Category: Media

Jessica Danforth, February 14, 2013;  Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

February 14 has significance for many different people—Valentine’s Day, V-Day (a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls), and now 1 Billion Rising. But in Indian Country for more than 20 years, it’s always been a strategic day to organize, resist and unite in song to demand action.

The year 2013 marks the 22nd annual Women’s Memorial March, started in the downtown Eastside of Vancouver to honor the lives of missing and murdered women. Now with a global reach and ripples of determination to organize that can be felt across Turtle Island, the marches have become critical in ensuring violence from the state, including systemic, structural, and institutional violence, does not go unaccounted for.

Audrey Huntley, one of the founders of No More Silence who have been organizing the memorial marches in Toronto for the last 8 years shared this context on a recent blog for Battered Women’s Support Services: “We choose to come together at police headquarters in order to highlight the impunity that Canada affords killers of poor and marginalized women—women not deemed worthy of state protection and Indigenous women targets of the genocidal policies inherent to a settler state. We do not ask for the state’s permission in doing so and instead honour the sovereignty of the Indigenous peoples that have shared the caretaking responsibilities of this land for thousands of years.”

The need for the state to account for the violence it is also responsible for was all too clearly evident in the chilling 89-page report released yesterday from Human Rights Watch aptly titled; “Those Who Take Us Away: Abusive Policing and Failures in Protection of Indigenous Women and Girls in Northern British Columbia, Canada.” Women, families and communities have known for quite some time the direct connection between violence from the state, violence on the land, and interpersonal violence.

“Indigenous women remain targets for violence(s) as we have been since the European invasion. For me and for Families of Sisters in Spirit, the focus always starts with and goes back to the voices of Indigenous women and families and what is happening in our everyday lives under colonialism. We are the ones living it, and we are the ones who know what is best for our families, communities and Nations. It is meaningless if our actions are not led by us.” Colleen Cardinal, Plains Cree from Treaty 6, Saddle Lake Alberta, with Families of Sisters in Spirit (FSIS).

As Colleen Cardinal says, it is crucial that events on February 14 realize this historical legacy but also the long legacy of Indigenous women leading, organizing and mobilizing events to rise up against the violence. And with that, 2013 has also seen the creation of “All Nations Rising in Indian Country” started by the Save Wiyabi Project:

“My co-founder; Jessa Rae Growing Thunder, decided we needed to put out a call to action to Indian Country to rise on V-day, because what better way for us as people to stop violence against us than to dance it away. Dancing is how we heal, pray, socialize and tell stories so it’s important for us to include our voice in 1 Billion Rising. All Nations Rising was created so people could find out what events were happening in their community, or post their events for others to see.” Lauren Chief Elk, co-founder of Save Wiyabi Project.

Today our organization, the Native Youth Sexual Health Network is honored to participate and speak out with our sisters at events in Louisiana and Toronto. We also created this Valentine’s Card to send to our HIV-positive sisters as asked for by Love Positive Women: Romance Starts at Home:

So whether you’ve been marching for the last 22 years or are just beginning to dance this year, may the love, legacy and actions of February 14 be a time to remember that you are not alone. We’re rising with you.

Jessica Danforth is the founder and executive director of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network that works across the United States and Canada in the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive health by and for Indigenous youth.

Indian Country Today Media Network Staff

The Atlanta Braves have announced that the team won’t be wearing hats featuring the “screaming Indian” logo in the upcoming baseball season after all.

When designs for the batting practice caps for all 30 Major League Baseball teams were released in December, the Braves’ cap instantly drew criticism for its use of a logo many Native Americans find offensive. The “screaming Indian” or “screaming savage” image had not been seen on a Braves uniform since 1989, and most baseball fans considered it retired, for understandable reasons.

Backlash over the hat was intense. Paul Lukas of uni-watch.com awarded it a failing grade in his review of the new gear — and soon afterward received a tip that the cap would be scrapped:

Word I’m hearing through the grapevine is that last week’s ESPN column on MLB’s new BP caps generated so much controversy and backlash against the Braves’ “screaming Indian” design that the team may end up switching to another cap logo. If that happens, expect MLB to issue lots of revisionist-history talking points about how the Indian design was just “one option we were exploring” and that it was “in development but never finalized” and that the Braves simply “opted to go in another direction” or some such. But take it from me: That design was (and, for now, still is) good to go. As of today, it’s listed in the MLB Style Guide. If the Braves ultimately abandon it, it’ll be because they responded to the backlash, period. Which, of course, is precisely what they should do. Here’s hoping.

