The White Male His-story of Sexuality, and the Power of The Marginalised Voice

image is from here

Unlike some of my peers, I do not regard Sigmund Freud as unworthy of study. But nor do I place him at the center of such study. Across cultures and eras, white men have had some really bizarre ideas about sexuality and gender. They've theorised there's only one sex, and that there are only two (opposite) sexes. However many genders and sexes white men believe exist, they seem incapable of imagining a world in which men do not dominate and control women and "women's sexuality"--often enough a sexuality designed by men for men. I've watched enough white male science fiction wherein the white male writer or producer creates new worlds in future eras. I've watched enough to know that however far into the universe the white het male supremacist's mind goes, he cannot creatively conceive of women *not* dressing in tight outfits designed for his voyeuristic pleasure. He cannot conceive of her as not existing for him.

Whatever the theories, they have tended to serve both white and male supremacy against the bodies and and human rights of millions of women and girls of all colors and cultures. Their theories are also traditionally anti-lesbian and anti-gay. Their theories have functioned to promote the humanity of white (and usually het) men (the minority) while denigrating and demonising the humanity of everyone else (the majority). His inhumanity is often enough rendered invisible, or is termed something else--the product, perhaps, of unfortunate events early in his life. That white men, as a class, ensure that unfortunate events will systematically scar the lives of girls globally seems not to worry him. In this theories and in his world, only white men act out their pain in gynocidal and genocidal ways. White men traditionally theorise their pain as an explanation for their abusive actions. If painful childhoods, troubled by rape and invasion, were the source of acting out violence against other people, and if victimised people were allowed do violence to their perpetrators, men the world over would have a lot to worry about. And white men who travel the world over to rape trafficked and enslaved girls and women would have cause to worry a great deal.

What I look for in theory is a human story, a humane understanding, that reveals to the reader the role of white and male supremacy, among other forces of institutionalised ideology, in making things as they are. I look for theory to bring into focus the experiences and worldviews of the people who whites and men seek to silence and destroy.

One such theory of sexuality is found in Catharine A. MacKinnon's essay "Does Sexuality Have a History?", which may be read here:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mqrarchive/act2080.0030.001/16:2?g=mqrg;page=root;rgn=full+text;size=100;view=image;xc=1

I've praised the following work before, and this time won't be the last. But one of the best essays on sexuality, one of the best theories on sex that I've seen, is the one that follows. Referencing the video (well, the audio), I don't quite understand the laughter from the audience at one point. Although times have changed and margarine isn't regarded in the same way as it was in the 1970s, nothing about her analogy is funny to me. Taken without today's negative associations, I see it as useful to her points, especially as it conjures such a tactile, sensual relationship to her ideas on the Erotic.

This is an early version of a speech and essay that later appeared in her brilliant collection of speeches and essays called Sister Outsider. It was delivered at a radical and feminist conference on pornography and prostitution in the late 1970s in San Francisco, CA, USA.



Here is a link to the speech as presented in that book:

http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2010/08/uses-of-erotic-erotic-as-power-classic.html

Please consider the theories of radical feminist women of color as necessarily central to our understandings of all of us, and organise your revolutions around their ideas and visions.

image is from here

 

On Pornography and Sexual Athleticism

image is from here

[Added to at the end, on 9 March 2012.]

It is often argued by pro-pornography consumers and sexxxism industry producers and investors that the actors in pornography films are amazing human beings demonstrating a kind of Olympian ability to have sex over and over and over again. Below is one such comment that appeared here: http://nextgenjournal.com/2012/02/inside-pornography-a-rational-feminist-critique/

It is the first comment offered following the article by Larisa Manescu.

Jim Graham [writes:]

It is true that since the mid-90's, BDSM-inspired power play has become the dominant style of sex act portrayed in mainstream pornography. There is quite a bit more slapping and choking in the porn scenes released from the mainstream porn industry over the last 20 years, but this is not just because of the porn industry's traditional misogyny (though there certainly is that).

Porn stars are sexual athletes who demonstrate advanced sex play for the viewer's pleasure. Anal sex and threesomes are advanced sex. These (and most) porn sex acts are activities that many sexual beginners hope to experience one day, and as they become more sexually advanced these men and women (swingers, poly, kinky sluts, and other monogamish people) often live out their fantasies, with or without integrating elements of power play. The extreme acts that you mention (ATM, gagging, DP/DV/DA, etc.) are much dirtier than regular sex, and porn stars make their money by pushing boundaries, but not unusual at a private sex party.

While the women in most pornography are portrayed as submissive, please keep in mind that there are thousands of porn scenes where the man is dominated, cuckolded or otherwise made to submit in the same ways.

All modern sex scenes include more spitting than ever before, which you and I probably agree is much less appealing, but for most porn watchers sloppier is dirtier and indicates that the actress is putting some effort into it, and that is exactly what the average porn watcher is looking for - a woman who they find attractive pushing her sexual boundaries while devoting her attention to her sex partner(s) until everyone is satisfied. That is the porn I watch, from studios like Elegant Angel and Belladonna Productions.

"The thought is that pornography, in the late 20th century, could have adopted entirely different sexual practices, ones more intimate, realistic and yet still erotic and stimulating. However, at the expense of the woman, it spiraled down a more intense, risky, and demeaning path."

Various people (most famously Candida Royalle) have tried to convince the porn industry that they should produce erotic imagery that women would also enjoy, but I don't believe that there was ever a time where the industry would have adopted different sexual practices, or had the talent to portray the more subtle sex play that you wish porn provided, until today. As more women and couples purchase porn for their mutual enjoyment, then the now internet-diversified industry will produce a wide range of videos that are intended for more than just male masturbation.

This is my response:

Julian Real replies:

I want to respond to this statement specifically (but also to the whole of the comment): "Porn stars are sexual athletes who demonstrate advanced sex play for the viewer's pleasure."

From all the people I know who engage in or have engaged in casual-sex-for-money, within or outside systems of prostitution and procurement, within or outside systems of sexual slavery, I'm not hearing that "advanced sex" and "sexual athlet[icism]" are the most accurate, appropriate, or pertinent terms to use, any more than someone working twelve to fourteen hours per day in a sweat shop ought to be considered an "income athlete", or someone who is showing the rest of us how to do it (work-for-pay) better or more maturely. Your analysis leaves out (curiously and completely) the trauma involved in being physically invaded and assaulted by many people over many days. For empathy-building, I'd suggest you go out and engage in the kind of "sex" that is promoted by corporate pimps and let me know if you find it untraumatic. But as someone who might potentially be your friend, I wouldn't advise you do so.

