were gods, not humans. Again I ride out on a sword-like chord, with a battalion of warriors on horses through the dark, led by fire. I consider turning back but the current of the soul's destiny is stronger than any human will. Here in this legendary city, I find a royal theater, musicians, poets, actors, the sun, and though I go with Miles Davis into the heart of Spain in this faraway place, I go through a dense, excruciating moment the color of this northern sea at night, alone.
Racist Fallout From the Election
from The Huffington Post
November 16, 2008
Greg Mitchell
Posted November 15, 2008 | 11:41 AM (EST)
Racial Incidents and Threats Against Obama Soar: Here Is a Chronicle
Since election day, the number of threats against the president-elect, and
racial or violent incidents directed at his supporters, have soared. The
Secret Service is concerned, calling it the highest number of threats
against a President-elect in memory, but the national media until this
weekend have largely ignored the disturbing pattern. So a few days ago, over
at the Editor & Publisher site, we started chronicling the incidents, which
has drawn wide attention (so we will continue, though we hope the problem
subsides).
Some claim that, given the size of this great country of ours, the incidents
don't amount to much or are merely anecdotal. I would argue: The ones we
know about may represent only the tip of the iceberg -- the ones that make
it into the local press. And, yes, they may die down as the country gets
used to the idea of a President Obama. On the other hand: They could soar
again as that reality nears.
So let me just briefly list the full range of episodes, which doesn't even
include several cross burnings on front lawns. These aren't necessarily the
worst but they do capture the national flavor/fever. Note that about 2 out
of 3 took place in states that Obama won.
* In a Maine convenience store, an Associated Press reporter saw a sign
inviting customers to join a betting pool on when Obama might fall victim to
an assassin. The sign solicited $1 entries into "The Osama Obama Shotgun
Pool," saying the money would go to the person picking the date closest to
when Obama was attacked. "Let's hope we have a winner."
* In Idaho, the Secret Service is investigating a "public hanging"
sign
erected by a man upset with the election outcome, the Bonner County Daily
Bee reported Thursday. A handmade sign posted on a tree reads "FREE PUBLIC
HANGING" written in large letters beneath a noose fashioned from nylon
rope.
The most prominent name on the sign is "OBAMA," according to the Bee.
"That's a political statement. They can call it whatever they want, a
threat
or whatever," the creator of the sign, Ken Germana, told the Bee.
* A popular white supremacist Web sites got more than 2,000 new members the
day after the election, compared with 91 new members on Election Day. The
site, ..., was temporarily off-line on Nov. 5 because of the overwhelming
amount of activity it received. One poster, identified as Dalderian
Germanicus, of North Las Vegas, said, "I want the SOB laid out in a box to
see how 'messiahs' come to rest."
* From the Orange County (Ca.) Register: "Two gang members pleaded not
guilty Thursday to hate crime and attempted robbery charges in connection
with the beating of a black man who was trying to buy cigarettes at a
Fullerton liquor store." The two men shouted racial and anti-Obama
epithets
in the attack.
* From today's New York Times: "Two white Staten Island men face hate
crimes
charges after they were arrested on Friday in the beating of a black
teenager on the night that Barack Obama was elected president, the police
said on Saturday. The teenager, Alie Kamara, 17, was walking home on Pine
Place in the Staten Island neighborhood of Stapleton when several men hit
him on the head with a baseball bat and yelled 'Obama,' said Aliya
Latif,
the civil rights director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who
was in contact with Alie's family since the attack and spoke to his mother
on Saturday after the arrests were announced."
* In Mississippi alone, the American Civil Liberties Union has received more
than 10 calls since the staff first reported anti-Obama incidents last
Friday, according to the Jackson (Miss.) Free Press.
* In Midland, Mich., a man dressed in full Ku Klux Klan regalia walked
around toting a handgun and waving an American flag. Initially denying it,
the man eventually admitted to police that the display was a reaction to the
Obama victory. "[The man] had a concealed weapon permit and was walking up
and down the sidewalk in front of a vehicle dealership while some motorists
shouted obscenities at him and others shouted accolades," police told The
Saginaw News.
* Parents in Rexburg, Idaho, contacted school officials this week after they
learned that 2nd and 3rd graders on a school bus were chanting,
"Assasssinate Obama!"
* At the University of Texas in Austin, a racist post on Facebook has cost
one student his place on the university football team, according to the
Houston Chronicle. Buck Burnette, a sophomore offensive lineman for the
fourth-ranked Texas Longhorns, was dismissed from the team on Nov. 5 after
posting a racist remark about President-elect Obama as his "status"
on the
social networking Web site. Burnette posted: "All the hunters gather up,
we
have a [slur] in the White House," the Chronicle reported.
