#protect native children

[alinahdee]

YOUR GOVERNMENT AND YOUR CHURCHES KILLED NATIVE CHILDREN

YOU ARE NOT PRO LIFE

[olowan-waphiya]

https://linktr.ee/protecticwa

The Protect ICWA Campaign was established by four national Native organizations: the National Indian Child Welfare Association, the National Congress of American Indians, the Association on American Indian Affairs, and the Native American Rights Fund. Together, the Campaign works to serve and support Native children, youth, and families through upholding the Indian Child Welfare Act. The Campaign works to inform policy, legal, and communications strategies with the mission to uphold and protect ICWA.

The Indian Child Welfare Act (#ICWA) was put in place over 40 years ago to curb generations of harm resulting from the targeted assimilation of Native kids. On November 9th, it is being challenged in front of #SCOTUS, in Haaland v. Brackeen. @protecticwa invites families, leaders, singers, dancers, traditional practitioners, elders, knowledge keepers, youth, and allies to join them as they respectfully demonstrate support for ICWA at the Supreme Court on November 9th, the day of oral arguments for Haaland v. Brackeen. If opponents succeed in dismantling ICWA, they will have cleared the way for a larger attack on Native families, Native land, and tribal sovereignty. We all must stand up for ICWA.

https://linktr.ee/protecticwa

Join @ProtectICWA for a respectful demonstration on Nov. 9:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/protect-the-indian-child-welfare-act-tickets-440532282917

[themotherofhorses]

hello everyone!

if you follow me, well, first of all, many thank yous for the follow. allow me to introduce myself. My name is vic, and I’m a proud diné and mescalero apache woman. and im here with a few friendly reminders:

ICWA protects native children and youth.

today the supreme court will hear arguments opposing ICWA from this white evangelical couple, who claim it to be a form of racial discrimination. and if the court rules in favor of them, the consequences will be devastating for both native families and tribal sovereignty.

historically speaking, our cultures, traditions, languages, and children have been stolen from us. we cannot allow for this to happen once again.

click the link below to see how to help the native community! join us, please. do not stand in silence. if you are reading this, please share! reblog! tell your grandma and first cousin and best friend! anything is something.

[tinydumpsterfire]

Just finished watching Wakanda Forever.

This beautiful story is filled with so much hurt and pain. A perfect encapsulation of the hurt and pain that the natives as felt, hispanic and latin people. Of the hurt and pain the Black people have felt, African Americans and those of mixed Afro ethnicity. Of the hurt and pain that Asian people have felt, Asian Americans and the natives of the Hawaiian islands. The hurt and pain that Jewish people have felt. The hurt and pain that we continue to feel today... In the "land of the free"

And in our pain we have clawed our way out. We have fought kicking and screaming to have our basic human rights. Rights that still to this day are ignored in favor of the system of white supremacy.

And in our pain, in our fight we have kicked down others who are equally oppressed. Allowing the colonizer to pit us against each other. When we should be our strongest allies.

And today, while there is still a struggle, we move more and more towards a future where we 100% have each-others backs. We share each other's stories, sign each others petitions, walk together in protest.

But that doesn't mean that with every step of the way the system won't fight back. Abortion rights, the pipe lines and oil drills. Schools banning books on the Lgbtqia+ community, Black and native history. Police brutality. Anti-Semitism. Hate crimes against APPI. Police raiding peaceful protests and arresting water protestors, POC, trans individuals. All for using their human right to speak their voice against destruction of their land, against violence and abuse again their communities.

We have a long way to go but its not FUCKING OVER!!

[slowpokedragon]

Once again, Native American children are being stolen from their families. Sign this goddamn petition.

bringchanelhome.com is the official site.

[local-butter-and-toast]

In 7 days native parents will loose their children due to the loss of protection of ICWA. This is an act of cultural genocide. The US is trying to legalize GENOCIDE against CHILDREN. These kids and families need to be protected. We can not let this get overturned! This will strip the children from their cultures. The law isn’t even old. It was passed in 1978 and is now going to be taken away and these children will never see their families again.

