#being the forced removal of indigenous children from their families to be put in the system

[sonicthedestiel]

I RAN OUT OF ROOM IN THE TAGS FCKN HELL

[britcision]

There’s been another round of the semi-constant “the kids these days don’t know their history” and 1) you know who you sound like

But also 2) the kids are being told that anyone over 19 who talks to them is a sicko and a pervert. How are they supposed to know when they don’t know what questions to ask?

And it’s being done so pervasively and so successfully that I gotta wonder if that isn’t the goal

Forcing a divide between queer kids and the queer adults who could support them and help them with the benefit of experience

The people who could teach them all this history and how we got to where we are

There’s a reason the US and Canadian governments have a long and ongoing history of stealing children from Indigenous families; if you want to remove a culture, you start with the kids

There’s this weird dual mindset now where young queers are acting like it’s both always been this safe to be out and queer, and that they’re the first ones doing anything for queer rights

They’re trying to reinvent the wheel and getting scolded by the older queers they’ve already been told are perverts because they’re no longer minors (and isn’t that a familiar rhetoric)

But what’s gonna happen to those teens on their nineteenth birthday, when they’re now the perverts if they keep hanging out with their same friend groups?

Are they gonna magically forget everything that told them older queers aren’t safe? Will they know how to navigate the world without the safety brand of “minor”?

(Fucking wild the first time I saw a baby queer use that in public, telling some creep they were a minor and to leave them alone. There were about 8 of us in the group and we just gently folded them back into the middle so creeper knew they weren’t out alone because holy shit that is dangerous.

The people who think harassing others on the street is fine and good really aren’t the people you should trust won’t be encouraged by finding out you’re a minor)

A good damn chunk of my queer friends are at least four years older than me and oh boy did they have a lot to put up with when I was 16-17

But they taught me our queer history, and things like why the leather daddies and kinksters will always have a place at Pride (we did not get this far without them and we’re not leaving anyone behind)

I learned a lot from having older friends, including things they weren’t trying to teach me just because I looked into stuff they casually talked about

And bear in mind, when I was that age queer rep was pretty much “oh and they’re brothers so no one ship them”, Brokeback Mountain, and Rocky Horror Picture Show

I’m over the moon that queer kids have so much more stuff to choose from now. We’re going to need more, because we always need more and there should never be a cap on the amount of rep any group needs

I’m just suspicious of the kind of discourse that tries to put lines down between members of the queer community

Again: we did not get here without every single group that fought and died under this umbrella. And we will lose everything we have if we start to leave people behind.

Being queer still isn’t safe for everyone, everywhere, and even where we’re relatively safe there are still people chomping at the bit to roll us all back and we don’t all fit in the closet anymore

Anyway, TL;DR: don’t trust anyone who tells you that they’re the only person you can trust and everyone else is dangerous, the only way to stop predators is to teach people about predatory behaviour, not “all predators are x”, and we all need to share our queer history in as open and approachable a manner as possible

[militantinremission]

The March On Washington 60Yrs later- What does it mean?

Mainstream Media is almost tripping over themselves to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of The March On Washington... Seriously?! Black America is WORSE OFF now, than We were 60Yrs ago! We're still being oppressed by the Same Institutions that Dr. King & 'The Big 6' were marching to protest. I respect my Elder, but Andrew Young is speaking for himself when he says he's 'No ways tired'- more than a few of Us are Sick & Tired of being sick & tired!

U KNOW Mainstream Media had to play Dr. King's 'I have a Dream' speech; I think it's the only MLK Speech allowed. Maybe its just me, but the crowd participating in this 'Event' looked as disingenuous as the Event itself. Why were they there? What are they celebrating? They remind me of the Yuppies that make their pilgrimage to Newburg, N Y. to celebrate the glory & wonder of Woodstock; but the Event itself was a literal Mud Bowl that tested the resolve of the Attendees.

The Kumbaya Coalition looked happy to be part of 'History', but do they understand The History? The individuals that were interviewed ran the usual talking points of 'I have a dream'; are they aware that Dr. King famously said that he 'feared integrating Us into a burning building'? He also said that 'America owes Us a debt & We're coming to Washington to collect Our Check'. Once again, I feel like Black American Culture is being looted to suit another's purpose. MLK is being lauded, but he's just a prop. At the time of his assassination, Dr. King was disliked by 2/3rds of America. Over 160 Newspapers denounced him.

The 'Cloth' of Black American Culture is literally being removed from Us & placed on other groups. First Barack Obama calls his Immigration Policy: 'The Dream Act', & labels the children of Illegal Immigrants 'Dreamers'. Next, (White) LGBTQ... Individuals appropriate Civil Rights to normalize a Counter Culture. NOTHING is politically 'Black Specific', Everything is 'Black & Brown'; meanwhile, Latinx, & Asian Americans get specificity for their respective communities. It's the same thing w/ The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Their Mission Statement offers more to Immigrants, than the Black Americans that put them in Office.

As an Indigenous Black American, I feel an all out effort to remove & replace my lineage group. Efforts to rewrite American History, as it relates to Anti- Black Racism is gaining traction. Democrats & Republicans appear to be in agreement w/ placing Illegal Immigrants in Black Communities & instigating competition between Us for the same resources. Los Angeles was just The Beginning. The blatant culture appropriation by folks that We thought were 'Family', is forcing Us to revisit John Henrik Clarke's assessment (30Yrs ago) that: 'We don't have any friends'.

