On May 20, 2009, three items from the Beyond the Chief art exhibit, created by the renowned Cheyenne-Arapaho artist HOCK E AYE VI Edgar Heap of Birds, were vandalized for the fifth time. The attacks appear to have taken place in broad daylight sometime between the hours of 8:30 am and 1:30 pm on Wednesday, May 20th. The vandalized art include signs located in front of the Native American House, the Asian American Studies building, and adjacent to the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center. An officer arrived at 2:00 pm to complete a report but no statements were released by the Campus Police.

The damaged signs include those representing the Wea, Meskwaki, and Peoria tribes of Illinois. These series of attacks now make it plain that those perpetrating this vandalism are specifically targeting the Native American community - thus falling into the definition of a "Hate Crime" as described by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ).

An educational forum focused on the ongoing case of incarcerated American Indian activist Leonard Peltier will be held May 20, 2009, at 7 pm, at the Native American Student and Community Center at Portland State University. Recently, Peltier was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for a sixth consecutive year, in honor of his remarkable success in furthering causes of peace and human rights from behind bars during his 33 years of incarceration. On the campaign trail last fall, President Obama met with Native American leaders and indicated his willingness to consider clemency or to support parole for Peltier. The May 20th event is part of a nationwide effort to renew support for Peltier's release now that Obama is in office.

Ward Churchill spakes on “Colonization, Genocide, and Education”
May 7, Noon
South Puget Sound Community College: Building 26, Room 101,

Peter Herlihy and Jerome Dobson, professors of Geography at Kansas University, received funding from the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO), located at the Fort Leavenworth U.S. Army base in Leavenworth, Kansas, to map communally held indigenous land in the states of San Luis Potosi, and in Oaxaca, Mexico. The project, named the Bowman Expeditions or México Indígena, began mapping in 2005 in an indigenous region known as La Husteca, which is partially located in the state of San Luis Potosi, and then moved their operation to the state of Oaxaca amidst the statewide popular uprising of the Oaxacan Peoples’ Popular Assembly (APPO) in 2006.

On January 14th, 2009, the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juárez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO) released a communique in which the organization expresses concerns of geopiracy in the México Indígena mapping project, cites a clear lack of transparency, and claims that communities were deceived, having no idea that a primary funder of the project was the FMSO.

The FMSO official assigned to the Bowman Expeditions is Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey B. Demarest. During a 23-year military career, Dr. Demarest served in multiple assignments in Latin America and is also a graduate of the U.S. Army School of the Americas. He has written numerous articles dealing with internal conflict including “The Overlap of Military and Police Responsibilities in Latin America.” Dr. Demarest’s first book, Geoproperty, considers property ownership as an issue of national security and strategy. Read more

In the case of Ward Churchill vs. CU Boulder, the jury ruled in favor of American Indian scholar and activist Ward Churchill on all accounts. CU Boulder administration, right wing pundits and much of the mainstream press is fuming as a result.

You'll find many articles regretably conceding that yes indeed the firing of Ward Churchill was fueled not by academic misconduct, but by his controversial essay On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. The jury agreed to all three points of the prosecution: that CU used Churchill's opinions and words to terminate him, that the termination harmed Churchill, and that had it not been for the essay he had written (as opposed to the allegations of academic misconduct) that Churchill would still be teaching at the University of Colorado.

Still, quickly looking at the headlines from major news outlets and the story continues to be smearing Churchill, rather than recognizing that a university joined forces with conservative politicians to lead a witchhunt against a teacher for their political beliefs. read more | Ward Churchhill Solidarity Network

The meeting, which was attended by hundreds of people, was fiery and impassioned and lasted for about three hours. The first two hours were open for public comment. Ultimately, the board voted 3-2 to retain the mascot, although two items, including a doormat with a “Native American” on it, will be removed. Everything else, including a bust at the school parking lot entrance and a large mural are to remain intact.

The months, weeks, and days preceding the meeting were intense. Eli, the instigator of this campaign, received death threats as did a child of a school board member.

. . . Many indigenous people who reside in Carpinteria expressed approval of the mascot. However, a Chumash man, while not a Carpiterian, said that this land was originally their's and that his people were and are peaceful, not warriors. “. . . We have to change the war mentality,” he said. “We are not warriors, we are peaceful people, and this planet needs peaceful beings. This is a local manifestation of a terrible global bind that we all live in. Injustice to one is injustice to all. The war culture must be eliminated.

“Your job is to teach to these young people. Teach them the ways of the Chumash by asking the Chumash. And I invite all the people in the lineage of the Chumash to come and practice the Chumash ways. We were never a warrior society, never. We're not warriors.“ Story and photos: Carpinteria to Retain Plains Indian Mascot by RP

People who walked past 13th and Kincaid around 12:30 today were greeted by the sight of a group of young boys and girls dressed in traditional garb holding large cardboard signs bearing slogans such as "UO Gives PhD in Akha Genocide!" and "Richard Haugland Loves Baby Akha girls for Their DNA!"

According to the Akha Foundation, missionaries are converting Akha kids and taking them away from their families. They link to a video called "Prisoners of a White God" that apparently explains their views further. I'm at work and haven't watched it. Their blog, which starts here, also alleges that Haugland is involved with an organized program to deprive Akha kids of their culture... and maybe something more sinister!

