This Week in Native American News (10/11/19): Indigenous peoples day, national parks, and money, money, money
October 11, 2019
Why more places are abandoning Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Increasingly, Columbus Day is giving people pause.
More and more towns and cities across the country are electing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day as an alternative to – or in addition to – the day intended to honor Columbus’ voyages.
Critics of the change see it as just another example of political correctness run amok – another flash point of the culture wars.
As a scholar of Native American history – and a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina – I know the story is more complex than that.
The growing recognition and celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day actually represents the fruits of a concerted, decadeslong effort to recognize the role of indigenous people in the nation’s history.
Read the Full Story Here
But, like always, not everyone agrees…
Why I proudly celebrate Columbus Day
Substituting Indigenous People’s Day For Columbus Day Is A False Choice
Making National Parks Accessible to Native People Again
Only 22% of National Park visitors are people of color. The statistics are not surprising given the history of back country lynching and Native American removal campaigns. Photo by Andrei Stoica/EyeEm/Getty Images
My husband and I drove to the Red Rock Ranger Center to purchase our backcountry pass. I didn’t think twice about the $20 expense. The sandstone hoodoos—the spires, pinnacles, and cap rocks—are hard to maintain and protect.
When we arrived at the station, we found the parking lot packed with RVs, a gang of white-haired retirees milling around the information booth inside. The National Park Service’s centennial celebration had just ended, and the place was flooded with visitors. Looking around, I suddenly realized I was the only person of color in the station.
Only 22% of National Park visitors are people of color. The statistics are not surprising given the history of back country lynching and Native American removal campaigns. For many of us, America’s most stunning landscapes trigger memories of trauma. Survivors have nightmares in which they get hunted by blood hounds. To this day, the animalization of Native peoples as a tool for conquest makes some of us fearful of the outdoors: of sleeping outdoors without locked doors, or of being too closely connected to the outdoors in reductive, simplified, or romanticized ways.
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An artist addresses Native American genocide through comic books
Ben Turnbull’s collage portraits of Native Americans chiefs, created from thousands of chopped-up vintage comics, confront the pop-culture myths surrounding the American frontier
In cannibalising comic books, Turnbull found himself going down paths that he never expected. He describes himself as working with “a sort of bravado and confidence that you can only get by trial and error”. With the new Native American portraits, there are multiple hidden meanings included in the details of the collages – visual puns of a sort. “I was reading about people that were concerned with Manifest Destiny and there was a connection with The Wizard Of Oz. [Baum] was a real exponent of Manifest Destiny. I thought, ‘OK: Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Let's have a rainbow.’ And there's a load of subliminal little details like that.”
American History X Volume III, Manifest Decimation opens on 14 October at Bermondsey Project Space in London.
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US Coin to Honor Tlingit Woman Who Shepherded 1945 Alaskan Civil Rights Bill
“The US Mint announced last week that it will honor Elizabeth Peratrovich, Tlingit, on the 2020 dollar coin,” writes Joaqlin Estus in Indian Country Today. The coin design was unveiled this past Saturday at Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage by US Mint Chief Administrative Officer and Acting Deputy Director Patrick Hernandez.
“Next year it will be our great privilege to connect America to the powerful message of hope and perseverance in the face of discrimination,” Hernandez said at the ceremony. “We will proudly honor an Alaska Native who was a tireless advocate for Native peoples and an inspiration to the civil rights movement.”
Read the Full Story Here
It’s hard to fit all the news in a little space.
To read all of this week's news, visit the LIM Magazine.
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