#indigenous law

[propertiesofjoy]

story #1: sweet dirt from the wetiko legal principles: cree and anishinabek responses to violence and victimization

[thefirsthogokage]

Oh hey, I just mentioned this yesterday with the Choctaw tribe:

[protoslacker]

The implications of destroying Oak Flat cannot be genuinely understood without looking at the context, history, and relationships of Indigenous people to the land. Similarly, collaborating with a company like Rio Tinto cannot be understood without recognizing their very destructive history and relationship with Native peoples.

Zinaida Carroll in Restoration Magazine at NIWRC (June, 2021). Oak Flat | Chi'chil Bildagoteel.

The Spiritual Connecton of Idigenous Women to the Land and Its Crucial Role in the Apache's Battle for Sovereignty

[riesenfeldcenter]

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day!

The rare collection of laws of the Cherokee Nation shown here was published at Tahlequah, the Cherokee Nation’s capital. It was printed in Cherokee using a syllabary adopted by the Nation in 1825. 

The owners of this copy used the page above to list their family members and birthdays. One child, Sequoyah, was likely named after the founder of the Cherokee writing system.

[the-most-pathetic-edge-marquis]

not to add to the doom posting, but:

the Supreme Court will soon review the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act.

the ICWA protects Native children from being adopted out of their communities, and it’s under fire bc a white couple is suing on the basis that it’s “racial discrimination” that they can’t adopt a child away from her family, (Brackeen v. Haaland). it’s probably not going to end well.

I encourage you to do your own research, but the point of this post: the Lakota People’s Law Project is assembling a brief, and coordinating with other legal teams on this, including working with the original author of the ICWA.

the Lakota People’s Law Project have a petition you can sign here, and let’s be real, what they really need is donations, (especially since they’re going up against a campaign funded by oil conglomerates).

i’ll put source links in the replies so i can keep them up-to-date.

[wachinyeya]

—

“the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the State of Alaska’s bid to fast-track the legal process, overrule the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and gain approval for the Pebble Mine — slated to extract enormous amounts of copper, gold, and molybdenum from the pristine and sensitive ecosystem known as Bristol Bay.

A diverse coalition led by Alaska Natives has consistently fought against the proposed mine for more than two decades. It eventually gained support from the EPA, which ultimately blocked the mine proposal in January 2023 over concerns it would threaten an aquatic ecosystem supporting the world’s most prolific sockeye salmon fishery.

This decision is significant, particularly considering the current High Court’s tendency to support states’ rights, limits on regulation — especially of the environmental variety — and corporate concerns. Alaska’s request, filed in June, was unusual in that it sought to skip lower appeals courts to challenge the EPA’s decision on the basis that it violated Alaska’s state sovereignty.

Under the law, alleged violations of state sovereignty are one of the few categories of cases that grant the Supreme Court original jurisdiction — meaning a state can bypass the usual state/federal court appeals process and file straight with the High Court. The justices could easily have decided to hear the case and decide in favor of the mining company, which has shown no qualms about engaging in some shady business practices over the years.

As the single most productive sockeye salmon fishery in the world, Bristol Bay contains biodiversity and abundant wild fish populations which present a stark contrast to many other fisheries in the Pacific Northwest (and worldwide). Most have experienced severe depletion over the last few decades. Sockeye salmon — like all Pacific Salmon — are a keystone species, vital to the health of an entire ecosystem. Of course, salmon also provide a sacred food source for Indigenous communities up and down the West Coast.”

-from the Lakota People’s Law Project

[blanket-burrito-protocol]

With the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which has kept Native children from being purposefully removed from Native families into non-Native foster families since 1978, being reevaluated in the US Supreme Court, it is at risk of being greatly weakened and undoing decades of work to stop the systematic erasure of Native cultural identity.

(It may also re-designate the term "Indian" in the bill to mean a racial classification rather than political, reversing precedent with regard to tribal sovereignty. Native tribes must remain independent entities in the law rather than just a race to protect their rights to self-governance.)