* AP reports: "While the world watched a Grant Park celebration heralding
the election of the first black U.S. president, some white Chicago police
officers committed hate crimes against black residents cheering Barack
Obama's victory elsewhere in the city, attorneys alleged Thursday."
Lawsuits
have been filed.
* At Appalachian State University, the administration has expressed
disappointment at the numerous times black students have expressed being
harassed in residence halls since the election. The Appalachian, a student
newspaper serving the university, also reported conversations suggesting
Obama may not be alive in 2009 and a t-shirt seen around campus that reads
"Obama '08, Biden '09."
* Mentioned in the same article, racist comments were discovered at North
Carolina State University last week. Spray-painted in university's free
expression tunnel after the election were the phrases, "Kill that
n..." and
"Shoot Obama," the Appalachian reported. The NAACP has called for the
expulsion of the four students accused of the graffitti, the Associated
Press reported Thursday.
* The Associated Press revealed on Wednesday, "Police on eastern Long
Island
are investigating reports that more than a dozen cars were spray painted
with racist graffiti, reportedly including a message targeting
President-elect Barack Obama. The graffiti included racist slurs and
sexually graphic references. At least one resident in the quiet Mastic
neighborhood told Newsday her son's car was scribbled with a message
threatening to kill Obama."
* Employees at Hampel's Key and Lockshop in Traverse City, Michigan, flew
an
American flag upside down last Wednesday protesting of the new
president-elect, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported. One worker used a
racial slur during an interview with the Record-Eagle: "(The inverted flag
is) an international signal for distress and we feel our country is in
distress because the n----- got in," said Hampel's employee Rod
Nyland, who
later apologized for the comment, according to the Record-Eagle.
* Authorities in Temecula, Calif., found spray-painted graffiti on a city
sidewalk containing a swastika and anti-Obama slogan. And from the Los
Angeles Times: "Vandals spray-painted swastikas and racial slurs on a
house
and several cars in Torrance that displayed campaign signs or bumper
stickers for President-elect Barack Obama, authorities said Tuesday. The
incidents occurred Saturday night in the Hollywood Riviera section of the
city, said Sgt. Bernard Anderson. Four separate incidents were reported the
next day, he said. No arrests have been made."
* And from Maine: "More than 75 people rallied Sunday against an incident
last week in which black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount
Desert Island the day after Barack Obama won the presidential election,"
according to the Bangor Daily News.
*
Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor & Publisher and its popular blog. His
latest book, on Iraq and the media, is "So Wrong for So Long." His
book on
the 2008 campaign will be published in January. Email him at:
gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com
"The President of the United States, the Vice President, the President
Elect, the Vice President Elect, and their families, are under the
protection of the United States Secret Service. If you have reliable
information concerning a serious threat to harm any of these persons, you
should call the nearest Secret Service field office. You can find the
number in the phone book or on www.secretservice.gov. If your information
checks out, you may receive a substantial reward." (Source:
www.secretservice.gov.)
November 16, 2008
Greg Mitchell
Posted November 15, 2008 | 11:41 AM (EST)
Racial Incidents and Threats Against Obama Soar: Here Is a Chronicle
Since election day, the number of threats against the president-elect, and
racial or violent incidents directed at his supporters, have soared. The
Secret Service is concerned, calling it the highest number of threats
against a President-elect in memory, but the national media until this
weekend have largely ignored the disturbing pattern. So a few days ago, over
at the Editor & Publisher site, we started chronicling the incidents, which
has drawn wide attention (so we will continue, though we hope the problem
subsides).
Some claim that, given the size of this great country of ours, the incidents
don't amount to much or are merely anecdotal. I would argue: The ones we
know about may represent only the tip of the iceberg -- the ones that make
it into the local press. And, yes, they may die down as the country gets
used to the idea of a President Obama. On the other hand: They could soar
again as that reality nears.
So let me just briefly list the full range of episodes, which doesn't even
include several cross burnings on front lawns. These aren't necessarily the
worst but they do capture the national flavor/fever. Note that about 2 out
of 3 took place in states that Obama won.
* In a Maine convenience store, an Associated Press reporter saw a sign
inviting customers to join a betting pool on when Obama might fall victim to
an assassin. The sign solicited $1 entries into "The Osama Obama Shotgun
Pool," saying the money would go to the person picking the date closest to
when Obama was attacked. "Let's hope we have a winner."
* In Idaho, the Secret Service is investigating a "public hanging"
sign
erected by a man upset with the election outcome, the Bonner County Daily
Bee reported Thursday. A handmade sign posted on a tree reads "FREE PUBLIC
HANGING" written in large letters beneath a noose fashioned from nylon
rope.