There is a rather cynical and callous assumption built into an argument for valuing such sexual athleticism that there are, in fact, some people--some peculiarly abuse-immune class of human beings--who can and do manage to engage in serially physically, emotionally, and spiritually abusive and exploitive "sex acts" and *not* be traumatised by them. We might note that if the acts weren't abusive, drug abuse as a requirement for getting through a day or night of them might not be so ubiquitous.

If you could only have body-pummeling sex by being drugged or drunk, your dearest friends might question whether the sexual behavior was good for you. (As well as the excessive daily drug and alcohol consumption.) If the performance of such sexual athletics necessitates dangerous levels of drug abuse and often unconscious dissociation to simply be part of it, ought we not demonstrate at least occasional compassion for those of us who are inside systems of sexual exploitation, abuse, and slavery? Every person I have known who has willfully engaged in these forms of sex were either grossly sexually assaulted first, learning at a young age that they ought not have some basic and fundamental sexual boundaries that perhaps you enjoy, or they were bullied, battered, threatened and terrorised inside the systems after being part of them. If it is shown beyond question that pre-existing or on-site sexual, physical, and economic trauma is a de facto requirement for being part of the systems of procurement and slavery, I'd argue that we ought to condemn and organise against the owners and financial investors of such systems of terror and horror and, through available avenues of jurisprudence, throw the serial rapists and corporate pimps in prison.

As for this: "While the women in most pornography are portrayed as submissive, please keep in mind that there are thousands of porn scenes where the man is dominated, cuckolded or otherwise made to submit in the same ways." 

We must keep in mind that when men are submitting to women, it is always their choice to submit: they choose to do so because it is their sexual fetish or desire to submit. This demonstrates to me only that men maintain control of sexuality however and whenever they wish to. Het men being a sexual submissive in no way means he's not in charge of the whole scene being acted out. 

On White and Male Privilege and Power

image is from here

First up, things for me to be grateful for today:

I have food for the day and for tomorrow too.
I am not worried about starving or dying from ingesting unclean water.
I have easy access to clean water and to shelter that is relatively safe.
I live in a region of the world that isn't being bombed (or militarily invaded) by the US and NATO.
I live in a place that white male supremacist society doesn't designate as an appropriate place to bury nuclear waste and other highly toxic, cancer-causing chemicals.
I am not considered a failure for not having children and a spouse by now.
I am not physically immobilised.

When we consider that most females are not safe in their own homes, and that most people of color are under assault by whites and their police forces, we may conclude correctly that based on this and on the implications of what's written above, I am white, male, able-bodied, and class-advantaged. The additional facts of me being ethnically and sexually marginalised and stigmatised by dominant society isn't central to what follows.

With thanks to Kathy Miriam for getting a particular conversation going, I have been re-assessing the prolific use of the term "privilege" in some self-defined progressive to radical circles. What I have been thinking about since pondering her perspective on this (see *here* for that), isn't only the individualism that can be woven into the use of the term "privilege" (which Kathy addresses).

I'm also thinking about how such a term, such as "privilege", can alienate or be off-putting to non-blogging, non-academic people (aka, "the majority"). I'm thinking at this moment of my family-of-origin, and how the only time they'll likely use the term privilege is to acknowledge that something is a pleasure to be part of, as in: "It's a privilege to be at this event." But to be honest, that's not likely a phrase that'd come out of their mouths. They'd more likely say, "I'm thrilled to be here" and leave it at that.

I'm also thinking about how the term is often a linguistic cover for something more broadly pernicious that I do believe ought to be regularly and plainly named both on the interpersonal front and on the institutional front as well: abusive power, oppressive power, and unjust advantages and entitlements afforded to some classes of people and acted out against other classes of people.

"Privilege" is frequently used to bring attention to how oppressive behavior and practice is acted out interpersonally. When this attention obscures or eclipses larger structural and systemic realities, it can leave us with the impression that if we only attended to the interpersonal realm more, we might achieve something radically better than what we now have. I do see the term used primarily to give a name to the many ways individuals aren't mindful, accountable, and responsible in the ways they act out structural position and power against oppressed people.

It might be good to investigate why this is too often necessary. One huge, on-going, decades-long critique of the white male Left (especially but not only radical environmentalists, Socialists, and anarchists) is that they declare what is radical and revolutionary in "political action" while ignoring the interpersonal realm almost completely as a site of oppressive (read: structural, political) behavior. How many white male progressives and radicals tell sexist and racist jokes or center whiteness and maleness as "just human" without questioning this as anti-radical, anti-revolutionary (harmful, hurtful, insulting, oppressive, status quo) practice? How many times do whites and men behave in racist/sexist ways without challenging one another? How do whites and men reduce horrors like the international trafficking and enslaving of poor girls of color to one system of harm only? In my experience, whites and men usually and typically do not call each other out on our racist/white supremacist and sexist/male supremacist behavior, when it occurs in words or other non-verbal actions.

The assumption that whites and men can and ought to speak for all people has not shifted much in the last forty years, although I do notice a few more men these days using less sexist language. (Police officer instead of policeman, for example.) Anthologies by and about oppressed people, when edited by whites and men, still presume that anything written by a white or male person can be relatively universal, addressing the whole oppressed group, for example. Meanwhile the voice that is female, Black, Brown, or Indigenous is structurally presented as only ever able to speak for that group only. (So, the chapter or few chapters in which the writings by women of color are predominant are not likely to be presented as addressing the larger universal themes of the book--even when they do.) Find me the book edited by whites or men that presents the views of Indigenous, Brown, and Black women as "universal" and addressing the whole of humanity, with whites and men in the same volume only speaking about white and male experience as particularly white and male, and I'll be surprised: I've not seen it.

When oppressed people call out oppressive behavior in their oppressors, I believe it is important to heed the counsel of Pearl Cleage, expressed in Deals With The Devil and Other Reasons to Riot: listen in a posture of non-defensiveness. Too often oppressor-class people, especially whites and men, in my experience, move instantly and reflexively into a posture of self-defense, defense of our allegedly good name, our allegedly good political work, our allegedly good group. We resist knowing how we are being hurtful and harmful because we are invested in a sense of ourselves as "Radical" and "Good". Radical and self-identified good people, if white or male, are still positioned to act out oppressively against women of color on all fronts: interpersonal, social, and institutional (whether religious, economic, or otherwise). And our efforts to be responsible, accountable, and conscious don't mean we stop being positioned to be oppressors every minute of the day.