-It doesn't look good.

[writingwithcolor]

Space based story with prison camps: problematic parallels?

Trigger warnings:

Holocaust

Unethical Medical Experimentation (in the post and resources)

ivypool2005 asked:

I'm writing a sci-fi novel set on Mars in the 25th century. There are two countries on Mars: Country A, a hereditary dictatorship, and Country B, a democracy occupied by Country A after losing a war. Country A's government is secretly being puppeted by a company that is illegally testing experimental technology on children. On orders from the company, Country A is putting civilian children from Country B in prison camps, where the company can fake their deaths and experiment on them. (1/2)

My novel takes place in one of the prison camps. I am aware that this setting carries associations with various concentration camps in history. Specifically, I'm worried about the experimentation aspect, as I know traumatic medical experimentation occurred during the Holocaust. Is there anything I should avoid? How can I acknowledge the history while still keeping some fantasy/sci-fi distance from real experiences -- or is it a bad idea to try to straddle that fence at all? Thank you! (2/2)

We are far from being the only people to have suffered traumatic medical experiments.. 

--Shira

TW: Unethical Medical Experimentation (in the post, and all of the links)

Medical experimentation in history

Perhaps without intending to, you have posed an enormous question. 

I will start by saying that we, the Jewish people, are not the only group to have unethical, immoral, vicious experiments performed on our bodies.  Horrific experimentation has been conducted on Black people, on Indigenous people, on disabled people, on poor people of various backgrounds, on women, on queer people... the legacy of human cruelty is long. Here are some very surface-level sources for you, and anyone else interested to go through. Many, many more can be found.

General Wiki Article on Unethical Human Experimentation

US Specific Article  on Unethical Human Experimentation 

The early history of modern American Gynecology is largely comprised of absolutely inhumane experimentation, mostly on enslaved women (with some notable exceptions among Irish immigrant women)

An Article on Gynecological Experimentation on Enslaved Women

I  also recommend reading Medical Bondage by Deirdre Cooper Owens

The Tuskegee Experiment 

First Nations Children Denied Nutrition

Guatemala Syphilis Experiment

Unit 731

AZT Testing on Zimbabwean Women

Project MKUltra

Conversion Therapy

Medical Experiments on Prison Inmates 

Medical Interventions on Intersex Infants and Children

Again, these are only a few, of a tragic multitude of examples. 

While I don't feel comfortable saying, as a blanket statement, that stories like this should never be fictionalized, it feels important to emphasize the historicity of medical experimentation, and indeed, medical horrors. These things happened, in the real world, throughout history, and across the globe. 

The story of this kind of human experimentation is one of immense cruelty, and the complete denial of the humanity of others. Experimentation was done on unwilling subjects, with no real regard for their wellbeing, their physical pain, the trauma they would incur, the effect it would have on families, or on communities. These are stories, not of random, mythical "subjects," but of human beings. These were Black women, already suffering enslavement, who were medically tortured. These were Indigenous children, who were utterly powerless, denied nutrition, just to see what would happen. These were Black men, lied to about their own health, and sent home to infect their spouses, and denied treatment once it was available. These were Aboriginal Australians, forced to have unnecessary medical procedures, children given brutal gynecological exams, and medications that were untested.. These were inmates in US prisons, under the complete control of the state. These were prisoners of war. These were pregnant people, desperate to save their fetuses, lied to by doctors. These were also Jewish people, imprisoned, and brutalized as part of a systematic attempt to destroy us. 

The story of medical torture, of experimentation without any meaningful consent, of the removal of human dignity, and human rights, is so vast, and so long, there is no way to do it justice. It is a story about human beings, without agency, without rights, it's the story of doctors, scientists, and the inquisitive, looking right through a person, and seeing nothing but parts. This is not some vague plot point, or a curiosity to note in passing, it is a real, terrible thing that happened, and is still happening to actual human beings. I understand the draw, to want to write about the Worst of the Worst, the things that happen when people set aside kindness, and pick up cruelty, but this is not simply a device. This kind of torture cannot be used as authorial shorthand, to show who the real bad guys are. 

On writing this subject - research

If you want to write a fictional story that includes this kind of deep, abiding horror, you need to immerse yourself in it. You need to read about it, not only in secondhand accounts, and not only from people stating facts dispassionately. You need to seek out firsthand accounts, read whatever you can find, watch whatever videos you can find. You need to find works recounting these atrocities by the descendants, and community members of people who suffered. 

Then, when you have done that, you need to spend time reflecting, and actively working to recognize the humanity of the people this happened to, and continues to happen to. 

You have to recognize that getting a stamp of approval from three Jewish people on a single website would never be enough, and seek out multiple sensitivity readers who have personal, familial, or cultural experience with forced experimentation.

If that seems like a lot of work, or overkill, I beg you not to write this story. It's simply too important. 

-- Dierdra

If you study public health and sociology, it is often a given that the intersection of institutional power and marginalized populations produces extreme human rights abuses. This is not to say that such abuse should be treated as an inevitability, but rather to help us understand, as Dierdra says, how often we need to be aware of the risk of treating our fellow humans poorly. Much of modern medical history is the story of the unwilling sacrifices made by people unable to defend themselves from the powers that be. Whether we are talking about the poor residents of public hospitals in France during the 18th century whose bodies were used to advance anatomy and pathology, to vaccine testing in the 19th century, to mental asylum patients in the 20th century who endured isolation, lobotomies, colectomies and thorazine, one can easily see this pattern beyond the Holocaust. 

