Post by blackcrowheart on Jan 21, 2008 10:30:28 GMT -5
Combating White Racism Against Indigenous Peoples
By Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer
Jerry Mander is an internationally renowned indigenous peoples
rights activist. He is the Founder and Director of International
Forum On Globalization (IFG), an organization that represents 60
organizations in 25 countries. He is also credited with co-editing a
IFG book with Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the Chair of the United
Nations' Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. In his book "The
Absence Of The Sacred" Mander writes:
"Our assumption of superiority does not come to us by accident. We
have been trained in it. It is soaked into the fabric of every
Western religion, economic system, and technology. Judeo-Christian
religions are a model of hierarchical structure: one God above all,
certain humans above other humans, and humans over nature. Political
and economic systems are similarly arranged: organized along rigid
hierarchical lines, all of nature's resources [including 'other
humans'] are regarded only in terms of how they serve the one god —
the god of growth and expansion. In this way, all of these systems
are *missionary*; they embrace dominance. They are the creators and
the enforcers of our beliefs. We live inside these forms, we are
imbued with them and they justify our behaviors. In our turn, we
believe in their viability and superiority [as systems] largely
because they prove effective: they gain [us] power.
Gary R. Howard, the Founder and President of the REACH Center for
Multicultural Education, has developed collections of curriculum
materials which are being used internationally. He is frequently
asked to deliver keynote addresses at regional and national
conferences. He wrote:
"Most of our work in race relations and workforce diversity in the
United States has emphasized the particular cultural experiences and
perspectives of black, Asian, Hispanic and American Indian groups.
These, after all, are the people who have been marginalized by the
weight of European American dominance. With the shifting tide of
population in the United States, however, there is now a need to
take a closer look at the unique and changing role of white
Americans. Attention to whites' role in multicultural education is
very recent, and the focus on white identity development in
multicultural education signals a shift away from equity pedagogy."
Professor Christine Sleeter is a multicultural educator, who
lectures nationally and internationally. She won the National
Association for Multicultural Education Research Award. She says:
"The importance of multicultural education is a struggle against
white racism, rather than multiculturalism as a way to appreciate
diversity. Both historically and in contemporary society, the
relationships between racial and ethnic groups in this country are
framed within a context of unequal power. People of European descent
generally assume the power to claim the land, claim the resources,
claim the language. They even claim the right to frame the culture
and identity of who we are as Americans. That has been the case ever
since Columbus landed on the North American continent."
The International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) is combating white
racism, and on this topic it teaches:
(1.)"In spite of the first two World Conferences to Combat Racism
and their calls that Indigenous Peoples have a right to their lands
and natural resources that must be protected, Indigenous Peoples
continue to lose their lands at an alarming rate, seemingly a
continuation of the 'Conquest' of the Americas."
(2.)"Ever since Pope Alexander VI's 1493 Papal Bull "Inter Caetera",
calling for the subjugation of the Americas' "barbarous nations" and
their lands, first colonial and then successor States have forcibly
and violently destroyed Indigenous Peoples. To this day, the racial
discrimination and cultural denigration established by Pope
Alexander VI are engraved in the mentality of the Americas and
continue to underlie the rational for racial discrimination against
Indigenous Peoples. The religious imperatives of conversion and
annihilation have been replaced by assimilation and "development "
as the most desirable end for Indigenous Peoples. The State,
economic elites and trans-national corporations have replaced the
Spanish and Portuguese kings and Colonists as the beneficiaries of
Indigenous lands and resources." Reference (1.)
Mililani Trask is an indigenous expert to the United Nations. She
says: "...globalization - the new form of economic colonization.