Irresponsible, non-accountable, and unconsciously oppressive actions come into sharp, cutting focus in online communities, which, in the comments sections especially, are one realm of the interpersonal. I suspect that is why "privilege" shows up there as a concern.

All of that said, social-political advantages and power when exercised by speakers against those they/we structurally oppress, are reflecting and reinforcing larger social-political realities. Regardless of the thoughtfulness and sensitivity of our micro interpersonal actions, it is usually the case that many other aspects of our lives support the more macro systems and institutions that are murderous to women, to the poor, to people of color, and to Indigenous peoples globally.

Radical political change requires attention to multiple realms of human existence, not in an either/or way. My political practice ought not consist of detailing anti-status-quo analysis of race and sex while doing so in ways that are unconsciously white-splaining and man-splaining. Rendering my own racial and sexual position, location, and advantages, and power irrelevant and invisible in a radical political conversation is one form of white-splaining and man-splaining, after all.

At this blog and away from it, I work to support radical practices in myself and other people that refuse to accept the expression of whiteness as being unraced, irrelevant, or universal, and the exercise of manhood as being just human, not gendered in politically harmful ways.

When whiteness and manhood is acted out visibly as such, it often does oppressive harm. And when it is acted out while also rendered invisible, it does at least as much oppressive harm.

I want the institutional power and systemic destructiveness, not just the interpersonal "privilege" of whiteness and manhood to be made conscious, to be challenged, and to be overthrown.

After being asked several questions by interviewers on topics they wished to hear her discuss, Andrea Dworkin was asked if she had anything else she wanted to say. I hope those of us who are white, male, and class-advantaged who are working for radical social change take notice of the explicitly intersectional and pro-activist answer she gave:

AD: I want to say more than anything that the Women’s Movement has a chance to do something miraculous, which is to really tear down these hierarchies of sex and race and class. We can do it, but the way that you do it is not through rhetorical denunciations of injustice. You do it through attacking institutions of injustice through political action. That hasn’t changed. That’s what we have to do. The other thing I would like to say is, do something. You don’t have to do everything. You don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to be pure, do what you can do. Do it. Life is short and you don’t know when it is going to end for you, so do it, do it now. [Source: here]

The Voice is Silent: Whitney Houston (1963-2012) dies too young at age 48

photograph of Whitney Houston is from here

I'm very sad that Whitney Houston is gone. My prayers are with her family and friends, especially her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, and her mother, the gospel singer Cissy Houston.


Below are two classic songs she popularised that I most associate with her.

"I Will Always Love You", written by Dolly Parton:



"The Greatest Love of All". From Wikipedia:

"The Greatest Love of All" is a song written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed and originally recorded by Jane Olivor & then again by George Benson for the 1977 Muhammad Ali biopic The Greatest. The song was later popularized by Whitney Houston. Creed wrote the lyrics in the midst of her struggle with breast cancer. The words describe her feelings about coping with great challenges that one must face in life, being strong during those challenges whether you succeed or fail, and passing that strength on to children to carry with them into their adult lives. Creed eventually succumbed to the disease in April 1986 at the age of 36; at the time her song was an international hit by Whitney Houston.

Guest post by Itoro Udofia: "Shedding Tears, Looking Back, Moving Forward"

Below is a cross post from Itoro's blog, Thoughts of My Mind (published Jan. 7 of this year). She has welcomed me to re-publish it below as a guest post. I am very grateful to her and am honored to have her voice and perspective as part of this blog. I hope this is not her last guest post. I also hope you take a lot from what follows. The wonderful artwork is by activist Catalina Nieto; I got her permission to reprint it here. Blessings to Itoro and to Catalina.

 

It's the New Year and I am well aware that a thoughtful post has been a long time coming. Much happened in the 2010-2011 year to leave the very core of my spirit shaken। To ring in the New Year I want to use this space to begin having more of a dialogue about, naming the unnamed, articulating habits and actions that often remain hidden in our circles of safety, community building and radical organizing. I am glad to know that there have been a flurry of articles and activists courageously addressing the many types of violence, violation and abuse we oppose so valiantly in the presence of our obvious enemies, and then practice those same habits in more subtle ways, sheltered in the safety of our homes, our places of organizing and our personal relationships.

My reasoning for wanting more of these conversations have been propelled by the painful experiences I went through trying to organize from the past couple of years, and finally 2010-2011 was the year that broke my heart and made me look at things as I had never done before. I had found that somewhere along the line, I allowed myself to become everything I did not want to become. When advising me on this situation, one of my close friends said, “You have to be there. And whatever you do. Don’t let them win.” By my actions, I had…let them win. I became profoundly silent and debilitated. I had internalized many of the harsh criticisms, cutting eyes, controlling gazes and all the denials, silence and betrayals that accompanied it, all of that had been stored inside myself. Finally, something deep, that thing that somehow held me together, broke. In the end, I spent most of my time in tears and confusion.

I began to believe that I did not deserve genuine relationships, honest answers and even so much as a civil conversation. More insidiously, especially in White radical spaces, I began to feel that I only existed to help others with their own liberation and that it was my job to take those risks for them. Any destructive habits or actions was “just a part of their process” and needed not to be taken so personally. If I dare uttered that I was tired, then it was a selfish gesture and I better be careful because clearly I did not have enough love for the people. In the end, I truly believed that I was a problem that needed to be fixed and perhaps the contempt was well deserved.

Therefore, any type of humiliation, bullying or downright ignorance experienced must have been warranted somehow, because after all, don’t people who often experience the worst of what humans have to offer deserve this anyway? Isn’t this the way the world is? After all, we’re not so bad, the world is much worse! And besides, White people are trying! They’re getting it, they’re moving…at their own pace, I mean so what if they talk too much! You should talk more. So really, there should be no support, no structures, no anything because this is the world anyway. Nasty. And I’m sure not gonna do anything to make it better. Better yet, I’ll watch. And besides the way I treat you isn’t really the big issue here, the issue is actually about this, so the way you are feeling is simply just that, a feeling that has no merit here. The list of the ways we annihilate one another goes on.

Never mind the sarcasm (and the speaking of bitterness), but please hear this. You can tell the type of inner work and reflection one does by the way they regard you the next morning. That’s the part of decolonization I’d like to talk more about. How far we’re willing to go in the action (or inaction) that is soon to come afterward, because when it comes time for us to really fight the more “relevant” issues, I simply want to know that you’re going to have my back and take that risk for us, rather than just try to save yourself. That’s a principled decision, and even indecision becomes a principle. The issue of how we regard one another is not mutually exclusive from the “real” issue.

