Monday, May 10, 2010

Malalai Joya Speaks Out on TIME's Manipulations of Her Message

My source for everything that follows is here @ The Tehran Times.



May 11, 2010



Time has painted a false picture of me: Malalai Joya
By Sonali Kolhatkar


Outspoken Afghan activist and former member of the Parliament Malalai Joya has been one of the most vocal opponents of the U.S. and NATO war in Afghanistan. In a recent op-ed she called on the U.S. to “stop murdering my people.” 

Joya was suspended from the Afghan Parliament nearly 3 years ago for challenging warlord domination and lives in constant fear of her life. She has survived several assassination attempts but chooses to live in Afghanistan. Her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords with Derrick O'Keefe was published late last year (Simon and Schuster). Last month, Malalai Joya was named one of Time Magazine's “100 Most Influential People” of 2010. I reached her for an interview via satellite phone in Afghanistan on May 3, 2010.

Sonali Kolhatkar: You were just named one of the 100 most influential people of 2010 by TIME magazine. But author Hirsi Ali, who wrote the announcement, said, “I hope in time she comes to see the U.S. and NATO forces in her country as her allies. She must use her notoriety, her demonstrated wit and her resilience to get the troops on her side instead of out of her country.” How do you respond to this statement?

Malalai Joya: I am very angry with the way they have introduced me. TIME has painted a false picture of me and does not mention anything at all about my struggle against the occupation of Afghanistan by the U.S. and NATO, which is disgusting. In fact every one knows that I stand side-by-side with the glorious anti war movements around the world and have proved time and again that I will never compromise with the U.S. And NATO who have occupied my country, empowered the most bloody enemies of my people and are killing my innocent compatriots in Afghanistan. What TIME did was like giving an award to someone with one hand and getting it back with another hand. I have sent my protest through my Defense Committee, but TIME did not bother to even answer the protest letter. Perhaps this is the kind of freedom of expression exercised by TIME and the US. But I'm happy to see that many of my friends and supporters have objected to the write-up and expressed it by posting their comments on TIME's site or sending me many emails.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Earlier this year some journalists were able to confirm that U.S. troops had killed two pregnant women during a night-time raid. How common are such occurrences in Afghanistan today?

Malalai Joya: Yes, the U.S. and NATO often lie when they kill innocent people and also stop media from reporting civilian casualties. Most of the civilian casualties take place in remote areas of Afghanistan where there is no media to report it, so no one notices it. In many cases after killing people NATO (releases) statements saying that many insurgents were killed. When you try to find out from the local people, they are actually women and children killed, not insurgents. Afghan media are also mostly in the hands of the Afghan criminal bands. They rarely report civilians killed by the U.S. and NATO. In Afghanistan most media outlets, especially TV channels, are a tool for warlords of the Northern Alliance. For example warlords like Atta Mohammed, Qanooni, Mohseni, Mohaqqiq, Rabbani and others, each have their own TV channel and they naturally do not want to report civilian casualties by their U.S. and NATO masters.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has an office that carefully monitors all media in Afghanistan and if they find any of them reporting against U.S. interests, they try using different means to stop it. Bribes are a very common means used. For the U.S. it's not just fighting a war through military means, but also on the propaganda front. I think propaganda plays a major role. They are trying to show the war is justified. When they kill civilians they immediately deny it and say that all the people killed are Taliban. When there is no chance for any independent confirmation, the lies are the only things reflected in the world media. There are only a few cases where some brave and justice-loving journalists like Jerome Starkey have come forward to unmake their shameful lies.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Much has been made recently of Karzai's statements in favor of the Taliban. How close is the Afghan central government to forging a peace with the Taliban? What will that mean for the U.S./NATO war? What will it mean for the people of Afghanistan?

Malalai Joya: I think Karzai cannot dare to make such a statement or try to meet the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's party leaders without having an “OK” from the White House. Actually it is the U.S. that asks him to make peace with the Taliban and Hekmatyar's party or at least share power with them. Also the U.S. government needs to show the people of NATO countries that it is not a warmonger and is in favor of peace talks with the Taliban. But it is just a show. The U.S. doesn't want to fight the Taliban forever as it needs them as an excuse to continue the occupation of Afghanistan in the implementation of its strategic, regional, and military interests. I think some of the Taliban and Hekmatyar's leaders are already part of Karzai's regime. One of the main leaders of Hekmatyar's party, called Hadi Arghandiwal, is now the Minister of Economy under Karzai.

This is what the U.S. wants. These brutal and inhuman leaders have been created by the U.S. in the past and are ready to work for the U.S. as long as their pockets are filled with dollars and high posts are offered to them in the government. Actually the U.S. government is trying hard to empower reactionary forces and individuals in Afghanistan as they can use them to stop the emergence of pro-democracy and nationalist forces and groups in my country.

Sonali Kolhatkar: You recently wrote in an op-ed in the Daily Beast that there are a lot of anti-U.S. protests happening in Afghanistan today that go unreported. Tell U.S. more about these protests -- where are they happening, who is protesting, and are they also against the fundamentalists or just the US/NATO?

Malalai Joya: Yes, we have witnessed the protests of people, especially in the eastern and western parts of Afghanistan, over the past year. They are mostly reactions to civilians killed by the U.S. and NATO. With every bombardment by NATO, angry people come to the streets to raise anti-US slogans. But unfortunately they are not organized and in some cases the Taliban uses them. We have seen most of these protests in Nangahar, Ghazni, Loghar, Herat, and Helmand provinces but they are usually not reported. A few days ago angry protestors burned about 20 fuel tankers of NATO in Loghar which was one out of many such protests reported by the world media.

These protestors are not only against the U.S. and NATO but also against the Afghan government. People see that this government is deeply corrupt and in the hands of looters and murderers of the Northern Alliance. So they are deeply fed up. Last month a large crowd of thousands of workers in Baghlan province protested against Mahmood Karzai (vice chairman of the Afghanistan chamber of commerce and Hamid Karzai's younger brother), head of the “economic mafia” of Afghanistan who has his hold on some previously state-owned factories. The U.S. and NATO and the Afghan government usually ignore people's protests. But I believe that given enough time, such protests will become even more organized out of people's anger. Afghans are on the verge of uprising but poverty, destitution, and the non-existence of powerful democratic-minded forces in our country stops them from a very serious uprising. I'm sure in the next few years such forces will emerge and these protests will turn more powerful to shake the Afghan puppet government and the occupation forces.

