Notices by Toastie (toastie@journa.host)

1924: an #Indigenous man hunts a deer on treaty-reserved land. Gets criminally convicted.

The ruling said tribal nations are not sovereign or independent, "the Indians being mere occupants of the land.”

The hunter died decades ago. The family member who continued his case died in 2007. But a tribal attorney kept pushing to get the unjust, demeaning conviction reversed.

On Thursday, nearly a century later, the #Washington state Supreme Court admitted it was wrong.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/wa-supreme-court-reverses-century-old-yakama-decision-an-injustice/

After the protests and the library occupation at #Portland State, the university wanted police to monitor the 51st annual Naimuma Powwow, which was scheduled on campus for May 04. Organizers didn’t love that idea of having police there, so they rescheduled the powwow for May 25th.



Then something special happened: students and #Indigenous community members showed up on May 04 anyway, in the park blocks by the university, and held a spontaneous Powwow for #Palestine.

https://www.underscore.news/reporting/a-powwow-for-palestine

IRISH: [is starving]

CHOCTAW: Aye. Bro, heard u have a colonizer problem.

IRISH: So hungry. No potatoes.

CHOCTAW: Yeh, those are Incan foods actually, but hey. Here's a couple hundred bucks we scraped together. Hope it helps bro.

IRISH: Didn't you just walk the trail of tears?

CHOCTAW: Aye, bro, so that's all we could afford. Sorry it's not much. Fuckin colonizers, right?

IRISH: Fuckin colonizers, man. Besties?

CHOCTAW: Besties.

#StPatricks #Indigenous #ireland

https://www.choctawnation.com/about/history/irish-connection/

"A woman living under the crawl space of an Airbnb that she cleaned... At what point can we say the American dream has become a nightmare?"

"It’s mathematically impossible to pull yourself out of homelessness without help... It’s not the moral failing of the people who are unhoused; it’s the moral failing of this country."

Julie Akins, senior housing director at AllCare Health, journalist, and former mayor of Ashland, #Oregon

https://www.hcn.org/articles/what-rural-homelessness-looks-like/

This week the Ouray County Plaindealer, a newspaper serving the southern #Colorado mountain community of Ouray, published rape allegations by a 17 year old girl who said the attacks took place at the police chief's house.

On publication day, in all of the newspaper racks around Ouray, the print editions MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARED.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ouray-stolen-newspapers-police-chief-rape_n_65aa9f5fe4b076abd7ab6a90?5e

The story that MAY have prompted SOMEONE to steal all the newspapers can be found here: https://www.ouraynews.com/2024/01/17/girl-rapes-occurred-chiefs-house/

"It's pretty clear that someone didn't want the community to read the news this week," wrote Ouray County Plaindealer co-publisher Erin McIntyre in an email to readers. "I'll leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions on which story they didn't want you to read."

https://mailchi.mp/d6d22c2f2c04/ocp-newsletter-15637191

Why not send these hardass bad bitches a donation so they can reprint the issue that SOMEONE does not want residents to read? 😀

https://checkout.fundjournalism.org/memberform?org_id=reportforamerica&campaign=701f40000003GXw&theme=Ouray+County+Plaindealer+newspaper&installmentPeriod=once

Personal remark: the County Plaindealer is a completely badass, hard-as-nails name for a newspaper. Perfect for a since-1877-in-the-Rockies paper. Fuck yeah, #journalism.

EVERYONE: We gotta save salmon

US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: Ok we'll build a giant fish vacuum

TRIBES: Why not just open up the dams

ARMY CORPS: We have to save the power companies!

POWER COMPANIES: No, you really don't

ARMY CORPS: FISH VACUUM

CONGRESS: Maybe u should look into shutting down the dams

ARMY CORPS: Our FISH VACUUM only costs $1.9 BILLION AND DOESN'T WORK LET'S GOOOOO

TRIBES: “Killing salmon to lose money deserves a deeper analysis.” (actual quote)

https://www.propublica.org/article/willamette-river-salmon-dams-usace?utm_source=comms&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=comms

Apropos of non-Native Masto users making fun of an #Indigenous user (not me) for being light-skinned, let's talk about the colonial thought structure called BLOOD QUANTUM.

You might have wondered things like: Why do some Natives look so white? Are they reeeeally Native? Aren’t they just white people with one distant Native ancestor? Etc. Etc.

Here are some things to keep in mind.

🧵 1/7

Blood quantum is the idea that you can be 1/4 this, 1/64th that, as if you were a dog breed or a racehorse. It’s based on the idea of BLOOD PURITY, which is an idea from eugenics.

If you don’t read anything else here, please marinate on this:

Asking a Native “how much are you” reinforces eugenics. It’s rude, it’s racism-enabling—don’t be that person. You don’t ask this of anyone else, so honestly why would you with Natives? Also: disappearing race trope. Yuck.



🧵 2/7

Tribally enrolled people in the US have a federally issued card from the Bureau of Indian Affairs that says “how much” Indian they are in fraction form. It’s gross and weird.

And inaccurate! Some people have one ancestor through whom they’re eligible for tribal enrollment, and other ancestors through whom they’re not. Their tribal enrollment card only reflects the former, ignoring the others and diminishing the “percent” of “Native blood” they appear to have on paper.

🧵 3/7

Tribal status is a matter of CITIZENSHIP, not race.

Nevertheless, some tribes use BQ as a standard for enrollment. It’s their sovereign right to do so, even if many Natives disagree with their decision. It’s messy, and frankly it's usually not non-Natives’ business to judge or get involved with tribal identity disputes.



ANYWAY.



Let’s think about some of the reasons Native citizens might have heavily mixed European heritage! HMMM.



🧵 4/7

Reason 1: Rape! This is a great reason not to bring BQ up with Natives! Our ancestors were traumatized! Haha! Leave it alone!


Reason 2: Betrayal! Some tribes tried to be friendly with (and marry!) the people who ended up colonizing them! SHITTY! Most Natives don’t want to talk about this with strangers either!

🧵 5/7

Reason 3: Assimilation! In the mid-1900s the US drove Native communities into poverty to break up and move them to the coasts for jobs—and assimilation! The idea was to solve the ‘Indian problem’ by erasing Native identity! COOL COOL!

Reason 4: Boarding schools! Another violent assimilationist shitshow! This one’s been particularly impactful in #Australia, with the stolen generation.

🧵 6/7

These are just a few painful examples. If a Native community claims its children and grandchildren, it’s not the business of non-Natives to question that.

Being white-passing is a luxury in the sense that white-passing Natives can blend in, and aren’t mistreated as badly as their dark skinned relatives.



But when you see someone mocking a Native person for looking white, just remember they’re actually REINFORCING racist imperialism.

🧵 7/7