Even when we shift our focus away from abuse justified by “experimentation”, we have many such incidents of institutionalized state collusion in abuse that have made the news within the last 20 years with depressing regularity. Beyond the examples mentioned above, I offer border migrant detention centers and black sites for America, Xinjiang re-education sites and prisoner organ donation in China, Soviet gulags still in use in Russia, and North Korean forced labor camps (FLCs) for political prisoners as more current examples. I agree with Dierdra that these themes affect many people still alive today who have endured such abuses, and are enduring such abuses. 

More on proper research and resources

Given that you are going to be exploring a topic when the pain is still so fresh, so raw, I think you had better have something meaningful to say. Dierdra’s recommendation to immerse yourself in nonfiction primary sources is essential, but I think you will also want to brush up on many established works of dystopian fiction featuring themes relating to state institutions and the exploitation of vulnerable populations. While doing so, read about the authors and how the circumstances of their environments and time periods influenced their stories’ messages and themes. I further recommend that you do so both slowly and deliberately so you can both properly take in the information while also checking in with your own comfort. 

- Marika

[actualmythicalcreature]

I am indigenous. It is Canada Day. I will not be celebrating. You shouldn't either.

They took my gran from her family, young. They tried to take them as young as possible so that they wouldn't remember home. People tried to hide their kids- but they were murdered for it by the Indian agents. They would burn down houses they suspected had children hidden inside. They took my gran, beat her until she spoke English, abused her for years, and then when she was a teenager and had assimilated efficiently they sent her "home". Except, those kids never really could go home. They didn't speak the language. They hadn't seen their parents in years. Some of them didn't know where home was anymore. They didn't share the culture anymore. They were made to believe that their very blood was tainted. Dirty. They were told they were savages- a word thats casually used today like its no big deal. So like most of the kids who managed to survive the starvation, beatings and sexual abuse - my gran went to the city to try to live the life of a white woman. But no amount of beating and brainwashing would make her less brown. She wanted to shed herself of being an ///Indian. At the time, the easiest way to shed her legal status and be seen as a person and citizen, was to marry a white man. So that's what she did. She bore his children. She didn't tell them their history, and hoped they would pass as white. She didn't know how to care for them, the only thing close to a parent she could remember were the nuns and priests who abused her. Abuse is a cycle. She never had a chance to raise her children in a healthy way, because she wasn't healthy. One night when my father was a teenager, she just left. She couldn't do it anymore. I dont know what she was looking for but I hope she found it.

My father, who hated his mother for the ways she had been broken and in turn broke him, became the first generation removed from residential school, but still effected by it. He moved far away from his ancestral lands. He turned to drugs to cope with his serious mental illness, including PTSD. He got my white mother pregnant when they were teenagers- and after less than a year of trying to raise a child with no living example of how to do that right, he left us. He's spent his whole life floating around trying to find home again. He probably never will.

I was raised without my culture, without our stories, without our language. Residential school worked on my family. I also grew up with mental illness. Parental abuse and neglect. I also turned to drugs. I was expelled from high-school. I was even homeless for awhile. Luckilly, I was found by a school for indigenous kids - run out of our local friendship center, by indigenous people. There was only 24 students. They taught us about our culture. Made sure we had food. We had lunch every day with elders from our comunities who told us stories from our ancestors that would have died with them otherwise. I clawed my way back into the culture that was stolen from me. I learned to make drums. I learned which herbs to make into tea to help my cramps. I felt care, and community - for the first time. I found home again. A school for indigenous children run by white folks ruined my family - and coming full circle, it was a school for indigenous children run by indigenous people who put me back together again.

In 2008, when I was 18, I sat in a room with dozens of survivors as they listened to then primeinister Steven Harper - apologize to survivors of residential schools. I cried with them. I listened to the stories they told. I remember them talking about the mass graves, ans how meaningless the apology was, when we still had stolen children who hadn't come home yet.

Not just the bones and bodies buried at the schools - but every child whose sense of home had been stolen. Every child forced into fostercare. Every child that should have been raised traditionally but whose parents couldn't remember how. Every queer child whose parents cast them out due to the religion of our abusers. Every "adopted" child of the 60's scoop. Every woman and man who wanted children but who were forcibly sterilized by the governments eugenics program. Every missing and murdered indigenous woman. Every mixed child whose parents were afraid to let them be indigenous in a country where that is inherently dangerous.

We'll start with the bones, so that the spirits of those lost children can find peace at home with their people. But I will not celebrate 'Canada Day' again, until every stolen child is returned home. This land is OUR home, and we deserve to feel at home on it. I ended up graduating with honors, and a three month old baby boy who I have raised with as much culture as I could claw back. He's 11 now. I homeschool him. We smudge together, grow herbs, and play our drums - and he knows that home will always be right next to me, and no one can take that from him. It took my family over 60 years to get home again, after residential school. And we're the lucky ones.

Don't celebrate Canada Day, until every child they stole, is home again. We shouldn't rest, until they can.

____

This is all I'd like to say on the matter. Please don't request additional emotional labor from me.

