hushpoint

Federal Indian policy makers in the late 1800s and early 1900s sought to use the schoolhouse-specifically the boarding schools-as an instrument for acculturating Indian youth to “American” ways of thinking and living. Only by removing Indian children from their homes for extended periods of time, policy makers reasoned, could white “civilization” take root while childhood memories of “savagism” gradually fade to the point of extinction. [source] Academically, the schools and its teachers were marginal. Where available, documentation consistently shows that, at best, only half the “school” day was spent in academic instruction. The rest of the time was spent in religious indoctrination (which was regarded as the primary “academic” task by school officials) and hard labour (which in various ways was used to offset the costs of school operation).

The school was to be a model for education of the American Indian as it mission proclaimed, “To civilize the Indian, get him into civilization. To keep him in civilization, let him stay.” Pratt was often heard to say “Kill the Indian - Save the man”. Students were given new “civilized” names and uniforms. Their hair was shorn, their heads washed with kerosene and their bodies with lye. Discipline was strict, basic reading and writing were held in the mornings, agricultural or trade instruction was in the afternoons. The girls received domestic arts training. Students were forbidden to speak their own languages or practice tribal religions.

“With the three C’s, you can easily look at Conquering, Civilizing, and Christianizing. It changes a people! I think the Bureau (of Indian Affairs) schools did just that! They totally changed a people in just a real short period of time. I’m not saying that we didn’t need schools, the need was there. I needed a roof over my head. I needed an education. There were many children in my family at that time - with my mother working at ninety-cents and hour to feed me and my brothers and sisters and to provide for us and our needs. The Bureau Schools did that but it’s all the other things that they did was so devastating and so traumatic. There was no need to put our people through all the abuses that they put us through. Other than having the philosophy that their way was better than ours. They could have accomplished the best of both worlds. They could have provided the Indian way and provided us with more education without putting us through traumatic differences.”  Oral interview of Darlene “Doll” Watt. Jennifer Ferguson, interviewer. February 21, 1997, Inchelium, Washington. 

Give thanks

redguard:

Pulitzer prize-winning writer Alice Walker today compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians with the historical racism of the British Empire.
She launched her scathing attack on the Israeli government in a statement to the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, a special inquiry into Israeli war crimes taking place in London this weekend. The focus of the London session is the complicity of British and international corporations in Israeli human rights violations.
She said: “What has happened to them [the Palestinians] has happened to countless others, including my own tribes – African, Native American, poor European immigrant.” 

savagemike:

skinaybetty:

If you don’t want to be patted down or have your body scanned, just drive to where you have go or take the train. Yes trains take longer than planes and yes driving takes longer too. I’ve heard so many arguments about why this is a violation of rights and the 4th…

Also, it’s not just that *I* don’t want my rights violated. I don’t want *anybody’s* rights to be violated. Simply avoiding the airport is not the solution.

adailyriot:

On September 24 the FBI raided homes of 14 activists in movements in solidarity with oppressed workers and peoples of Latin America and Israel/Palestine. I consider these raids to be an assault on democracy. While the immediate targets of the raids were activists in movements in solidarity with trade unionists and others facing violence in Colombia and the Middle East, their purpose is to disrupt the unity of progressive movements by sowing suspicion, distrust, and an aura of guilt by association. I am not too young to remember the dark days of McCarthyism in our country, and I know very well what the effect of such government reprisals can be.

The FBI seized computers, cell phones, boxes of papers and personal possessions from all 14. They served grand jury subpoenas on many of them. The FBI announced they were investigating possible “material support” to terrorist groups. But it appears that their real purpose is to disrupt the growing unity of the majority of Americans who are critical of the wars and occupations being carried out today in Iraq and Afghanistan, who oppose U. S. support for violence against trade unionists in Colombia and against Palestinians by the Israeli government in Israel, on the West Bank, and in Gaza. The only way the FBI’s actions make any sense at all is to see them as an attempt to isolate and intimidate any who would dissent from government policy or speak out against injustice. These raids violate the spirit and the letter of the Bill of Rights. They endanger the freedom of the entire U. S. population.

We learned bitter lessons from the FBI’s COINTELPRO repression in the 1960s, in which African American leaders, including Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and leaders of the Black Panther Party such as Fred Hampton, were targeted for assassination. Progressive movements were targeted for disruption.

