On the same day Victorians were celebrating Premier Daniel Andrews’ announcement of the easing of the 112-day COVID-19 lockdown, the state government oversaw the felling of a 350-year-old tree sacred to the Djab Wurrung people in central Victoria. The tree was destroyed to make way for a multi-million-dollar highway upgrade.
More than 50 protesters were attacked and arrested by Victoria Police, who weaponised COVID-19 laws by fining at least 40 protesters for failing to comply with COVID-19 measures. A further ten protesters were arrested for obstructing police.
The $672 million Western Highway upgrade between Ballarat and Stawell began in 2013, but work on the Buangor to Ararat section did not begin until June 2018. Work in this section will result in the destruction of more than 3,000 trees, including at least 200 which hold cultural significance to the Djab Wurrung people. Among the trees are traditional birthing trees, to which Aboriginal women have come to give birth for hundreds of generations. The area holds “a deep intimate connection for Djab Wurrung women”, wrote Djab Wurrung woman and recently resigned member of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, Sissy Eileen Austin, in the Guardian.
Digital illustration of a indigenous woman and her child sitting on the floor. She’s looking back and is wearing a grey bodycon dress with text that reads, ‘clean water is a human right.’ Behind her, a toddler is looking at you and is wearing a green striped shirt and green pants. Between them is a water bottle labeled ‘sink water’ filled with a brown liquid.
White vegans when indigenous people agree with them: Wow, I feel such an incredible connection to Mother Earth and all of its incredible bounties. Sometimes I really feel like I have an Indian soul. What a gentle and kind people, who would never hurt a living soul. We can only aspire to be more like them
White vegans when indigenous people disagree with them: You’re a disgusting monster hiding behind your culture as an excuse to murder. It’s no different from people using culture as an excuse to bury women alive or mutilate children. I’m not saying that you deserve your genocide, but the fact that you haven’t evolved from your evil, savage ways just proves that you’re just as bad as colonizers. Kill yourself and make the world a better place
The audio starts with singers and drums in the background. An audio clip starts of a Canadian member of parliament speaking on the issue of the Trans Mountain pipeline project. This audio is from 2018.
“-and his minister adds that Canada will not be able to accommodate all Indigenous concerns. What thats means is that they have decided to willfully violate their constitutional duties and obligations.”
The speaker, Romeo Saganash, a Cree Lawmaker, continues.
“Mr Speaker, sounds like a most important relationship, doesn’t it? Why doesn’t the prime minister just say the truth and tell Indigenous people’s that he doesn’t give a fuck about their rights?”
The video is of a person leaning down to the camera (in a small area of grass and trees) before turning their back to it and dancing at the end of the video with orange text stating in all caps
“WE’RE COMING FOR EVERYTHING OUR ANCESTORS WERE DENIED”.
This witch supports the BLM movement,LGBTQIA+ rights,#WitchesAgainstNazis,Indigenous People’s Rights,Marriage Equality,everything anti-Trump, and everything anti-Nazi.
If you have a problem with that, then fuck off. Unfollow me. Block me. BYE!!!
2. Things Are Looking Native, Native’s Looking Whiter
3. Inert
4-6. Imaginary Indian
7. White Carver
8. Video stills from ’Beat Nation’
9-10. I think it goes like this?
Artist Statement:
I work with concepts; the medium follows. In the business of this “Indian Art World,” I have become impatient with the institutional prescription and its monolithic attempt to define culture as it unfolds. Native American Art cannot be commonly defined as our work moves freely through time. The viewer, collector, or curators’ definition will often convey more about themselves than that of the “Native Artist.” In the past I have struggled with this title, though I now embrace my position as a contemporary indigenous artist with belief that some forms of resistance often carry equal amounts of persistence. My current collection of work presents visual experiences in hope of inspiring creative dialogue with the viewer. I often work with an intention to contribute towards contemporary cultural development. Through education and creative risk-taking, I hope to progress cultural awareness both in and out of this Indigenous world. Let us leave fucked up stereotypes. While moving forward, we liberate the Indian artist.