There is racism here, there surely is. An IFG - Indigenous Peoples
and Globalization Project - statement declares:
"This project aims to examine and publicize the multiple impacts of
the globalization process on the most marginalized of all
populations, native peoples. Today, millions of native people still
live traditional lifestyles, each with a distinct culture, language,
knowledge base, identity, and view of the cosmos. The impact of
globalization is strongest on these populations perhaps more than
any other because these communities have no voice and are therefore
easily swept aside by the invisible hand of the market and its
proponents. Globalization not only discounts native peoples, it is
driving them closer and more rapidly toward extinction." Note:
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is the Chair of this IFG projest as well as
Chair of the United Nations' Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issue
(UNPFII). The UNPFII has given its support for my effort to change
Minnesota's "Rum" River name, a punning translation name that
desecrates the ancient Dakota "Indian" name Wakan, it is translated
as (Great) Spirit.
National and international leaders of multicultural education, the
International Forum On Globalization, and the International Indian
Treaty Council seem to be on the same wave length, in respect to
their worldviews against white-racism teachings.
In addition to my local, national, and international Catholic social
and political activist campaign to replace twenty two of Minnesota's
white racist geographic place names that are offensive to the
Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, I am also promoting my own -
similar to the teachings of internationally renown multicultural
educators, IFG's Jerry Mander and the International Indian Treaty
Council - Catholic teaching ministry. Ref. (2.)
Steve Russell (Cherokee) - a Texas state judge, twice past President
of the Texas Indian Bar Association, Associate Professor of Criminal
Justice, Indiana University, wrote, when referring to my
campaign: "This campaign is a valuable history lesson!" And Tom
Wisner, a singer and song writer who is known nationally for his
song "Chesapeake Born" - and who has received national, state, and
local awards for excellence in teaching, sent me an e-mail in
response to the news of Rep. Mike Jaros' offer to help with
the "important legislation" to change MN's geographic place names
that are offensive to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. In the
e-mail Mr. Wisner mentioned that it is "conceivable to hire good
education song writers" to promote legislative projects to show due
respect for Indigenous peoples' languages and traditional cultures.
And he also mentioned that he "could develop a proposal if he (DFL
Rep. Mike Jaros) is interested".
Apparently, white racists used the evil name of the Devil to name
twelve of Minnesota's geographic place names. Linda Godfrey, a best-
selling author and award winning journalist wrote:
"Racial hatred was why many geographic places were given the name
Devil. Place names evoking the Devil reflect a dominant attitude on
the part of Euro-American settlers towards the New World during the
migration into the wild West. The history of place names is based in
mistranslation, deliberate insult and slur..., as well as a
Christian notion of the wilderness as the domain of the Devil."
"The origination of many of the Devils across Wisconsin probably has
more to do with racial hatred than anything else. Early white
settlers were mostly Christian and viewed Native Americans with
their different spiritual practices as heathens (at best) or savages
and devil-worshipers (most likely). It's a long-standing tradition
across time to demonize your foes prior to taking everything they
have – including their lives – to assuage any possible feelings of
guilt."
"Native Americans saw spirits in many shapes and forms and though
there was sometimes a Supreme Being, goodness or badness or tricks
flowed from a variety of sources. In the simplistic Either/Or view
of the early settlers, this mind-set of multiple spiritual sources
was tantamount to practicing deviltry, and so settlers tended to put
a malevolent spin on the landscape when interpreting native names
for the surrounding landscape."
"...in the native cosmogony there is no single evil spirit
comparable to the devil. In the mind of the settlers though, all
this "heathen" spirituality had to be the work or the sign of the
devil. So the name Devil was given often to native areas known
formerly by names meaning Sacred or Spirit or Mystery."
"For example, Devil's Lake in Wisconsin's Sauk County is the white
settlers' interpretation of the Ho-Chunk name Day-wa-kun-chunk,
meaning Sacred Lake
In the Encyclopedia of North American Indians there is an article
titled: Place names. The following excerpt was take from the
article. "Manitou and Wakanda are common names on the map as
Algonquian and Siouan terms for the Great Spirit. Whites often
changed these names to Devil, and so we have Devil's Lake in
Michigan, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and elsewhere."
In Minnesota we have Devil Track Lake and Devil Track River, in
these cases the Ojibwe name for the Great Spirit (Manitou) was
mistranslated Devil. And in Minnesota we also have Rum River and
West Branch Rum River. In these cases the sacred Mdewakanton Dakota
name Wakan, translated as (Great) Spirit was mistranslated as
the "demon spirit" rum, which brought misery and ruin to many of the
natives.
