Power encased in ‘Colored bubbles’

Leave the cave, arrest the recklessness; stop the massacre; embrace, get used to a world civilized by diverse peoples

Editing, re-reporting, comment by Carolyn Bennett

More than 500 Indian Nations live in the United States. All have their own rich history, language and culture.  To turn us into stereotypes is to stop seeing us as individuals, to trap us in someone else’s mistaken idea of who we are. These images are so powerful that many non-Indian people do not see us as modern people with valued history, living culture and language, or a future.

When school teams use us as mascots it goes against education’s highest goals. These schools’ graduate people who go on to become, teachers, judges, governors, and presidents who affect native communities — no matter where we live. When the United States military uses these terms and symbols it goes against its greater honor. [The] military discharges people who go on to become, teachers, judges, governors, and presidents who affect native communities — no matter where we live. 

Many American Indians have done their part to win hearts and minds of their neighbors. It is time for our national government to do its part. …

Professor Charlene Teters was testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs’ hearing on “Stolen Identities: The Impact of Racist Stereotypes on Indigenous People.” The hearing had been on the Senate calendar before what calls itself leadership in Washington turned Osama into Geronimo, Geronimo Osama.

How do we ask American Indians who have sacrificed life in defense of this young nation to reconcile the irreconcilable, to defend the indefensible, and to do so with dignity, honor and commitment? Professor Teters asked. “Is it possible … that the deepest insult was not delivered upon al Qaeda abroad, but to a small population here at home?” Who will apologize?

“Before this land was the United States,” she recalls, “it was the homeland of many Indian nations. Yet many Americans know very little about us. We survived ‘manifest destiny’ not just physically [but] culturally. As parents and as teachers, we work hard to instill in our children a sense of pride in our culture, our stories, our names for ourselves, and our historical heroes like Pontiac, Chief Joseph, and Geronimo.

“Yet we have to compete with mass media’s image or the military’s use of our historical heroes as code for the country’s enemies.

“History is extremely powerful, depending on who is telling the story. History plays an important role in defining acts and practices as racist, regardless of the intent of the larger community group. When the history is one of domination and subordination, as is the history of the Indigenous people in the United States, what counts is how the minority group understands its portrayal. History can demobilize or inspire a people.

“When the administration [in federal Washington] uses our historical hero’s name ‘Geronimo’ in connection with military action, it robs us of our heroes.”

Who will say sorry? Is sorry ever enough or is it added insult, fire to an open wound, deepening by excusing the inexcusable, an inbred tradition of cleansing, genocide, massacre, this indelible character of “righteous” violence in an entrenched power?

No, Professor, it is not the indigenous peoples who have failed to arrive at this century. Quite the contrary, it is they, who have dug the roads of a progressive era. But entrenched power encased in colored bubbles or a cultural cave digs in, holding a status quo, as of their gods and guns, creating and recreating for the benefit and posterity of that power.  

Sources and notes

From Testimony of Charlene Teters, Studio Arts Faculty, Institute Of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico,  Oversight Hearing “Stolen Identities: The Impact of Racist Stereotypes on Indigenous People, ” May 5, 2011. United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs

Charlene Teters

 “Even after a momentous civil rights movement we are invisible under the weight of ‘mythology,’  still seen as objects or as a people trapped in the past tense [but] we are twenty-first century people who must be seen as such in order to deal with serious issues facing us today.”  — Charlene Teters

She is an active artist “creating multimedia installations that examine the social presumptions and portrayals of Indian people in pop culture and media,” exhibiting internationally. Charlene Teters writes in online autobiographical notes, “My artwork expresses my personal and political views about America’s dehumanization of Indian Peoples. … My art, lecturing and teaching center on achieving a national shift in the perception of native people.”

Credentialed in Fine Art, Charlene Teters is a professor of Art (and has served as Dean of the College of Arts and Cultural Studies) at the Institute of American Indian Art.  “Teaching,” she says, “is a cherished cultural skill amongst Native people and … I take to heart my responsibility as a teacher.”

http://www.charleneteters.com/About_Me.html

Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne/Muscogee), president of The Morning Star Institute —

“… Geronimo, the man and the leader and the person who has become a fine role model for our children all over Indian Country, for him to be compared to a terrorist or an enemy is shocking — really shocking.”

Dr. Stephanie Fryberg, University of Arizona —

“The use of American Indian mascots not only promotes the development, endorsement and activation of negative attitudes and behaviors towards contemporary American Indians, but they reinforce inequality; and in doing so, they undermine race relations in this country.”