The Yurok lands act (H.R.7581) would restore over 1,000 acres of ancestral land to the Yurok tribe to restore sovereignty, enable Indigenous control of the environment, and ensure that they can conduct ceremonies without permission from outside authorities. The Yurok tribe is the only federally recognized tribe in California that has any of their ancestral land, but much of what they do control is non- contiguous, and most of their land is owned by non-indigenous people. Their is more Yurok land in the hands of corporations than actual Yurok! The Yurok tribe deserve to have their land back and you can help!
If you live in the United States please contact your House member and Senators to ask them to support and cosponsor this act. Call (202) 224-3121 to be connected with your representatives or use a search engine to find them and call or email them directly.
If you have the time you can even set up a phone or video call meeting yo advocate for the Yurok lands act. You can make the appointment by calling or emailing your representative or filling out a form in their website. The meeting lasts 15-30 minutes. (I am going to go this because I am stuck at home due to COVID-19.)
Please contact your member of Congress! A quick call, voice mail, or email can make a big difference on a bill like this that gets little media attention! If you do not live in the US reblogging this posts helps US residents take action to work for Indigenous rights!
‘Elena Rivera Cardoso doesn’t mince words: “Chile is going through a tremendous water crisis.” Rivera, the president of the Indigenous Colla community of the Copiapó commune in northern Chile, and her daughter, Lesley Muñoz Rivera, know that if the waterways in their Andean homelands continue to dry up, so, too, will their ancient culture and traditions. At the heart of the crisis is lithium mining.’ […]
Rivera has heard warnings from residents of San Pedro de Atacama, including the Indigenous Lickan Antay community, about mining depleting their water supplies and affecting farming and pastoral practices. “This is what has happened here, and this is what could happen to you,” Rivera recalls them saying. The Colla community’s ancient culture and traditions are also at risk. Guided by the earth mother goddess Pachamama, the nomadic group coexists with the mountains, the water, and the wildlife, and performs seasonal ceremonies in reverence to her. About 70 percent of the community now lives in the urban center of Copiapó, and if the salt flat continues to dry up, Rivera fears those who have remained in the mountains will be forced to leave.
Muñoz, who is currently studying law at the University of Atacama in Copiapó, also laments the fact that Chile’s Indigenous communities are suffering the impacts of lithium mining while seeing none of the metal’s benefits. “Nothing stays in Chile; it all goes to other places. We don’t have electric vehicles in Chile. We suffer from the contamination, and the green energy goes to the Global North. But at whose cost?”
here’s ur reminder that axolotl is NOT pronounced like “ak-suh-laa-tl” (or lot-ul), it is in fact a nahuatl word (that most commonly translates to “water dog” actually, very cute!) and is pronounced “ah-SHOW-lowtch” !!!!
i think abt this every time i see a post abt axolotls coz i just know there r so many ppl mispronouncing it and the thought bothers me. if ppl, esp white ppl, reblogged this to spread the word to those who may not be aware, i’d be very grateful. thank u!!
A few days ago, we lost an icon of our time. Clyde Howard Bellecourt (May 8, 1936 – January 11, 2022) was a Native American civil rights organizer. An Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) activist from the White Earth Reservation, he co-founded the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Minneapolis in 1968 with Dennis Banks, Eddie Benton-Banai and George Mitchell. For years, Bellecourt worked to address issues of poverty and police brutality against Native people. He remained active throughout his long life, eventually becoming a strong advocate for eliminating offensive sports mascots. His Anishinaabe name, Nee-gon-we-way-we-dun, means “Thunder Before the Storm.”
Under Bellecourt’s leadership, AIM raised awareness of tribal issues related to the federal government, monitored police harassment in Minneapolis, created welfare programs for urban Indians, and founded Indian “survival schools” in the Twin Cities to teach children life skills and to help them learn their traditional cultures. He initiated the Trail of Broken Treaties, a long march to Washington, D.C., in 1972 to serve as a first step to renegotiating federal-tribal nations’ treaties and relations. In addition, he founded non-profit groups to undertake economic development to benefit Native Americans.