Sonali Kolhatkar: The U.S. has made no secret for many months that it is about to launch an offensive against the Taliban in Kandahar. What do you think will happen this summer as a result of this offensive?

Malalai Joya: As I said before, the U.S. does not want to fight the Taliban forever. They only fight with them here and there to show the American people that the U.S. is at war in Afghanistan and their presence is necessary here. The offensive in Kandahar will not be different from Marjah and other areas of Helmand where they had such operations in the past. They make such a hue and cry about their military actions but in fact they just push the Taliban to other areas and then install some corrupt officials and police forces who are worse than the Taliban. In a few days the Taliban return as we experienced in the past. They declared Marjah as a Taliban-free district but in fact the Taliban has a permanent presence there. They had just left the area for a short time.

After the Marjah operation, a spokesperson of the Afghan Defense Ministry was asked at a press conference why they allowed the Taliban to leave the area and why the Taliban were neither killed nor arrested in Marjah. He answered that the purpose of the operation was not killing or arresting the Taliban, instead it was to push them out of the area.

So we expect that they will do the same thing with Kandahar. They will launch the operation and then allow the Taliban to go to another area and then later start an operation there. This is a battle for show, not a real war against terrorism. Otherwise for the U.S. and NATO, it is a task of only a few days to uproot the Taliban and defeat them forever. But then everyone will ask them to end the occupation of Afghanistan.

The only outcome of the Kandahar operation will be civilian casualties. Poor and innocent people are the only ones killed in the war. But the Taliban do not experience any defeat or even major casualties. Afghans know very well that the U.S. will neither bring democracy nor peace to Afghanistan. They know that the U.S. and NATO are empowering the enemies of democracy. But it is the duty of the Afghan people to fight for their values and understand that the occupation will only drag us more deeply into slavery. As always I pass this message to justice-loving people around the world that no nation can donate liberation to another nation.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Can you tell us what the status of your own parliamentary position is right now, since you were stripped of your elected position by the fundamentalists some years ago. Have you ever been made to face a court? Can you run again for parliament in the next elections?

Malalai Joya: In the last stage of the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting, a delegation of Afghan parliamentarians promised that they would end my suspension so I could return to Parliament. But it was just a lie and they did not stand by their promise.

I received a letter from the court some months ago and I answered truthfully what my strong position was against the warlords. They asked me to apologize for my statements made in a TV interview -- and said that they would allow me back to the Parliament. But I stressed the truth of my statements and said that I would never apologize to criminals and looters. However, I still can run for elections which are due to happen later this year. But I have not made up my mind to run.

But whether I serve in Parliament or outside it, I will continue my fight for justice, democracy and against the occupation. Parliament was just a small part of my struggle but I still have many other options and fields. Going to a Parliament of criminals was a big torture for me. It was a torture every day to see the faces of these brutal men such as Qanooni, Sayyaf, Mohaqqiq, Piram Qul, Haji Almas, Haji Fayeed, etc. there. But I accepted the task on behalf of my people.

I think the next election will be even more disgusting and full of fraud. The new chief of the election commission is a known warlord of the Northern Alliance and he will try to bring all these warlords to the Parliament and stop the emergence of democratic-minded people like me. Many people think that at this point they will never allow me to win the election as they can't bear to have me inside the parliament once more. But I will continue the struggle as long as these criminals are in power, these sworn enemies of democracy, women's rights, human rights, and as long as these occupation forces are bombing from the sky, and supporting the enemies of my people and killing innocent people of my country.

For more information, visit malalaijoya.com.


Sonali Kolhatkar is co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission, a U.S.-based non-profit that funds health, educational, and training projects for Afghan women. She is also the host and producer of Uprising Radio, a daily morning radio program at KPFK, Pacifica in Los Angeles.

(Source: Uprising Radio via alternet.org)

White Slavery in The U.S. South: Gender, Class, Race, Age, and Trafficking: The White Refers to the Slavers

[image is from here, and the information from the page where I found this follows the main post]

As you read what follows, please ask yourself this: "What question and issue ISN'T asked?" And the follow up question is: "What does it mean that we don't ask this question?" My answers follow the news article.


What follows is a cross post from AlterNet.org, *here*.
Posted by jrbizzy at 10:53 am
May 10, 2010
Race and human trafficking in the U.S.: Unclear but undeniable


I watch and listen to the advocacy of human trafficking at rallies, on web sites, in government reports and NGO reports. The research and statistics on human trafficking in America are ambiguous, especially in relation to race and ethnicity. We need to explicitly recognize the connections between trafficking, poverty, migration, gender, racism and racial discrimination to adequately battle and destroy human trafficking in the U.S.
Trafficking persons is inherently discriminatory. Since an overwhelming majority of trafficked persons are women, trafficking in most circles is usually considered a gender issue, especially in the United States (majority of trafficking in the U.S. is sex trafficking). In the U.S., most state human trafficking laws explicitly and directly address sexual exploitation, ignoring or vaguely covering other types of trafficking (myths of trafficking).
However, a link that is rarely discussed in open forums about human trafficking is racial discrimination. A question that I don’t hear enough is, “Does race and ethnicity contribute to the likelihood of people becoming victims of trafficking?” I say, “Yes.” Furthermore, I believe that not only does race and ethnicity constitute a risk factor for trafficking, it may also determine the treatment those victims’ experience.
The Polaris Project, who does outstanding work in combating human trafficking, stated the majority of trafficked persons come from vulnerable populations, including undocumented migrants, runaways and at-risk youth, oppressed or marginalized groups, and the poor; specifically because they are easiest to recruit and control. In the U.S., statistically speaking, people of color more than fit this criterion.
Available Statistics by Race
A large majority of trafficked persons in the U.S. for the purposes of labor and sexual exploitation are people of color. Domestically, 50 percent of trafficked victims are children and an overwhelmingly are girls, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Most foreign nationals are women, children and men from Mexico and East Asia, as well as from South Asia, Central America, Africa, and Europe, about 17,500 each year, according to statistics compiled by Polaris Project and 2009 TIP report.
Seventy-seven percent of victims in alleged human trafficking incidents reported in the U.S. were people of color, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics Report. An example of BJS’s ambiguity is that 747 out of 1,442 reported incidents recorded no racial or ethnic origin.
Racism is deeply embedded in human trafficking and must be racially inclusive and explicitly included in its literature, statistics and advocacy. To combat this modern-day slavery, the trafficking cycle should recognize explicitly the connections between trafficking, migration, poverty, racism, gender and racial discrimination.
We need to urge and support our NGOs, national and state governments to adequately report trafficking incidents. It is important to know the origin of the victims and the suspected traffickers, race and ethnic backgrounds to better understand the vulnerabilities and how traffickers exploit opportunities.
I am advocating that we remove and uncover the ambiguity of the characteristics of trafficked persons and the traffickers and be explicit about who they are and what populations in America are most affected so we can make specific and measurable progress. The notion that anyone can be a victim of human trafficking is true, however, the fact that the majority of victims are people of color should not be undermined or understated.
Jamaal Bell is media relations manager for the Kirwan Institute and the executive editor for Race-Talk. Prior to joining Kirwan in 2009, his communications experience included work for school districts, government and marketing communications firms. Jamaal has also served four years in the United States Navy. He holds a B.S. in Journalism and Public Relations from Ball State University. Follow him on Twitter @Jrbizzy.