I feel like so many of us have been saying this in so many ways and it still doesn’t get through. If issues of power, privilege and dominance are not addressed, or remain compartmentalized isms simply to be addressed at one’s convenience, there is a way these missing links begin to reflect the organization, its principles, its problem solving skills and analysis. Often, when particular links are carefully left in exchange for immediate comfort, the complexity of the conversations that need to be had are swiftly flattened, and entire histories and knowledges of many different people are left out only to be further forgotten as we move forward on the “real” issue. But who’s left picking up the slack later? And exactly who do we often find ourselves picking slack up for? …After all, doesn’t this economic system rely on such supreme tendencies and relations to strengthen itself? Class is fundamental, but it does not exist within a vacuum.

And this was the greatest contradiction I experienced in 2010-2011, that need. That conditioned need that has been essential to saving this system. It’s that need to hoard and save oneself, and rely on carefully guarded supremacies and secrets to do it. And let’s not play around, we often know who is allowed to get by with this type of behavior unscathed. And not to say I didn’t try many times to bury myself in silence, often because I was tired, painfully uncomfortable, afraid and at times downright cowardly. But even despite all those things, I never had the luxury to escape. I had to learn real quick how things were. The system was not built on us escaping or as Audre Lorde puts it, us even surviving. But, we’re still here to tell the tale. For 2012-2013, I want us to continue to be brave enough to tell the tale and strengthen ourselves. I want us to speak out and just say it, because we know the lies that are there to explain reality, and we also know that for some reason not enough people are being honest.

So I’ll end the story here, because many of us have lived through these stories in many ways, and hurt in many ways because of them. So this is for us who cannot simply get up and walk away, escape, and remain willfully ignorant. For us who have made mistakes and are doing the work necessary to undo the lies the master taught us. For those of us willing to risk in solidarity, risk for unity and think beyond immediate comfort. Time and energy is of prime importance, and it is often something stolen from us as we fight daily for our humanity, bread and full development. I have been weighing how I want to spend my time and energy, and have decided that there are certain things I am no longer willing to negotiate for the New Year.

I am worthy of a loving community that wants to work for the full development of all human beings, and yes, this also includes some level of “emotional” support
1. No more compartmentalizing! No more escapes! No more selective listening and speaking! We need an analysis that includes us all।
2. No more disrespect, nastiness and violence towards people we claim we love and/or support। Yes the world is nasty, but we certainly don’t make it any more sustaining or accountable by letting things go on as they are and remaining silent when we see someone we love hurting. We should try to lessen the suffering, not exacerbate it. Since when is it okay to begin looking at each other through the same eyes our greatest exploiters and beneficiaries on this earth do? We already know all too well what it is to hurt, however, it is clear we need to do more work on what it means to love and truly make a world where all our basic needs are met. We do not deserve the worst of everything!

In 2012-2013, I will be tender towards myself and those I love, I will not espouse words and phrases without practicing them to the fullest extent of what they mean, I will be honest and forthright, disciplined and resilient। I am not a problem to be fixed, this system and the ways in which we regard one another needs fixing and it has to be a people effort. By no means, is this a fluffy, kumbaya type of sentiment, or something that can be simply theorized into abstraction for the comfort of not truly practicing it in reality. This is quite material and concrete. This means, that the power has to be laid down, the hoarding has to be laid down, the lies have to be laid down, put on the table and directly talked about. The ability to imagine everyone there as equals also has to be put on the table so we can say it is a true possibility for us.

Happy New Year! Happy Blog Space! And Happy many spaces we are creating to do the work that needs to be done!

The beautiful artwork featured here is from fellow warrior and activist Catalina Nieto. Her work has been featured here in previous posts. I am happy to say that many people have taken notice of her amazing work! Re-posted from Thoughts of My Mind, http://thoughtsofmymind-itoro.blogspot.com.

Living a Public and Private Life as a Profeminist

image is from photobucket here

With my next post being my 1700th, I thought it was about time I shared with my readers a few thoughts about being a socially advantaged white male and an anti-racist pro-feminist.

I've been blogging for coming up on four years (well, three and a half at this point, although to be honest it feels like seven or eight). Few of my posts are about me... I mean really ABOUT ME. There are several reasons for this. One is that I feel and think there's far too much "white males talking about ourselves" happening habitually offline and on. Also, this blog, increasingly, has become woman of color-centered and woman of color-focused, with some posts about white women's work and men of color's work, and a few tossed in about work being done by white men.

I've seen so many white males develop political agendas and perspectives that assume that what happens to white males is happening to everyone--the way it happens to white men. Not only is this false on many levels, but something happens when we make men and whites the center of our viewpoints and political agendas. What happens is, by effect or by intent, women of color's lives get invisibilised, distorted, or subsumed in the assumptions about humanity that go along with centering white men as the standard of being human.

Also, though, there's the issue of what happens when white males speak out about anything at all. People listen to us differently, often enough. And the way that white males insinuate ourselves into history books and academic journals, in Western religious teachings and secular law-making, in global affairs and sports, in medicine and music, as the heroes", "the great ones", "the experts" and "the geniuses", I am left feeling a bit reluctant to promote or communicate much about myself here.

I won't publish photos of myself for many reasons but one reason is that once a white male has a public face, that face may then be associated with all the things that are typically and habitually afforded white men in racist patriarchal societies. I also won't appear on radio or television even though I've been asked. I won't become a public figure "in person" because I think doing so ends up promoting the person at least as much as the things the person is addressing in media. I've gotten into some trouble with this. Some people think I should be far more "out there" and "public" about myself.

I've also been asked to co-lead some feminist groups. Not gonna happen. I don't believe males should do so. I've seen it happen and the way it usually works is this: white women work with white men to promote feminist practices, or men of color work with white men to promote anti-racist political perspectives. What happens time and again ad nauseam is that women of color are left out and left behind, in the work of whites and men.

What also happens a lot is that white men earn money for promoting feminist ideas and for teaching Women's Studies courses (I am on record as believing that under no circumstances should white men teach Women's Studies courses--there are too many out-of-work women of all colors with the training and education to do so). And there are white men who earn a living on their anti-racist views while people of color--especially women of color--generally earn nothing at all for promoting and advocating anti-racist practice and political work. Enough members of the liberal and progressive side of society adores the white men who do this work and public and private institutions rewards them much more than they reward women of color who do this work--far longer than the white men have been doing it. It is also the case that I can do my work not-for-money and still pay my bills. So I acknowledge that economic privilege being a factor in my refusal to be paid for any political work I do.