He became a negotiator at the occupation of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the site of an infamous 1890 massacre of more than 300 Lakota by the U.S. Cavalry. The Wounded Knee Occupation began on February 27, 1973 when about 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of AIM seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The occupation lasted for a total of 71 days, during which time two Lakota men were shot to death by federal agents and several more were wounded. It was a key moment in the struggle for Native American rights.
In 1993, Bellecourt and others led protests against police brutality in Minneapolis when two intoxicated Native men were driven to the hospital in the trunk of a squad car. Bellecourt continued to direct national and international AIM activities. He coordinated the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and the Media, which has long protested sports teams use of Native American mascots and names, urging them to end such practices; the Washington Redskins finally dropped their mascot in 2020 in response to years of protests. He also led Heart of the Earth, Inc., an interpretive center located behind the site of AIM’s former “survival school,” which operated from 1972 to 2008 in Minneapolis.
Bellecourt died of cancer on January 11, 2022, at the age of 85. At the time of his death, Bellecourt was the last surviving co-founder of the American Indian Movement. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stated, “Clyde Bellecourt sparked a movement in Minneapolis that spread worldwide. His fight for justice and fairness leaves behind a powerful legacy that will continue to inspire people across our state and nation for generations to come.” According to Minnesota Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan, Bellecourt was a “civil rights leader who fought for more than a half-century on behalf of Indigenous people in Minnesota and around the world. Indian Country benefited from Clyde Bellecourt’s activism.”
Abortion bans are oppressive and dehumanizing and dangerous to anyone who can become pregnant. And the people who are the most highly impacted by these laws are certain minorities. This post is focused on how reproductive rights violations impact Indigenous First Nations communities in particular, please do not derail this post or make post additions unless you are Indigenous American.
(note: many of my sources use gendered language that excludes non-women who can become pregnant. i am aware of this and am unhappy about it, but i will still be using reliable data and quotes from these sources.)
Based off of United States statistics, Native American people are the most likely to be sexually assaulted out of any racial demographic in the US by a large margin.
- On average, American Indians ages 12 and older experience 5,900 sexual assaults per year. - American Indians are twice as likely to experience a rape/sexual assault compared to all races. - 41% of sexual assaults against American Indians are committed by a stranger; 34% by an acquaintance; and 25% by an intimate or family member.
A nationally representative survey indicates that while almost 18% of white women and 7% of Asian/Pacific Islander women will be raped in their lifetimes, almost 19% of black women, 24% of mixed race women, and 34% of American Indian and Alaska Native women will be raped during their lifetimes.
Sexual assault and rape are indescribably traumatic experiences in and of themselves, even without the layer of potential for unwanted pregnancy. But pregnancy after being raped does occur. Almost 3 million people in the U.S. have experienced rape-related pregnancy. (source [x])
94% of rape victims experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following their assault. (source [x]) People who suffer from PTSD are caused extreme psychological distress by things and experiences and people that remind them of the traumatic event(s) that they suffered through. Finding out that you are carrying your rapist’s fetus can and does majorly inhibit and set back the ability to heal and recover from PTSD.
And even without this factor, many people who experience rape-related pregnancy are children, disabled in ways that would make it dangerous or even fatal to carry out a pregnancy/childbirth, unable to access the resources required during pregnancy/childbirth, or otherwise unfit or unwilling to go through a full pregnancy and childbirth.
Native Americans have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the U.S.
According to a 2018/2019 study, Indigenous populations in the U.S. have the highest percentage of teen births out of any racial demographic.