An article posted to the Braves official site on MLB.com yesterday makes it official: The batting practice cap will be adorned with the script “A” logo, not the Indian head. Although the Braves did (as Lukas predicted) say that the design given to the sports press was not final, the MLB.com reporter acknowledged that the design was controversial. In a post at ESPN.com, Lukas says the Braves explanation “doesn’t ring true.”

Lukas also brings up another product that is bound to cause some consternation — a retro Cleveland Indians tee made by Majestic (official uniform suppliers of Major League Baseball):

News Release, United Way of Snohomish County

(Everett, WA) — On Feb. 7, over 80 United Way volunteers and staff attended the 7th annual United Ways of Washington Lobby Day.  United Way of Snohomish County had more than 20 volunteers and staff travel to Olympia to participate in the annual event. “This is going to be a challenging legislative session,” said Katrina Ondracek, Vice President of Public Policy and Community Initiatives for United Way of Snohomish County. “By lobbying, we are ensuring that our priorities are heard, and the issues facing our county are addressed.”
This year’s legislative agenda focuses on early learning, hunger, homelessness and seniors.
The group encouraged lawmakers to support several programs related to its agenda, including:

• The Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS)
• Increasing the number of ECEAP slots
• Protecting and funding the Housing Trust Fund
•  Ensuring long-term care options for the aging population
• Promoting financial education by creating financial education standards for the common core standards for English language and math

The delegation also urged lawmakers to maintain Senior Citizens Services Act funding, restore funding to State Food Assistance Program (SFA), and increase funding for Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP).
The delegation, in addition to Ondracek and United Way staff included Rich White, Patrick Pierce and Dennis Kendall, members of United Way’s Public Policy Committee; board members Josh Estes, Jackie Rae and Jim Litz; and community volunteers Tiffany Litz and Donna Wilson.
The group met with Senators Rosemary McAuliffe, Kirk Pearson, Barbara Bailey, Steve Hobbs, Nick Harper, and Paul Shin, as well as Representatives Norma Smith, Mike Sells, Hans Dunshee, Ruth Kagi, Derek Stanford, John McCoy, Elizabeth Scott, Cindy Ryu, Dan Kristiansen, Marko Liias, and Dave Hayes.  The group also shared information with the legislative assistants for Sen. Maralyn Chase and Representatives Mary Helen Roberts and Mike Hope.

By Tanya Lee, Indian Country Today Media Network

Long the cause of conflict and distrust, Black Mesa coal is becoming the key to a new approach to building a sustainable future for the Native peoples of the region and the many non-Native peoples who have lights and water because of that coal.

In early December, three generations of Navajos and Hopis met with representatives of grassroots and national human rights and environmental groups to discuss the future of Navajo Generating Station (NGS) on Navajo land near Page, Arizona. Former Navajo Nation president Milton Bluehouse says, “This was a strategy meeting about how to phase out coal for energy over a period of time and find a way to use other resources such as solar, wind or biomass to produce electricity.”

The 2,250-megawatt coal-fueled power plant was built in the early 1970s to provide power for the Central Arizona Project (CAP) and electricity for the growing cities of the Southwest. Marshall Johnson, Navajo, who describes himself as a watchman for his people, explains that most of the power generated at NGS and owned by the federal government “is used to push water uphill from Lake Havasu to Phoenix and Tucson. Eighty percent of the people in Arizona depend on CAP for their water.”

The fuel for the power plant comes from Kayenta Mine on Black Mesa. That coal is owned by the Navajo and Hopi; the strip mine is owned and operated by Peabody Energy, which pays royalties to the tribes. According to a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the power plant and the mine together provide copy50 million to the tribes, including coal royalties, bonuses, groundwater, leases and air permits. NGS employs 450 American Indians and the mine 400.

The future of NGS is up for grabs for several reasons, says Johnson: “Coal is too expensive and water is too expensive to use for generating power.” First, plant owners will in the next few years have to install pollution controls for emissions of nitrous oxides, mercury and other toxics under new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules. Estimated cost: as much as copy.1 billion. If Congress or the EPA imposes limits on carbon dioxide emissions, NGS’s position in relation to the Clean Air Act would be even more tenuous.