[baeddel]

hey saw you post the thing about the tally sticks and wondered if you knew if is there a term for the type of genocide when children are removed from their homes, put in an educational system, and are forced to unlearn their mothertongue? It's happened enough to garner a name, but I haven't found one. Closest I have come to is ethnocide or genocide through cultural assimilation.

the UN's definition of 'Genocide' includes the removal of children from their parents under definition E, "Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" (see). this is still a big issue w/r/t indigenous Americans. as of the 70s 1/3 of all indigenous children were being removed from their homes by CPS and placed with white families. there was a bill passed called the Indian Child Welfare Act (1978) to try and stop this but as of 2011 32 states were still doing it (see, see). the fact that this is a form of genocide comes up a lot in agitation around this issue.

but the fact that they're being rehomed is the important part w/r/t the UN's definition; that wasn't happening in Ireland where the English ruling class were mostly absentee. i think the technical term for what we're talking about is 'forced assimilation' and it isn't, per international law, quite a form of genocide (perhaps unjustly).

[the-king-andthe-lionheart]

Babe, puritanism is a form of religious extremism that got women and lgbt people severely abused or killed. It’s not some teenagers or CSA survivors on the internet telling you your weird ass ships are weird, you're an old hag, grow up, children in real life can't bully you 😂 You won't be forced to perform a walk of shame or be publicly whipped because you read Wattpad fanfics about a 14 yo boy being sexually attracted to his 9 yo sister or fantasize about a 11 yo little girl being a rehabilitation center for morally repugnant adult men and drunkard rapists (you hate Sansa, why ship her with “honorable” male characters that you worship and prioritize lmao ? Besides thinking she needs to be humbled and wanting to put her in her place of course). Go to therapy or go ship Lolita and Humbert Humbert (who knows, him wanting to eventually get Lolita pregnant so he can rape his daughter Lolita the Second, and rape his granddaughter Lolita the Third may be a proof of his everlasting love), Daenerys zealots victim complex is so far removed from reality it’s not even funny, stanning that awful and boring white girl destroyed your brains, y'all sound like Polanski/Woody Allen defenders (whose attraction to underage girls was immortalized in his film Manhattan oops) or reactionary white men who said the #MeToo movement has lead to the spread of "man-hating puritanism.” 😭

Y'all want racial, feminist and lgbt representation in media cause representation matters but then turn around and romanticize pedophilia and incest and say that fiction doesn’t affect reality and fiction is created in a vacuum ? Make up your damn minds, which one is it. 😂

So let me get this straight, an obviously white Stansa, is trying to school me about oppression? Did you not even read my bio? I'm a bisexual, bi-racial indigenous woman. You do know that the Puritans persecuted Native Americans right? That they helped perform cultural genocide against Native Americans? That they were part of the reason why Native children were torn away from their families, their tribes, and shipped to abusive boarding schools in order to "civilize" them? Or how about when they imprisoned hundreds of Native American's on an island only for many of them to die from disease and starvation? So you need to shut your racist ass mouth. How condescending do you have to be to talk over me and to try to "correct" me. I have to say that it's very typical of a white girl who thinks they hold the moral high ground when they don't.

This whole message was downright deranged, but I highly suggest you go outside, touch some grass, reevaluate your sanctimonious, condescending bullshit, and grow the fuck up you literal child. I also highly suggest that YOU go to therapy. Obviously you have a hard time separating fiction from reality if you think reading and engaging with something in fiction will overwrite an adults moral code. I also highly suggest reading some books that are more your own speed. Obviously GRRM's material is too mature for you.

Pro-tip: If you don't like something in fandom, blacklist the tags and block the people you don't agree with. That is the sane course of action, but obviously your not actually sane if you think it's perfectly acceptable to instigate drama, to harass others, over fiction. Seek help.

[ink-and-radio]

I don't usually post things of this caliber on this site, but this has to be said.

If you are not paying attention to what is happening in the USA right now, if you're a citizen, you need to wake up. Now. You needed to wake up in 2016, when we knew this would happen in the not-so-distant future.

As we all know by now, Roe v. Wade was overturned by SCOTUS. Specifically by 6 justices who have no business deciding laws whatsoever for they hold extremists and dangerous views. But as many of us know and understand, Roe v. Wade was only the beginning of their plan for a white conservative Christofascist nation.

So what are they targeting next?

They are targeting Moore v. Harper, which is what allows a state's judicial system the keep federal voting fair. If this is overturned, that grants the state's the power to draw any electoral map they want, and the power to overrule votes if they do not like the outcome. Essentially, that means they can put into power anyone they wish, and that includes who they give the electoral votes to for the Presidency.

They are targeting Brown v. The Board of Education, which ruled that racial segregation was unconstitutional. If overruled, segregation in schools will once again be legal.

They are targeting Lawrence v. Texas, which ruled that same sex persons have a right to have sexual intimacy with another in the privacy of their own homes.

They are targeting Obergefell v. Hodges, which made same sex marriage legal.

They are targeting interracial marriage.

They are targeting the Indigenous Child Welfare Act, which rules that indigenous children cannot be removed from their families. Overturning this means that these children will be forced into white foster homes.

They are targeting the right to contraceptives.

They have already ruled that police forces do not have to read you your Miranda rights when you are arrested, and you cannot sue them if they do not. They have already ruled that any home within 100 miles of the border does not have to have a warrant granted to be invaded. They have already ruled that gun laws are not up to the states. They have already ruled that you have your taxes have to go to private, religious schools. They have already ruled that students can be forced into a christian prayer in schools.

And I'm sure that this isn't even close to everything that is being targeted.