*          *          *

The question not asked is this:
Within the U.S., what is the race and gender of the PROCURERS and PURCHASERS (the abusers and the slavers)? What demographic are they from? Age, religion, region? In U.S. media, questions unasked means we don't want to focus on the realities revealed with the answer. Here's my answer to which demographic the majority of procurers and purchasers of human beings for sexual slavery or trafficked sex are: older, class-privileged, white, Christian, heterosexual, men.

I welcome anyone who is on the streets, in the hotels, in the homes, and in the other areas where the trafficking occurs, with cross-regional, national information, to provide the "statistical" details. And to further make my case that P.I.M.P.s and W.I.M.P.s (see my glossary to the right) like to be out of view, please review this VERY comprehensive information about prostitution, sex trafficking, and sexual slavery, *here*, which is where I found the image atop this post. Tons of information, titled "Sexual Slavery Information" with stunningly little about who is doing this! Is this just because we already know? Clearly not, because there is no stigma on that demographic for doing this, and when we see such men in the media, they aren't portrayed as slavers and traffickers, procurers and pimps. It's time to pull back the curtain and show the world the faces of who these white male fuckers, batterers, and rapists.

No More Stormy Weather, Lena Horne (June 30, 1917 - May 9, 2010). You've Left the World Far Brighter Than Before Your Grand Entrance



I have only known life on Earth with Lena Horne. Of course this is the case with anyone who dies, who was famous, who is older than me. But Lena was always a star, and one of the brightest. She shone in a social sky perennially and perpetually clouded by racism and misogyny. Oh, but how she broke through those clouds, like the Spring and Summer Sun, to pour out a beautiful, wondrous humanity that has left the world changed, better, stronger and more passionate. Her art and her life leaves behind a magnificent legacy. I am far richer in spirit for having been touched, through her music and her activism, each of which taught me to value full expression and to fight for freedom from white male supremacist intolerance and tyranny. May she rest in peace, and shine, always center stage, in the heavenly chorus. -- Julian

From The New York Times:

“My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman. I’m free. I no longer have to be a ‘credit.’ I don’t have to be a symbol to anybody; I don’t have to be a first to anybody. I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.”


Lena Horne, Singer and Actress, Dies at 92




Lena Horne, who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer, died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She was 92 and lived in Manhattan.
Leo Friedman
Lena Horne appeared in “Jamaica,” a musical that ran on Broadway from 1957 to 1959.
    Associated Press
    Ms. Horne and Cab Calloway in “Stormy Weather.” The title song became one of her signatures.
    Her death was announced by her son-in-law, Kevin Buckley.
    Ms. Horne might have become a major movie star, but she was born 50 years too early, and languished at MGM in the 1940s because of the color of her skin, although she was so light-skinned that, when she was a child, other black children had taunted her, accusing her of having a “white daddy.”
    Ms. Horne was stuffed into one “all-star” musical after another — “Thousands Cheer” (1943), “Broadway Rhythm” (1944), “Two Girls and a Sailor” (1944), “Ziegfeld Follies” (1946), “Words and Music” (1948) — to sing a song or two that could easily be snipped from the movie when it played in the South, where the idea of an African-American performer in anything but a subservient role in a movie with an otherwise all-white cast was unthinkable.
    “The only time I ever said a word to another actor who was white was Kathryn Grayson in a little segment of ‘Show Boat’ ” included in “Till the Clouds Roll By” (1946), a movie about the life of Jerome Kern, Ms. Horne said in an interview in 1990. In that sequence she played Julie, a mulatto forced to flee the showboat because she has married a white man.
    But when MGM made “Show Boat” into a movie for the second time, in 1951, the role of Julie was given to a white actress, Ava Gardner, who did not do her own singing. (Ms. Horne was no longer under contract to MGM at the time, and according to James Gavin’s Horne biography, “Stormy Weather,” published last year, she was never seriously considered for the part.) And in 1947, when Ms. Horne herself married a white man — the prominent arranger, conductor and pianist Lennie Hayton, who was for many years both her musical director and MGM’s — the marriage took place in France and was kept secret for three years.
    Ms. Horne’s first MGM movie was “Panama Hattie” (1942), in which she sang Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things.” Writing about that film years later, Pauline Kaelcalled it “a sad disappointment, though Lena Horne is ravishing and when she sings you can forget the rest of the picture.”
    Even before she came to Hollywood, Brooks Atkinson, the drama critic for The New York Times, noticed Ms. Horne in “Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939,” a Broadway revue that ran for nine performances. “A radiantly beautiful sepia girl,” he wrote, “who will be a winner when she has proper direction.”
    She had proper direction in two all-black movie musicals, both made in 1943. Lent to 20th Century Fox for “Stormy Weather,” one of those show business musicals with almost no plot but lots of singing and dancing, Ms. Horne did both triumphantly, ending with the sultry, aching sadness of the title number, which would become one of her signature songs. In MGM’s “Cabin in the Sky,” the first film directed by Vincente Minnelli, she was the brazen, sexy handmaiden of the Devil. (One number she shot for that film, “Ain’t It the Truth,” which she sang while taking a bubble bath, was deleted before the film was released — not for racial reasons, as her stand-alone performances in other MGM musicals sometimes were, but because it was considered too risqué.)
    In 1945 the critic and screenwriter Frank Nugent wrote in Liberty magazine that Ms. Horne was “the nation’s top Negro entertainer.” In addition to her MGM salary of $1,000 a week, she was earning $1,500 for every radio appearance and $6,500 a week when she played nightclubs. She was also popular with servicemen, white and black, during World War II, appearing more than a dozen times on the Army radio program “Command Performance.”
    “The whole thing that made me a star was the war,” Ms. Horne said in the 1990 interview. “Of course the black guys couldn’t put Betty Grable’s picture in their footlockers. But they could put mine.”
    Touring Army camps for the U.S.O., Ms. Horne was outspoken in her criticism of the way black soldiers were treated. “So the U.S.O. got mad,” she recalled. “And they said, ‘You’re not going to be allowed to go anyplace anymore under our auspices.’ So from then on I was labeled a bad little Red girl.”
    Ms. Horne later claimed that for this and other reasons, including her friendship with leftists like Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois, she was blacklisted and “unable to do films or television for the next seven years” after her tenure with MGM ended in 1950.
    This was not quite true: as Mr. Gavin has documented, she appeared frequently on “Your Show of Shows” and other television shows in the 1950s, and in fact “found more acceptance” on television “than almost any other black performer.” And Mr. Gavin and others have suggested that there were other factors in addition to politics or race involved in her lack of film work
    Although absent from the screen, she found success in nightclubs and on records. “Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria,” recorded during a well-received eight-week run in 1957, reached the Top 10 and became the best-selling album by a female singer in RCA Victor’s history.
    In the early 1960s Ms. Horne, always outspoken on the subject of civil rights, became increasingly active, participating in numerous marches and protests.
    In 1969, she returned briefly to films, playing the love interest of a white actor, Richard Widmark, in “Death of a Gunfighter.”