My whiteness and maleness shows up in my work, hopefully in self-critical, transparent, and responsible ways. That's my objective. Along with all the other readers, I want white males to read this work and see what it means to value the work of women of color--to witness an example of that happening. The fact that I know of no other white males who do this alerts me to the emergency of white males ignoring the lives and theories of politically active women of color. Not that we're surprised.

I have an emotional life. I have a private life. Each is shaped by my social and structural advantages and disadvantages. My life straddles many hierarchies. Most of my political work, by far, is done offline and most of my readers don't know about that work because that's how I've organised my life. I live privately while also fully accountable to all the women in my private life. I've welcomed the women who know me well (meaning: not just someone who I've exchanged a few emails with) to make public anything that they experience as misogynistic or a form of mistreatment. My friendships with women go back a long time from over twenty-five years to just a couple of years; thus far no woman in my personal life has found it necessary to publicly report on my behaviors as being harmful to them personally or to women generally.

This certainly doesn't mean I haven't triggered or upset women in my private life. I have--far too often. While I believe there's no way to be emotionally involved with someone without that happening, I'd add that I've also taken way too long to "get it" about some of the ways I've been emotionally triggering, to one woman in particular. Our friendship has survived my too-slow pace and fortunately that triggering hasn't happened for many months. I work hard at being accountable, which for me means being present, empathic, caring, responsible, and responsive. I don't value mind games and emotional coercion. I detest meanness and cruelty. I'm not a physically aggressive person, I suspect because I didn't grow up in homes that were that way: I didn't learn how to be physically aggressive and when picked on and bullied, I never fought back. I'm glad I've never punched or hit anyone, not that the bullies didn't deserve to be stopped. But I doubt my punches would have stopped them.

Most of my friendships are with women and I've arranged, with sufficient health care coverage in place, to bring most of my own inner and difficult emotional work to a health care professional not to my women friends: we all know how rapidly and readily men and males use women as their emotional care-takers.

I've let most of my friendships with men lapse. But there are a few that are in place and are meaningful to me. (That means you, Katlego.) One of the reasons I'm not just asexual but also celibate and non-romantic is because I know that were I to get involved with a man it would steer too much of my life towards him and away from women. It's also the case that PTSD and other personal struggles rule out me being intimate (not meaning 'sexual') with men. There's nothing especially self-effacing, altruistic, self-negating, or noble going on here in my life, just to be clear. And, also for the record: I'm gay and am not bisexual; I do not get romantically or sexually involved with women. Another reason for me being celibate (which is not a given for asexuals--we are conditioned, after all, to believe we ought to be sexually active in some way, shape, or form), is that I've seen how pro-feminist males fuck up other people's lives in fleeting or longer-term sexual relationships, heterosexually and homosexually. I won't be "that guy".

The deep and long-term friendships I have with radical and feminist women serve me well and I hope serve them well too. I am grateful for each one of them.

Good-bye, Etta James

I don't recall a time when I didn't know of Etta James. Yet for all the time I knew of her, I knew so little about her life. What I knew, like so many other people, was her music. Although her recordings varied in genre, I associate her most with the blues.

A few weeks ago a national news program did a feature on her but it wasn't an announcement of her passing. The report mentioned she was in poor health, however. I hoped she wasn't suffering. Then, on January 20, a week and a half ago, came the news I'd been anticipating. She was gone. I will miss her living presence on this Earth.

Recent Indigenous Women's Activism: Debra White Plume (Lakota), Louise Benally (Navajo), Ofelia Rivas (O'odham), and the women of Winyan Ituwan

Water and land are radical and profeminist issues. For current news in this regard, please see what follows. And please note in these stories how the US government deliberately and destructively pits oppressed groups against one another for its own greedy genocidal, ecocidal gain.

The following four news stories are brought to my attention thanks to Brenda Norrell at Censored News.You may click on the respective titles to link back to the original site where I found them. And please do, and check out many other Censored News stories.

Debra White Plume: A Thread in the Beautiful Fabric of Resistance

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Photos by Vi Waln

A Thread in the Beautiful Fabric of Resistance
by Debra White Plume
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Water is finite, and sacred. “Mni wicozani”, through water there is life. We must drink clean, nourishing water to live. Just as Mother Earth is made up of a lot of water, our human bodies are 70% water. That is why at Full Moon, and the tides change, some human beings have strong, unpredictable behavior. To our Lakota people, mni (water) is our first medicine, our first home. There are entire spiritual and social teachings that we learn as we grow up, our Lakota World View about water. Mni is our relative, and Lakota Law compels us to protect our relatives. Mother Earth is our relative.

This belief led our organization Owe Aku (Bring Back the Way), which is involved with cultural preservation and revitalization, Treaty Rights and Human Rights, to begin looking at disproportionate cancer and diabetes rates on the Pine Ridge Homeland. This research took us places we never thought we would be! We examined air and water quality studies, which led us to the Cameco, Inc. in situ leach uranium mine 30 minutes from our southern border. We learned that ISL uranium mining contaminates an incredible amount of water, on a daily basis. Cameco was up for license renewal and had submitted another application to open a second mine. We researched that process, and found we could submit interventions, based on science and law. We did that, and are now plaintiffs in the case against Cameco’s ‘right’ to poison our water. That was 7 years ago. This work continues.

Water protection work requires constant research, in doing so I learned about the tarsands oil mine in First Nations Territory in the Athabascan River Basin where Ft McMurry is, in Canada. Learning about that mine and its’ impacts to Mother Earth was mind jolting, so I began to speak out more about this horrendous desecration of Mother Earth and our First Nations relatives. The tarsands oil mine is decades old, and has become the dirtiest mining operation in the world. The corporations snuck in decades ago, fooling elected leaders into signing contracts of extraction, contracts that are resulting in increased forms of rare cancer, people are dying, so are fish, moose and other animals that the people depend on for food. It has become a food issue. Will it become a famine issue? The pristine Boreal Forest is being clearcut, the Amazon of the North is being destroyed, millions of birds and other animals have died, species have become extinct. The mine uses 3 to 4 barrels of pristine drinking water to create 1 barrel of oil, each day. It creates so much green house gases, the output can hardly be measured.

Studying the tarsands oil mine led to the discovery of TransCanada corporation’s intent to build and operate the Keystone XL oil pipeline from the tarsands oil mine into Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas where it would be refined and shipped out to who-knows-where. We learned the KXL oil pipeline was three feet in diameter, thin, and would high pressure slurry the heavy crude oil that had to be heated to 150 degrees F to liquefy it enough to push through that pipeline. There is a union worker who turned whistle blower when he was fired for declaring the pipe defective, which corporate workers would re-tag as approved. He gave up a lifelong career. I met him in DC.