There are petitions you can sign to help, I’ll link some below 👇

[chrisaleenclara]

shit [I think] you should read: how the gop uses its hatred of young people as political strategy

During the past week – which featured Amazon losing a trillion $ of value, a Texas judge shooting down student debt cancellation, the Canadian pediatric healthcare system on the verge of collapse, ICWA at the Supreme Court, Twitter becoming #ungovernable, and, oh yes, the midterms – I've returned to this piece again and again. Icon and Teen Vogue Politics editor, Lexi McMenamin writes:

"Regardless of who wins or loses on Tuesday, the right is at war with young people, and using that as an avenue to target marginalized communities across the board. If things feel extra bad right now, it’s because, unfortunately, they are."

Frankly, someone finally just coming out and saying it, was cathartic. Things are bad, and even though the midterms results are not as bad as the fear-mongering centrists told us they would be, these problems are not going anywhere. Gen Z voters, tireless organizers, and strategists have bought us some time.

And it is those same Gen Zers that the Right is at war with. In the piece, McMenamin points out that Republicans made their hatred of trans youth and so-called "Critical Race Theory" in school curriculum central to their political strategy, this term.

Right-wingers have two (very very very connected) goals here: consolidate power (turns out that was a flop) and privatization. Conservatives are skeptical of publicly administrated services that operate for goals other than profit. They want to make it absolutely hellish to be an abortion provider, teacher, doctor or nurse to trans kids... the list goes on and on. They want public school teachers, administrators, and school librarians so relentlessly policed and afraid of getting harassed and doxxed that they self-censor, or find a new job. They want doctors and nurses in public hospitals overworked and underpaid so that they opt to work for private ones. They want private schools, private prisons, private transportation systems and infrastructure projects, completely unrestricted drilling rights on formally "public" lands, and privatized health-care.

Think Twitter this week - chaos driven by the unhinged pursuit of profit and growth, by people who don't understand nor care about the product they offer/people they serve. Imagine that at your school. Or the hospital, the next time you need care.

One population of youth targeted by the far-Right that McMenamin does not mention - but definitely fits their thesis - is Native youth. This week SCOTUS heard arguments alleging that ICWA (the Indigenous Child-Welfare Act, usually pronounced ick-waa) discriminates against white adoptive parents on the basis of race. ICWA mandates that Native kin and families be given priority when looking to provide homes for Native kids.

This case is not about "race" - or at least, not in the way we usually think about it. Indigenous people have a unique relationship with the United States, because they were here first. These relationships are governed by treaties, just like any other relationship the US has with another state - yes! Indigenous nations, are, by definition, states.

According to these treaties - agreements that are in some cases older than the US itself - Indigenous nations have the right to a say over their children and in who gets to adopt them. (Again, just as any other nation, think Canada, China, or El Salvador would have the right to do.)

But, just because treaties Indigenous nations have agreements with the US, that does not mean that government (federal, state, or otherwise) have always recognized/or abided by them. ICWA was put in place in the late 70s to prevent states (who usually operate "child welfare" systems) from stealing Indigenous children and allowing them to be adopted by white parents.

Because the right to determine who is or is not a citizen is basically what makes a nation state a nation state, this case is a poorly concealed attempt to undermine Indigenous nations' ability to enact their sovereignty. For more about this, I strongly recommend listening Rebecca Nagle's incredible podcast "This Land":

In the podcast, Nagle lays out how the legal challenges to ICWA have been a coordinated effort by the Republican Right to undermine Indigenous sovereignty. But why? Simply because they are cartoonishly evil? Well, yeah. But specifically because – and this is where we connect to McMenamin's analysis – yes, you guessed it. Profits are the line. Nagle reports that if ICWA goes down, and federal Indian law with it, that could imperil tribal gaming rights. (Trump, specifically, has a fixation with tribal gaming rights, and the reason is quite obvious: it's a 30 billion dollar industry. That's 30 billion dollars that are not being spent in his casinos and generated under different regulations.) The oil and gas industry also stands to gain if SCOTUS deals a blow to federal Indian law. Indigenous people manage about 2% of land in the US, but that land contains approximately one third of fossil fuel reserves – worth about 1.5 trillion dollars, Nagle reports.

Again we see marginalized young people, in this case, often very very young children, sacrificed by the Far-Right for its political and economic interests. In episode 5, "Trojan Horse," of "This Land," Nagle describes what it was like to uncover the connection between legal challenges to ICWA and conservative funders keen to consolidate power:

"As a Native journalist, this was almost worse than uncovering some plot to undo tribal sovereignty, because it means that this attack on ICWA, where the stakes are so high for Native families and tribes, is just collateral damage in a bigger conservative agenda."