Senate Hearing

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is holding oversight hearings on depictions of Native peoples in American society and their effects. The Committee is exploring how Indian mascots, common caricatures and prevalent [false] portrayals have far-reaching influence on the identity and sense of self-worth of Native peoples and negatively affect how all Americans perceive and relate to each other.  Committee Chair Senator Daniel K. Akaka said, “Our hearing is about the real harm that is done to all people, Native and non-Native, when mascots, movies and images reinforce the stereotypes and the lines that divide rather than unite us.”

WITNESS LIST PANEL I: Tex Hall, Chairman, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, and Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association, New Town, North Dakota;  Suzan Shown Harjo, President, The Morning Star Institute, Washington, D.C.; Charlene Teters, Professor, Studio Arts, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico

WITNESS LIST PANEL II: Stephanie Fryberg, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona; Chaske Spencer, Actor/ Producer and Partner, Urban Dream Productions, New York, New York; Jim Warne, President, Warrior Society Development, San Diego, California, May 4, 2011, Washington, D.C.,  http://indian.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?hearingID=5172

“The Obama administration has sparked outrage in the Native American community following the revelation that the administration used the name of the legendary Apache leader Geronimo as a secret code word during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden” [May 6, 2011, Democracy Now lead].

“Onondaga Nation Leaders Blast 'Geronimo' Codename for Bin Laden (Charles McChesney), May 4, 2011, www.CommonDreams.org; http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/04-4

“Growing criticism that Bin Laden operation was named after Apache hero ‘Geronimo,’” Free Speech Radio New, May 5, 2011, http://fsrn.org/audio/growing-criticism-bin-laden-operation-was-named-after-apache-hero-%E2%80%9Cgeronimo%E2%80%9D/8471

 “Geronimo Was No Osama” (Commentary, Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Condition), Native News Network, May 5, 2011, http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/geronimo-was-no-osama.html; Censored News, http://www.censorednews.org/onondaga-nation-leaders-blast-geronimo-codename-for-bin-laden.html;  http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/stolen-identities-senate-hearing-targets-the-inappropriate-usage-geronimos-name.html

“Native American Activist Winona LaDuke on Use of ‘Geronimo’ as Code for Osama bin Laden: ‘The Continuation of the Wars against Indigenous People,’” May 6, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/

Geronimo

Geronimo (b. June 1829, No-Doyohn Canyon, Mexico; d. February 17, 1909, Fort Sill, Oklahoma) — Bedonkohe Apache leader of the Chiricahua Apache, who led his people’s defense of their homeland against the military might of the United States.

For generations the Apaches had resisted white (Spaniard and North American) colonization of their homeland in the Southwest.

From the day he was admitted to the warriors’ council in 1846, Geronimo continued the tradition of his ancestors, participating in raids into Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico. His mother, wife, and children died at the hands of Mexicans in 1858.

In 1874, U.S. authorities forcibly moved an estimated 4,000 Apaches to a reservation at San Carlos, a barren wasteland in east-central Arizona. Deprived of traditional tribal rights, short on rations, and homesick, they turned to Geronimo and others who led them in the depredations that plunged the region into turmoil and bloodshed [Britannica note].

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]

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Foreign Policy hypocrisy, ineptness continues

Editing, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

Reaction depends on who is 'cleansing,' whose ethnic group is being 'cleansed'

International affairs author Ted Galen Carpenter wrote the May 4 article “The Hypocritical Strain in U.S. Foreign Policy.” These are some of his thoughts on a two-faced standard, which is clear to everyone except U.S.A. Provincial and, of course, the delusional barons hunkered down inside the Beltway who believe the world’s peoples are as willfully ignorant as are the barons and their loyalists.

Washington’s hypocrisy today is evident, Carpenter writes, “in its strident condemnation of government crackdowns on pro-democracy demonstrators in such places as Syria, Iran, and Libya; and its tepid, perfunctory criticism of such crackdowns by pro-U.S. regimes in Yemen, Iraq, and Bahrain. … [And] populations throughout the Muslim world are noticing that double standard and drawing their own, rather unfavorable conclusions.”

Long precedent in two-facedness

The recent “manifestation of U.S. foreign policy hypocrisy is nothing new,” he continues. “Throughout the Cold War, Washington purported to stand for freedom, democracy, human rights, and noninterference in the internal affairs of other societies.” … At the same time, the United States helped to stage coups and took other measures to destabilize governments (including ‘democratic’ governments) Washington deemed insufficiently supportive of its regional or global objectives.