Second, the water service contract between Salt River Project and the Bureau of Reclamation that supplies water to the power plant expires in 2014.

Third, the power plant is on Navajo land, and the 50-year site lease for the plant, as well as the rights-of-way for transmission lines, railroads and haul roads, expires in December 2019.

Finally, the power plant uses 34,100 acre-feet a year of water from the Upper Basin of the Colorado River. Arizona’s share of that water under the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact is 50,000 acre-feet a year. The Navajo Tribe has claimed all of Arizona’s share under the Winters Doctrine. The Hopi also have a claim under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. In the original water contract to supply NGS drawn up in the late ’60s, the Navajo Nation waived all rights to Upper Colorado River water in exchange for job preference at the mine and power plant, the exclusive right to sell coal to supply the mine, an allocation of power from the plant to the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, copy25,000 over five years for Navaho Community College (now Diné College) and some CAP water. The resolution passed by the Navajo Nation Tribal Council says the tribe promises to limit its claim to 50,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water per year “for the term of the lifetime of the proposed power plant, or for 50 years, whichever shall occur first.” That 50 years is up in 2016, just one year after the life-of-mine permit expires in 2015.

Given this constellation of environmental requirements and expiring leases and contracts, Joe Browder, who worked on environmental issues in the Carter administration and is now an international consultant on energy development, says, “It is inevitable that NGS will go through some kind of transition. Since the transition will occur anyway, and funds will be invested to make that happen.… It’s not some radical dream for the tribes to think they could get a better deal.”

Clark says the Flagstaff meeting looked at two main questions: “How do we talk about what this transition should be? And how do we present our ideas to tribal and federal leadership in such a way that our ideas will be part of their discussions? We hope to elevate this issue to a top priority in President Obama’s second term.”

The options for converting NGS into a cleaner generator are many. The Navajo Reservation has excellent solar potential, according to the NREL report, and for some, solar is the preferable—or indeed the only—answer. In addition to conventional solar farms, Clark, citing a draft working paper on NGS prepared by the Grand Canyon Trust, suggests the possibility of covering the CAP canals with photovoltaic solar panels.

Natural gas could be another option as a stand-alone or it could be combined with solar, says Browder. “Tribes could offer a combination of solar and natural gas generation, which would be of real value to the utilities and their customers,” he says.

Other possibilities include the sale of the water used at NGS to cities such as Las Vegas, which, according to Clark, is paying $2,000 to $3,000 an acre-foot. The water used at NGS—which the tribes have or say they can claim—would be worth at least $68.2 million. Another option would be to use California’s carbon market.  In the global carbon market, says Clark, there are examples of indigenous people earning revenues by not cutting down their forests. Not turning organic carbon, in the form of Black Mesa coal, into atmospheric carbon could work the same way. Not running NGS could also produce revenues. At the low end, the global carbon market is paying copy0 per ton of emissions. At that figure, the carbon dioxide emitted by NGS would be worth approximately $200 million a year.

Regardless of which option (or options) is pursued, the effort will have to be led by the Department of the Interior (DOI). Clark says the Trust’s key point is that there needs to be a commitment from DOI, the Department of Energy and the EPA to come up with a sensible solution to a unique set of problems and to look at a transition plan involving the development of economic alternatives for Native peoples, providing low-cost electricity for CAP and reducing the health impacts of the mine and power plant on the Navajo and Hopi people. Several of the steps needed to keep NGS going or to create alternative energy sources will require an environmental impact statement. There is interest in the environmental and business communities in looking at the life-cycle costs of projects, which could mean, for the first time, quantifying the long- and short-term health and social impacts of coal-based generation in general and NGS in particular.

Bluehouse suggests a principle under which such a plan could evolve. If an orderly transition is going to occur, “we have to cooperate with people in Phoenix, Tucson and Southern California who use the electricity produced at NGS in a civil, respectful negotiation. We should plan this transition with compassion and humanity among all the people involved. We all have to be at the same level in terms of non-Indians and Indians.”