They are attacking and endangering women, anyone with a uterus,' black folks, indigenous folks, brown folks, transgender folks, other LGBTQ+ folks, non-Christian folk, and anyone else who is not their ideal cisgender hetero Christian conservative white man.

If you're not outraged, you should be. If you're not paying attention, you need to be. And if you are doing nothing, you should be ashamed. When I say nothing, I don't mean in the "I am mentally burnt out and am trying to survive" way, I specifically mean in the "I do not care and they are not targeting me" way.

Because not only is that a shitty excuse for ignorance, they will, eventually, come for you, too. We are watching the fall of our democracy, after having a broken system for far too long. This system was never fully working, and was flawed from the beginning with who it helped and protected.

And before I hear any "the founding fathers were christian and this was founded as a Christian nation", the FF themselves had explicitly stated the importance of a separation between the church and the state. Most of them were also Deists, not Christians. No religion belongs in the law or the government.

And before I also hear "if you hate it do much here just move" from so called "patriots", that is the MOST unpatriotic thing you could say or believe. True patriotism is believing your country can be better, and fighting and advocating for that. And I will be damned if I don't do that for all people living here.

A persons humanity is not a debate. My existence as a transgender queer pagan, is not a debate on if I deserve rights and deserve to live. Black people's existence is not a debate. Brown people's existence is not a debate. Indigenous people's existence is not a debate. Women's existence is not a debate. Transgender,' Nonbinary and LGBTQ+ existences are not debates. Other religious folk besides Christian's are not a debate. Non cis, non white, not hetero, non Christian, non men, are not lesser than those who are.

And to all my other white people; we, collectively, need to STOP talking over others voices. We need to stop drowning out the voices of black, brown, and indigenous folks. If anything, we need to use our privilege to amplify their voices. And let me say, your queerness or religious status, does not overwrite the fact you are white. Before anyone knows who I am or what I believe, they will see first and foremost I am a white person. That is privilege. Your queerness doesn't excuse you from being shitty to other people.

Please, WAKE. UP. Freedom and Justice for no one until it is for everyone.

[pocfansmatter]

Okay I said before I was going to get more in depth with blood quantum eventually so now is as better time than any I guess. Mind you I'm speaking as a Native American meaning an Indigenous person from America. Specifically from 2 southern California tribes. I cannot speak for all Native or Indigenous people. I can only speak for myself, I can’t even speak for my tribe. However most Natives tend to have the same view when it comes to the blood quantum debate. From this point on blood quantum will be shortened to BQ & Native American to Native(s).

Originally this was gonna be a reply to another comment but decided to make it it's own post so I don't associate my blog with that anti Indigenous one. Please try to read the whole post before clicking the articles. I screenshotted the main parts to keep the discussion going. Feel free to click on all the articles because they are good & most of them are from Native run news websites.

I was gonna do this with a read more tag but my laptop doesn't want to work. I'm literally getting anyther one on Thanksgiving but my old one doesn't cooperate sorry so y'all are gonna get a long post. 😕

So let's start with the basics. What is blood quantum?

"Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are laws in the United States and the former Thirteen colonies that define Native American identity by percentages of ancestry. ... For instance, a person who has one parent who is a full-blood Native American and one who has no Native ancestry has a blood quantum of 1/2."

In case that was confusing if one person is "full blood native" they are considered 4/4. Meaning they have no relatives who are of any other race or ethnicity. If the "full blood native" has a child with a non Native person the child would have a BQ of 1/2 Native blood. If that child has a child with a non Native that child will be considered 1/4. This will continue to get lower & lower unless the child has a baby with another Native. Then the BQ raises or stays the same depending on the other parents BQ.

Now that the definition is out of the way lets get into the issue with this.

This is a good article that narrowed down an issue with Pharrell wearing a headdress. I wanna focus on one part of the article though.

"... deeply connected to their Native culture & live it every day."

"Having Native American ancestors doesn't get you off the hook if you don't bother to do the homework."

So I mentioned before that a lot of Natives don't consider BQ as a proper way of measuring your culture. Being Native isn't something you can pull out when it's convenient like for a photoshoot. Its every single day. It's in the words we speak, in the clothes we wear & in the food we cook. Same as any other culture.

Asian people don't wake up not Asian. Black people don't wake up not Black.

So why is do some people pull out the Native card when it is convenient? Like Pharrell did or Elizabeth Warren claims.

This article sums it up well but I wanna focus on the last 2 paragraphs.

Link to the full article:

There's similarities in both articles by 2 different Native authors from 2 different news websites.

They both speak about connections to our culture. A DNA test cannot measure ones Indigenous Ancestry because being Indigenous is much more than something in your blood.

I made a post asking some questions that might help understand if one is Indigenous or not. Now I'm not saying these are all the questions nor that I'm the expert on this. These are just STARTER questions to help people understand what it means to be Native.

Does the tribe you claim, claim you?

Have you been to the reservation?

Do you participate in the community?

Have you met your family from the tribe?

Do you know your history, traditions, anything about the tribe you claim?

The big one is are you claimed. You cannot claim a tribe that doesn't claim you. Now I'm not saying the entirety of the tribe has to know you personally. I'm not even saying you have to stand in front of the tribal council & ask them if they claim you. A claim can be made as little as just your family saying "this person is one of us".

