“Through the centuries, while their European counterparts in Europe grew up on stories that depicted women as weak, helpless, sinister, or untrustworthy, Native American women grew up hearing tales about the powers and strengths of women. They heard stories about women healers, women warriors, women artists, women prophets. But above all, they heard stories of woman as the divine creator, woman as a supernatural power, woman as a force of transformation in the universe. There are dozens of variations in the details, but the core meaning is consistent: women, and the female forces of the universe, are strong. Sometimes they are so powerful that they can change the course of the world. Often, once they take a stand, they change their own lives and the lives of those around them. ”
—Susan Hazen-Hammond, Spider Woman’s Web: Traditional Native American Tales About Women’s Power
[This quote is from the FIRST TWO FUCKING PAGES of the introduction.]
Wikileaks revealed US espionage of Indigenous Peoples in 2011
bsnorrell.blogspot.comIn the Censored News pick for the Best of the Best in 2011, Wikileaks claims first prize. Wikileaks exposed the US corporate schemes, espionage, promotion of mining and efforts globally to halt passage of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Wikileaks revealed extensive espionage of Indigenous Peoples, including the Mapuche and Mohawks, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales, who ushered in a new Indigenous global rights campaign.
The release of the US diplomatic cables of the US State Department confirmed that the US feared the power of Indigenous Peoples, specifically their claims to their traditional territories, a right stated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Further, the Declaration states the right of free, prior and informed consent before development proceeds and protects intellectual and cultural property rights.
“Now I've really seen it all. Michelle Williams is on the cover of AnOther Magazine, in apparent Redface. Michelle burst into the spotlight when she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Brokeback Mountain (2005). Later, she was nominated for Oscars for her work in Blue Valentine (2010) and Marilyn (2011). She is now starring as Glinda The Good Witch in Oz: The Great and Powerful (now in theaters). Dressed in a braided wig, dull beads, and turkey feathers while sporting a decidedly stoic expression, AnOther Magazine and company ups the ante by putting Michelle in a flannel shirt, jeans, and what appears to be some sort of academic or legal robe. I smell an attempt to portray reservation nobility. Are they endeavoring to capture the spirit of the American Indian Movement (AIM) circa 1973? Is this an ad for the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) or the American Indian College Fund (AICF)? Nope. It's a 33 year old white actress hyping her latest Hollywood project by wearing a cheap costume designed to make her look like she's the member of another race. Am I glad that unlike most racist, stereotypical caricatures of American Indians in pop culture today (Victoria's Secret's Racist Garbage Is Just Asking for a Boycott), Michelle is not practically naked? Yes--but just as Blackface is never okay, Redface is never okay. Ever.”
—Ruth Hopkins, “Why Is Michelle Williams In Redface?”, Jezebel 3/12/13Casting Call: Native American Actors
Maluco Studios, a production company specializing in the martial arts/action genre with bases in Florida and Bangkok Thailand, is looking for Native American/Indigenous actors for multiple upcoming film projects.
If you are Native (any North/South American Nation/Tribe is fine), live in Florida and are in the craft of acting or interested in getting into it, please send us your information as we need actors and consultants! If you are interested in the production side of filmmaking, we are offering apprenticeships as well.
We cannot stress this enough: You have to identify as Native American. A familiarity with your Nation’s history and culture as well as and understanding of (and even participate in addressing) issues today is highly encouraged. Being mixed is completely fine, but any information submitted to the effect of “My great grandmother was a Cherokee princess” or “I’m 40% Blackfoot” will not be considered and will be discarded immediately. Any actor of any other ethnicity that submits their information claiming to be able to “pull off the Native look” will also be added to our Ban List (yes, we have one).
Maluco Studios is a film company that prides itself on breaking away from the norm. We create stories and characters that break away from stereotypes and address real issues and struggles, finding the balance between informative and visually entertaining.
If you are Native/Indigenous, live in Florida and already (or want to be) involved in filmmaking on either side of the camera, please send resumes, biographies, headshots/pictures, demo reels, etc. to malucostudios@gmail.com with “Casting Call: Native American Actors” in the subject line.
Peace & Blessings.
Oppression in the Classroom
Today I stood helpless in class as the only Taiwanese aboriginal student at the predominantly Han Chinese school I teach at got torn apart by his Han classmates, who systematically debased and dismissed him as stupid. At this school, when my coteacher is teaching a class, I am not permitted to interrupt or participate in any way besides working with students one on one, and I was busy helping a special needs student when it happened.
It started with small comments here and there, “Oh, he can’t spell his own (English) name,” “Ugh, you messed up again?” and then culminated with my teacher pulling him in front of the class in a group for an activity. During that activity, a Han Chinese girl kept shouting again and again that he wasn’t doing the appropriate actions, even as a Han student stood next to him also do nothing.