The Lakota People's Law Project is asking US citizens to ask their state lawmakers to enact similar legislation at the state level which codifies the rights and protections ICWA gives to Native children should it be weakened in the Supreme Court. This is not protection for the ICWA itself, although they do have action you can take for that on their website as well. In the link is a pre-written email which you can personalize and easily send to your state lawmakers.

Thanks for your time. :)

[shu-of-the-wind]

not to add to the oppenheimer discourse but i haven’t seen people talking about this in my part of tumblr (i’m sure people ARE, but i haven’t seen it).

a reminder that uranium mining in navajo nation to build nuclear weapons has caused environmental damage and health hazards that have still not been cleaned up to this day. this started in 1944 and lasted until the 80s. cancer rates DOUBLED in the navajo nation from the 1970s to the 1990s. 

there are more than 500 abandoned uranium mines on diné land and the government has not done shit to clean anything up. 

and to add insult to injury, the supreme court just ruled that the federal government does not have the obligation to ensure that diné people, which the federal government has plenary power over as a tribal nation in the united states, have running water. 

the more you scratch at oppenheimer the worse it gets tbqh

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Three Indigenous women aspiring to become lawyers in Alberta are challenging the King's Oath, because they say swearing an oath to the monarchy is modern colonialism.

Janice Makokis, Rachel Snow and Anita Cardinal, who graduated from law school in 2010, 2013 and 2022 respectively, are unable to practise law, they say, until the mandatory oath one swears when called to the bar is amended, or an alternative oath is provided.

"The oath is a trigger of intergenerational trauma for most Indigenous law students," Cardinal said. "It is a trigger for me."

Provincial legislation requires that lawyers vow to "be faithful and bear true allegiance" to the reigning monarch, their heirs and successors. After the death of Queen Elizabeth, those called to the bar must swear allegiance to King Charles.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[fatehbaz]

On May 28, 1914, the Institut für Schiffs-und Tropenkrankheiten (Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases, ISTK) in Hamburg began operations in a complex of new brick buildings on the bank of the Elb. The buildings were designed by Fritz Schumacher, who had become the Head of Hamburg’s building department (Leiter des Hochbauamtes) in 1909 after a “flood of architectural projects” accumulated following the industrialization of the harbor in the 1880s and the “new housing and working conditions” that followed. The ISTK was one of these projects, connected to the port by its [...] mission: to research and heal tropical illnesses; [...] to support the Hamburg Port [...]; and to support endeavors of the German Empire overseas.

First established in 1900 by Bernhard Nocht, chief of the Port Medical Service, the ISTK originally operated out of an existing building, but by 1909, when the Hamburg Colonial Institute became its parent organization (and Schumacher was hired by the Hamburg Senate), the operations of the ISTK had outgrown [...]. [I]ts commission by the city was an opportunity for Schumacher to show how he could contribute to guiding the city’s economic and architectural growth in tandem, and for Nocht, an opportunity to establish an unprecedented spatial paradigm for the field of Tropical Medicine that anchored the new frontier of science in the German Empire. [...]

[There was a] shared drive to contribute to the [...] wealth of Hamburg within the context of its expanding global network [...]. [E]ach discipline [...] architecture and medicine were participating in a shared [...] discursive operation. [...]