I urge President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to

• Direct the FBI to return the belongings seized.
• Dissolve the grand juries threatening an inquisition against peace and solidarity activists and movements.
• Cancel all subpoenas to appear before the grand jury in Chicago.

I would like to work with my Congressman Barbara Lee to support initiatives in Congress for the repeal of provisions of law that define solidarity with human rights abroad as “material support” for terrorism. The rights of all Americans must be preserved to peaceably assemble and petition their government to end support for repressive and militarist governments abroad, and states that commit war crimes and terrorist acts against their own or other people struggling for basic human rights.

redguard:

Parents plan to take their children to Inwood Hill Park this weekend to play chess in a show of support for the seven men who were ticketed for playing the board game in a restricted area of the park last month.

News of the tickets and the chess players’ upcoming court date has created an uproar in the community, with some residents defending the NYPD’s actions and others expressing outrage.

Inwood mom Jackie Rodriguez-Jones, 36, said she was incensed over the situation and planned to do what she could to support the players.

“This is about people. People who did nothing wrong. People that the community sees and passes by them. Not perfect people but people who need to know their community is aware and concerned for them,” Rodriguez-Jones wrote on her Facebook page.

The NYPD’s top spokesman defended the tickets on Thursday, saying two of the men had prior arrests and that police were being unfairly persecuted in the community for doing their job.

The NYPD — who kill and maim innocent people regularly in Inwood / Washington Heights and other majority people of color neighborhoods — are”being unfairly persecuted in the community.” Riiiigghhhht.

redguard:

In spite of a generally favorable situation, given the existence of  progressive governments and dynamic social movements, worrying signs can be perceived in Latin America. The recent attempted coup in Ecuador on September 30, 2010, and the election results in Venezuela four days earlier, are signals that call for rigorous interpretation, as Eric Toussaint is quick to point out. An activist of social change and another world order, president of the Belgian-based Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt (CADTM), and a member of the World Social Forum International Council, Eric Toussaint is also an insightful analyst of the Latin-American scene.

“An in-depth analysis of the current situation in Latin America is cause for no little concern, because I feel it is degenerating”, says Eric Toussaint. Several recent events account for the Belgian historian’s position. 

Great snapshot article.

abbyjean:

Meg Whitman says she has no regrets about investing a record-breaking $141.5 million of her own cash to run for Governor of California. Throw in the $25 million in donations and Whitman’s campaign spent nearly $170 million on her gubernatorial bid—far more than any other political candidate this election cycle.

Stop to think about that number. What does $170 million dollars get you?

10.   850 round trip tickets to space on Virgin Galactic. 

9.   6,956 Toyota Prii (or Priuses). Or 160 Ferraris, or 9 F-16 fighter jets, or…

8.   Send California’s 2.2 million unemployed workers an extra $70 check for the holidays.

7.   An estimated 3,914 California public school teachers’ first-year salaries. Or California’s  estimated 30,000 teachers could get a $5,333.00 bonus this year. 

6.   The National Endowment for the Arts 2010 budget: $161.4 million.So she could have doubled the budget for the largest annual funder of the arts in the country.

5.   Or could have paid for the top three most expensive Senate races in the country: Connecticut, California and Nevada. (And that’s still only $131 million when you add it up.)

4.   9,500 people living with HIV in the U.S. could get their meds paid for one full year.

3.   She could have provided full scholarships for almost 40,000 students to attend Cal State Universities for one year. Or prevented future tuition hikes for a few years.

2.   Her money would have bought 5,517 full undergrad scholarships to UC Berkley or UCLA including university fees, room and board, health insurance, travel expenses, etc.

1.   Or would have helped keep domestic violence shelters in California open for the next 10 years. 

the money also could have provided permanent supportive housing for 10,625 homeless people, maintained child care for 43,828 families who are scheduled to lose it due to budget cuts, more than paid for educationally-related mental health services for california K-12 students, paid for 6 months of diapers for 472,222 infants, funded the entire food stamp grant of 87,180 california households for 6 months, or any number of things that would have met the needs of californian’s more effectively and meaningfully than running her crap campaign ads for so long.