The most prominent name on the sign is "OBAMA," according to the Bee.
"That's a political statement. They can call it whatever they want, a
threat
or whatever," the creator of the sign, Ken Germana, told the Bee.
* A popular white supremacist Web sites got more than 2,000 new members the
day after the election, compared with 91 new members on Election Day. The
site, ..., was temporarily off-line on Nov. 5 because of the overwhelming
amount of activity it received. One poster, identified as Dalderian
Germanicus, of North Las Vegas, said, "I want the SOB laid out in a box to
see how 'messiahs' come to rest."
* From the Orange County (Ca.) Register: "Two gang members pleaded not
guilty Thursday to hate crime and attempted robbery charges in connection
with the beating of a black man who was trying to buy cigarettes at a
Fullerton liquor store." The two men shouted racial and anti-Obama
epithets
in the attack.
* From today's New York Times: "Two white Staten Island men face hate
crimes
charges after they were arrested on Friday in the beating of a black
teenager on the night that Barack Obama was elected president, the police
said on Saturday. The teenager, Alie Kamara, 17, was walking home on Pine
Place in the Staten Island neighborhood of Stapleton when several men hit
him on the head with a baseball bat and yelled 'Obama,' said Aliya
Latif,
the civil rights director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who
was in contact with Alie's family since the attack and spoke to his mother
on Saturday after the arrests were announced."
* In Mississippi alone, the American Civil Liberties Union has received more
than 10 calls since the staff first reported anti-Obama incidents last
Friday, according to the Jackson (Miss.) Free Press.
* In Midland, Mich., a man dressed in full Ku Klux Klan regalia walked
around toting a handgun and waving an American flag. Initially denying it,
the man eventually admitted to police that the display was a reaction to the
Obama victory. "[The man] had a concealed weapon permit and was walking up
and down the sidewalk in front of a vehicle dealership while some motorists
shouted obscenities at him and others shouted accolades," police told The
Saginaw News.
* Parents in Rexburg, Idaho, contacted school officials this week after they
learned that 2nd and 3rd graders on a school bus were chanting,
"Assasssinate Obama!"
* At the University of Texas in Austin, a racist post on Facebook has cost
one student his place on the university football team, according to the
Houston Chronicle. Buck Burnette, a sophomore offensive lineman for the
fourth-ranked Texas Longhorns, was dismissed from the team on Nov. 5 after
posting a racist remark about President-elect Obama as his "status"
on the
social networking Web site. Burnette posted: "All the hunters gather up,
we
have a [slur] in the White House," the Chronicle reported.
* AP reports: "While the world watched a Grant Park celebration heralding
the election of the first black U.S. president, some white Chicago police
officers committed hate crimes against black residents cheering Barack
Obama's victory elsewhere in the city, attorneys alleged Thursday."
Lawsuits
have been filed.
* At Appalachian State University, the administration has expressed
disappointment at the numerous times black students have expressed being
harassed in residence halls since the election. The Appalachian, a student
newspaper serving the university, also reported conversations suggesting
Obama may not be alive in 2009 and a t-shirt seen around campus that reads
"Obama '08, Biden '09."
* Mentioned in the same article, racist comments were discovered at North
Carolina State University last week. Spray-painted in university's free
expression tunnel after the election were the phrases, "Kill that
n..." and
"Shoot Obama," the Appalachian reported. The NAACP has called for the
expulsion of the four students accused of the graffitti, the Associated
Press reported Thursday.
* The Associated Press revealed on Wednesday, "Police on eastern Long
Island
are investigating reports that more than a dozen cars were spray painted
with racist graffiti, reportedly including a message targeting
President-elect Barack Obama. The graffiti included racist slurs and
sexually graphic references. At least one resident in the quiet Mastic
neighborhood told Newsday her son's car was scribbled with a message
threatening to kill Obama."
* Employees at Hampel's Key and Lockshop in Traverse City, Michigan, flew
an
American flag upside down last Wednesday protesting of the new
president-elect, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported. One worker used a
racial slur during an interview with the Record-Eagle: "(The inverted flag
is) an international signal for distress and we feel our country is in
distress because the n----- got in," said Hampel's employee Rod
Nyland, who
later apologized for the comment, according to the Record-Eagle.