---

The brick used on the ISTK façades was key to Schumacher’s larger Städtebau plan for Hamburg, which envisioned the city as a vehicle for a “harmonious” synthesis between aesthetics and economy. [...] For Schumacher, brick [was significantly preferable] [...]. Used by [...] Hamburg architects [over the past few decades], who acquired their penchant for neo-gothic brickwork at the Hanover school, brick had both a historical presence and aesthetic pedigree in Hamburg [...]. [T]his material had already been used in Die Speicherstadt, a warehouse district in Hamburg where unequal social conditions had only grown more exacerbated [...]. Die Speicherstadt was constructed in three phases [beginning] in 1883 [...]. By serving the port, the warehouses facilitated the expansion and security of Hamburg’s wealth. [...] Yet the collective profits accrued to the city by these buildings [...] did not increase economic prosperity and social equity for all. [...] [A] residential area for harbor workers was demolished to make way for the warehouses. After the contract for the port expansion was negotiated in 1881, over 20,000 people were pushed out of their homes and into adjacent areas of the city, which soon became overcrowded [...]. In turn, these [...] areas of the city [...] were the worst hit by the Hamburg cholera epidemic of 1892, the most devastating in Europe that year. The 1892 cholera epidemic [...] articulated the growing inability of the Hamburg Senate, comprising the city’s elite, to manage class relationships [...] [in such] a city that was explicitly run by and for the merchant class [...].

In Hamburg, the response to such an ugly disease of the masses was the enforcement of quarantine methods that pushed the working class into the suburbs, isolated immigrants on an island, and separated the sick according to racial identity.

In partnership with the German Empire, Hamburg established new hygiene institutions in the city, including the Port Medical Service (a progenitor of the ISTK). [...] [T]he discourse of [creating the school for tropical medicine] centered around city building and nation building, brick by brick, mark by mark.

---

Just as the exterior condition of the building was, for Schumacher, part of a much larger plan for the city, the program of the building and its interior were part of the German Empire and Tropical Medicine’s much larger interest in controlling the health and wealth of its nation and colonies. [...]

Yet the establishment of the ISTK marked a critical shift in medical thinking [...]. And while the ISTK was not the only institution in Europe to form around the conception and perceived threat of tropical diseases, it was the first to build a facility specifically to support their “exploration and combat” in lockstep, as Nocht described it.

The field of Tropical Medicine had been established in Germany by the very same journal Nocht published his overview of the ISTK. The Archiv für Schiffs- und Tropen-Hygiene unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Pathologie und Therapie was first published in 1897, the same year that the German Empire claimed Kiaochow (northeast China) and about two years after it claimed Southwest Africa (Namibia), Cameroon, Togo, East Africa (Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda), New Guinea (today the northern part of Papua New Guinea), and the Marshall Islands; two years later, it would also claim the Caroline Islands, Palau, Mariana Islands (today Micronesia), and Samoa (today Western Samoa).

---

The inaugural journal [...] marked a paradigm shift [...]. In his opening letter, the editor stated that the aim of Tropical Medicine is to “provide the white race with a home in the tropics.” [...]

As part of the institute’s agenda to support the expansion of the Empire through teaching and development [...], members of the ISTK contributed to the Deutsches Kolonial Lexikon, a three-volume series completed in 1914 (in the same year as the new ISTK buildings) and published in 1920. The three volumes contained maps of the colonies coded to show the areas that were considered “healthy” for Europeans, along with recommended building guidelines for hospitals in the tropics. [...] "Natives" were given separate facilities [...]. The hospital at the ISTK was similarly divided according to identity. An essentializing belief in “intrinsic factors” determined by skin color, constitutive to Tropical Medicine, materialized in the building’s circulation. Potential patients were assessed in the main building to determine their next destination in the hospital. A room labeled “Farbige” (colored) - visible in both Nocht and Schumacher’s publications - shows that the hospital segregated people of color from whites. [...]

---

Despite belonging to two different disciplines [medicine and architecture], both Nocht and Schumacher’s publications articulate an understanding of health [...] that is linked to concepts of identity separating white upper-class German Europeans from others. [In] Hamburg [...] recent growth of the shipping industry and overt engagement of the German Empire in colonialism brought even more distant global connections to its port. For Schumacher, Hamburg’s presence in a global network meant it needed to strengthen its local identity and economy [by purposefully seeking to showcase "traditional" northern German neo-gothic brickwork while elevating local brick industry] lest it grow too far from its roots. In the case of Tropical Medicine at the ISTK, the “tropics” seemed to act as a foil for the European identity - a constructed category through which the European identity could redescribe itself by exclusion [...].