Teen pregnancy and birth is often incredibly damaging to the victim’s psyche. Teen birthing parents are twice as likely to experience post-partum depression than birthing parents of an appropriate age, have higher rates of other depressive disorders, have higher rates of suicidal ideation, and have higher rates of PTSD. (source [x])
Not only are there often grievous mental health consequences to teen pregnancy, more than 50% of teen birthing parents will receive a high school diploma, and only 2% will receive a degree before the age of 30. (source [x])
Teen birth rates will only go up if abortion is outlawed. This will disproportionately impact Indigenous communities, who already suffer from low graduation rates and high mental illness rates.
Native Americans have higher pregnancy and abortion rates in general.
-Urban AI/AN [American Indian/Alaska Native] were more likely to have had three or more pregnancies and births than NH-whites [Non-Hispanic Whites]. High fertility rates were also seen among young urban AI/AN women age 15-24 years. - Urban AI/AN reports of 2 or more abortions was twice that of NH-whites (10% vs. 5%).
This one is fairly self-explanatory. If a certain demographic is receiving more reproductive care, they will be more impacted by legislation making it difficult/impossible to access that reproductive care.
Native Americans have the highest poverty rate out of any racial demographic in the U.S.
Carrying out a pregnancy, going through childbirth, and raising a child are all things that are made much more difficult by economic disprivilege, especially in the US, where healthcare is very expensive, especially without insurance.
The estimated cost of a pregnancy and birth in the United States is $30,000 for a vaginal birth and $50,000 for a c-section. (source [x]) Many impoverished people just simply do not have that kind of money, and are forced to take on pregnancy and childbirth without appropriate healthcare, or go into medical debt.
Additionally, pregnant people require more food, which they might not be able to afford. Pregnant people often experience side effects that would make it impossible or simply unsafe to work, especially in late stage pregnancy, and people living in poverty cannot afford to lose their jobs or even to miss shifts.
Native Americans have the highest rates of death due to pregnancy/childbirth complications, second only to Black people.
Black and AIAN women have pregnancy-related mortality rates that are over three and two times higher, respectively, compared to the rate for White women (40.8 and 29.7 vs. 12.7 per 100,000 live births)
With a pregnancy mortality rate more than double that of white people, if more Indigenous people are forced to endure a pregnancy, more Indigenous people will die at disproportionate rates.
Racial disparity in pregnancy mortality rates is due in part to inability to access healthcare, as well as systematic racism within healthcare resources themselves.
Native Americans have the highest incarceration rates in the U.S. out of any racial demographic in many states, and the second highest incarceration rates overall.
Native Americans are incarcerated at a rate 38% higher than the national average, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
My final point that I’m going to be discussing is about how American Indigenous people will be treated under abortion bans.
Native Americans face much higher incarceration rates out of almost any ethnic demographic, and very often face more severe punishments than non-native (particularly white) people who were charged with the same crime. If abortion is criminalized and can be punished with incarceration, Native Americans will be disproportionately impacted.
Additionally, people who miscarry can be legally punished under anti-abortion laws, because there is simply no way to prove that miscarriages weren’t intentionally induced in many cases. We are living under a justice system that is biased against Indigenous people, and with the way things are right now, the only logical conclusion that one can draw based on evidence is that Native people who are falsely accused of abortion will be more likely to face criminal charges. Because it’s already happening.
Prosecutors argued methamphetamine use caused Poolaw’s miscarriage between 15 and 17 weeks gestation. But a state medical examiner who testified for the prosecution during the one-day trial in October said there was a complication with the placenta and the fetus had a congenital abnormality. He couldn’t say for certain whether drug use caused the pregnancy loss.
Brittney Poolaw, a 19 year old woman from the Comanche Nation, was sentenced to four years in prison after a miscarriage. The prosecution insisted that she was guilty of self-induced abortion by using meth, as she was an addict, even though medical evidence proved that there were other factors that could very well have caused miscarriage.
Abortion bans are aggressions against anyone who can become pregnant, but AI/AN communities will be impacted disproportionately. Our voices are incredibly important in matters like these, but are often talked over. Allow us to have a platform. Consider how your activism may exclude us. Thank you.