The pipeline would cross our Rural Water pipeline, which transports drinking water from the Missouri River, 200 miles away, to our communities on the Pine Ridge. The KXL pipeline would cross 200 lakes and streams and rivers. It would be buried in the Ogllala Aquifer, which irrigates 30% of the food grown in the USA, and which provides drinking water for 2 million people, and for cattle, horses, buffalo and other four legged. Trans-Canada would use a lot of drinking water to mix with that heavy crude. Sacred and social teachings about water propelled me into devoting more and more time into fighting the life and death situation that this oil pipeline had become. I knew the threats to our ground and surface from uranium mining, and learning about this oil pipeline taught me that it threatens our very lives, for where would we get enough drinking water for the 50,000 Oglala Lakota people on the Pine Ridge when the pipeline spilled or leaked? Who would care enough to do something about it? The technology does not exist to clean up this kind of heavy crude. No pipe has been created that does not leak or spill.

Friends from the Indigenous Environmental Network contacted me, and we began a dialogue about water protection, contamination, a number of other topics. Tribes along the pipeline route took action to oppose the pipeline. Every Native Nation organization in the USA raised their voice to say No. I decided to go to Washington, DC to participate in a Senate Briefing Hearing, and meet with the State Department officials about Ft Laramie Treaty violations and violations of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the United Nations in 2007. I traveled with others to Pierre, SD to testify at a State Dept hearing, but was not able to, as I was number 152. I saw drunken union workers testify about how they needed a job welding. They mostly came from out of state.

Then my family and I decided I would go to Washington DC. I participated in a civil disobedience direct action, trespassed at the White House and got arrested, along with 1200 other people who wanted to help get this issue into the minds of mainstream America and the attention of President Obama. There were a dozen of us Native Nations people who were arrested. The Lakota people on Pine Ridge hosted Tom Weis, who rode a solar powered bike from Montana to Texas to raise awareness along the KXL oil pipeline route. We hosted a Rally for Mother Earth in Pine Ridge, and a march. We hosted a Ride for Solidarity with ranchers, farmers, Lakota people, and an American movie star, Darryl Hannah. We had radio shows, wrote articles, attended events. Next thing I knew, I was on the Tour of Resistance, I flew 10,000 miles in 5 weeks. Halfway through, I lost my hairbrush, my comb, and only had one sock. Good thing it was almost over by then! On January 15, a group of us Lakota people hosted Winyan Ituwan, a women’s gathering with the focus on Mother Earth and Sacred Water, with guest speakers including Kandi Mosset of IEN and Tantoo Cardinal, a Cree movie star from Canada. All to raise awareness and resistance to uranium mining and the KXL oil pipeline and the tarsands oil mine, and protection for our sacred water.

Nebraska started out to protect the Ogllala Aquifer, but became involved in negotiations to allow the pipeline in along an undetermined route. South Dakota GAVE KXL $30 million in tax breaks to come here, Montana made concessions as well. However, individuals and groups got involved, big time. Environmental groups, many other civic groups, thousands of people on both sides of the Canadian/USA border spoke with the same voice, STOP THE PIPELINE. Nobel Laureates, Native Nation and First Nation Chiefs and Presidents, scientists, retired military, Olympic Medalists, Senators, Congressmen, actors, writers, students, people from all walks of life raised their voices and risked their freedom to stop the pipeline. Rarely did USA’s mainstream media cover any of this, but in the little towns and small cities, local newspapers and radio shows did. Word got out, numbers of resisters grew. The last time I went to DC, I spoke at a rally of 15,000 people, we circled the White House 4 times. People came from all over, to speak with one voice. We made friends and allies.

Nebraska politicians had a special hearing to allow KXL to come in, but the White House heard the message to protect the Ogllala Aquifer. Then TransCanada pushed the USA to make a decision, and elected politicians lifted their voices to support the KXL, attached a new bill as a rider to a jobs bill, gave the White House 60 days to let KXL in or to reject the pipeline as against the national interest.

On January 18, 2012, the State Dept and President Obama rejected the pipeline, as 60 days was inadequate to conduct environmental impact studies. However, TransCanada can still apply for a new permit.

Each of us who worked on this life and death situation, we are a thread in this fabric of resistance. Folks wrote letters, gave speeches, cooked food, wrote emails, tweeted, did FaceBook postings, made banners, pitched in gas money, made tshirts, made phone calls, did research, made copies, stood in line to testify, got arrested, lobbied Senators and Congressmen, babysat, loaned out their cars, offered a couch or a spare room, musicians/artists doing pro bono benefits, shared frequent flyer miles, took pictures, raised money, it was truly a collective action to protect our water and Mother Earth.

There is no one person, nor one organization, that stopped the pipeline, this victory that may be temporary, this partial victory, as the tarsands oil mine is still operating. It was the love of the many, for Mother Earth and coming generations, the many prayers and sacrifices that gave this movement its power. I believe love is stronger than greed. I believe that people working together can be just as effective as the world’s richest corporations. I believe Mother Earth wants to live, and we cannot live without Her. I believe our Lakota prophecy, “Someday the Earth will weep, She will cry with tears of blood. You must make a choice. You help Her, or She will die. When She dies, you too will die.”

All over the world, events are unfolding, 200 tornadoes in two days last summer? Earthquakes and shakes where there have been none for hundreds of years? Floods? Droughts? All common weather events, but uncommon in the repeated occurrences or place of occurrence. Every summer has been hotter than the last since 1996. Mother Earth is telling us something, She is crying, and She is rising. Crying Earth Rise Up! Whatever befalls Mother Earth, befalls the people of Mother Earth. Such a struggle is made up of many, many threads, together we form a beautiful fabric of resistance, and protection for our Mother, Mother Earth.

The last time we left DC, my friend and I saw a huge red tailed hawk, he swooped over us, and over the White House, and he flew to the west. The day of Winyan Ituwan Winter Gathering, we saw a bald eagle circle over us, and he flew off to the West. Sacred messages ... if we listen, we can hear, if we hear, we can understand. When we understand, we give thanks. Lila wopila iciciyapi. Hecetuye.

