The Spirit of All Nations.
It’s a really taboo subject to discuss out loud. If babies are born to Haudenosaune mothers with white men, they are sometimes granted a nation, a clan, and a name through ceremony. Less likely if the child is born from a white mother and a Haudenosaune man. Similarly, what about “full blooded” Haudenosaune who lost their lineage because of colonization, or children from Ojibwe mothers and Haudenosaune fathers?
As this column hits the press, thousands are gathering in Washington, DC to take a stand against the Keystone XL Pipeline. During a week that a decision was expected out of the Obama Administration on this issue, the Reject and Protect call to action will set up camp near the White House and tell the President to reject the pipeline. As it turns out, an announcement just came from the White House that the Administration has decided to kick the can on this decision for what seems like the tenth time.
Last week I wrote about decolonization, specifically asking the question “How?” We got a lot of good responses to that and this week I’d like to share a letter sent in by a self-described “white girl” about her thoughts on Decolonization. I loved it. I’m sure you will too.
During the past week I have had more conversations about “decolonization” than I have had in my whole life. As I mentioned in one of my Facebook conversations, I am not entirely comfortable with the expression.
Anishnabe singer Nikki Shawana is stirring hearts online after video circulated this weekend of her first place performance in the Ann Arbour Pow Wow hand drum contest.
Over the years there have been many revisions to the look and feel of our ‘new’ old house. It was built in the 1850’s, and not surprisingly the backyard has been a little neglected. After the spring melt I went out to do some cleaning, spending the better part of the afternoon raking the leaves and twigs.
Three years ago a couple of “Let’s Talk Native…” regulars and I made the trip to Albany to try to get some straight answers to a couple of simple questions. Matt Hill, Paul Delaronde and I met with New York State Senator George Maziarz, Republican from the 62nd Senate District of New York, to see if a State Senator could get an answer to a question that the State’s tax department refused to give us. We sat with the Senator and first queried him on his position on Native-to-Native trade and the State’s authority over our commerce and our manufactured goods.
Congratulations on the birth of your new baby and welcome to the corporation of Canada!
Soon the corporation will be handing out all the identification labels for your new baby to help them ease into the corporation as smoothly as possible. This is something that might be hard for parents of newborns living within the geographical borders of the corporation of Canada to understand, so we’ve come up with this little cheat sheet to help you out!
One of the biggest challenges for any people is broad participation in the issues that affect everyone. And when you stop and think about it, there is very little from the smallest ripples in a family to major calamities in a community that occurs without impacting others.
If you want to go for a walk on the rez you don’t get sidewalks and stoplights, just ditches and culverts. So when my daughter was small I had to make a conscious effort to take her to town, get out of the car and walk around to acclimatize her to the concrete jungle that is Brantford.
“The most consistent theme in the descriptions penned about the New World was amazement at the Indians’ personal liberty, in particular their freedom from rulers and from social classes based on ownership of property. For the first time the French and the British became aware of the possibility of living in social harmony and prosperity without the rule of a king.” – Jack Weatherford, “Indian Givers”
Although I cannot embrace the rape of the planet and obscene support for the rich lords of capitalism that seems bound to Republican DNA, there is no question that some of the worst actions and most aggressive policies our people have seen toward our trade and commerce has come from a Democrat as Governor of New York State and a Democrat as President of the United States.
Two years ago my husband and our kids moved in with family. In one of those moments that can only be described as “divine intervention” a month later I was diagnosed with an early form of breast cancer called ‘DCIS’. The move had to have been the Creator helping me out from above.
This week the entire staff of the Two Row Times was nominated in the “Winter Challenge 2014”. For those of you who don’t know this is basically a rolling dare happening on social media.
On my “Let’s Talk Native…” radio show on Sunday, March 9, I announced my new campaign. No, I am not running for office. My campaign is about truth telling and clearing away false assumptions about what the United States and Canada believe they have reduced us to — namely, their subjects.