* Authorities in Temecula, Calif., found spray-painted graffiti on a city
sidewalk containing a swastika and anti-Obama slogan. And from the Los
Angeles Times: "Vandals spray-painted swastikas and racial slurs on a
house
and several cars in Torrance that displayed campaign signs or bumper
stickers for President-elect Barack Obama, authorities said Tuesday. The
incidents occurred Saturday night in the Hollywood Riviera section of the
city, said Sgt. Bernard Anderson. Four separate incidents were reported the
next day, he said. No arrests have been made."
* And from Maine: "More than 75 people rallied Sunday against an incident
last week in which black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount
Desert Island the day after Barack Obama won the presidential election,"
according to the Bangor Daily News.
*
Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor & Publisher and its popular blog. His
latest book, on Iraq and the media, is "So Wrong for So Long." His
book on
the 2008 campaign will be published in January. Email him at:
gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com
"The President of the United States, the Vice President, the President
Elect, the Vice President Elect, and their families, are under the
protection of the United States Secret Service. If you have reliable
information concerning a serious threat to harm any of these persons, you
should call the nearest Secret Service field office. You can find the
number in the phone book or on www.secretservice.gov. If your information
checks out, you may receive a substantial reward." (Source:
www.secretservice.gov.)
11/5/08
Why I Don't Live in Oklahoma
I just bought The New Mexican newspaper. Included in the first section was a map of the U.S., each county and area of the each state was red or blue, depending on which presidential candidate carried the vote. Every state in the country had blue and red of varying amounts. Only Oklahoma was all red for McCain.
That's why I don't live in Oklahoma.
Doesn't mean I don't miss my people, or the earth there, or selected memories. I fled the hyper-Christian-cult and white only atmosphere as a teenager. Even our own native people support these attitudes. Colonization runs deep. I imagine many of them voted for McCain because he was white, and Obama is black (and white). It was a sad day when word got to me that someone in the Muscogee Nation declared in a meeting that the tribe was a Christian Nation. We're a Mvskoke Nation, which means, a nation rooted in our own tribal culture(s), which includes Muscogee-Christian, as well as the ceremonial grounds people, and all the various cultures that make up the tribe.
Rigid structures cut and separate. They eventually fall from the weight of the fear that sets them into place. This goes for cultures, religions, thoughts, political boundaries....
I have to find a way to forgive the relatives who sent hate mail during the campaign, including an email that made me very very sad, about burning others' holy books and doing terrible things to those who love those books. I must continue to love, yet hold in my knowing that they belong to a church that tells them that everyone else is going to hell, including their gay and non-white relatives. And I must remember that the original teachings of Christ were about love and acceptance, and not the making of rigid communities. And remember that are open and loving Christian communities.
Though I negotiate this territory every time I go to Oklahoma I always find a reason to stay: stompdancing around the fire all night in time with the stars, hearing the Mvskoke language, laughing with friends and relatives, talking and hugs from my mother, the smell of sunrise in the summer.
So who knows....one of these days I might buy a little place near Okmulgee...I'd stay there for a month or two during green corn season, dance every weekend, visit my friends in their welcoming churches and sing with them, go fishing....
Joy Harjo November 5th, 2008
That's why I don't live in Oklahoma.
Doesn't mean I don't miss my people, or the earth there, or selected memories. I fled the hyper-Christian-cult and white only atmosphere as a teenager. Even our own native people support these attitudes. Colonization runs deep. I imagine many of them voted for McCain because he was white, and Obama is black (and white). It was a sad day when word got to me that someone in the Muscogee Nation declared in a meeting that the tribe was a Christian Nation. We're a Mvskoke Nation, which means, a nation rooted in our own tribal culture(s), which includes Muscogee-Christian, as well as the ceremonial grounds people, and all the various cultures that make up the tribe.
Rigid structures cut and separate. They eventually fall from the weight of the fear that sets them into place. This goes for cultures, religions, thoughts, political boundaries....
I have to find a way to forgive the relatives who sent hate mail during the campaign, including an email that made me very very sad, about burning others' holy books and doing terrible things to those who love those books. I must continue to love, yet hold in my knowing that they belong to a church that tells them that everyone else is going to hell, including their gay and non-white relatives. And I must remember that the original teachings of Christ were about love and acceptance, and not the making of rigid communities. And remember that are open and loving Christian communities.
Though I negotiate this territory every time I go to Oklahoma I always find a reason to stay: stompdancing around the fire all night in time with the stars, hearing the Mvskoke language, laughing with friends and relatives, talking and hugs from my mother, the smell of sunrise in the summer.
So who knows....one of these days I might buy a little place near Okmulgee...I'd stay there for a month or two during green corn season, dance every weekend, visit my friends in their welcoming churches and sing with them, go fishing....
Joy Harjo November 5th, 2008
11/4/08
Hope-- an historic night in these lands
Obama Won!
