Oglala Lakota President to Mr. Trump: 'The people are angry, it is in our DNA to fight for these lands'

Oglala Lakota President to Mr. Trump, 'The people are angry, it is in our DNA to fight for these lands'

"It is not just a threat to my people, but a threat to the land and it is a threat to mankind in general and to human life." -- Oglala Lakota President Julian Bear Runner

Article by Brenda Norrell
News coverage by MSNBC
Censored News

Oglala Lakota President Julian Bear Runner sent a letter to Mr. Trump and advised him that he is not permitted to enter the Treaty Territory at this time because of the lack of consultation with the Great Sioux Nation and the lack of correspondence with the Great Sioux Leaders.

Speaking on MSNBC television news, Bear Runner said that Trump made no effort to sit down with the Great Sioux Leaders to seek a plan to go about celebrating his Independence Day at Mount Rushmore.

"It is very hard to remain diplomatic due to the lack of consultation," Bear Runner said of Trump's plans at Mount Rushmore today, July 3.

"For my people, it is in our DNA to fight for these lands, to defend these lands, and to protect what is sacred. Mount Rushmore is carved on one of our most sacred mountains within the Black Hills."

"The people are angry," Bear Runner said, adding that he will stand with them and help them in every way that he can to do what is right.

Bear Runner said the mountain represents six of his people's grandfathers, six of their ancestors, and had a sacred and significant meaning prior to the carving of these presidents.

As for the gathering today, July 3, Bear Runner said his people and people from across America are reaching out to him who want to come and stand with the Great Sioux Nation, and exercise their Amendment Rights to protest and to demonstrate.

With the worldwide pandemic, he said they are encouraging members to exercise safety and wear protective gear.

Bear Runner said he frowns on Trump coming here because the governor of South Dakota has said there will be no social distancing, and masks will not be required.

Bear Runner said across America and the world these precautions are advised for protection during this pandemic.

"It is not just a threat to my people, but a threat to the land and it is a threat to mankind in general and to human life."

Natives helping Natives in Rapid City: Meals for Relatives COVID-19 Rapid Community Response

By Natalie Stites Means

Photos by Chantelle Blue Arm, Bobbi Jean Jarvinen

Karissa Ortman Loewen and Natalie Stites Means

Censored News

We serve COVID19 positive families committed to quarantine. Especially the families whose matriarchs are sick and cannot cook for their families for 14 days. While need is not necessary for aid, we ask that people who can physically cook for themselves do so and we will assist with groceries.

Since May 10th, we have provided a homemade meal a day to 26 households, providing over 1100 meals and at least 32 aid packages+ to families in quarantine and isolation in Rapid City. We have also distributed 2400 cloth and disposable masks.

Half of Pennington County COVID-19 cases are Native American people. We are not seeing the relief on the ground that families need to isolate, survive and heal from the virus. We believe our numbers will continue to rise if families are not properly and directly assisted to quarantine with basic necessities and humanitarian aid.

We aim to provide an aid package for each family, supplemental supplies as necessary for two weeks, and a daily cooked meal for the whole household.

We need more volunteers to drive, make drop deliveries, procure food, procure medicines, procure supplies, and prepare, cook and package food for households in quarantine.

When we get more resources, we are interested in food aid by purchasing fresh, organic, nutrient-rich groceries for families for at least 2 weeks, prevention and more PPE, aftercare, and financial assistance for survivors and their families.

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We rely on community referrals and personal vouching to serve the people we can. HeSapa Voter Initiative Uniting Resilience HeSapa Birth Circle ⭕️ One Rapid City OyateKin Chante Wastepi-Feeding our Relatives Two Spirit Nation West River Tenants United

We are Natives helping Natives. This is an entire gift and volunteer-driven project. #FoodisMedicine #MealsforRelatives #MniLuzahanTiospaye #MealsAidRelief

Acoma Pueblo Poet Simon Ortiz: Trump's self-celebration reflected in Mount Rushmore imperialism

Acoma Pueblo Poet Simon Ortiz: Trump's self-celebration  reflected in Mount Rushmore imperialism

Acoma Pueblo professor, poet and author Simon Ortiz responds to Trump's irrational plan to inject himself into the Black Hills and glorify himself with fireworks during a pandemic. Ortiz magnifies the words of Lakota Dakota author Ruth Hopkins in her article, 'Trump's trip to Mount Rushmore puts lives and a fragile ecosystem at risk.'

By Simon Ortiz

Censored News

Ruth Hopkins writes, "In his typical fashion, characteristically an irrational, pernicious level of arrogance commingled with obliviousness and indifference, Trump fails to grasp or care that Mount Rushmore is in the middle of the Black Hills National Forest."

That's fact and opinion and all of it is the truth. And it is also fact and opinion of a very specific sort and intention as emphasized by Trump's egotism mightily -- and a re-statement of national belief when it comes to Indigenous peoples of the USA and the Americas as a whole.

Mount Rushmore is a statuesque statement of imperialism, power, and egomaniacal and fanatical pride ultimately. And falsely spoken by Trump too who's likely unaware he's doing it, cheering for himself! And in this case, intended to self-celebrate Trump's presidency brazenly.

So citizens who buy that can vote for him in November.

Simon Ortiz Biography

World-renowned writer Simon Ortiz served as Regents’ Professor of English and American Indian Studies at Arizona State University. At Censored News, we celebrate Ortiz for his words of poetry and books, and for standing up, and speaking out for the Zapatistas, carrying crosses bearing the names of the Zapatistas who were massacred in Acteal, Chiapas, during a march in Tucson.

A leading figure in the Native American literary renaissance that emerged in the 1960s, Simon J. Ortiz has published many books of poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction. In general, his writing is concerned with modern man’s alienation from others, from himself, and from his environment—urging humanity to reconnect the wisdom of ancestral spirits and with Mother Earth. His poetry collections include Going for the Rain (1976), A Good Journey (1977), From Sand Creek (1982), Woven Stone (1992), After and Before the Lightning (1994), and Out There Somewhere (2002).

Ortiz, who is an Acoma Pueblo Indian, was born and raised near Albuquerque, New Mexico, and grew up speaking the Acoma tongue. “This early language from birth to six years of age in the Acoma family and community,” he has written, “was the basis and source for all I would do later;” ironically, he was punished for speaking it at school. Nicknamed “the reporter” by his father for the absorbed attention he paid as a child to tribal elders’ stories, he has continued to base his creative work on his people’s powerful oral tradition.

After attending Fort Lewis College and the University of New Mexico, and attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa for one year. During the 1960s he also served in the Army, where he suffered discrimination, and worked in a uranium mining industry whose profit-driven desecration of the land he would later movingly protest. In the early 1970s he began to write in earnest while teaching at various colleges, and in 1982 won a Pushcart Prize and a wide audience with From Sand Creek. Perhaps his most important book is 1992’s Woven Stone—a blend of the poetry and prose of three earlier volumes that is a spiritual autobiography. -- Simon Ortiz Foundation

Oglala Lakota President: 'Donald Trump should stay away from Mount Rushmore'

Democracy Now!

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.”

Read the article in The Guardian: Donald Trump should stay away from Mount Rushmore

Watch this at Democracy Now!