A series of U.S. administrations forged close ties with some of the planet’s most corrupt and brutal rulers — “from the Shah of Iran, to Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, to Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko. … U.S. leaders publicly lavished praise on those bloody tyrants as though they were legitimate ‘free world’ figures.”

President Obama’s Secretary of State’s husband

“The [William Jefferson] Clinton administration expressed horror at the violence in Bosnia and Kosovo following the breakup of Yugoslavia, exaggerating the civilian toll and making over-the-top comparisons to the Holocaust.” Carpenter writes…; but “as the bloodshed in the Balkans was taking place — far, far greater numbers of civilians” were being slaughtered in Sierra Leone and Liberia” yet, in the face of these deaths, the [Clinton] administration barely shrugged. Ethnic cleansing by Serb forces was outrageous but not so much when ‘allied’ Turkish forces ‘cleansed’ Greek Cypriots.

“Washington’s reaction to incidents of ‘ethnic cleansing’ depended heavily on who was doing the deed.…

“Washington has been far too promiscuous in its use of foreign policy double standards over the decades and it … appears the Obama administration — in its hypocritical, very selective reaction to examples of the ‘Arab Awakening’” — may be on the same path.

Though “no nation can be entirely consistent in its foreign policy — there will always be cases in which double standards cannot be avoided, or at least avoided without major damage to vital national interests — but policymakers should not casually engage in hypocrisy. That kind of behavior undermines credibility and creates needless enemies among foreign populations.”

This is what goes for leadership in Washington. 

Bill Clinton’s Wife — 

“Even as we mark this milestone [Sunday’s assassination of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden], we should not forget that the battle to stop al-Qaeda and its syndicate of terror will not end with the death of bin Laden. 

 “Indeed, we must take this opportunity to renew our resolve and redouble our efforts. In Afghanistan, we will continue taking the fight to al-Qaeda and their Taliban allies while working to support the Afghan people as they build a stronger government and begin to take responsibility for their own security.” — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

To which Brave New Films founder and President Robert Greenwald responded Tuesday on Democracy Now —   

“I think it’s a horrible statement in every way. The notion of tying the Taliban to al-Qaeda has been disproved over and over again; they are separate forces. The Taliban …  it’s a civil war that we’re engaged in. 

“If you could impeach Secretary Clinton for that statement, I think we should impeach her. It’s unconscionable, after what has gone on, the loss of lives and the loss of money, and for her to continue to try to escalate this misguided war.”

Sources and notes

“The Hypocritical Strain in U.S. Foreign Policy”  (The Skeptics, Ted Galen Carpenter), May 4, 2011,

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/the-hypocritical-strain-us-foreign-policy-5262

International affairs author Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. Among his books is Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington’s Futile War on Drugs in Latin America. He is a contributing editor to The National Interest and blogs for The Skeptics, http://nationalinterest.org/profile/ted-galen-carpenter; http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics

Democracy Now Tuesday, May 3, 2011, “10 Years Too Long: Rep. Barbara Lee Renews Calls for End to Afghan War After Killing of Osama bin Laden,” http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/3/10_years_too_long_rep_barbara

Cyprus — Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot sectors

Cyprus is the third largest Mediterranean island, after Sicily and Sardinia. It lies about 40 miles (65 km) south of Turkey, 60 miles (100 km) west of Syria, and 480 miles (770 km) southeast of mainland Greece.

In 1960 Cyprus became independent of Britain (it had been a crown colony since 1925) as the Republic of Cyprus. The long-standing conflict between the Greek Cypriot majority and the Turkish Cypriot minority and an invasion of the island by Turkish troops in 1974 produced an actual—although internationally unrecognized—partition of the island and led to the establishment in 1975 of a de facto Turkish Cypriot state in the northern third of the country. The Turkish Cypriot state made a unilateral declaration of independence in 1983 and adopted the name Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Only Turkey recognized its independence.

In the 1990s, the Greek Cypriot sector increasingly transformed itself into a centre of international transit trade, merchant shipping, banking, and related services (the Turkish-occupied area has not experienced the same prosperity). The republic’s Greek-run government established special tariff arrangements with the European Union and from 1990 sought admittance to the EU whose member countries account for about half of the island’s imports. In 2004, the Greek Cypriot sector joined the EU. [Britannica note]

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]

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