Let's replace these white racists names, let's not let these evil
racist names adorn our geographic places and maps.
The first Pope (Peter) was a Jew, but all of the Popes since Peter
have been white European men. The reason why a Catholic indigenous
man of the Americas - who is participating in his people's culture,
within his people's traditional homeland - can not become the Pope
as well as why no other colored indigenous Catholic man - who is
participating in his people's culture, within his people's
traditional homeland - can become the Pope is because the Catholic
Church believes in and practices extreme white racism in the context
of radical institutional racism. Reference: statistics revealing
institutional racism (3.)
Many white people of European descent are psychologically addicted
to a type of racism where in they need to dominate the world. They
need their white European Pope sitting on the throne of Peter
exercising great influence over the world.
A recent United Nation's World Conference Against Racism document
proclaims that a 15th century Papal Bull "declared war against all
non-Christians throughout the world, and specifically sanctioned and
promoted the conquest, colonization, and exploitation of non-
Christian nations and their territories." (4.) This Papal Bull,
written by Pope Nicholas V, instructed Columbus and other slave
traders to "capture, vanquish, and subdue the pagans, and other
enemies of Christ," to "put them into perpetual slavery," and "to
take all their possessions and property". (5.) And in Pope Alexander
VI's papal bull of 1493 (Inter Caetera), he stated his desire that
the "discovered" people be "subjugated and brought to the faith
itself." By this means, said the pope, the "Christian Empire" would
be propagated. (6.)Consequently, Columbus wrote, after discovering
the homelands of the indigenous peoples of the America s, "Let us in
the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can
be sold." (7.) (8.)
Bishop Bartolome de Las Casas, the first European historian in the
Americas wrote, when referring to the Europeans' first forty years
of genocidal behavior in the Americas:
"….for they are still acting like ravening beasts, killing,
terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native
peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new
methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a
degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a
population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now
a population of barely two hundred persons." (9.)
By Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer
Jerry Mander is an internationally renowned indigenous peoples
rights activist. He is the Founder and Director of International
Forum On Globalization (IFG), an organization that represents 60
organizations in 25 countries. He is also credited with co-editing a
IFG book with Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the Chair of the United
Nations' Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. In his book "The
Absence Of The Sacred" Mander writes:
"Our assumption of superiority does not come to us by accident. We
have been trained in it. It is soaked into the fabric of every
Western religion, economic system, and technology. Judeo-Christian
religions are a model of hierarchical structure: one God above all,
certain humans above other humans, and humans over nature. Political
and economic systems are similarly arranged: organized along rigid
hierarchical lines, all of nature's resources [including 'other
humans'] are regarded only in terms of how they serve the one god —
the god of growth and expansion. In this way, all of these systems
are *missionary*; they embrace dominance. They are the creators and
the enforcers of our beliefs. We live inside these forms, we are
imbued with them and they justify our behaviors. In our turn, we
believe in their viability and superiority [as systems] largely
because they prove effective: they gain [us] power.
Gary R. Howard, the Founder and President of the REACH Center for
Multicultural Education, has developed collections of curriculum
materials which are being used internationally. He is frequently
asked to deliver keynote addresses at regional and national
conferences. He wrote:
"Most of our work in race relations and workforce diversity in the
United States has emphasized the particular cultural experiences and
perspectives of black, Asian, Hispanic and American Indian groups.
These, after all, are the people who have been marginalized by the
weight of European American dominance. With the shifting tide of
population in the United States, however, there is now a need to
take a closer look at the unique and changing role of white
Americans. Attention to whites' role in multicultural education is
very recent, and the focus on white identity development in
multicultural education signals a shift away from equity pedagogy."