Posted by brendanorrell@gmail.com at 9:13 PM

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Navajo Louise Benally: Arizona racism and coal fired power plants

Louise Benally during Salt River Project protest,
speaking out against the coal fired Navajo
Generating Station. Photo: Resist ALEC

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

On First Voices Indigenous Radio today, WBAI New York, Louise Benally, resisting relocation at Big Mountain on the Navajo Nation, described the detriment of coal fired power plants and racism in Arizona.

Louise said regardless of the struggles, Navajos living on the land still live in harmony with the land. Louise described the natural herbs and healing ceremonies that come from the wild, now being contaminated by pollution. "It is doing a lot of destruction." She spoke on the chemical trails settling in the water and environment.

"Those are real problems we are faced with now, because a lot of the vegetation is being wiped out." She said Peabody coal mine releases pollution to the regional watershed on Black Mesa. "It is just devastating," she said, to live in this situation.

Louise Benally confronts Salt River Project staff.
Photo Resist ALEC.

She also described the three coal fired power plants on the Navajo Nation. There are the two in the Four Corners area near Farmington NM which leave a grey haze over the skies. Then there is the Navajo Generating Station near Page, Ariz., producing more contamination. These coal fired power plants carry electricity to cities like Phoenix and Tucson while Navajos suffer with disease and pollution.

"We can't just continue to produce, produce and produce pollution," said Louise, adding that these coal fired power plants are making the ice melt in the Arctic.

Louise described the changes to the climate and how development is creating this. If the land is not healthy, then life is not healthy either, Louise said, describing the Navajos respiratory problems and cancer.

Describing how Arizona just banned ethnic studies, she said, "It is just really sad."

Radio show host Tiokasin Ghosthorse described how the scheme was to make it look like the so called land dispute was between Hopi and Navajo. This scheme kept people from getting involved because they were led to believe it was an internal dispute between the two nations, rather than what it was: A carefully designed scheme to remove thousands of Navajos from Black Mesa to make way for Peabody coal mining, which continues today.

Louise said, "They were pitting tribe against tribe to get at the resources," explaining how they did this to get at the coal and resources.

Louise said the Navajo tribe is not realizing the depletion of the resources, and what Peabody is doing. However, she said the Hopi tribe is beginning to realize the detriment to the natural resources.

She said Native people need to revitalize the old ways and sustainable food. "We can still use the earth as our healing substance."

Tiokasin closed by pointing out that in the city, people don't take responsibility for taking care of the land and say it is the US government's responsibility to deal with it.

Listen to archive later today, Thursday at:
http://www.firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/program_archives

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O'odham Ofelia Rivas: URGENT Halt Gold Mining in Sacred Quitovac

URGENT: PROTECT SACRED QUITOVAC FROM GOLD MINING
O'ODHAM LANDS -- (Jan. 30, 2012) Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, speaks on the urgent need to protect Quitovac from gold mining. Quitovac is the sacred ceremonial community of O'odham south of the border in Sonora, Mexico.
Funds are needed now for travel in Sonora, and meetings with Sonoran officials, to halt this gold mining by Silver Scott Mines, Inc. Video by Censored News.
READ MORE on genocidal gold mining planned for Quitovac:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/traditional-oodham-halt-mining-genocide.html
Donate to O'odham Solidarity Project:
http://www.solidarity-project.org/
Direct cash donations are also essential! Please remember that every little bit helps! Donate to the O'odham Voice Against the Wall
Mail well concealed cash or money order to:
Ofelia Rivas
PO. Box 1835
Sells, Arizona 85634
Ofelia Rivas e-mail: oodhamrights@gmail.com

Posted by brendanorrell@gmail.com at 11:24 AM

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Vi Waln: Winyan Ituwan Women of Vision

Winyan Ituwan holds first of four gatherings

Photos and article by Vi Waln
Lakota Country Times Editor

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Photos by Vi Waln: Top - Phyllis Young and Madonna Thunder Hawk; 2nd - Olowan Sara Martinez and Pte San Win; 3rd - Kandi Mossett, Marie Randall, Tantoo Cardinal and Tiana Spotted Thunder; 4th Members of the Cante Ohitika (Brave Heart Society) also attended the gathering in Porcupine, SD. Faith Spotted Eagle spoke about building young women through traditional ceremony. Pictured behind her are society members (L-R) Frances Bullshoe, Brittany Poor Bear, Alex Romero Frederick, Jennifer Takes War Bonnet, Jennifer Drapeaux and Theresa Hart. 5th: More than 200 men, women and children attended. 6th: Regina Brave. Arlette Loud Hawk spoke about being a female Tokala whip bearer. Thank you Vi for the photos!

PAHIN SINTE OWAYAWA – “This is a collective effort to bring women together to share experience, wisdom and vision; our Earth Mother needs us to stand up for her to be a voice for these young girls to walk in our path,” stated Pte San Win, one of the organizers of the initial Winyan Ituwan gathering. “We hope to inspire and encourage you to go home with lots of information for your family.”

Topics discussed at the gathering revolved around the desecration of Mother Earth and water, as well as mining issues facing the people living on the Great Plains of the United States. In addition, the traditional roles and responsibilities of Native women were presented. Over 200 people attended.

Lorraine White Face prayed with her macaw feather fan and blessed everyone with sage smoke. Opening prayer was offered by Esther White Face. Singing a beautiful opening song were duet Tianna Spotted Thunder and Autumn Two Bulls.

“Each and every one of us is special. Faith, hope and love will make a better generation for all of us,” stated Marie Randall. “As women we all carry the water of life and we must care for ourselves because of the children. We must have the courage to change because the gifts that were given to us by Tunkasila are suffering. I encourage all of you to teach the children to love and respect one another. I am not afraid to be Lakota.”

“Water is the first medicine,” stated Cordelia White Elk.

“Tunkasila gave us the guidance to do this,” Debra White Plume stated. “We want to share the love we have for Unci Maka, we are trying to live in a good way.

The power comes from love, the work we do comes from our love of Lakota ways. Pine Ridge has been fighting uranium mining being done south of us. We have challenged their right to mine uranium because we have scientific evidence that the mine site near Crawford, NE is linked to our drinking water. We have been fighting North Trend for 7 years now. We use water in every single ceremony. This is the same water that was here when the dinosaurs were here; it is our duty and privilege to fight for drinking water. These are issues that are genocidal to our people. If water is contaminated where are we going to get water for 50,000 Oglala? What about water for our horses and other animals?”

“We never started out to fight the biggest uranium mine under Cameco; we started out trying to find out why things were happening to our people. It doesn’t matter who tests the water, the results are always the same. We have to fight for the water to keep it clean and keep it good. We have to speak up, we have to take action. They may have a lot of money but we have a lot of love. There can be no more desecrating of Unci Maka; we are going to defend our sacred water. It’s hard to be Lakota because you have to stand up. Our courage is greater than the corporations and government who want to take our water.