    She was to act in only one other movie: In 1978 she played Glinda the Good Witch in “The Wiz,” the film version of the all-black Broadway musical based on “The Wizard of Oz.” But she never stopped singing.
    Associated Press
    Ms. Horne in 1981 after she won two Grammy awards for “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music.”
      She continued to record prolifically well into the 1990s, for RCA and other labels, notably United Artists and Blue Note. And she conquered Broadway in 1981 with a one-woman show, “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music,” which ran for 14 months and won both rave reviews and a Tony Award.
      Ms. Horne’s voice was not particularly powerful, but it was extremely expressive. She reached her listeners emotionally by acting as well as singing the romantic standards like “The Man I Love” and “Moon River” that dominated her repertory. The person she always credited as her main influence was not another singer but a pianist and composer, Duke Ellington’s longtime associate Billy Strayhorn.
      “I wasn’t born a singer,” she told Strayhorn’s biographer, David Hajdu. “I had to learn a lot. Billy rehearsed me. He stretched me vocally.” Strayhorn occasionally worked as her accompanist and, she said, “taught me the basics of music, because I didn’t know anything.”
      Strayhorn was also, she said, “the only man I ever loved,” but Strayhorn was openly gay, and their close friendship never became a romance. “He was just everything that I wanted in a man,” she told Mr. Hajdu, “except he wasn’t interested in me sexually.”
      Lena Calhoun Horne was born in Brooklyn on June 30, 1917. All four of her grandparents were industrious members of Brooklyn’s black middle class. Her paternal grandparents, Edwin and Cora Horne, were early members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and in October 1919, at the age of 2, Lena was the cover girl for the organization’s monthly bulletin.
      By then the marriage of her parents, Edna and Teddy Horne, was in trouble. “She was spoiled and badly educated and he was fickle,” Ms. Horne’s daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, wrote in her family history, “The Hornes.” By 1920 Teddy had left his job with the New York Department of Labor and fled to Seattle, and Edna had fled to a life on the stage in Harlem. Ms. Horne was raised by her paternal grandparents until her mother took her back four years later.
      When she was 16, her mother abruptly pulled her out of school to audition for the dance chorus at the Cotton Club, the famous Harlem nightclub where the customers were white, the barely dressed dancers were light-skinned blacks, Duke Ellington was the star of the show and the proprietors were gangsters. A year after joining the Cotton Club chorus she made her Broadway debut, performing a voodoo dance in the short-lived show “Dance With Your Gods” in 1934.
      At 19, Ms. Horne married the first man she had ever dated, 28-year-old Louis Jones, and became a conventional middle-class Pittsburgh wife. Her daughter Gail was born in 1937 and a son, Teddy, in 1940. The marriage ended soon afterward. Ms. Horne kept Gail, but Mr. Jones refused to give up Teddy, although he did allow the boy long visits with his mother.
      In 1938, Ms. Horne starred in a quickie black musical film, “The Duke Is Tops,” for which she was never paid. Her return to movies was on a grander scale.
      She had been singing at the Manhattan nightclub Café Society when the impresario Felix Young chose her to star at the Trocadero, a nightclub he was planning to open in Hollywood in the fall of 1941. In 1990, Ms. Horne reminisced: “My only friends were the group of New Yorkers who sort of stuck with their own group — like Vincente, Gene Kelly, Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen, and Richard Whorf — the sort of hip New Yorkers who allowed Paul Robeson and me in their houses.”
      Since blacks were not allowed to live in Hollywood, “Felix Young, a white man, signed for the house as if he was going to rent it,” Ms. Horne said. “When the neighbors found out,Humphrey Bogart, who lived right across the street from me, raised hell with them for passing around a petition to get rid of me.” Bogart, she said, “sent word over to the house that if anybody bothered me, please let him know.”
      Roger Edens, the composer and musical arranger who had been Judy Garland’s chief protector at MGM, had heard the elegant Ms. Horne sing at Café Society and also went to hear her at the Little Troc (the war had scaled Mr. Young’s ambitions down to a small club with a gambling den on the second floor). He insisted that Arthur Freed, the producer of MGM’s lavish musicals, listen to Ms. Horne sing. Then Freed insisted that Louis B. Mayer, who ran the studio, hear her, too. He did, and soon she had signed a seven-year contract with MGM.
      The N.A.A.C.P. celebrated that contract as a weapon in its war to get better movie roles for black performers. Her father weighed in, too. In a 1997 PBS interview, she recalled: “My father said, ‘I can get a maid for my daughter. I don’t want her in the movies playing maids.’ ”
      Ms. Horne is survived by her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley. Her husband died in 1971; her son died of kidney failure the same year.
      Looking back at the age of 80, Ms. Horne said: “My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman. I’m free. I no longer have to be a ‘credit.’ I don’t have to be a symbol to anybody; I don’t have to be a first to anybody. I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.”

