PLEASE EMAIL OUR CAMPAIGN FOR CHANGE IN DIRECTION ! WERE NOT PERFECT!
http://www.longestwalk.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=380&Itemid=121
Tens of thousands of people across the continental United States
and in Hawai'i still suffer the effects of previous uranium mining booms during the 1940s and the Cold War, and fears are growing over how a nuclear power renaissance will impact tribal lands.
Tiokasin Ghosthorse, a member of the Lakota Nation, explains, "In western South Dakota, there is an unspoken nuclear Chernobyl. There are days when the sky is brown from the dust of uranium mining tailings in the air. This is cattle and wheat country. When the dust settles, no one knows they are being radiated."
Ghosthorse, also the host of "First Voices Indigenous Radio" on New York's WBAI, speaks in a firm voice when he discusses the impact of uranium mining on his home in Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. "A few years, there were only 19 of us left from my 1973 high school graduating class of 70 or 80 people. Nine out of 10 of them had died of cancer."
To bring attention to the environmental threats and the destruction of sacred sites, hundreds of Native Americans and supporters began trekking from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., on Feb. 11. The five-month walk commemorates the 1978 Longest Walk that led to the defeat of 11 anti-Native American bills in Congress and passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.
"The Walk is a call of action to the people to wake up and realize that the continued exploitation of Mother Earth cannot go on," said Ricardo Tapia, a national coordinator of the Longest Walk 2. "This walk is for people of all colors. We are concerned about the trees, water and the sprit of the land. These things are alive. To most non-Indians, these are just seen as resources."
' The New York Times recently noted that in the case of New Mexico, where the nuclear power industry is seeking to restart uranium mining near a Dine (Navajo) reservation, "mining companies walked away from their cleanup responsibilities" of a thousand open mines after the Cold War ended. The Times stated "among the horrors" that resulted were "shifting mountains of uranium tailings; open mines leaching contaminated rain into drinking water tables; wind-blown radioactive dust; home construction from uranium mine slabs; and even the grim spectacle of children playing in radioactive swimming holes and ground pits."
Who are the active Indian / South Asian supporters of Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential Campaign in the IL, Chicagoland area?
Feel free to contact or connect with me.
Thanks.
Ravi
I remember the first time I stumbled upon Dr. Vine Deloria, Jr.’s first book Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. A Standing Rock Lakota, Dr. Deloria was, and unfortunately remains, less well-known outside of Native American circles. And this is our loss. He was not only a lawyer, but also a theologian and historian with tremendous insight about problems too many of us never think about. Referring to Native Americans throughout the United States, Deloria noted, that:
“The more we try to be ourselves, the more we are forced to defend what we have never been…To be an Indian in modern American society is in a very real sense to be unreal and ahistorical.”[1]
It had not occurred to me when I first read Deloria, but it certainly occurs to me now, that American Indian issues rarely receive news coverage. Occasionally there is a protest over the inappropriateness of naming sports teams after American Indian groups and nations, but even that is rare.
Dr. Vine Deloria, Jr. left this planet in 2005 with impressive credentials. After all, he had the distinction of being the originator of the first Native American Studies program in the country. Yet it has been several hundred years since American Indians were a large segment of the American population; and our major news outlets never grant them the kind of coverage that black Americans and Latinos enjoy.
On Friday, 1 February 2008, Barack Obama received an endorsement from the Los Angeles Times. Yet I think that it is more important to acknowledge that he received an endorsement from the Native Times, an official organ of Native Americans.
So many of us—myself included—have been preoccupied with voter turnout and the number of delegates Obama might receive on Super Tuesday. We worry about how the news media might portray him. In the process, however, we can forget the true message of this campaign. Tell the truth, folks. When was the last time you saw a presidential candidate, a blog, or an article, or a YouTube video giving a hoot in hell about Native Americans?
The results of 5 February 2008 will probably give us some clear indicators as to how much or how little will be done for the indigenous peoples of the Americas. But for now, I am proud to support a candidate that has bothered to indulge himself with an issue that is not specifically news worthy or sexy or headline-grabbing.
YES WE CAN!! http://www.youtube.com/WeCan08
© Copyright 2008 by Leslye J. Allen
[1] Vine Deloria, Jr., Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, New York: Avon Books, 1969, 10.
