California: Native Americans face violence over mascot removal

Contact:
Mark Anquoe
American Indian Movement - West
(415) 566-5788
gazelbe@yahoo.com
http://www.aimwest.info


Corine Fairbanks
American Indian Movement – Santa Barbara
(805) 212-4947
corine68@yahoo.com
http://www.myspace.com/aimsantabarbara

Native Americans Face Violence and Intimidation Over Mascot Removal in Carpinteria

CARPINTERIA, California - 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 the April 2008 decision, many citizens of Carpinteria have waged a campaign of terror against those who supported the school board’s decision, as well as the school board itself. A local businessman placed a quarter-page ad in the local newspaper explicitly naming and targeting Eli Cordero, the young student who originally brought the issue to the school board. Since that time, the 15 year old has received death threats and his family has been harassed. Death threats were also made against the child of a school board member who voted to remove the imagery. Local police began escorting school board members to and from school board meetings. 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.

Some Native American people have moved out of Carpinteria due to the climate of fear and anti-Indian sentiment. Ashleigh Brown, until recently a resident of Carpinteria, spoke of her decision to move away, “There is a community member who refused to do our printing for our cultural awareness event. Her son…started telling my roommate to keep my nose out of Carpinteria issues, or else I might regret it…So after other townspeople found out where I lived I decided to move out of Carpinteria.”

An organization called “Recall CUSD - Warrior Spirit Never Dies” (http://www.recallcusd.org), has waged a largely successful campaign to discredit and oust the school board members who supported the anti-mascot measure. Having successfully installed pro-mascot sympathizers on the school board, there is now a petition to rescind the earlier decision and keep the racist imagery at the public high school. On January 27th, local Native American people organized a protest to voice their objection to the measure, and were met with verbal abuse by drivers and passers-by. One protestor was hit with a rock thrown by an adult man shouting obscenities. This occurred despite the presence of a representative of the federal justice department, who was sent from Los Angeles to ensure proper police conduct and the safety of the demonstrators. Many local Native Americans, while supporting the anti-mascot effort, refused to join the protest, fearing violent reprisals by the townspeople.

The next school board meeting in Carpinteria is scheduled for February 10th. At this meeting the board will hear from a committee which was formed to assess each specific Native American image on display at Carpinteria High School. The school board is then expected to adjourn until February 24th, when the vote to rescind the previous ruling will be held. Protests and counter-protests are expected at both board meetings.

Pyramid Lake Paiute Gathering

Pyramid Lake Paiute COMMUNITY FEED
Pyramid Lake Paiutes and friends are invited to attend a community feed this Saturday February 7, 2009 @ 6:00pm, located at the Parish Hall in Nixon.
Antelope meat will be provided. Any assistance with side dishes would be greatly appreciated.
Any questions call Wayne Burke #232-1764.
Please checkout protest pictures at web site: http://www.holymenwarriorsdancers.com/

Photo: Protest of abuse of cultural items by Pyramid Lake Marina operator by Wayne Burke/ http://www.holymenwarriorsdancers.com/

Rodriguez: Fear and Hate Policies along the border: RIP

Fear and Hate Policies along the border: R.I.P.

By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

For those who favor militarization and strict border enforcement along the U.S./Mexico border, the Bush era has now become the good old days.
Yet, it is not certain that on the issue of immigration, President Obama represents radical change or change at all.
What is certain is that the previous fear, hate and ignorance-driven approach was ineffective. More importantly, an examination by the Obama administration of the Bush immigration policies will show that such approach was not simply a massive drain on the national budget,
but that it does not produce any wealth. The same could be said for the entire Department of Homeland Security. Borne out of fear, this department is a symbol of both the failure of the Bush administration and the epitome of big [brother] government.
Nothing symbolizes more Bush's failure than the walls/fences along the U.S./Mexico border. An official from Customs and Border Protection recently announced that the 669 miles of fencing along the border – as ordered by ex-president Bush – is now almost complete at the cost of
nearly $3 billion since 2006. Half of it is built along the US/Mexico border. It is a perverse idea that necessarily begs the question: why 669 miles, as opposed to the full-length of the
U.S.-Mexico border? And more importantly, why not a wall along the U.S./Canadian border or impregnable barriers along the U.S. coastlines? Not coincidentally, Bush exempted the fencing from many federal laws, including those involving environmental protections.
With the advent of the Obama administration, already, the walls are tragicomic and appear to be anachronistic and more a monument to fear and hate; it's the past struggling to survive in the future. Its only chance appears to be more fear, more hate and more ignorance.
Several weeks prior to Obama being sworn in, I went to witness for myself "Operation Streamline" – a mockery of a judicial proceeding that generally convicts 70 migrants every day in federal court in about one hour. Generally, the migrants, mostly men, are sentenced to
a private prison and then deported. Since his inauguration, I've gone back and the sham trials continue. And the money flowing to the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) private prison continues unabated to the tune of $11 million per month.
Just on the basis of the nation's massive economic crisis, this operation should be terminated immediately. We now are faced with situations nationwide where education budgets are being shamelessly slashed while jail and prison budgets continue to explode through the
roof. In the meantime, this nation also continues to fight two costly and needless wars on borrowed credit.
For a nation that worries more about the bottom line than its morals, it should actually be more concerned about its moral standing in the world. Fear, hate and ignorance produces psychopathic behavior, such as illegal and irrational wars, walls and moats and much ill-will
around the world.
Fear, hate and irrationality lost the election. President Obama knows this better than anyone. This is why he was quick to order the closure of Guantanamo and why he has called for the end to torture.
This is a good beginning. However, to truly create a new nation, the changes have to come not simply in the realm of U.S. policies overseas. Here in the United States, there is an entire detention system set up to house thousands of migrants, including women and children. They are generally incarcerated without rights, without due process and without trials. In Texas, the Hutto detention facility (also operated by CCA) continues to inhumanely imprison migrant
children, separating them from their families. According to the recently released "Unseen Prisoners" study, by researchers from the University of Arizona, some 300 migrant women were being held in 2007-2008 in three detention centers (two are operated by CCA),
subjected to unwarranted and inhumane conditions.
These facilities are not abroad, just as Operation Streamline does not operate overseas. And just as the president has ordered a review of all the cases at Guantanamo, it is high time that even before pondering the possibility of immigration reform, he should examine not simply the walls, the militarization of the border, the immigration raids, the detention facilities and the sham trials, but also the entire premise of his predecessor's fear-based immigration and border
enforcement policies. More than examining them, similar to Guantanamo, they should be suspended and most of of them should be remanded to the trash bin of history.
Truly, the president should examine the fear in this country that has produced the highest rates of incarceration in the "civilized" world.