      Sunday, May 9, 2010

      Homosexual Men: for Rent or Rents? An Ironic Story about Larry Flatt, Jesus and Mary Magdalene, & Reker and the Rentboy


      *All Rights to American Idol 2010 and Fox*


      Here, today, I dedicate this song to George Reker, co-founder of NARTH, an organisation designed to turn gay men "straight", who protested vehemently AGAINST gay men being parents, or 'rents of boys (or girls), in Florida. Reker was less outspoken about his "firm" belief that homosexual males are FOR rent as boys, for men. I hope this is clear.

      The Gospel According to George Reker:
      Gay men ought not be parents of boys who go on vacations together as a family. Reker ought to be able to take a rentboy for sexual massage on a vacation without his family.
      This is, really, how many White Conservative Christian Men practice "family values". More on this matter of only one small part of him being vertical with the prostitute, and the rest of him being straight with the press, later in this post.

      What's, NARTH, you ask? Oh, that's the National Association for Research and Therapy of Heterosexuality. I mean Homosexuality. Sorry. I keep forgetting what it is that Wise(-ass) Christian Conservative White Men are for and against. I mean politically they lean against gay men, but personally they also lean against gay men. So, as you can see, it's kind of confusing.

      The very popular and enjoyable song above was written and performed by Larry Flatt, a former Civil Rights Activist who clearly has his act together and ready for the road in a way that George Reker never will. It is reported that Flatt has been grossly exploited by those who have sought to profit from his song. From
      Wikipedia:
      The song was first performed at the ninth season of American Idol auditions where the song became a viral hit. Platt's former manager Jason Mills released the studio version of the song, without him even knowing. The single version of the song was released on February 4, 2010 by American King Music for MP3 download. Jake Records also entered negotiations with Larry Platt to produce a single of the hit song, but the parties were unable to reach agreement on a deal. [4] It was reported that Platt's former manager also gave the song to radio stations without his permission stating that the song "is a promotional and not for profit."

      And speaking of the reported and exploited, it occurs to me, as I'm sure it does to a few of you readers, that "rentboy" is both a better and a more demeaning term to use for someone than "prostitute". It has some indication of there being a human being in there, what with "boy" being part of the term and all. But, then again, it's a boy. A child. So, not so good a term there. Why the term isn't rentman has a lot to do with men's sexually political desire to possess those they fuck around with. And nowhere to be found is the term rentwoman.

      "Prostitute", perhaps due, in the West, to the overwhelming  sales of a paperback called the New Testament Bible, is fused with the gendered being named "woman". Hence the need for the term, "male prostitute" (kind of like "male nurse" except the expectations by the men who get their services are different). How many times have you heard the term, "female prostitute"? Yeah, this may be the first time I've heard it too. But whether a rentboy or a prostitute, the person is assumed to be for men and "for rent". Which tells you a lot about what can happen to someone. Or, well, it should. It should tell you that "renters" of "the rented" get what they want, and get to demand what they want because they paid "for you" to "do what they want". Sometimes, as in the case with Reker and the Rentboy, George made "Lucien" sign a contract about exactly how much time he'd spend giving him a massage each day (and hour), and how many hours in a day they'd spend together (eight).

      I'm sorry, what?

      The New Testament Bible?? You've not heard of it? Oh, sorry.

      It's a quasi-biographical novel of sorts, about a man named Jesus. It was co-penned by several men who never knew the guy (no, really--they never met him!), so it's filled with lots of rather bizarre, conflicting, and mythic stories about Jesus, who did exist but not exactly in the ways and to the length of time (that time period being eternity) that some of his "mythographers" proclaim. When Our Lorde writes an auto-"biomythography" about herself--who IS someone she knew in person--she therefore has some authority to write accurately about the subject of the book. And so we can trust in Her, Our Lorde to have some integrity about what is written. Not so with biomythography that is written by those patriarchal dudes who never once, twice, or thrice sat down with, broke bread, and interviewed the subject of their book--or even saw a YouTube video of him speaking.

      And while on the topic of who he was and wasn't, despite depictions like the one just below, Jesus was a very non-white Jewish man of Central Asian and/or Northern African heritage, who stood with the oppressed against State tyranny. He stood with the oppressed, yes, that's right. With folks like prostitutes and people who would now be termed gay men and lesbians, and the rest of us. Reker, by all accounts, is a man who "lay down before the prostitute as one would lie with a woman", with "woman" back then often meaning... you guessed it... "prostitute".

      Those were the days of fiercely organising and institutionalising patriarchal power in religion. And, Mary Magdalene, who, despite what many allegedly smart Christian men will tell you, was not a prostitute, she was, rather, a central Apostle in Jesus' life, and wrote a Gospel, herself. From a book all about The Gospel of Mary of Magdala:
      In the brief text, the male apostles are afraid and despondent after Jesus' post-resurrection departure, so Mary tries to cheer them by revealing some of the esoteric teachings that Jesus imparted to her alone. But the teachings cause discord, as Peter and others refuse to believe that Jesus would have given such "strange ideas" to a woman. ("Did he choose her over us?" a petulant Peter asks.
      From *here*:
      She is the Savior's beloved, possessed of knowledge and teaching superior to that of the public apostolic tradition. Her  superiority is based on vision and private revelation and is demonstrated in her capacity to strengthen the wavering disciples and turn them toward the Good.
      Newby (Century One) Christian menfolk decided, for entirely political reasons--and because they were jealous and pissed, that she shouldn't be included in the New Testicle, I mean Testament (same root, you know), because, well, she KNEW Jesus--some say "biblically", and they didn't know him at all, in any way, shape, or form. HER story would show up theirs to be FILLED WITH LIES.)