(Seriously, you should go listen to "This Land." The above summary is absolutely unworthy of Nagle's impeccable reporting.)

We won't know the outcome of ICWA for several months, nor what the strategy should be to hold newly-elected officials accountable. But, what went down on Twitter this week has given me a modicum of hope. The creative hijinks that ensued demonstrated that it is possible to interrupt, delay, antagonize and resist efforts to strip our beloved spaces of value. When the same interests come for our in-person communities, and neighboring ones, may we do the same.

[starlightshadowsworld]

ICWA literally just got saved from the chopping block and is being broken.

Chanel is a native baby who's mother was murdered by Chanel's father.

ICWA states a native child is to be looked by their community.

But Chanel, instead of being under the care of her grandmother is with a foster family in Alaska.

A very racist foster family.

Who fantasise about putting her work.

Dehumanise her by never calling her name and comparing her to a dog and Mowgli from the jungle book.

There is a petition here to request actions be made to bring Chanel back home to her grandmother.

Please sign.

This poor child deserves so much better than these awful people who compare her to animals and don't even try to hide their disdain for her people.

These people are actively breaking ICWA, which is protected by federal law.

Chanel is a baby and my heart breaks for her.

[chicago-mothman]

Unreal experience of being an ndn on facebook, scrolling:

See some post fb thinks will interest me about a baseball player protesting a drag night at the ball park because it attacks his faith

Ad

See a post by a fellow native where its a cartoon drawing of dead ndn kids buried outside a catholic boarding school

See a boring meme about being an introvert and hating people

Ad

[martyrbat]

[ID: a panel of Batman and Superman standing side by side in a clear, transparent box; surrounded by what's presumably space (?). They're shown from a slight distance and from behind. Batman asks a question to which Superman answers, gaining a reply back. The dialogue bubbles are in hieroglyphic symbols, leaving the actual contents unknown to the reader. Superman's internal monologue box reads, "Ever sense Kara – Supergirl – came into our lives, Bruce has immersed himself in learning Kryptonese." END ID]

[arctic-hands]

When I was a kid and my parents were Wiccans, I used to buy into the whole "what if the Salem witches were ACTUALLY witches" narrative, but as I get older and more away from that it just annoys and concerns me. The "witches" were innocent people caught up in a "protect the children!" hysteria, and I think having the "but they really were witches!" mindset I see a lot of pagans tout these days is beyond tacky given how we're once again living in a "protect the children!" hysteria that has already killed people

[mysticalamity]

Hey, y'all 👋🏾 check out this video! The topic is on ICWA which is currently under attack, please check out the above video.

[richmondflyingsquirrels]

icwa protected fuck yeah

[puppadumz]

Morally this is an obvious choice. The horrors of native"boarding schools" are only now being fully publicized and the stories which natives have always known, the survivor's stories are both terrifying and heartbreaking. The sheer scale of abuse, rape, and malicious neglect, and death of children is mind boggling. Even if you didn't care about native rights and the sovereignty and autonomy of native peoples, this is a(nother) fairly transparent ploy by big oil to be undermine native people and reduce their populations to ease the ability of big oil to claim and destroy native land in their short sighted spring to access and hoard every non renewable energy resource on the planet no matter the cost. So if you care about people, if you care about integrity, if you care about preserving history or land or culture, if you care about reparations to those historically oppressed slaughtered and erased, if you care about the climate, clean air, clean water, if you care about keeping families together when times are hard rather than ripping them apart, if you care about people more than corporations, if you are sick to death of bullshit Christian "save the children" lies being used as a rallying flag for hatred and genocide (anyone with an iota of Christian education would know Jesus doesn't side with oppressor and never sides with profit over people), if it makes you sick to your stomach to watch the US government continue to break promises and literal signed laws in favor of profit for over a hundred years, if you find it insulting that a big oil lawyer is representing the "Christian" couple pro bono and it expecting no one to see the connection, if you have any hope for the future, you should sign this petition, you should support natives. You should support the Indian Child Welfare Act. You should stop letting US politicians and literal whole branches of government always prioritize profit and corporations over people. We have taken so much from native people, and gained so much through knowledge willingly shared, they are owed far far more than something as simple as a signature on a petition, but it's a start.