Professor Christine Sleeter is a multicultural educator, who
lectures nationally and internationally. She won the National
Association for Multicultural Education Research Award. She says:
"The importance of multicultural education is a struggle against
white racism, rather than multiculturalism as a way to appreciate
diversity. Both historically and in contemporary society, the
relationships between racial and ethnic groups in this country are
framed within a context of unequal power. People of European descent
generally assume the power to claim the land, claim the resources,
claim the language. They even claim the right to frame the culture
and identity of who we are as Americans. That has been the case ever
since Columbus landed on the North American continent."
The International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) is combating white
racism, and on this topic it teaches:
(1.)"In spite of the first two World Conferences to Combat Racism
and their calls that Indigenous Peoples have a right to their lands
and natural resources that must be protected, Indigenous Peoples
continue to lose their lands at an alarming rate, seemingly a
continuation of the 'Conquest' of the Americas."
(2.)"Ever since Pope Alexander VI's 1493 Papal Bull "Inter Caetera",
calling for the subjugation of the Americas' "barbarous nations" and
their lands, first colonial and then successor States have forcibly
and violently destroyed Indigenous Peoples. To this day, the racial
discrimination and cultural denigration established by Pope
Alexander VI are engraved in the mentality of the Americas and
continue to underlie the rational for racial discrimination against
Indigenous Peoples. The religious imperatives of conversion and
annihilation have been replaced by assimilation and "development "
as the most desirable end for Indigenous Peoples. The State,
economic elites and trans-national corporations have replaced the
Spanish and Portuguese kings and Colonists as the beneficiaries of
Indigenous lands and resources." Reference (1.)
Mililani Trask is an indigenous expert to the United Nations. She
says: "...globalization - the new form of economic colonization.
There is racism here, there surely is. An IFG - Indigenous Peoples
and Globalization Project - statement declares:
"This project aims to examine and publicize the multiple impacts of
the globalization process on the most marginalized of all
populations, native peoples. Today, millions of native people still
live traditional lifestyles, each with a distinct culture, language,
knowledge base, identity, and view of the cosmos. The impact of
globalization is strongest on these populations perhaps more than
any other because these communities have no voice and are therefore
easily swept aside by the invisible hand of the market and its
proponents. Globalization not only discounts native peoples, it is
driving them closer and more rapidly toward extinction." Note:
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is the Chair of this IFG projest as well as
Chair of the United Nations' Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issue
(UNPFII). The UNPFII has given its support for my effort to change
Minnesota's "Rum" River name, a punning translation name that
desecrates the ancient Dakota "Indian" name Wakan, it is translated
as (Great) Spirit.
National and international leaders of multicultural education, the
International Forum On Globalization, and the International Indian
Treaty Council seem to be on the same wave length, in respect to
their worldviews against white-racism teachings.
In addition to my local, national, and international Catholic social
and political activist campaign to replace twenty two of Minnesota's
white racist geographic place names that are offensive to the
Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, I am also promoting my own -
similar to the teachings of internationally renown multicultural
educators, IFG's Jerry Mander and the International Indian Treaty
Council - Catholic teaching ministry. Ref. (2.)
Steve Russell (Cherokee) - a Texas state judge, twice past President
of the Texas Indian Bar Association, Associate Professor of Criminal
Justice, Indiana University, wrote, when referring to my
campaign: "This campaign is a valuable history lesson!" And Tom
Wisner, a singer and song writer who is known nationally for his
song "Chesapeake Born" - and who has received national, state, and
local awards for excellence in teaching, sent me an e-mail in
response to the news of Rep. Mike Jaros' offer to help with
the "important legislation" to change MN's geographic place names
that are offensive to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. In the
e-mail Mr. Wisner mentioned that it is "conceivable to hire good
education song writers" to promote legislative projects to show due
respect for Indigenous peoples' languages and traditional cultures.
And he also mentioned that he "could develop a proposal if he (DFL
Rep. Mike Jaros) is interested".
Apparently, white racists used the evil name of the Devil to name
twelve of Minnesota's geographic place names. Linda Godfrey, a best-
selling author and award winning journalist wrote:
"Racial hatred was why many geographic places were given the name
Devil. Place names evoking the Devil reflect a dominant attitude on
the part of Euro-American settlers towards the New World during the
migration into the wild West. The history of place names is based in
mistranslation, deliberate insult and slur..., as well as a
Christian notion of the wilderness as the domain of the Devil."