      Irony was never so horribly ironic as it is in these male supremacist hymns (hims) of hypocrisy.

      I hope the difference between Reker and Jesus is clearer now, with regard to their views of homosexual men. But let's have a bit of a refresher before we go on. Jesus stood for them, and would have supported them being parents. George lay down next to a rentboy, but would not stand with a gay men being the rents, especially of boys. (White Preachy Conservative Christian men are so confusing, and confused.)

      And, also in review, Jesus didn't look anything like this, ethnically, but he did look like this politically:


      [this image is from a webpage that is linked to below]

      And he didn't condemn those who The Oppressive State condemned. And he was against State Tyranny. And he wasn't all lovey-dovey. Ooh. Another pun. (Dove: symbol of Peace, as Jesus is sometimes thought to be. Work with me here people.) He was angry, furious even, at least at times. You don't believe me? Well, read this book, by a Christian White Man. Jesus was outraged with what the Roman Empire, or Empire, was doing, and he spoke out against it. Yes, that's right: AGAINST Empire, you know, the way Sojourner Truth did. And Harriet Tubman. And Andrea Dworkin. And Andrea Smith. And Dr. Marimba Ani. Robert Jensen does it too, and also his unrelated colleague, Derrick Jensen. Check out THEIR testaments.

      Jesus behaved much more the way all radical human rights and non-racist, non-misogynistic environmental rights activists do than the way most Conservative Christian activists do. I've read up (a whole lot) on what he did and didn't say, and did you know that Western Christian scholars conclude that he may only have said three things, three passages, that are in the New Testament, and that all the other stuff were "words put in his mouth"?! Yup. Read all about it: http://virtualreligion.net/forum/.

      Yes, that's right. It's a Christian site. Not ALL Christians just read one book and call it good news.

      But, back to Reker and the Rentboy. "Rentboy" makes him sound, you know, like a child, which raises disturbing issues about men having sex with boys, with any children of any gender, as white men, especially, are want to do. Because they are inhumanely yet institutionally entitled, they don't just want, they do. White men will travel to the farthest and nearest ends of the Earth to put their dicks into or on children. Seriously. And are white men stigmatised for doing this? Only if they're gay. The het men get off, so to speak, scott free.

      Ah, to be an unstigmatised white het guy who abuses children without care, who will know a fiery hell for all of eternity, let's hope and pray. Economic privilege helps of course, but in the West, the wealth is concentrated disproportionately into the dishonorable hands of white men, but of course not most white men. Capitalism sees to that. Let only the few know of wanting for nothing, so sayeth the Corporate God of Greed.

      Reker, though, was among the elite, the most privileged. As a Western wealthy white heterosexually-identified man, he has what is termed "disposable income". And with his charitable money did he feed and clothe the poor? Not exactly. This (self-)Righteous Christian Who Preaches Against Homosexuality was, instead, caught paying for his sins with his pants on the ground. Since, amusingly, in the UK "pants" means underwear, our new song lyric works well as Reker's anthem on both sides of the Puritan-and-Slave-transporting pond. In either place, Reker is butt-naked, with only his ifs, ands, and buts-filled protestations of innocence with which to cover his jiggly bits and pieces. Surely the man with the material spiritual means can continue to lie his way out of this one tell the truth that will set him free?

      But alas, do you hear it? Another voice harks yonder. A voice that knows what secrets Reker keeps hidden under his oily skin.

      Yes, the prostitute has now spoken out, to respond to what Reker has said while lying in so many ways about trying to bring Jesus to this troubled very young man. Well, if Reker calls his greasy straight dick "Jesus", then maybe that's true. But I don't think that's what George wants us to believe about him.

      George Reker has revealed himself to be no preacher of any Gospel worth uttering, let alone a Savior of Lost Souls. He is only that which Jesus most despised: an Empire-worshiping, oppressively bigoted, blasphemous hypocrite.

      Here's a part of this story about "Lucien" speaking out about his time with Reker. This next portion is from the same place where I found that image of the White Jesus, *here*. Following that, Lucien speaks on video, and I offer up what may well be the moral to this story.


      Kudos to “Lucien” as he calls himself, the “travel assistant” who hoisted bags for anti-gay activist George Rekers during a ten-day all expense paid vacation to Europe. “Lucien” has given an in depth interview to New Times Miami which broke the sack-lifting story earlier this week, clearing the air and admitting that intimate contact occurred between the blond student/escort and his outwardly, professionally homophobic psychologist patron.
      Seems Rekers liked “the long stroke,” a special nude massage “down there”  which Lucien administered once a day. Rekers also asked Lucien to prepare a document hopes of preventing any future disclosures. Lucien told New Times:
      It’s a situation where he’s going against homosexuality when he is a homosexual.
      Lucien decided to speak with New Times after a friend explained to him the harm that Rekers’ anti-gay proselytizing has caused for countless LGBT. Lucien said:
      In all honesty, he should disassociate himself from these [anti-gay] groups
      The Family Research Council, the rightwing Christian group Rekers co-founded with James Dobson has removed Rekers from  their website, despite the turgid Facebook page explanation for his frequent flier frolics:
      Like John the Baptist and Jesus, I have a loving Christian ministry to homosexuals and prostitutes in which I share the Good News of Jesus Christ with them (see I Corinthians 6:8-11). Contrary to false gossip, innuendo, and slander about me, I do not in any way “hate” homosexuals, but I seek to lovingly share two types of messages to them, as I did with the young man called “Lucien” in the news story: [1] It is possible to cease homosexual practices to avoid the unacceptable health risks associated with that behavior, and [2] the most important decision one can make is to establish a relationship with God for all eternity by trusting in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, including homosexual sins. If you talk with my travel assistant that the story called “Lucien,” you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.
      Dr. Rekers, you didn’t have “homosexual intercourse.” You had homosexual foreplay. Either way, it’s still gay sex. Admit it, admit you’re gay, embrace your fabulousity, repent from the sins of having harmed countless LGBT with your BS theories and practices, and come over to the rainbow side. It’s a lot more fun.
      *          *          *
      Here's a link to what "Lucien" the prostitute has to say to CNN's Anderson Cooper, who is gay, out, and has a boyfriend whom Reker would find unfit to raise a boy. I found this video clip *here* on Towleroad. I am impressed with Lucien's generosity of spirit towards a man who condemns him and the rest of us unrepentant gay men to Burn in Hell for All Eternity. (Ah, but is there any room left in hell, what with the white het men who enjoy their evil-doings unpunished till death?)