The reason I bring this up is because multiple tribes have in the past & continue the practice of "adopting" a person into their tribe. There's many examples of this. Some can be adopted because they married into a tribe. Non Natives & Natives of other tribes alike have been adopted into tribes. There can be legal adoptions like adopting a child. And countless other examples.

A lot of the time biologically those members aren't apart of the tribe & cannot be enrolled but are still viewed as a member by the community.

For personal example, my sister has been adopted by my tribe. She's actually an enrolled member from another tribe & technically my cousin but was taking away by CPS & my family took her in. She grew up & still lives on my reservation. She is from another reservation. Although her tribe still claims her as a member my tribe also does. People in my community know her as a member of my family & have grown up with her. She knows many of our traditions & practices some ceremonies with us that are specific to my tribe. No one in our tribe has expressed any issue with this so far & even if they did they would have a stern talking to. We are even in the process of organizing her to be buried on our tribal land instead of hers. Her choice & we are okay with it.

Now I want to point out another way people can be considered Native even if they aren't enrolled or cannot answer those questions properly.

Let's look at something called "reconnecting Natives".

What is a reconnecting Native?

A reconnecting Native is someone of Native Ancestry who for whatever reason has been removed from their culture, family, reservation, etc so they do not know them & are actively trying to learn those things so they can reclaim their Native roots.

So, how does this happen? This is actually a very common issue in the community.

One of the main ways a Native might become disconnected is through the process of Residential Schools or Indian Boarding Schools. What is that? Here's a snippet of an article to help explain.

Of course here is the link:

The official motto of these schools was "kill the Indian, save the man” and if you think it sounds awful I promise you, it was much worse than you could imagine.

There's a movie on Netflix called Indian Horse which I have not watched yet but is based off a novel by an Indigenous author that looks at these Boarding Schools if you wish to check that out.

The goals of these schools were to strip Indigenous children of their culture. They were beaten, starved, punished of things as simple as speaking in their languages. A lot of them didn't even speak English. It was illegal to keep your kids from this school & often times tribal children went to these schools and never returned to their family. Natives who attended these schools or are children of children who attended these schools more often than not stop practicing their culture or forget it. In that way they become "disconnected".

Those members can if chosen too began the process of reconnecting.

I found this really good article going a little more in depth on the do's & don't's of reconnecting.

But here's a screenshot of important parts.

Granted this is a long process. Lifelong. Every journey to reconnect is difficult & very different from others. It depends on your tribe & community. Some of them make it easier & some make it harder. It's up to the individual to put in the work.

Now I don't want to make it like being a connected Native is easy. Yes it's easier but connected Natives also put in work to live their culture everyday.

Now what does this have to do with blood quantum? As you can see none of these articles about being Native or even a reconnecting Native mention blood quantum or DNA being a requirement.

If one is Japanese & someone asks "how are you Japanese?" What would the answer be?

"Because I just am. Because my parents are Japanese."

If someone is white & has kids those kids are white, correct?

So if it's so easy to explain for other cultures why does mine require math? Why are some of my family members not enrolled members despite having Native parents & growing up on the reservation? Why do my people have to actively think about the DNA results of our children if we choose to have them?

Because of BQ. Its a tool created by colonizers that are forced upon us. If we do not abide by the rules & requirements the government sets in place we run the very big risk of

Losing our status of a Native American tribe.

Losing our land & land rights.

Losing funding from the federal government.

Losing our housing.

Losing Healthcare.

Losing our basic citizenship rights.

The thing about BQ is it's designed so that we fail. If we fail to keep a certain amount of enrolled tribal members in a tribe then the government can break treaties & take away our land & things that are rightfully ours.

BQ is a lose/lose situation all around for us as well as extremely racist.

Because of the BQ requirements Natives actively worry about who they have children with. Some don't date outside of the their culture in fear of their children not being seen as legally Native. The problem here is a lot of the tribe is related. The issue of inbreeding increases. How do we solve that problem? Well we can have children with Natives of another tribe. But there's a problem here too. Most tribes do not allow what we call dual enrollment. Both of my tribes for example don't allow this. Which means one would have to pick which tribe to enroll their child. That means one of the tribes will lose out on a member. So that's another way identities are erased using BQ.

Okay I think I'm going to end this here. There is so much more I could've added. I also could've expanded on residential schools, what it means to be Indigenous, & reconnecting Natives but I wanted to keep it focused on BQ. If you have anymore questions feel free to ask or research on your own. We're still here. We aren't stuck in the 1800's. We weren't all killed by cowboys but the government is still actively trying to erase us.

[elfrooting]

Hey, Nonny! Sorry for taking a while to reply, I wanted to make sure that I gave this the appropriate amount of time and thought, as it’s a subject that I think warrants a lot of care. Also I can’t seem to reply directly from my inbox, I think maybe Xkit is f-ing up at the moment, so sorry for the weird formatting as well!

Before I get into my opinion on the film, I think it’s important to clarify a couple of things.

1) I am part of the American Sámi diaspora. I have regrettably never lived in Sápmi (although if I thought my husband would let me drag him up there, I would be on a plane tomorrow), and my Sámi heritage is also something I have only recently begun the process of reconnecting to. My Sámi ancestor immigrated from Sweden to the United States to escape persecution and forced assimilation, so when they arrived here, they tried very hard to blend in with other Scandanavian immigrants and did not pass their language and culture down to their children. As such, I have not grown up in the culture and was raised in a very typically white midwest family, and so I don’t have the same lived experiences as a Sámi person who has grown up in Sámi culture in a country where racism against our people is still very much alive and well. I could write a whole separate post on what it means to be a white-passing indigenous person living thousands of miles from their ancestral lands with only bits and pieces of their culture accessible, but that’s not what you’re asking about, so I’ll save that for another time. But I do want to be very transparent about this part of my identity and make it clear that I experience a level of privilege that many, many Sámi do not.

