Steve Benson for February 09, 2020

It’s a problem in Canada as well.

:’(

It’s a problem, yes, but victimization works pretty much for everyone. The children in cages? The black kids being shot dead because nobody wants to control the police? Homophobia which has parents throwing teenage children out of their homes onto the streets where selling drugs or their bodies are their only recourse besides suicide? ? The mistreatment of old people in senior homes? Prisoners raped every day for years while everyone looks the other way and pretends that the only people raped are women? Meanwhile the politicians (especially if they are Republican, but not only) continue to feather their own beds while paying no attention to others’ problems. Vote Bernie!

The late George Carlin once wryly observed that since we bought the Bearing Straight theory, we could send the Native Americans “back where they came from.” That’s a very popular theme these days. Since it’s very unlikely they had a visa when they crossed into North America, we could declare them illegal aliens and therefore subject to deportation. (Of course, the European settlers on North America didn’t have visas either. But they’re the ones who grabbed the power.) /s

I hope you get somewhere with this Steve. They can use all the help they can find.

Before I retired, I used to teach my students about “The Trail of Tears.” Most were truly shocked and outraged by how our government treated the Native Americans.

May 5 [in tribal communities] is the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native American Women. (1)

97 percent of Native women who have experienced violence are victimized by non-Native perpetrators. (2)

Over 5,700 American Indian and Alaska Native women and young girls are now reported missing. (2)

84 percent of Native women experience violence in their lifetime. (2)

“This is an epidemic.” – Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, [D] – Nevada

Up until 2013’s Violence Against Women Act, tribal law enforcement officers were barred from prosecuting non-Native perpetrators in cases of domestic violence and rape. Non-Native perpetrators are still exploiting quasi-legal measures of local ‘diplomatic immunity’ from prosecution.

(1) The date commemorates the birthday of Hanna Harris, a young mother and member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana, who was reported missing in July 2013 and found murdered a few days later.

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_of_Justice

They deserve an equal place on that Rock!

“O, Shenandoah, I love your daughter,Away you rolling river.I’ll take her ’cross yon rolling water.”Ah-ha, I’m bound away, ’Cross the wide Missouri.

The chief disdained the trader’s dollars:Away you rolling river.“My daughter never you shall follow.”Ah-ha, I’m bound away, ’Cross the wide Missouri.

He sold the chief that fire-water,Away you rolling river.And ‘cross the river he stole his daughter.Ah-ha, I’m bound away, ’Cross the wide Missouri.

Someone has to say it, because it needs to be said, this is a problem for all women. Please, I am not trying to dismiss the horror and tragedy that Native American women have to deal with every day. I fully understand that what they face is a special type of government and social bigotry. I am only trying to say is that in America, all women are at risk. We are a nation that fails to take care of our disadvantaged and weak. We allow them to be victims and prey.

People who victimize people deserve what they get. But very rarely do. There’s a shame to add to this and other shames. We are disgraceful beings in a lot of ways but none worse than creating victims.

In Canada

Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/final-report/

In America, no one seems to care.

and many people looking at this are saying “i don’t get this- WHAT missing and murdered Indian women??”

We have many Indigenous women in my university and not a single one wears a headband and braids. Stop the stereotyping, please.

It’s good to see that at least one political cartoonist hasn’t let his brain be totally coopted by the undeniably fascinating train wreck going on in DC.

“But doing anything constructive/productive about this problem would cost a LOT of money – and we absolutely MUST keep lowering taxes on my wealthy campaign donors. Otherwise, how can I keep my cushy lucrative Congressional seat?” – courtesy of Citizens United and the Five Supremes.

Steve, another powerful piece of art — thank you ♥

Indigenous people around the world and in BOTH Americas can’t ascribe many, or any, positive relationships with European invaders and their “civilzation”. Many millions destroyed, Hitler was an amateur.

Steve,

Your offering prompted me to find the story. Truly nasty. But in all the articles I can find the results are defined but not the cause. A few people here are saying this is a universal problem all women face but the statistics I am reading say otherwise.

What is the underlying cause? Things like being rural with limited infrastructure does not explain a 10-1 ratio between native victims and other US female victims. Is this a matter of native culture? I can’t imagine it being so. All that I have read indicates that native cultures in N.A. were typically more advanced in gender “equality” than Europeans during the 16th-19th centuries. If this is internal, why and how did the change occur. If it is mostly outsiders, again, how and why?

Do you have links to information more expository than the “generic” handwringing articles that spout statistics but little else?