#ndn

[moniquill]

Shouting into the void, looking for other indigenous Tumblr people:

If you are also indigenous and chronically on Tumblr, I'd like to follow you. Who are you and who are your people?

I'm Monique Poirier/ Moniquill Blackgoose. I'm Seaconke Wampanoag. I'm an author and a phlebotomist, among other things.

[hewasmadeofthegalaxy]

X

Don't look away from us. Don't ignore the Oklahoman queer community. Don't ignore the indigiqueer community. Don't forget Nex Benedict and the future they should have been entitled to.

[luulapants]

Reminder that associating hair length with gender is not a culturally universal concept and that many indigenous folks in North America don’t cut their hair for cultural reasons that have nothing to do with gender.

Reminder that a native guy should be allowed to wear his hair in long braids without people calling it gender nonconformity or saying he’s breaking gender norms, because hair length has nothing to do with his gender norms.

Reminder that a queer native woman should be allowed to wear her hair long without being automatically read as femme presenting, that she can be butch with long hair, because long hair is not associated with femininity in her culture.

Reminder that many native folks cut their hair for solemn reasons, usually mourning, and remarking on it as a reflection of personal style or gender presentation can be deeply disrespectful. No, she didn’t just get a fierce butch haircut - she cut her hair because someone died. No, he didn’t cave to a gender conforming haircut - he cut his hair because someone died.

Reminder that this is not universally practiced by native folks and, like all cultural practices, some people are more strict in their adherence than others.

[decolonize-the-left]

End blood quantum now

Blood quantum is how much native blood you have in you and it needs to be a certain threshold to qualify you as a tribal member. Blood quantum varies from tribe to tribe.

It means my mom is a tribal member but because my dad is outside of my tribe... I don't have enough tribal blood to enroll. Neither does my daughter. Our "official" indigeneity ended with me.

My dad is still native tho. Just southern native. Others have two parents enrolled in separate tribes and can't enroll in either one despite being Full native because their parents were mixed with other tribes so they don't have enough blood of Any tribe to qualify.

And to what end are they doing this?

Under the treaties the US govt can lay no claim to native land. So how do they fix that? Get rid of the natives, of course.

And since they can't slaughter us in broad daylight anymore they did the next best thing. What the colonial government has ALWAYS done to us and other poc.

Made up a bunch of arbitrary laws to restrain and limit our power and numbers.

And this can't continue. We are the only race who needs to apply to be part of the community we were born into. The only race who needs to prove our blood.

And that's the thing: it's not even based on blood. Racist scientists defined who was a full-blooded native based on things like shoe size, head circumference, and skin pigment.

Not blood. And besides that it wasn't uncommon for outsiders to become part of a tribe!! You didn't need to be native by blood to be native! Blood quantum has made it IMPOSSIBLE for them to qualify and made it impossible for tribes to practice that long time aspect of our culture.

So please share this post. So many people legitimately think natives are extinct and even less are aware that we do more than just sit around drinking all day. Few people have good feelings about us and within that there are a few who actively help. Please be one of those few.

We need support and allies and for our voices to be heard. Please don't let this post just be me screaming into a void. We need people to know what blood quantum is, how archaic and harmful it is, and to help us spread awareness to people who otherwise would ignore us. Use your privilege.

[its-ticsticstics]

The Wend*go is Not Your Cryptid

I'm Algonquin/Ojibwe and this is a spirit that comes from our teachings.

As a young child, the elders taught me to never even SPEAK its name, to not even sing its songs. When we sang a song about it during drumming group one year, we all got in trouble.

You do not spell the word or speak the word.

It's NOT a "cryptid" or a "spooky story" for white people to appropriate.

Its bearly spoken about in our own communities, and even then, only very carefully.

Again, not because its "creepy" but because its respected and something in our traditions that is not played around with; so its certainly not for non-ojibwe/algonquin people to speak about whatsoever. Period.

[neechees]

Colors of Native American cinema (from a tiktok trend~) edited by me.

[olowan-waphiya]

Biden creates a new national monument near the Grand Canyon - https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192622716/biden-national-monument-grand-canyon-arizona

The move protects lands that are sacred to indigenous peoples and permanently bans new uranium mining claims in the area. It covers nearly 1 million acres.

—

"It will help protect lands that many tribes referred to as their eternal home, a place of healing and a source of spiritual sustenance," she said. "It will help ensure that indigenous peoples can continue to use these areas for religious ceremonies, hunting and gathering of plants, medicines and other materials, including some found nowhere else on earth. It will protect objects of historic and scientific importance for the benefit of tribes, the public and for future generations."

—

The new national monument will be called Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument. According to the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition that drafted a proposal for the monument, "Baaj Nwaavjo" means "where tribes roam" in Havasupai, and "I'tah Kukveni" translates to "our ancestral footprints" in Hopi.

all land is sacred (and should be returned) but this is good news.