(DC1) DES MOINES, Iowa, Aug. 23—ARMED TAKEOVER—Members of the American Indian Movement stand guard in a state office building here after 10 AIM members occupied the offices Wednesday. The Indians peacefully vacated the building after two hours.
The American Indian Movement were a groundbreaking organization for indigenous rights, taking their inspiration from their contemporaries, the Black Panther Party. They boldly challenged the American power structure and demanded self-determination for their people and an end to the genocide they continue to face. Their history is a rich source of knowledge for us to take inspiration from, as well as learn from their mistakes.
With much discussion with Elders Councils and around Sacred fires and ceremonies the Secwepemc Ts’ka7 Warriors have acted out their collective responsibility and jurisdiction to and in the Ts’ka7 area by deactivating the Imperial Metals Ruddock Creek mine road. Imperial Metals Corporation never asked for or received free, prior and informed consent to operate in Secwepemc Territory. The Imperial Metals Mount Polley mine disaster, in the area known as Yuct Ne Senxiymetkwe, the absolute destruction and devastation of our Territory has never been answered for. No reparations have been made. http://goo.gl/jJqajW
The transgender community is in the public eye more than ever — and people are not pleased about it. From physical harassment to being refused medical care, transgender and nonbinary individuals often have a difficult time living as who they are. Many deny our identities altogether, claiming that they’re an odd fad that shouldn’t be acknowledged. Others claim they’re unnatural as they go against the trusted — albeit rigid and fragile — gender binary.
Declaring that the only genders are female and male, both defined by physical characteristics, the binary sees any deviation from this system as artificial and freakish. This worldview allegedly justifies transphobia. Cisgender people treat this binary as if it were infallible. Enforcing it wherever possible, they code almost every part of their lives with gender, from the way they sit to how they express emotions.
While the past few decades have given people a bit of wiggle room within the confines of their gender, they’re still confined. Why? If this binary is so instinctual, why are there people today who contradict it, or even actively fight against it?
In truth, it’s not gender variation that’s a recent invention, but the Western binary that abnormalizes it. While the term “transgender” wasn’t popularized until the 60s and “genderqueer” not until the 90s, gender expressions outside of a rigid male/female dichotomy are as old as civilization. The reason it seems contemporary is due to its ferocious eradication from history and common knowledge. This suppression was carried out and perpetuated by none other than racism and antisemitism.
Historical Gender Variance
As many more are aware of today, cultures worldwide have often recognized genders other than “male” and “female.” India’s hijra, which has existed for millennia, has an essential place in Hinduism and a socio-cultural role as performers. Judaism recognizes no fewer than six distinct sex¹ categories in its classical texts and tradition. In Oaxaca, Mexico, the third gender muxe dates back to the pre-Columbian era. The South Sulawesi Bugis people recognize five genders which have been crucial to their society for at least 600 years.
Now, not all pre-colonial societies had such views on gender, and non-Western gender systems could be just as insulting as our binary. These cultural genders are not inherently “nonbinary,” either, since the systems that contained them do not operate on a binary whatsoever. I bring them up only to illustrate the historical existence of multi-gender systems.
The Dagaaba people in present-day Ghana didn’t assign gender based on anatomy, but rather on a person’s energy. Some other West African tribes don’t assign genders at all, or at least not until age five or after puberty. African scholar Malidoma Somé notes that “at least among the Dagara people, gender has very little to do with anatomy. It is purely energetic. In that context, one who is physically male can vibrate female energy, and vice versa. That is where the real gender is.”
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí’s The Invention of Women (1997) illustrates how pre-colonial Yoruba society did not see gender as a determinant for what people could or couldn’t do. Their categories were notably permeable; the terms “man” and “woman” were reasonably insignificant. Several pre-colonial societies also had a relatively fluid approach to relations between men and women. They weren’t always opposites or sharply divided subjects, and in some societies, women had many of the same rights and participation in society as men.