What it meant to be sick or healthy was taken up by both medicine and architecture - [...] neither in a vacuum.

---

All text above by: Carrie Bly. "Mediums of Medicine: The Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases in Hamburg". Sick Architecture series published by e-flux Architecture. November 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Text within brackets added by me for clarity. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[reasonsforhope]

“1. The energy paradigm shifted                                                    

Two things happened this year that may have changed the energy paradigm forever. The first was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the West’s subsequent dash to wean itself off Russian gas while ramping up renewables.

Putin’s war was “a historic turning point towards a cleaner future,” said the International Energy Agency, which for the first time predicted global demand for fossil fuels would peak in the mid-2030s due to the conflict.

2. Climate policies and litigation ramped up

Encouragingly, there were signs of progress. The US (the world’s second largest emitter after China) approved legislation to turbocharge its decarbonisation programme. Analysis suggests that it could slash US emissions by 44 per cent by 2030. The EU also set a target of reducing emissions: by 55 per cent this decade.  

Climate litigation emerged as an effective tool for bringing about positive action in 2022, with high-profile wins, including a Filipino ruling that stated big polluters were “morally and legally” liable for climate damage.

6. Lost species returned, others bounced back

Beavers, bison and pelicans were among the species identified as having bucked the trend by the Wildlife Comeback Report, published in September. Most are the subject of reintroduction programmes, including the bison, which is roaming England again for the first time in thousands of years.

Other notable success stories include the rhino’s return to Mozambique, the reported resurgence of fin whales, and the tiger clawing its way back from the abyss.

8. Land was returned to nature – and indigenous people

In California, a swathe of redwood forest was handed back to the descendants of Native American tribes; Ecuador ruled that indigenous communities must be given more autonomy over their territory; Europe removed a record number of dams, returning hundreds of rivers to their original free-flowing state; and England got its first wetland ‘super-reserve’.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, the incoming president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, pledged to halt deforestation and revive the Amazon Fund, which enables rich countries to finance conservation in the Brazilian rainforest. [A promise that, as of February 2023, he is absolutely upholding.]”

And many more entries at the link!

-via Positive News, 12/20/22

[linguisticdiscovery]

Denesuline names

A Denesuline family is challenging the law in the Canadian Northwest Territories in order to use their traditional Indigenous names on government forms.

[olowan-waphiya]

Fake Indian art still a major problem despite federal responsibilities

Criminal pleas surface amid vague ‘Indigenous’ claims Tuesday, March 14, 2023 By Acee Agoyo, Indianz.Com

Efforts to strengthen the Indian Arts and Crafts Act are gaining new steam as government authorities try to enforce a law aimed at addressing fraud and exploitation of Native cultures and ways of life. On Monday, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs unveiled a discussion draft bill called the Amendments to Respect Traditional Indigenous Skill and Talent Act of 2023. Also known as the ARTIST Act [PDF], the proposed legislation seeks to protect the arts, crafts, goods and other creative works that American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian people have produced since time immemorial.

“The ARTIST Act would update the Indian Arts and Crafts Act to support creative economies and strengthen enforcement of current law and protections against counterfeit competition for Native artists and their works,” the committee said in a news release on behalf of Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the chair of the legislative panel. “This discussion draft reflects direct stakeholder input as well as years of committee oversight and broad commitment to the protection of Native cultural patrimony and revitalization of Indigenous languages,” the release continued.

As enacted in 1990, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act makes it a crime to market, sell or promote an item as “Indian” unless it was created by a citizen of a state or federally recognized tribe or by an artisan certified by a tribe. The law was written to prevent the historical and ongoing misrepresentation of Native arts by non-Native entities. Yet Native artists and their advocates have long complained about the lack of enforcement as fakes and frauds have continued to flood the market and undermine an important source of income in Native communities across the United States.