[ojibwa]

Monsheeda (Dust Maker), and his wife Mehunga (Standing Buffalo), of the Indigenous Ponca tribe, posed together in their wedding photo, circa 1900

[nagakiba]

wanna be nice? Help a native not go homeless!

My family has gotten scammmed by white people from our bnk they want fuckin 3000 from us and theyr takin away the only thing keeping us afloat. and im telling you right now that bein poor on the rez is Not Great. So! donate to not let a native family go homeless! I am begging you.

c4sh4pp - $Chvrchmouse P4yp4l - gravereb / animuskat1@/gmail.com

I will draw stuff if u rly want me to, just DM me here or on twitter and please show proof of donation bc im not playin with more scamming.

here are my prices. i can do furries/anthro and humans.

Sketches - 10-15 Depending on complexity Sketches colored - 20 Smooth colored piece - 40

Examples below (click them for full img)

if u want smth a lil different, we can discuss it n see what i can do.

[alinahdee]

ICWA STANDS!

[ciderjacks]

landback everywhere

[fuck-spock]

okay some of yall are just ignoring natives at this point where is the outcry??? how loud do we have to scream? how many of us have to go missing or be found dead before you start screaming with us?

please sign the petition to let us keep our children! and educate yourself on the true history of turtle island: hint, you gotta talk to real natives to get the true story. history is written by the victors.

[soulsludge]

finally sharing my piece from the evening star zine! find out more about it's meaning and see other beautiful art in the @ntvzine!

i'm doing so to ask all of you to consider taking a moment to submit a comment to the army corps of engineers asking them to prevent the dakota access pipeline from crossing underneath lake oahe!!! comments end december 13th, and using the pre-fabbed letter that the standing rock tribe provides takes mere seconds of your time!! if you're feeling more charitable with your time, writing a unique comment helps immensely!

if you're seeing this after dec 13th - consider checking out the zine this comes from - all proceeds go to AISES, which is an organization that helps native americans in STEM (which includes conservation work!)

that's all! thank you <3

[decolonize-the-left]

This is not a drill

This is IMPORTANT especially if you live in the USA or use the internet REGULATED by the USA!!!!

Do not scroll. Signal boost. Reblog.

Reblog WITHOUT reading if you really can't right now, I promise all the links and proof are here. People NEED to know this.

( I tried to make this accessible but you can't cater to EVERYONE so please just try your best to get through this or do your own research 🙏)

TLDR: Homeland Security has been tying our social media to our IPs, licenses, posts, emails, selfies, cloud, apps, location, etc through our phones without a warrant using Babel X and will hold that information gathered for 75 years. Certain aspects of it were hushed because law enforcement will/does/has used it and it would give away confidential information about ongoing operations.

This gets renewed in September.

Between this, Agincourt (a VR simulator for cops Directly related to this project), cop city, and widespread demonization of abortions, sex workers, & queer people mixed with qanon/Trumpism, and fascism in Florida, and the return of child labor, & removed abortion rights fresh on our tails it's time for alarms to be raised and it's time for everyone to stop calling us paranoid and start showing up to protest and mutual aid groups.

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

These are the same feds who want to build cop city and recreate civilian houses en masse and use facial recognition. The same feds that want cop city to also be a training ground for police across the country. Cop city where they will build civilian neighborhoods to train in.

Widespread mass surveillance against us.

Now let's cut to some parts of the article. May 17th from Vice:

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is using an invasive, AI-powered monitoring tool to screen travelers, including U.S. citizens, refugees, and people seeking asylum, which can in some cases link their social media posts to their Social Security number and location data, according to an internal CBP document obtained by Motherboard.

Called Babel X, the system lets a user input a piece of information about a target—their name, email address, or telephone number—and receive a bevy of data in return, according to the document. Results can include their social media posts, linked IP address, employment history, and unique advertising identifiers associated with their mobile phone. The monitoring can apply to U.S. persons, including citizens and permanent residents, as well as refugees and asylum seekers, according to the document.

“Babel data will be used/captured/stored in support of CBP targeting, vetting, operations and analysis,” the document reads. Babel X will be used to “identify potential derogatory and confirmatory information” associated with travelers, persons of interest, and “persons seeking benefits.” The document then says results from Babel X will be stored in other CBP operated systems for 75 years.

"The U.S. government’s ever-expanding social media dragnet is certain to chill people from engaging in protected speech and association online. And CBP’s use of this social media surveillance technology is especially concerning in connection with existing rules requiring millions of visa applicants each year to register their social media handles with the government. As we’ve argued in a related lawsuit, the government simply has no legitimate interest in collecting and retaining such sensitive information on this immense scale,” Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, told Motherboard in an email.

The full list of information that Babel X may provide to CBP analysts is a target’s name, date of birth, address, usernames, email address, phone number, social media content, images, IP address, Social Security number, driver’s license number, employment history, and location data based on geolocation tags in public posts.