      Perhaps it is Lucien, the socially ridiculed soft-spoken one, the one with whom Jesus would have stood, not laid down, who will succeed in spiritually transforming Reker into a compassionate human being. Reker, to date, has adequately demonstrated (or is it demon-straighted?) he only has cold cash and a corrupt soul to offer Lucien.

      Revealed in the opening and closing of today's story, it is Larry Flatt and Lucien with some goodness of being and wisdom to share.

      CONGRATULATIONS TO RUCHIRA GUPTA for Being the Recipient of the Nomi Award for Abolitionist Work!!! Here is a Heartfelt Congratulations from Ruchira's friend, Ricky Martin

      [image is from here. 
      This is not a photo of her receiving the honor mentioned below. She has received several honors, and is deserving of every one.]

      Good News:

      SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2010
      Ricky Martin congratulates Nomi Network Honoree Ruchira Gupta at Nomi's First Annual Award Ceremony on May 5th.

      To see his wonderful tribute and expression of gratitude for her Abolitionist work, please visit here:

      http://blog.nominetwork.org/2010/05/ricky-martin-congratulates-nomi-network.html

      I love you, Ruchira Gupta!


      And I love you too, Ricky Martin!

      The Smithsonian So Far, Remains Unaccountable to American Indians, who they "display" the remains of


      This is also a cross post from Brenda--thanks again and again!! From Censored News. Click on title to link back. I apologise for the "you might also like this post" with thumbnails, scattered through this post of Brenda's; I can't find the coding to remove them. Sorry, Brenda!

      Saturday, May 8, 2010


      Wounded Knee photographer files copyright claim against Smithsonian



      The Smithsonian, with a long history of harboring Indian remains and refusing to return those to Indian Nations, is now the subject of a photograph copyright case in federal court involving the occupation of Wounded Knee.

      The case is significant in another way as well. With the proliferation of the web, photos are often reposted without permission and are often incorrectly assumed to be in the public domain. --Censored News


      Wounded Knee Photog Files Copyright ClaimsBy RYAN ABBOTT
      http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/05/07/27084.htm

      ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) - A photographer claims Firelight Media's documentary, "We Shall Remain: Wounded Knee," used her photos of the violent 1973 standoff without her permission and without giving her credit. Anne Pearse-Hocker, who says she took the pictures "under direct automatic weapons and rifle fire at considerable risk to her own life and safety," accuses the independent film production company of copyright infringement.

      Pearse-Hocker says she spent about two weeks in Wounded Knee, South Dakota during the 1973 siege. A group of Native Americans, including members of the American Indian Movement, took armed control of the town, and during the course of the 71-day siege one U.S. marshal was shot and partially paralyzed and two Sioux were shot and killed.

      Pearse-Hocker claims she and one other photojournalist were the only press allowed to remain in Wounded Knee during the standoff, during which time she snapped several hundred pictures.

      In 1996, she says, she gave the pictures to the National Museum of the American Indian, but retained ownership of the copyrights.

      She claims Firelight gained permission to use the pictures from the Smithsonian Institutions to make a documentary, which Firelight released in February 2008.

      Pearse-Hocker says Firelight used several pictures from the museum's archives, including images of one of the Sioux immediately after he was shot, being carried from a church for medical aid.

      She claims the documentary was broadcast on PBS and is available for purchase through the PBS Web site and from Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Borders.

      Pearse-Hocker says she also filed a copyright claim against the Smithsonian in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims for handing over her copyrighted pictures to Firelight.

      She wants Firelight Media to stop broadcasting her photos, to return all hard copies and delete electronic copies. She also wants compensatory damages of up to $150,000.

      She is represented by Eric Heyer of Thompson Hine.
      -------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Smithsonian Without Ethics of Morality
      By Brenda Norrell
      Censored News
      http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/


      Since the creation of the National Museum of the American Indian, there has been an increased effort to conceal the true history of the Smithsonian Institution, especially in regards to harboring human remains and the racist cranium studies of American Indians. The National Museum of the American Indian is the sixteenth museum of the Smithsonian Institution.

      The Smithsonian did not respond to my last request for information, regarding the number of American Indian remains, and American Indian skulls, that currently remain at the Smithsonian.

      One of the most censored issues is the racist cranium studies carried about by the Smithsonian, in an unsuccessful attempt to prove white superiority based on the size of skulls. The studies included grave robbing of American Indians.

      Here is one of the first articles I wrote in 2004 on the subject. Professor James Riding In, Pawnee, at Arizona State University, provided the information. Hopefully, Native Americans will write books on this subject and US school curriculums will one day change to reflect the truth of US institutions.

      Without ethics or morality
      American Indians robbed of equal right of burial

      Pawnee professor exposes scientific racism

      By Brenda Norrell (Written in 2004)

      In the dark cavities of American history -- between the pages of the creation of the Constitution and the proclamation of America as a champion of human rights -- there is a haunting chapter missing.

      James Riding In, Pawnee historian and professor, can prove it.

      The U.S. Army paid bounty for the crania of American Indians for research designed to prove a white supremacist theory, that whites were superior to other races based on their skull size.

      Moreover, the vast majority of those crania are now housed in the Smithsonian Institute, which has been less than forthcoming under a new federal law -- the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act -- mandating it to notify tribes of the identity of human remains.

      The recent admission that the skull of Ishi, the last of his people, was housed in a Smithsonian warehouse is the latest proof of silence and complicity in a crime against Native people.

      Riding In said the Smithsonian Institution curators acquired 18,500 bodies and most of the skulls were collected by the Army Medical Museum in the 1800s.

      In most instances, the crania gather dust at the Smithsonian today.

      But others have been destroyed by carbon 14 dating analysis.

      While white society severely punishes those that rob and loot graves of white people, American Indians have been denied equal protection under the law.