It’s an issue that Secretary Deb Haaland, who is the first Native person to lead the Department of the Interior, has recognized as a major problem. “Native art is a critical part in telling the story of this country and can only be told by Native artists,” Haaland said in a video message after making history as the first Native person in a presidential cabinet. “Buying authentic pottery, jewelry, mixed-media creations, paintings and other art from Native American artists helps support tribal economies.” “Unfortunately forgery and copies hinder the positive economic opportunities available to Native artists and their families,” said Haaland, who is a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna.

The law was updated in 2000 and in 2010 to strengthen enforcement. But as fraudulent works continue to be sold in some of the largest art markets in the U.S., the ARTIST Act builds on prior efforts by broadly expanding the ways in which federal officers can investigate suspected violations. Federal officers, for instance, would be authorized to make arrests, engage in searches and even conduct seizures for suspected violations of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act.

They would also be able to inspect shipments coming into the U.S. to ensure compliance with the law, according to provisions of the draft. And for the first time, Native Hawaiians would gain protections for their creative works. The ARTIST Act modifies existing definitions in federal law to ensure that the original inhabitants of Hawaii aren’t left out of enforcement efforts that are available to American Indian and Alaska Native artisans.

To help pay for these enforcement measures, the ARTIST Act authorizes ways in which people suspected of violating the law can have their property forfeited and be required to shoulder the costs of investigations through fines and penalties. A new Indian Arts and Crafts Forfeiture Fund would be established to assist the work of the Department of the Interior.

The draft discussion bill also requires visible and permanent labeling of items that come into the U.S. from Canada or Mexico. Anything that could “possibly be mistaken for, arts and crafts made by Native Americans” must be “indelibly marked with the country of origin,” according to provisions of the the ARTIST Act.

Finally, the ARTIST Act would require trainings of federal law enforcement officers, not only on the Indian Arts and Crafts Act but on the recently-enacted Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony Act, also known as the STOP Act. The latter law makes it a crime to export tribal cultural property, another issue that has threatened Native cultures and ways of life. “For too long, the export and sale of sacred and culturally significant items from Native peoples in Hawaiʻi, Alaska, and across Indian Country has deprived these communities of their own history and heritage,” Schatz said after the measure was passed and signed into law during the prior session of Congress. “Our bill will help stop the black market trafficking of these items and bring them home.”

Just this month alone, federal authorities announced the resolution of three cases in which the Indian Arts and Crafts Act was violated. In all three instances, non-Natives created and sold fraudulent art by misrepresenting, falsifying and lying about their non-existent tribal backgrounds. In Washington, 52-year-old Lewis Anthony Rath and 67-year-old Jerry Chris Van Dyke, also known as Jerry Witten, pleaded guilty on March 1 to breaking the law.

Both men admitted that they sold fake “Indian” goods in the historic Pike Place Market in Seattle, one of the most heavily trafficked tourist areas in the city. “When non-Native artists falsely claim Indian heritage, they can take sales away from true Indian artists working to support themselves with skills and techniques handed down for generations,” Nick Brown, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, said in a news release. “Stores and galleries need to partner with artists to ensure those artisans and craftsmen advertised as Indian Artists truly have tribal status,” Brown added, offering advice to businesses to ensure they comply with the law.

Rath falsely claimed to belong to the San Carlos Apache Tribe — while producing items that mimicked the Pacific Northwest tribal cultures that are hundreds of miles from his supposed Native homeland in Arizona. According to federal authorities, the goods were sold at the Raven’s Nest Treasure and the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, both of which represented to customers that Rath was Native. And when agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is part of the Department of the Interior, searched Rath’s home and studio, they found feathers from protected birds — including ones from golden eagles. He pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of these items in addition to violating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act.

Meanwhile, Van Dyke falsely claimed to be from the Nez Perce Tribe and was selling goods that he claimed were of Alaska Native origin — again far away from his supposed tribal background in Idaho. According to federal authorities, he produced the items using materials that were supplied to him by the non-Native owner of a gallery in Pike Place.