“He’s not doing anything!” she shouted finally, pointing directly at him.
And that’s when I felt the stab of pain hit me, as I watched from the side of the classroom as he got hurt in a way so familiar to me, and paralyzed momentarily, did nothing to intervene. That’s when I watched him leave early from the activity and slump back to his seat. That’s when I walked over to him, and as I put my arm around his back, he immediately broke down in tears in my arms.
And as I sat there comforting him, his tears rolling down his cheeks, my Han Chinese coteacher and his classmates didn’t say a word and just continued on with class like nothing was happening.
Their dismissive approach to his pain was possibly even worse than the ridicule itself, because I could see how viciously dominant culture operates in these situations, and having gone to basically all white school myself for much of my life, I felt it too. I know how much it hurts to feel that you are never good enough, no matter how hard you try,and that your pain is meaningless to those operating from a position of power and privilege. And I could see the oppressive nature of it all here, bitingly hitting this bright, 11 year-old aboriginal kid with so much hurt.
As I comforted him, I switched into Chinese and told him that his classmates were incredibly mean, and that it was like that for me as a kid too. And then I told him again and again that I “believed in him” and that he needs to “believe in himself” too because I know how smart he is, even if the others said otherwise. At the end, as he started to wipe away his tears, I asked him if he knew he was smart too, and he said:
“… I know.”
And I proceeded to help him go over the material we had covered in class until the bell rang a few moments later.
But I wish that I could have done more. I wish that I had done something to stop this blatant discrimination against my student based on his aboriginal identity (which has been institutionalized in Taiwan). I wish I had stepped in and stood up against my Taiwanese coteacher, rules be damned, and could have helped him or done something. And I wish that he didn’t have to feel the pain caused by these painful systems of oppression, even at his young age.
And as I sit here almost in tears remembering it all, I know that, if something like that ever happens again, I need to stand up and stop it from repeating. Nobody may have been there for me as a kid in my predominantly white elementary schools, but I will be there for this student and others. Dominant culture be damned.
'They're killing us': world's most endangered tribe cries for help
guardian.co.uk
Trundling along the dirt roads of the Amazon, the giant logging lorry dwarfed the vehicle of the investigators following it. The trunks of nine huge trees were piled high on the back – incontrovertible proof of the continuing destruction of the world’s greatest rainforest and its most endangered tribe, the Awá.
Yet as they travelled through the jungle early this year, the small team from Funai – Brazil’s National Indian Foundation – did not dare try to stop the loggers; the vehicle was too large and the loggers were almost certainly armed. All they could do was video the lorry and add the film to the growing mountain of evidence showing how the Awá – with only 355 surviving members, more than 100 of whom have had no contact with the outside world – are teetering on the edge of extinction.
It is a scene played out throughout the Amazon as the authorities struggle to tackle the powerful illegal logging industry. But it is not just the loss of the trees that has created a situation so serious that it led a Brazilian judge, José Carlos do Vale Madeira, to describe it as “a real genocide”. People are pouring on to the Awá’s land, building illegal settlements, running cattle ranches. Hired gunmen – known aspistoleros – are reported to be hunting Awá who have stood in the way of land-grabbers. Members of the tribe describe seeing their families wiped out. Human rights campaigners say the tribe has reached a tipping point and only immediate action by the Brazilian government to prevent logging can save the tribe.
This week Survival International will launch a new campaign to highlight the plight of the Awá, backed by Oscar-winning actor Colin Firth. In a video to be launched on Wednesday, Firth will ask the Brazilian government to take urgent action to protect the tribe. The 51-year-old, who starred in last year’s hit movie The King’s Speech, and came to prominence playing Mr Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, delivers an appeal to camera calling on Brazil’s minister of justice to send in police to drive out the loggers.
The Awá are one of only two nomadic hunter-gathering tribes left in the Amazon. According to Survival, they are now the world’s most threatened tribe, assailed by gunmen, loggers and hostile settler farmers.
[read on | words by Gethin Chamberlain]
Climate Change Takes a Toll on Cultures
green.blogs.nytimes.comIn some places, the shifts in ecosystems require indigenous cultures to rapidly adapt or perish as their traditional means of subsistence becomes harder to sustain.
… Over longer arcs of time, Dr. Baptiste [Brigitte Baptiste, director of the Colombian Environment Ministry’s Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute] explained by e-mail, indigenous knowledge keeps pace with change, assuring the viability of the community. But in the case of rapid climate change, “if this adaptive capacity, already embedded in the fabric of local cultures, fails to give quick answers, the youngest members of the community may jump out of the tradition.”
— NYT Green blog