Despite years of struggle, which Janene Yazzie, Navajo, and others say was fostered by the federal government in order to obtain cheap coal and water from the Navajo and Hopi people, Bluehouse says he saw at the meeting “no hard feelings between Navajo and Hopi,” but rather a group of well-informed young, middle-aged and elderly people who had gathered to work collaboratively. He added, “We will have to pull together as brothers and sisters to handle this.”

By Rikki King, Herald Writer

STANWOOD — At 9 a.m. sharp, the blinds rolled up at the Stanwood Police Department.

The remodeled bank building downtown announces its tenant in two ways: old-school lettering on the windows and a wooden welcome sign outside, shaped like a goose.

Rick Hawkins has been police chief here for about a year. He’s been working to build community partnerships and revamp Business Watch and Neighborhood Watch programs.

“There’s not a lot of crime here,” Hawkins said. “It’s a good place to live, work, play and shop.”

As Hawkins drove around the city one morning last month, he saw community policing in progress — and places where more work could be done.

On one block, the chief pointed out a bank that’s added a security guard outside. In one neighborhood, somebody’s been stealing power tools. In another, city officials have been seeking grant funding to build a sidewalk to improve safety for kids walking to school.

Stanwood, a city of 6,200 in north Snohomish County, contracts with the sheriff’s office for police services.

Deputies in blue Stanwood uniforms routinely assist city parks staff with closing and opening gates, Hawkins said. They sometimes check on street lights and report burned-out bulbs.

“We’re out here. We might as well do it while we’re out on patrol,” he said.

Still, Stanwood has seen a few large-scale police incidents in past years, including a shooting at an assisted living home last week.

In March, a 3-year-old Camano Island boy fatally shot his sister with their father’s handgun in the family’s van, which was parked near City Hall. The shooting brought a lot of attention, in part because the girl’s father is a Marysville police officer. The court case just recently wrapped up. The Marysville internal investigation is ongoing.

Then, in September, the city’s uptown shopping center was shut down for hours one morning after a deputy shot and wounded a suspected serial bank robber. The suspect survived. His court case is ongoing. At least two other serial bank robbers have targeted Stanwood in recent years.

Early in 2012, Stanwood Mayor Dianne White asked Hawkins to develop a robbery prevention program, she said. She’s a pharmacist, and she knew pharmacies and banks often are targeted for holdups.

Stanwood police met with bank employees in town in the spring, Hawkins said. The FBI joined them and shared tips.

“We were building that open communication,” he said. “Part of this is just listening.”

In the fall, someone robbed a fast-food sandwich shop in town. Police since have made an arrest.

The incident alarmed Leslie Tripp, the State Farm agent for Stanwood and Camano Island. She and Hawkins serve together on the board of Stanwood’s Chamber of Commerce.

Soon after the restaurant robbery, she ran into Hawkins at a grocery store in town. She asked the chief to find a way to educate local business owners about crime prevention.

About 25 people attended the first Business Watch meeting in November, Hawkins said. They shared safety concerns and talked about security issues.

The next Business Watch meeting is planned sometime before spring, Tripp said.

Meanwhile, Stanwood police are using social media to keep people informed. The department’s Facebook page has more than 1,380 followers, the most for any police page in the county.

The day the bank robber was shot, phone calls flooded City Hall and the police station, Hawkins said. There wasn’t a lot city staff could say.

They’ve since joined Nixle, an online program where people can sign up to receive free text and email emergency alerts. Stanwood is trying to keep the alerts limited to major incidents, Hawkins said. An alert went out soon after last week’s shooting, letting people know no children had been hurt.

Hawkins’ drive through town last month took him through Copper Station, a neighborhood on the north end of Stanwood where about 100 homes are being built.

One of the first new Neighborhood Watch meetings was held there in early January, he said. About 40 people attended.

Police talked to them about when and how to report potential crimes.

About 3 the next morning, someone who had attended the meeting called 911, Hawkins said. There was a suspicious car in her neighborhood.

The “suspicious” activity turned out to be a deputy on patrol, Hawkins said. But the caller was doing what she was supposed to — keeping a lookout.

Development at Copper Station dried up during the economic downturn a few years ago, Hawkins said. Last month, construction was bustling again, with workers putting up housing frames and digging foundations.

“This is good,” Hawkins said. “This is good stuff.”