“Van Dyke had worked with the gallery for more than ten years, with the gallery owner providing him with woolly mammoth ivory, antlers, animal bones and fossilized walrus ivory to make the pendants that it sold,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington said in the March 1 news release. A day later in Texas, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District announced the sentencing of Kevin Charles Kowalis, 60, for violating the law. According to federal authorities, he falsely marketed and sold jewelry online that he claimed were of “Zuni” and “Navajo” origin even though he does not belong to either tribal nation.

“Fraud can come in many forms but always carries the intent to deceive a victim,” U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza of the Western District of Texas said in a news release. “Offenders like this defendant victimize both our cherished Native American community and consumers who believe they’re collecting authentic pieces of Native American culture. We will not stand idle while someone takes advantage of our citizens and our federal resources.” Kowalis will serve five years probation for his crime and was ordered to forfeit his inventory, pay a special assessment and pay restitution to a victimized artist from the Pueblo of Zuni.

The total amount appears to be relatively low — less than $1,500, according to court records. No fines were ordered due to his “inability to pay,” the criminal judgment reads. “This sentencing is important in the fight to end this type of fraud,” said Assistant Director Edward J. Grace of the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement. “Our dedicated team of special agents works on behalf of the Department of the Interior and the Indian Arts and Crafts Board to protect American Indian and Alaska Native artists and the consumers who purchase authentic Native American art and craftwork.”

Over in Washington, Rath and Van Dyke are due to be sentenced on May 17. As part of a plea agreement, federal prosecutors said they won’t seek prison time for Van Dyke. Rath did not obtain any promises regarding sentencing in his plea agreement. A federal judge, though, will make the final determination on punishments for both individuals.

“The Indian Arts and Crafts Board (IACB) is very pleased that Jerry Chris Van Dyke and Anthony Rath have been brought to justice for their roles in selling fake Indian artwork in violation of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act,” said Director Meridith Stanton, the leader of the IACB, which is part of the Department of the Interior. “Cases like these are critical to preserving the integrity and viability of authentic Native American art and craftwork in general, as well as preserving the rich cultural heritage of the Nez Perce Tribe and the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the economic livelihoods of their artists and craftspeople,” said Stanton.

The IACB helps look into potential violations of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, offering examples of possible wrongdoing. But the board’s website notes that items that are marketed or portrayed as “Native American style” or “Native American inspired” can be sold without violating the law — so long as there is “qualified labeling” available to the consumer.

The draft discussion of the ARTIST Act maintains the legality of these categories of “Native American-style jewelry” and “Native American-style arts and crafts” but requires that such items be “indelibly marked” or labeled in a “permanent” fashion, to ensure the consumer is aware that they are not produced by an American Indian, Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian artist.

And while the title of the ARTIST Act contains the word “Indigenous,” the proposed bill does not contain any definitions of a term that has become increasingly used by people who are creating, marketing and selling art that they claim is Native in origin.

An example just emerged in New York, where a self-described activist opened an exhibit in February that appropriates numerous elements of Native culture even after admitting to Indianz.Com that they do not belong to any tribal community. The exhibition, located at a small gallery in the Upper East Side of New York City, notably incorporates the red imagery that Native women developed and brought to prominence to raise awareness to their missing and murdered sisters and relatives. It also includes a visual representation of a Native quilted blanket — albeit with the word “PRETENDIAN” stitched into it.

The Soul of Nations Foundation has prominently marketed the installation as “Indigenous” in origin, a designation that has prompted some Native people to consider reporting it to the Indian Arts and Crafts Board for possible violations of the Indian Artist and Crafts Act. In fact, the non-profit’s executive director and founding member, Ernest Hill, contacted Indianz.Com numerous times in advance of the opening on February 24, soliciting news coverage for an individual who removed all references to their supposed tribal affiliation over a year ago.

Yet Hill, whose parents served as religious missionaries to the Navajo Nation and to other reservations, has since refused to answer questions about the exhibition — including inquiries about the artist’s supposed tribal background.