Bennett Cyphers, a special advisor to activist

organization the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Motherboard in an online chat “the data isn’t limited to public posts made under someone’s real name on Facebook or Twitter.”

The document says CBP also has access to AdID information through an add-on called Locate X, which includes smartphone location data. AdID information is data such as a device’s unique advertising ID, which can act as an useful identifier for tracking a phone and, by extension, a person’s movements. Babel Street obtains location information from a long supply chain of data. Ordinary apps installed on peoples’ smartphones provide data to a company called Gravy Analytics, which repackages that location data and sells it to law enforcement agencies via its related company Venntel. But Babel Street also repackages Venntel’s data for its own Locate X product."

The PTA obtained by Motherboard says that Locate X is covered by a separate “commercial telemetry” PTA. CBP denied Motherboard’s FOIA request for a copy of this document, claiming it “would disclose techniques and/or procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions”.

A former Babel Street employee previously told Motherboard how users of Locate X can draw a shape on a map known as a geofence, see all devices Babel Street has data on for that location, and then follow a specific device to see where else it has been.

Cyphers from the EFF added “most of the people whose location data is collected in this way likely have no idea it’s happening.”

CBP has been purchasing access to location data without a warrant, a practice that critics say violates the Fourth Amendment. Under a ruling from the Supreme Court, law enforcement agencies need court approval before accessing location data generated by a cell phone tower; those critics believe this applies to location data generated by smartphone apps too.

“Homeland Security needs to come clean to the American people about how it believes it can legally purchase and use U.S. location data without any kind of court order. Americans' privacy shouldn't depend on whether the government uses a court order or credit card,” Senator Ron Wyden told Motherboard in a statement. “DHS should stop violating Americans' rights, and Congress should pass my bipartisan legislation to prohibit the government's purchase of Americans' data." CBP has refused to tell Congress what legal authority it is following when using commercially bought smartphone location data to track Americans without a warrant.

Neither CBP or Babel Street responded to a request for comment. Motherboard visited the Babel X section of Babel Street’s website on Tuesday. On Wednesday before publication, that product page was replaced with a message that said “page not found.”

Do you know anything else about how Babel X is being used by government or private clients? Do you work for Babel Street? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.

Wow that sounds bad right.

Be a shame if it got worse.

.

.

It does.

The software (previously Agincourt Solutions) is sold by AI data company Babel Street, was led by Jeffrey Chapman, a former Treasury Department official,, Navy retiree & Earlier in his career a White House aide and intelligence officer at the Department of Defense, according to LinkedIn.

🙃

So what's Agincourt Solutions then right now?

SO FUCKING SUS IN RELATION TO THIS, THATS WHAT

In essence, synthetic BATTLEVR training is a mixture of all three realities – virtual, augmented and physical. It is flexible enough to allow for mission rehearsals of most types and be intuitive enough to make training effective.

Anyway the new CEO of Babel Street (Babel X) as of April is a guy named Michael Southworth and I couldn't find much more on him than that tbh, it's all very vague and missing. That's the most detail I've seen on him.

And the detail says he has a history of tech startups that scanned paperwork and sent it elsewhere, good with numbers, and has a lot of knowledge about cell networks probably.

Every inch more of this I learn as I continue to Google the names and companies popping up... It gets worse.

Monitor phone use. Quit photobombing and filming strangers and for the love of fucking God quit sending apps photos of your actual legal ID to prove your age. Just don't use that site, you'll be fine I swear. And quit posting your private info online. For activists/leftists NO personally identifiable info at least AND DEFINITELY leave your phone at home to Work™!!!

[merry-harlowe]

I would rather spend a lifetime with you, than face all the Ages of this world alone.

*t4t indigiqueers your fantasy otp* (inspired by @neechees gif sets!!)

[neechees]

There's a new DBD villian out so here are your periodical reminders because im already seeing people refer to the new enemy as both "wend!g0es" & "sk*nwalker" & getting them mixed up:

The DBD team has already said that the new enemy wouldnt have anything to do with Native American mythology

Wend!g0es & sk*walkers are from Native American mythology, they are NOT "cryptids" (Algonquian & Navajo respectively)

Therefore, the new enemy is neither of those things

The whole "monster that mimics human speech & humans calling for help" thing was completely made up about ice cannibals by Stephen King in Pet Semetary iirc. This is not an original or even popular part of the "lore" or definitions of ice cannibals. Ice cannibals don't and cannot speak, let alone mimic human speech.

A sk*walker is NOT a "monster that wears human skin", or an animal wearing human skin, or a monster that looks like a "weird looking" animal, it is a human who utilizes ANIMAL SKINS, and as far as I know, they also don't do the "mimicking humans to lure them in" thing, they don't have to because they can already talk and are human.

These two beings from our cultures are not the same thing and have been heavily appropriated & bastardized & amalgamated by both the media & by moniyaws online.

Leave our spirits alone and stop calling the new DBD enemy these things because it's not anything close to what these spirits actually are.