2) Sámi people, like any marginalized group, are not a monolith. We are all individuals with our own differing backgrounds and lived experiences, and because of that our opinions on things like this are not universal. So what I say in this post may vary from what you see from other Sámi people, and my opinion does not invalidate or negate theirs. We are all allowed to feel however we feel about issues that relate to the representation of our culture in media and the impact it has on our community. My opinion is my own and shouldn’t be taken as The Sámi Opinion™ on the matter. There are a lot of other posts about it from other Sámi folks, as you’ve noted, and I would encourage everyone to look at all of them to get a broader view of how the film has been received by our community.

SO. All that being said, here are my thoughts:

The Frozen franchise already had kind of a special place in my heart because of Kristoff. According to the original script from the first film, his character is “a young Sámi boy,” and it was my first time ever seeing a Sámi person represented in an animated film. And while Disney did not remotely do Sámi culture any justice in the first movie, it still felt nice to see my culture being recognized in a children’s film at all. So few people have even heard of us that just to be seen felt kinda good, even if the representation was… not great. LOL.

The second film was produced with the help of Sámi people who consulted on the representation of our culture, both in terms of the aesthetics and the way the Northuldra people’s lifestyle was depicted. It was MUCH better than the first film. However, it still had some issues. This is going to get a bit long so I’m going to put it under a cut.

I think there are a lot of Sámi who can identify with reconnecting to the culture, self certainly included. Centuries of forced assimilation have left a lot of us displaced and removed from our heritage and I think we saw some of ourselves in Anna and Elsa’s discovery of their mother’s Northuldra roots. But the idea that Anna and Elsa automatically get accepted into their culture just by virtue of… a shawl? It felt a little bit superficial to a lot of people, and I think that’s valid. The reconnection process is long and involves proceeding with an abundance of caution, care, and respect. None of us would be able to come in and say “Hey, I have this liidni, it belonged to my mum, so I no longer represent colonization and all the horrific things my family did to you guys, isn’t that great!?” That shit wouldn’f fly, LMAO. 

And the idea that this person who hasn’t been raised in the culture can come in and claim her place without any work, and also happens to be a magical Chosen One archetype has some white savior overtones that are kind of uncomfortable, as well.

I also know that a lot of folks felt that the Northuldra fall into the “noble savage” trope, and I can definitely see that as well. So often the way indigenous people are portrayed boils down to Magical Nature People and it can be tiresome, because it leads to a lot of exotification/fetishization of our culture by outsiders. Like, Ryder’s last name is Nattura. It literally means nature in Icelandic. Of course nature is a huge part of indigenous culture, but we have interests and personalities beyond that and it would be nice to see those explored more in media.

And I’m also kind of salty about Kristoff not getting a proper reconnection, or really any explanation about his origins at all. I thought for sure that they were going to get into that, given his affinity for reindeer and the almost immediate brotherly bond he had with Ryder, but then… nada. I really need my soft Sámi boy to find his place and discover more about his own roots if there ever is a Frozen III. That and gay Elsa, those are my two demands from the Mouse, LOL.

But you know what? There were also parts of the film I really did love.

When Yelena called the Northuldra “people of the sun,” I legit got goosebumps. One of our creation stories explains that we were the children of the sun and the moon, and the seeds of that story are scattered all over Sámi culture. You can find our people referred to as “children of the sun” in some form in many places throughout history. Our flag has a large red and blue circle, which represents the sun and moon respectively. One of our most famous poets, Áillohaš, wrote a book called “Beaivi, Áhčážan,” or “The Sun, My Father.” Our national anthem refers to the Sámi as “Beaivvi bártniid,” sons of the sun. So to hear that referenced in the film was really something.

I also enjoyed the overt anti-colonial themes in the movie, with the dam representing the colonial oppression of indigenous people and Anna working to crumble it despite knowing it might mean the end of Arendelle. In recognizing the role some of her ancestors played in oppressing her other ancestors and doing “the next right thing” to correct it, she was showing that she was willing to face the ugly parts of her family’s history in order to truly embrace her heritage, and as someone with mixed indigenous and colonizer ancestry, I felt that in a big way.

So yeah… it definitely was not what I would call perfect representation, but then, I don’t think that media written about Sámi culture by non-Sámi people ever will be. Even the much-praised Klaus—which is a beautiful film, by the way, and I would literally die for Márgu—but even it had some room for improvement in the way we were portrayed. Still, I felt Frozen II had a lot of positives going for it and I’m hoping future installments in the franchise will continue to improve on indigenous representation, and that Disney will continue to involve our community in the discussion when doing so.

I hope that answers your question adequately, Nonny! Feel free to send another ask if you want me to expand on anything or provide any clarification. And thank you for the ask, and for listening and learning what you can about our culture. It means a lot!

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

Any tips for an aspiring social worker

+Be aware of any of your own trauma. Dont be one of the people who think they can do therapy AND get a degree at the same time. You will burn out, there are hundreds every year. Please dont be the person in lectures who takes yup 45 minutes crying over past trauma every session; you need to seek counselling for that from a professional who can help, not from your newbie classmates.