"The origination of many of the Devils across Wisconsin probably has
more to do with racial hatred than anything else. Early white
settlers were mostly Christian and viewed Native Americans with
their different spiritual practices as heathens (at best) or savages
and devil-worshipers (most likely). It's a long-standing tradition
across time to demonize your foes prior to taking everything they
have – including their lives – to assuage any possible feelings of
guilt."
"Native Americans saw spirits in many shapes and forms and though
there was sometimes a Supreme Being, goodness or badness or tricks
flowed from a variety of sources. In the simplistic Either/Or view
of the early settlers, this mind-set of multiple spiritual sources
was tantamount to practicing deviltry, and so settlers tended to put
a malevolent spin on the landscape when interpreting native names
for the surrounding landscape."
"...in the native cosmogony there is no single evil spirit
comparable to the devil. In the mind of the settlers though, all
this "heathen" spirituality had to be the work or the sign of the
devil. So the name Devil was given often to native areas known
formerly by names meaning Sacred or Spirit or Mystery."
"For example, Devil's Lake in Wisconsin's Sauk County is the white
settlers' interpretation of the Ho-Chunk name Day-wa-kun-chunk,
meaning Sacred Lake
In the Encyclopedia of North American Indians there is an article
titled: Place names. The following excerpt was take from the
article. "Manitou and Wakanda are common names on the map as
Algonquian and Siouan terms for the Great Spirit. Whites often
changed these names to Devil, and so we have Devil's Lake in
Michigan, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and elsewhere."
In Minnesota we have Devil Track Lake and Devil Track River, in
these cases the Ojibwe name for the Great Spirit (Manitou) was
mistranslated Devil. And in Minnesota we also have Rum River and
West Branch Rum River. In these cases the sacred Mdewakanton Dakota
name Wakan, translated as (Great) Spirit was mistranslated as
the "demon spirit" rum, which brought misery and ruin to many of the
natives.
Let's replace these white racists names, let's not let these evil
racist names adorn our geographic places and maps.
The first Pope (Peter) was a Jew, but all of the Popes since Peter
have been white European men. The reason why a Catholic indigenous
man of the Americas - who is participating in his people's culture,
within his people's traditional homeland - can not become the Pope
as well as why no other colored indigenous Catholic man - who is
participating in his people's culture, within his people's
traditional homeland - can become the Pope is because the Catholic
Church believes in and practices extreme white racism in the context
of radical institutional racism. Reference: statistics revealing
institutional racism (3.)
Many white people of European descent are psychologically addicted
to a type of racism where in they need to dominate the world. They
need their white European Pope sitting on the throne of Peter
exercising great influence over the world.
A recent United Nation's World Conference Against Racism document
proclaims that a 15th century Papal Bull "declared war against all
non-Christians throughout the world, and specifically sanctioned and
promoted the conquest, colonization, and exploitation of non-
Christian nations and their territories." (4.) This Papal Bull,
written by Pope Nicholas V, instructed Columbus and other slave
traders to "capture, vanquish, and subdue the pagans, and other
enemies of Christ," to "put them into perpetual slavery," and "to
take all their possessions and property". (5.) And in Pope Alexander
VI's papal bull of 1493 (Inter Caetera), he stated his desire that
the "discovered" people be "subjugated and brought to the faith
itself." By this means, said the pope, the "Christian Empire" would
be propagated. (6.)Consequently, Columbus wrote, after discovering
the homelands of the indigenous peoples of the America s, "Let us in
the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can
be sold." (7.) (8.)
Bishop Bartolome de Las Casas, the first European historian in the
Americas wrote, when referring to the Europeans' first forty years
of genocidal behavior in the Americas:
"….for they are still acting like ravening beasts, killing,
terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native
peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new
methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a
degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a
population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now
a population of barely two hundred persons." (9.)