Materials that Soul of Nations produced for the installation claim it is directed to “Indian Country” but the organization has repeatedly refused to respond to inquiries about the use of the designation in connection with someone who admitted they lack ties to any tribal community. Hill and Soul of Nations also have refused to clarify the source of funding for the project.

In press materials, they proudly assert that the installation has received “support” from the Department of State. On social media, Hill and Soul of Nations gave a different story. In response to a prominent Native environmental leader who has repeatedly attempted to hold the self-described activist accountable for the false claims of tribal belonging, they claimed that “no outside funding was provided for this exhibition.”

When asked to explain the discrepancy between the press materials and the social media post regarding their claim of receiving federal support, Hill and the Soul of Nations refused to respond. The organization started blocking Native users on social media and began restricting interactions on one of its accounts after questions were raised about the installation. The Soul of Nations website, incidentally, includes a prominent reference to the “Senate Committee on Indian Affairs” on a page that has been used to solicit monetary donations. The Department of State is also listed in the same section of the site.

Since the opening of the installation last month, the self-described “Indigenous” individual has posted on social media about being on “Day 371” of a “cancel” and a ‘call out” that has purportedly kept them “jobless.” The number of days is counted from the February 25, 2022, story on Indianz.Com that reported on their their non-existent tribal affiliations. The next post on the private account was about the installation, which opened to the public a year following publication of the story. The user has since deleted hundreds of posts about their supposed tribal background from the account, whose name is a variation of an anti-LGBTQ slur.

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is accepting comments about the Amendments to Respect Traditional Indigenous Skill and Talent (ARTIST) Act of 2023 until April 14. Comments can be sent to Artist@indian.senate.gov.

[bugtheduck]

God I just saw a video of someone talking about Nex and the way the police are trying to sweep what happened to them under the rug and blame their death on "a medical condition" and the cc pulled up a picture of them and calmly said, "We're not going to let them do this to you."

Then followed later by, "we won't let you die in vain," and bro I'm tearing up so fucking bad this is what we mean when we say protect trans youth y'all they're fucking killing our youth they're killing our kids, little trans babies that never get to grow up to be adults and feel gender euphoria and have a found family and go to their first gay bar none of it none of it the state is KILLING them fuck man we have to fight for them we have to

[protoslacker]

Finally, Indigenous property conceptions reflect Indigenous belief systems, which are rooted in the divine interconnectedness of all things in the universe. This concept is referred to in Potawatomi as “Jagenagenon” (“for all my relations,” literally) and is similarly captured in Indigenous theologies across the continent and the globe.

Angela R. Riley in Harvard Law Review. Before Mine!: Indigenous Property Rights for Jagenagenon

Mine!: How The Hidden Rules Of Ownership Control Our Lives. By Michael Heller and James Salzman. New York, N.Y.:Doubleday. 2021.

Riley: "My primary objective in this Review is to use Mine! as a jumping-off point to introduce and then contrast its central tenets with an Indigenous property perspective."

Most of the time my eyes glaze over attempting to read legal writing. Not so here. The article has broad relevance and is a delightful read.

[lachiennearoo]

Angry Rant from a Sad Frenchie

I'd advise you read this entire thing before you comment, reblog or get any opinion on this. Just to make sure you have the full context.

Alright...

Recently I found this image

It made me mad, for obvious reasons, as I am a québécois. And so I made a big rant about it in DMs with my anglo Irish boyfriend, who's always very happy to talk, and I love him very much-

ANYWAYS.

I realized that not everyone would understand my anger. Some people might even agree with this post.

But I think it's out of ignorance. Not out of anything else

And so, I will share the rant I did. Have fun

All and all, this may not sound like much, but pronouncing words in another language correctly is basic respect.

I think that if you don't care about the way you pronounce other languages' words, you just don't care about their culture or about respecting them. It's not hard to take that extra step and learn how to correctly say words.

When I say French, English, Spanish, Japanese- words, I'll always try to say them the right way. It's the least I can do to show respect.