      Riding In joined tribal leaders, scholars and attorneys at Arizona State University’s Indian Legal Program Feb. 25-26, for the "Symposium on Land, Culture, and Community: Contemporary Issues in Cultural Resources Protection."

      Riding In’s research reveals a missing chapter in U.S. history books.

      Samuel G. Morton, in the early 1830s, worked under the new disciplines of craniology and phrenology, to devise tests on skulls, in relation to intelligence and crania size.

      Morton poured mustard seeds into human skulls to determine size and volume in his research. In the process, he assembled a large collection of American Indian skulls.

      "He never questioned the morality of stealing Indian crania from graves," Riding In says in an essay now included in the university’s law course materials.

      Morton paid soldiers, settlers, and others for Indian skulls. Economic rewards provided incentive to grave looting. Field collectors took advantage of the recurring diseases and political forces that depopulated and displaced Indian people, he said.

      "Because of the demand created by Morton and others, gathering Indian skulls in frontier areas grew into a cottage industry," Riding In said.

      In the meantime, it became obvious that American Indians would rather submit to extermination than "wear the yoke" of slavery.

      Riding In said this attitude, combined with the belief that American Indians were savages, shaped public opinion and the development of federal Indian policy.

      Since the early 1800s, soldiers stationed in frontier posts frequently opened Indian burial sites and shipped the contents to Morton.

      The United States Army established a program during the 1860s for studying Indian crania. Among those massacred, beheaded and their crania taken, were a group of friendly Cheyenne, Kiowa and Arapaho near Sand Creek.

      The Surgeon General said in 1863 that the Army Medical Museum had 143 specimens of skulls. The reason for the collection was stated as anthropological research on Native people.

      Army personnel in Indian country were encouraged to contribute skulls.

      But it was not only the military seizing Indian crania.

      Riding In said during the Gold Rush in California, tribal burial sites were ravaged by exploiters searching for Indian treasure. In one instance, three hundred skulls were taken, exhibited in San Francisco, then sold to Harvard University’s Peabody Museum.

      Across the United States, university researchers carted off thousands of human remains in the name of science.

      Riding In said Franz Boas, considered the father of cultural anthropology, is a case in duplicity.

      "While professing friendship and gathering oral traditions in British Columbia, Canada, in 1886, Boas stole Indian bodies," Riding In said.

      While promoting his career, Boaz wrote in his diary, "Yesterday I wrote to the Museum in Washington asking whether they would consider buying skulls this winter for $600."

      Riding In said, "Archaeology, a branch of anthropology that still attempts to sanctify this tradition of exploiting dead Indians, arose as an honorable profession from this sacrilege."

      Calling it "virulent racism," Riding In said archaeologists must be viewed as the grave looters their history proves them to be.

      American Indians painstakingly prepare their dead for burial. A California Indian pleaded at the time of his death that he be buried in his homeland, so his spirit would not wander homeless and friendless in a strange country.

      Many Native people feel that "disinternment stops the spiritual journey of the dead, causing the affected spirits to wander aimlessly in limbo."

      "These affected spirits can wreak havoc among the living, bringing sickness, emotional distress, and even death," Riding In said.

      Navajo, Apache, Pawnee and other tribes believe that anyone that disrupts a grave is an "evil, profane, and demented individual who plans to use the dead as a means of harming the living."

      Reburial within Mother Earth enables those spirits to continue their journeys.

      Thomas Jefferson, before becoming the third president, took a lead in unearthing Indian graves in the name of science.

      In his "Notes on the State of Virginia," Jefferson admits excavating for the sake of curiosity an Indian burial site in Virginia where about 1,000 human remains were interned.

      Riding In said regardless of Jefferson’s attempt to understanding Indian people, he remains a "racial imperialist," a person who philosophized against slavery and owned slaves.

      Further, Jefferson was architect of the Indian removal policy, a disastrous program that uprooted and relocated tens of thousands of eastern Indians to west of the Mississippi River between the 1810s and 1850s.

      With Indian people removed from their ancestral lands, grave looters robbed tribal graves and carried away the contents.

      "Jefferson’s diggings had lasting ramifications. Jefferson gave an illusion of morality to the expropriation of contents from Indian graves," Riding In said.

      Further, generations looked upon Jefferson with admiration.

      And while non-Indians are quick to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Holocaust in Europe, they turn a blind eye to the Holocaust carried out by their own ancestors.

      The Catholic Church’s beatification of Father Junipero Serra disgusted California Mission Indians, who knew him as an enslaver of Indians.

      Serra’s missions were no more than concentration camps. Brutal slave labor, starvation and disease killed all but a fraction of the Native population.

      California Mission Indians denied archaeologists permission to study the remains of individuals who died while in Serra’s missions.

      From these tragedies, the Indian burial rights movement was born in the 1970s. The Native American Rights Fund emerged as a fighter for burial rights and repatriation.

      But the movement carried a stronger message: Indians are part of humankind and deserve to be treated as such.

      Walter Echo-Hawk pointed out that while religious concerns are important, the major issue is equality under the law.

      "Indians, as members of the human race and the United States, should receive the same burial protection taken for granted by every other racial and ethnic group," Riding In said.

      State laws are often racist in nature, often charging a person looting an Indian grave with a misdemeanor while charging those who commit the same crime against a marked cemetery with a felony.

      The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, passed by Congress in 1990, makes it a crime to disturb graves on federal and tribal lands and makes it a crime to sell human remains.

      But, the federal law requires the victims -- Indian people -- to bear the cost of reburying their dead, rather than those who committed the crimes – archaeologists, museum curators, physical anthropologists and others.

      Riding In said legislation should address two issues: Should scholars use information gained through the theft of human remains; should universities and libraries pull from their shelves research based on immoral acts.

      Those immoral acts were committed against individuals, families and communities.

      Harry Coons, a Skidi Pawnee from Oklahoma visited a site in Nebraska in 1896 where he had lived as a boy. Coons discovered the gravesites of his sisters had been pillaged.

      Riding In said, "Grave looting has caused Indians a great deal of suffering, mental anguish, and distress."

      Riding In, who also authored a factual biography of Geronimo, is an assistant professor of justice studies at Arizona State University.

      ASU’s Law School course materials for the symposium includes Riding In’s essay, "Without Ethics or Morality: A Historical Overview of Imperial Archaeology and American Indians."