Rodriguez can be reached at XColumn@gmail.com

Littlechild to UN: Indigenous Peoples right to food

United Nations Human Rights Council Advisory Committee
2nd Session, 26 – 30 January 2009 Geneva Switzerland

A Joint Intervention, International Organization of Indigenous Resource Development
and the International Indian Treaty Council
Agenda item 2 “The Right to Food”

By Dr. Wilton Littlechild

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Right to Food, and the range of rights required for its full exercise, is affirmed in a array of international instruments. Notably, Article1 in common of the two (2) International Covenants affirms the right of all peoples to freely pursue their economic social and cultural development, as well as their own means of subsistence.

Likewise, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms in Article 20 that “Indigenous peoples have the right…to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence and development, and to engage freely in all their traditional and other economic activities.” Many other articles, including Article 26 on land and Natural Resources, and 37 on Treaties also affirm rights that are essential to the exercise of the Right to Food for Indigenous Peoples.

Our delegations strongly support the recommendations of the Advisory Committee’s Drafting Group on the Right to Food, in particular recommendation 5, “that the implementation of the concept of Food Sovereignty should be considered”.

Food Sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples was affirmed as a “precondition for Food Security” in the “Declaration of Atitlan” from the 1st Indigenous Peoples’ Global Consultation on the Right to Food and Food Sovereignty (Guatemala, 2002). This Declaration also affirmed that Food Sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples is a collective right based on rights to our lands, territories and natural resources, the practice of our cultures, languages and traditions, and is essential to our identity as Peoples.

Subsistence Rights are also recognized in many of the legally-binding international Treaties which our ancestors entered into with settler governments and their predecessors. For example, Treaty No. 6 entered into by Indigenous Nations, including the Cree Nation, and the Crown binds the Canadian Government to ensure our subsistence rights for “so long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow.” Our ancestors, at Treaty time, secured our traditional avocations of hunting, fishing, gathering and trapping for food during all seasons.

We warmly thank the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Mr. Jean Ziegler for his recognition of the importance and scope of Food Sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples. In his Interim Report to the UN General Assembly [UN Doc A/60/350] on 12 September 2005, the Rapporteur recognized that in most countries “hunger and malnutrition are disproportionately higher among indigenous than non-indigenous populations” and that “it is therefore urgent to strengthen the protection of the right to food of indigenous peoples, including by improving the protection of their lands and resources”. In this report, the Rapporteur also affirmed states’ obligations “to respect, protect and fulfill the right to food of indigenous peoples”.

We also thank the UN General Assembly for is resolution of 13 March, 2008, which “Stresses also its commitments to promote and protect, without discrimination, the economic, social and cultural rights of indigenous peoples, in accordance with international human rights obligations and taking into account, as appropriate, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” [GA res 62/164, 13 March 2008 on the report of the Third Committee (A/62/439/Add.2), The right to food, paragraph 12].

We regret to report to this body that a range of factors, including Treaty violations, failure to respect human rights including Free Prior and Informed Consent, imposed development, environmental contamination and Climate Change are seriously impacting the Right to Food for Indigenous Peoples around the world.

We urge that the Advisory Council consider and include the perspectives of Indigenous Peoples as noted above in its report and recommendations to the Human Rights Council, as well as in any future work on this vital issue.

We are prepared to submit more detailed information upon the request of this body, and we thank you for your attention to our concerns.

Dr. Wilton Littlechild, IPC