He will need our help for the road out of the Bush ruin.
Let's dream together.
He will need our help for the road out of the Bush ruin.
Let's dream together.
10/28/08
Muscogee Nation News Column October 2008
Just back from Norman, Oklahoma where I was involved in honoring of a beloved Maori writer/storyteller and citizen of the indigenous Maori people of New Zealand, Patricia Grace. She was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for literature. She is the first indigenous person to win this award. She has written six novels, five short-story collections and a number of children’s books. She writes about the every day life and traditions of the Maori people. She grew up with only a few books in her home. Her parents shared stories with her. One that caught her imagination as a child, was about the relative way back who had two sets of teeth, both top and bottom, which were great for sawing ropes on ships. She also raised seven children, taught school while she wrote. Now that’s quite an accomplishment!
The organizers were generous and brought in Gary Whitedeer’s southeastern intertribal dance group for the honoring. We danced to honor Patricia Grace and the Maori people and included everyone in the dancing. Grace, her husband, the educator Waiariki, and the Maori performer and storyteller, Rangimoana Tucker chanted and sang in return.
For some of the events the New Zealand consulate, John Mataira came from Los Angeles. He is also Maori. This got me to thinking: why not establish a Muscogee Nation consulate, or office of foreign service? This would be a person who is knowledgeable about other indigenous and world cultures as well as our tribal culture. This, it seems to be an important component of acting as a sovereign nation. What kind of protocols do we have in place for such things? Something to think about, though I can hear the outcry: we have to take care of everyone here at home first. And that’s true, however, we must continue to develop our vision, our relationships with other peoples. In this way we develop allies on this journey.
In the end, we are all representatives of our nation, whether we see ourselves this way or not. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we reflect back to our people, our homeland. Everyone watches our behavior. Every challenge we successfully negotiate, every small and large kindness makes an impact on the minds and hearts of everyone else around us. Why not acknowledge these small and large victories? Instead, jealousy is the most damaging epidemic in Indian country these days. And these days there’s a kind of virulent strain of jealousy going on. There’s way too much talking, and not enough doing for others.
For the last year I have attempted to write a column to address the division in our nation between various groups of citizens. Some would institute a full-blood only club. Others would exclude anyone not living in the boundaries of the Nation in Oklahoma. According to the U.S. inspired and enforced laws of division and disappearance the more we exclude, the smaller numbers we have and the closer we become to dying off as a nation. Why can’t the nation embrace all citizens? Aren’t all representative of genuine Mvskoke human experience? Do we throw away our children and grandchildren?
Send me your notes and ideas to me at nativesax@me.com. I’ll keep trying to find a way to address this in a compassionate manner.
September 21, 2008 Albuquerque, NM
The organizers were generous and brought in Gary Whitedeer’s southeastern intertribal dance group for the honoring. We danced to honor Patricia Grace and the Maori people and included everyone in the dancing. Grace, her husband, the educator Waiariki, and the Maori performer and storyteller, Rangimoana Tucker chanted and sang in return.
For some of the events the New Zealand consulate, John Mataira came from Los Angeles. He is also Maori. This got me to thinking: why not establish a Muscogee Nation consulate, or office of foreign service? This would be a person who is knowledgeable about other indigenous and world cultures as well as our tribal culture. This, it seems to be an important component of acting as a sovereign nation. What kind of protocols do we have in place for such things? Something to think about, though I can hear the outcry: we have to take care of everyone here at home first. And that’s true, however, we must continue to develop our vision, our relationships with other peoples. In this way we develop allies on this journey.
In the end, we are all representatives of our nation, whether we see ourselves this way or not. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we reflect back to our people, our homeland. Everyone watches our behavior. Every challenge we successfully negotiate, every small and large kindness makes an impact on the minds and hearts of everyone else around us. Why not acknowledge these small and large victories? Instead, jealousy is the most damaging epidemic in Indian country these days. And these days there’s a kind of virulent strain of jealousy going on. There’s way too much talking, and not enough doing for others.
For the last year I have attempted to write a column to address the division in our nation between various groups of citizens. Some would institute a full-blood only club. Others would exclude anyone not living in the boundaries of the Nation in Oklahoma. According to the U.S. inspired and enforced laws of division and disappearance the more we exclude, the smaller numbers we have and the closer we become to dying off as a nation. Why can’t the nation embrace all citizens? Aren’t all representative of genuine Mvskoke human experience? Do we throw away our children and grandchildren?
Send me your notes and ideas to me at nativesax@me.com. I’ll keep trying to find a way to address this in a compassionate manner.
September 21, 2008 Albuquerque, NM
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