CARPINTERIA, California (March 16, 2009) – On Tuesday, March 17, the school board of Carpinteria, California will meet to vote whether or not to rescind their own 2008 decision to remove all imagery that stereotypes Native American peoples from Carpinteria High School. The town of Carpinteria is staging the meeting in such a way as to intimidate the Native people choosing to participate. (photo of Eli Cordero by Paul Wellman)

Details: Carpinteria votes on reinstatement of racist mascot by AIM-West

Maryland needs a law protecting our First Amendment Rights! And the ACLU of Maryland needs YOU in Annapolis on Feb 9 to join the call for legislation.

The small town of Carpinteria, California is the latest battleground in Native Americans’ fight against racism. The controversy over a supposedly “harmless” high school sports mascot has alienated the Native American population of Carpinteria, who have come to fear violent reprisals from the non-Native community.

The Carpinteria “Warriors” mascot is the standard Indian chief stereotype, complete with generic plains-style war bonnet and stoic gaze. The school logo consists of a spear with dangling feathers; a visual symbol also associated with plains Indian cultures.

Last spring, 15 year old Chumash youth Eli Cordero voiced his objections to the use of this stereotypical imagery by Carpinteria High School. On April 22nd, 2008, he brought his concerns before the school board which then voted to retire the use of all Native American imagery. . . . Since that time, the 15 year old has received death threats and his family has been harassed. Some citizens of Carpinteria shouted racial epithets at John Orendorff, a Native American Army Reserve colonel who spoke at a school board meeting in favor of removing the racist imagery. . . .

Complete update: Racism and Intimidation in Carpinteria by AIM-West

* The following article was originally published on Jan. 30 2009 in El Mundo, a Caracas daily. Written by a member of the editorial collective of El Libertario www.nodo50.org/ellibertario , it calls attention to what we fear is a bloody attack against these original inhabitants of the western part of the country.

American Indian leader and political prisoner Leornard Peltier was brutally beaten on Tuesday, January 20th, just after he was transferred to the Canaan Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. On Friday, January 23rd, the American Indian community and their supporters came out in the rain in San Francisco to protest the attack on Leonard Peltier. Family members of Leonard feel the assault was orchestrated by the FBI to prejudice his next parole hearing.

On December 18, members of the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations (FIOB) in the city of Greenfield, California opened a new office in the city to meet the requests of the indigenous migrant community in this area. The grand opening is doubly symbolic because International Day of the Migrant is celebrated on this day.

Come show your solidarity at the action Monday, and come to find out more about this pressing threat to Navajo and Hopi people at the forum today!

United American Indians of New England gathered at Cole's Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and marched with about 150 of their supporters through the streets of Plymouth on Thanksgiving afternoon. They were not there to celebrate the myth of what is taught about the Pilgrims arriving here almost 400 years ago, but rather they want the truth of that time to be told, Native American heritage recognized, and they called for political prisoner, Leonard Peltier to be released. The Wampanoag were the first natives to greet Pilgrims. LISTEN TO AUDIO REPORT | VIDEO (by Michael Borkson)

Information from the United American Indians of New England: National Day of Mourning | Orientation Packet | | Further Reading: No Thanks to Thanksgiving | Raining on the Thanksgiving Day parade: "Redefining" the holiday is a failed project | Why I Hate Thanksgiving

The recent exhibit Tongva: Our Voice, Our History, Our People, which ran from September 13 through November 22 at the Ruth & Charles Gilb Arcadia Historical Museum, demonstrated that Southern California's history goes back far beyond shopping centers, Hollywood, city lights, theme parks, car culture, missionaries, Cabrillo, etc., etc.

As Chief Red Blood Anthony Morales stated at the show's grand opening, Tongva people have lived here for many thousands of years. He added that the community of Aleupkingna (sometimes spelled Aluupkenga) encompassed the land currently occupied by the Santa Anita Mall, the Santa Anita Race Track, and the Arboretum.

Story and photos:Tongva: Our Voice, Our History, Our People by RP

Nobody but Americans celebrates Thanksgiving. It is reserved by history and the intent of "the founders" as the supremely white American holiday, the most ghoulish event on the national calendar. No Halloween of the imagination can rival the exterminationist reality that was the genesis, and remains the legacy, of the American Thanksgiving. It is the most loathsome, humanity-insulting day of the year - a pure glorification of racist barbarity.

Thanksgiving is much more than a lie - if it were that simple, an historical correction of the record of events in 1600s Massachusetts would suffice to purge the "flaw" in the national mythology. But Thanksgiving is not just a twisted fable, and the mythology it nurtures is itself inherently evil. The real-life events - subsequently revised - were perfectly understood at the time as the first, definitive triumphs of the genocidal European project in New England. The near-erasure of Native Americans in Massachusetts and, soon thereafter, from most of the remainder of the northern English colonial seaboard was the true mission of the Pilgrim enterprise - Act One of the American Dream. African Slavery commenced contemporaneously - an overlapping and ultimately inseparable Act Two.

On Thanksgiving morning, November 27th, the International Indian Treaty Council and American Indian Contemporary Arts will be holding their annual sunrise gathering on Alcatraz Island.

AIM-WEST is holding events November 24th through the 28th in San Francisco for the 40 year anniversary and reunion of the American Indian Movement. The AIM reunion includes invited speakers from California indigenous nations, and congratulatory statements from governments and community organizations. The theme of the gathering is "Somos Un Solo Rio" We Are One River, and "No One is Illegal."

Join us for the Indigenous Corn Festival and Welcome Back Pow-Wow November 22, 2008