History
“It’s all right to let Wall Street bet each other millions of dollars every day but why make these bets affect the fellow who is plowing a field out in Claremore, Oklahoma?”
In 1898, just eight years after the Wounded Knee Massacre, the U.S. Congress passed a bill that created a new federal facility: The Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians.
We know that acts of genocide were perpetrated on our people because we refused to be separated from our lands.
It is predictable. At Halloween, thousands of children (and adults) trick-or-treat in Indian costumes. At Thanksgiving, thousands of children parade in school pageants wearing plastic headdresses and pseudo-buckskin clothing.
Halloween is fast approaching, and little monsters everywhere are scrambling for costumes.
What do we think when we hear the word activism? Maybe we immediately think of somebody with their fist in the air, defiantly persisting against something. Maybe we think of protestors and demonstrators visibly making their point.
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest has become a matter of debate in Indian country. Some have chosen to be included under the slogan "We Are The 99%"; others, like me, have not.
In 1988, the United States Congress passed House Concurrent Resolution 331, expressly acknowledging that the Haudenosaunee had some degree of influence on the formation of the Constitution of the United States.
A few weeks ago, I read the following paragraph in an NPR article about the Cherokee Freedmen:
"This is not a club; you can't just claim to be Cherokee and show up and be included," says Cara Cowan Watts, a vocal member of the Cherokees' tribal council.
Greetings on Colonization Day,
The Cherokee Nation based out of Tahlequah, Oklahoma has decided to strip “Freedmen” of their Cherokee rights and to expel them from their nation. Freedmen are African American descendants of slaves.