Even in Europe, French poet Kalonymus ben Kalonymus expressed a longing to have been born a woman in one of his fourteenth-century works. Though it’s impossible to be sure of the poem’s sincerity or ben Kalonymus’ identity, its content could be seen as gender dysphoria through a contemporary lens. Seventeenth-century Colonial Virginian servant Thomas(ine) Hall² and eighteenth-century Jens Andersson were arguably bigender, and the Public Universal Friend (1752–1819) explicitly identified as genderless.
European doctors and philosophers used to only acknowledge one sex: male. “Females” were simply males with inverted penises. That began to change during the “long eighteenth century” (1688–1815) when Western society began shifting towards a two-sex system to generate additional chasms between men and women. Gender wasn’t just a role but now a complete physical, anatomical, and physiological difference. With colonialism, European settlers proceeded to force their rigid views on gender upon the civilizations they invaded.
Please don’t let Hasankeyf be destroyed. 12,000 years of history, culture and life cannot be erased with bombs to build a dam designed to terrorize with water and resource wars. Please, urgently sign the petition HERE to put a stop to this dam. The dam is organised to start on the 10th of June.
Luakam Anambé wanted her newborn granddaughter to have a doll — something she’d never owned as a child working in slave-like conditions in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. But she wanted the doll to share their Indigenous features, and there was nothing like that in stores. So she sewed one herself from cloth and stuffing.
The doll had brown skin, long, dark hair, and the same face and body paint used by the Anambé people. It delighted passersby; while Indigenous dolls can be found elsewhere in Latin America, they remain mostly absent in Brazil, home to nearly 900,000 people identifying as Indigenous in the last census.
A business idea was born, and her modest home now doubles as a workshop where she and her daughter produce dolls for a growing clientele.
“Before, only white dolls existed, then came the Black ones, but Indigenous ones didn’t appear,” said Anambé, 53, wearing a beaded necklace and a headdress of delicate orange feathers. “When Indigenous women see the dolls, they sometimes cry.”
Since 2013, Anambé has sold more than 5,000 dolls at local fairs and through social media, mailing them across the country, and she is fundraising to attend a German fair with the aim of exporting to Europe. Her burgeoning business in Rio de Janeiro is a world removed from the Amazonian state of Para, where her life of hardship began.
Placard holders Tom Thompson, Clancy Roberts and Davis Daniels protest against a Northern Territory Bill which would grant Aboriginal Territorians the right to lease and later sell Aboriginal Reserve land, and in the process lose it.
Protesting the ongoing colonisation and genocide of Australia’s First Nations people, and standing in solidarity with the people living on country in Western Australia who are being dispossessed of their lands by the government’s closure of remote communities
I organised this protest today - thank you to everyone that came and stood in solidarity with our Noongar mob living in Remote communities
I let myself get wrapped up in yesterday and I got angry at a mountain of things. Things that wont change, things that cant change and things that are so damn hard to change. You start to get the overwhelming feeling that you’re fighting a losing battle against Ignorance… and it wears you down!
I was so angry before I even sat down to watch the film Utopia, which is unsettling to put it mildly but was nothing i didn’t expect to see. Point is I had a shitty day but it turned around and as i was reflecting last night, i realised its the same thing that always turns my day around.
I got reminded of Vincent Lingiari and the Wave Hill walk off… I know this story inside out, but it always stops me in my tracks and makes me reflect - firstly because of the collective sense of unity and belief from the workers, their families and communities that they could change what needed to be changed and that they didn’t stop until they got what they were asking for - the Wave Hill walk off is still the longest strike in Australian history.
Then there is Vincent Lingiari who to me represents the type of leader that anyone black or white should aspire to be - sadly our kids still don’t learn about him in school - they learn about MLK and Mandela but not Lingiari. You know how people say that this person or that person didn’t know at the time that there actions would continue to change peoples lives… Lingiari to me is different, even though he was a humble man, I always feel like he did know that what happened at Wave Hill would continue to be a catalyst for change for Indigenous people for years to come.