“The Keystone XL pipeline expansion will cross the Lyman Jones Rural Water System in many places. It will cross the Mni Wiconi Water System in two places. We are trying to teach our non-Indian allies to call Earth our Mother instead of a planet,” stated White Plume.

The Keystone XL pipeline expansion consists of a 1,912-mile pipeline that would transport crude oil from Alberta, Canada to Texas. The proposed project could transport up to 830,000 barrels of dirty tar sands crude per day right through the Ogallala Aquifer which supplies drinking water to over 2 million people and countless animals, trees and plants. National lawmakers have used their power of politics to force President Obama to decide by February 21 if he will sign the permit needed for TransCanada to build the pipeline.

“Even in the 1800’s geologists in the area already knew what was in that land,” stated Tantoo Cardinal, a Cree actress who grew up near the Athabasca oil sands. “Everything that had to do with our culture was outlawed. I saw people who lived a life of strength off the bush. The outlawing of language and ways was an attempt to sever our connection to the Creator. This made us mean to each other too. When I was young we would go on berry picking trips and we could get our water out of the lake. Our children aren’t going to know that. Now, 10% of the fish coming out of the water are abnormal.”

“The people who come to Fort McMurray have no love for the land, they come for money. Even though we had no ceremonies we had medicine. There’s medicine on that land. A woman from Yellow Knife has medicine to doctor AIDS. There is medicine to doctor AIDS in that land they are killing. We were right from the beginning. Our treaties were established because we know our Mother. We have the blueprint. We have to discern who are allies are, defenders of the Earth come in all colors. In that knowing, in that teaching is where the women stand. Women’s place hasn’t been respected. The Earth is being treated the same way women are being treated.

“Sands are the grit that wears and tears on that pipe,” Cardinal continued. “All we have had are lies from this civilization, so why would they start telling us the truth now?”

“In 1947 the US Government built a dam,” stated Kandi Mossett, a Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikira tribal member who is currently employed with the Indigenous Environmental Network. “We were forced into a cash economy; it was like walking through door never to go back. When women eat mercury contaminated fish it affects our bodies. We are always told that we can’t eat the big fish we catch in Lake Sakakawea anymore. There are many flares or giant candles of natural gas now. Many tribal members were paid $34 an acre for their land versus the $5,000-$6,000 an acre paid to non-Indians.

“Now, every single place you go you see trucks hauling water in and hauling water out. Many people have died in head-on crashes with the trucks. It’s all for oil mining. It’s wrong. The tribally elected leaders at Fort Berthold are not my leaders. Women have to lead, let us show you how to lead. A Tribal Environmental Code was just passed last year. There are many open valves. There are 2,500 chemicals in that fracked water that leaks out of the valves on the trucks. Tribal police have no jurisdiction over the truck drivers. People are getting money now and they are happy because we’ve been poor for so long. Drugs are coming in worse than they were before. We need to stop it at all costs.

“Why should you care what is happening on Fort Berthold?” Mossett asked. People need to care because “it’s affecting you down here. Green water found in Lake Sakakawea was said to be a blue green algae bloom which is toxic.” Also, leakage that “cannot be seen with the naked eye but infrared cameras shows the constant smoke coming from pipes and those round storage tanks along with frack trucks around the reservation. People are not dumb. People just became complacent. I survived cancer when I was 20 years old. I refused chemotherapy, I refused radiation. There’s so much to fight for an as long as I have a breath in me I am going to go anywhere to lift people up. Forget the Keystone XL pipeline; we are going to kill it. As long as there are little kids running around we are going to fight.”

“Kandi Mossett is my hero,” stated Phyllis Young, a newly elected tribal council representative at Standing Rock. “She inspired me to pass legislation against fracturing. Demonstrations are significant; we need to have an Occupy Wall Street type of event in the Black Hills. We have the Standing Rock directors working to beef up the regulations we have. We are also trying to prohibit horizontal drilling. I have been on the tribal council for two months and we will do everything we can to stop the Keystone XL pipeline.”

“What is it going to take for activism in Indian Country?” Madonna Thunder Hawk asked. She is currently working on Indian Child Welfare Act violations in East River South Dakota. “Check the NPR.org website for documents about the Department of Social Services. Lean on your tribal councils because they have to make child welfare a priority. Not one tribe in the State of South Dakota has made child welfare a priority. Kids are kept in the system for the money. They are drugged up and then when they age out they dump them back into the Indian community. I’m hoping there will be younger women who will pick up this fight.”

"I love my people,” stated Regina Brave who is also a long-time activist for the Lakota. “This whole country still belongs to us; I want you to remember that. They want to build Keystone XL through here because they called this a sparsely populated area. We have farmers, ranchers and processing plants. 75% of the groceries people take for granted come from this sparsely populated area. We have a right to protest and shut down TransCanada, we have to stop it. We are a nation fighting for survival. 2012 is the beginning of a whole new era for Indian people, it’s time for women to stand up and start fighting. We waited for a long time for this to happen where we could stand together and fight.”

“I believe this is an historical gathering,” stated Faith Spotted Eagle. “We have a responsibility to recreate societies. In 1994 we revived the Brave Heart Society. We have to build these young women. There are 90 girls scattered across the country that have been through the Isnati ceremony.”

Brittany Poor Bear, a Brave Heart Society member, offered a prayer for the wamakaskan.

Russell Means’ recent bout with cancer “was a powerful and humbling experience,” stated his wife Pearl Means. “But the power of our ancestors and spirituality is hard to express. We are downwind from North Dakota which is where the largest strip mining in the country is taking place.”

Other speakers included Arlette Loud Hawk who spoke as the Whip Bearer for the Tokala Kit Fox Warrior Society. Troy Lynn Yellow Wood talked about the roles of women. Special guest speakers included Alex White Plume, Russell Means, and Lily Mae Red Eagle.

Winyan Ituwan is a collective effort to bring women together to share experiences, vision, and wisdom. There were many door prizes including propane and other gifts. Winyan Ituwan is the first of four women’s gatherings, with one set for spring, summer and fall. People can call             605-899-1419       or connect at Winyan Ituwan on Face Book for more information.

“Each of us has power in our thoughts and in prayer. When we think and pray in a good way that is what we add to the atmosphere,” stated Cardinal.

Posted by brendanorrell@gmail.com at 9:34 PM