There was some footage shown from the walk off that i cant recall if I’ve ever seen before, but yesterday it really captured me - the reporter was asking one man about what they wanted etc, then he asked him if all the families and workers supported them, the man said yes, he asked if communities supported them and the man said yes, then he asked if the whole of the Northern Territory would support them and the man said yes and that was it.
The thing that inspires me most about Wave Hill is that today - in my lifetime - I know men and women who are leaders like Lingiari, they work tirelessly because they know that change in our communities will happen eventually and they know that they are supported by our communities.
Im paraphrasing here but one old aunty was responding about racism and she said that the reason we don’t respond with violence and the reason we keep moving is because we have too much dignity. As soon as she said it, it picked me straight up. Truth is Indigenous people aren’t defined by stereotypes, ignorance, struggle, statistics or anything that the media says. We are defined by two things only Resistance and Dignity.
I got more then a few facebook deletions yesterday - but I wont apologise for the things that I write, its how I feel and not intended to offend you. My whole identity is as an Aboriginal woman and as an Aboriginal and as a woman, that may seem like double dutch but its true, these 3 things sit on par with each other at the top. Its difficult to explain to people who live with the idea that everyone is Australian that the part of me that identifies as Australian is very insignificant - to me its 9 or 10 letters that you fill in a box - nationalism has never appealed to me, i believe that the world is a bigger place and the only things of importance here are the people in it and the land we live on - not boarders.
I’m not saying that I’m better than you, Im saying that to me being Aboriginal is more than being Australian, and yesterday I was proud of being Aboriginal.
‘That was the story of Vincent Lingairri but this is the story of something much more. How power and privilege can not move a people, who know where they stand and stand in the law.’
I’ve been writing a 1500 word essay about Indigenous Rights and Aboriginal Activism throughout Australia’s history today. So proud to know that these are my brothers and sisters!
So moved by what Indigenous political activists like Charles Perkins and Noel Pearson have done in regards to achieving native title, land rights, equality and constitutional recognition in our past.
Please don’t put Noel Pearson any where near Charles Perkins or Vincent Lingairri… unless you can actually point out the good that he has done.
I’ve been noticing some confusion in the notes regarding what culture this is, so here’s some more info!
The girl in the video is Sámi. The Sámi are an indigenous people from the region of Sápmi, which encompasses northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.
The traditional clothing of Sámi people look different depending on which area tradition they belong to. This girl is north Sámi and she’s wearing a Lyngen dress (ivgu gákti in the north Sámi language), which means her family/ancestors came from Lyngen, Norway. Lyngen’s proximity to the sea made fishing a common means of livelihood for the Sámi living there, which earned them the name “sea Sámi”.
The girl in the video mentions that Sámi people get harassed a lot on the 17th of May, which is the Constitutional Day / National Day of Norway.
It should be noted and known that Sweden still hasn’t signed the ILO convention on the rights of indigenous peoples, and that it’s just in recent years that there’s been some awareness raised about the historical and ongoing colonial relationship between Sweden and the Sámi people. https://fuf.se/en/magasin/europas-enda-erkanda-urfolk-bor-i-sverigre/
I’m sorry I’m posting this without a description but it’s imperative that I post this now, I will add a description in the future.
This has been in my drafts for months. This woman is upset and angered by the kind of harassment we here in the USA have been ignoring forever.
This video predates the whole swedengate reddit post issue and it is EXACTLY the type of racism that the Norse countries need to be taken to task for now that they’re in the spotlight.
Support Sami people, indigenous rights extend beyond the Americas.
What’s wild is that like just last year there was a long legal battle between the Ainu people and a university because the university refused to give back bodies of the Ainu dead and kept them for “studies”…
(Pet peeve: Seriously people, link the sources to articles. If you’re engaged enough to be enraged by this, you should make sure people can read all of it and get more information about the issue.)
ALT