You may think its an exaggeration, but No. Unfortunately, no.

This ties in to your own biases, what you are likely to take to heart if the person fails, etc. You need to work with your supervisor around clients that may trigger something for you; or reconsider the role you are aiming for, etc.

+Have personal skills, you will be making and repairing relationships often. You can’t be someone who is super introverted and unable to start relationships with the clients; because often you are going to be the one doing the Hard Talks about difficult subjects. It doesnt mean you have to be a drill sargeant, but it means you need to have the confidence to talk with anyone.

If you’re a bit shy, work on talking to people and even looking into little courses. You’re not needing qualifications in public speaking, but you do need to have yourself in a position wherein you can talk to someone, even a whole family, or even lawyers, and police. Via phone, video, face-to-face, etc.

+Have work clothes and home clothes. Also court clothes, if you work in areas that need it.

Wear smart casual, you need to look presentable but not be like, dripping with diamonds and playing ‘rich person ministers to the Poors’. It happens, they get told off.

DO NOT WEAR SKIN TIGHT CLOTHES. Or ripped skinny jeans, or have your cleavage/buttcrack hanging out. Please. Strapless backs and short shorts also no.

Students sometimes turn up in this and it is dangerous. Especially the ladies. Sometimes you work with people who are very dangerous, who will interpret clothing for consent, and/or have incredibly low respect for women. When something happens, they will point to the workplace dresscode and absolve themselves of the situation.

Do not wear dangly earrings, scarves or thick necklaces/anything you do not want taken. And if in a hospital role, there are additional rules about what can and cannot be worn (bare below the elbow rule).

Also, enclosed shoes. IF you are in a service that assists families with dysregulated lives, or in the hospitals, etc, you will have strict policies about footwear for your safety.

+Get the flu shot. Trust me. Do it. You talk to so many people, by the time one catches a cold and you start showing symptoms, you’ve seen like twenty people and they all have families.

+Be used to working to tight deadlines. They are always there, esp in hospital social work where you legit have to account for every minute of the day and patient seen on this awful little system.

We are understaffed in most areas, and you will need to work hard.

BUT, self-care is imperative. Even if it is only making sure you leave before 9pm each night lmao.

+Be able to let insults go. You are going to be dealing with people often in the worst part of their life, be it mental health, in the justice system, having their kids removed, being disabled and persistently denied assistance, having significant alcohol/drug concerns, people who have experience extreme sexual harms or domestic violence, people who are being stalked, people in crisis etc.

At some point someone will call you some horrific things, or threaten you, or make nasty comments about you, etc. They may try to make constant complaints, etc. And as frustrating as that is, you have to understand their frustration and anger and fear.

You do not have to sit there and listen to them swear at you, that’s not what this means. It means that when someone is heightened and calling you a cunt, or something more inventive, you don’t give them the reaction they want; you can acknolwedge that they are upset/etc, or give them space by ending the call/leaving the room.

Think about when something happened for you and it was the Worst and you swore or threatened, etc. When you are calm, it seemed ridiculous, didn’t it?  But that was you processing big, complicated feelings in the only way that felt right at the time. Same for them.

+You need to be aware that some clients have done or experienced terrible things, but you need to be open to the individual within the trauma. For example, someone may not be showing their emotional distress or pain or grief etc in the way you think they should, so you might discount it. When, someone who has gotten to know the client is aware that they tend to do ____ behaviour when they are having flashbacks, which is not a behaviour normally associated with the trauma.

Also, biases again.  Just because someone is on drugs and denying to you that they have a problem, does not mean some part of them isn’t aware they do have one. Relapses are common. Soemtimes it is about discussing what was happening for them this week that made them use again, what they could try next time, if they are using their support networks. And never putting them in the Hopeless box.

If you are really struggling with a client, lean on your team, talk to your supervisor and see what else can be done or if there is another social worker with more experience who can be involved even for a short-term intervention.

+Don’t throw jargon and insider terms around when talking to clients, it’s rude.  Explain things, use pauses so they can think.

+Look into the primary populations of your area/the area you intend to work in. Are there a high level of Indigenous persons? Refugees? People whose first language isn’t english and may need extra help with engagment?

What are your immediate thoughts (learned stigmata/stereotypes) about these peoples? How can you learn more?

In Aus, we work closely with Indigenous communities and agencies around social work matters. Making sure everyone is supported, heard, and can understand the concerns being raised/what is needed to help the client move forwards. There are many people out there who see this as ‘coddling’ or ‘unfair to non-Indigenous people’; but it is simply making certain that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are on the same footing as any non-Indigenous client.

And that cultural options are put on the table, such as having a family member step up to take in a child whilst the parent is not well; or trying a community-focused approach to helping with a drug concern, and using the right agencies so that they have appropriate supports.

Would it be fair to have a non-english speaking client in a courtroom without an interpreter? Why?  Would you claim that they should know english and the entire legal system bc they were in your country? Of course not, that’s absurd.  But some people think that way.

Would it be fair to ask someone in a wheelchair to file a form on the top floor of a building with no elevators, by 5pm, or lose their home? Why? Would you think they are complaining or ‘lying’ if they were able to mobilise a few steps without the chair, on a good day? That they were being ‘lazy’ and ‘deserved’ to lose their housing? Of course not, that’s absurd.  But some people think that way.

When the military put men into service in the wars, they made anyone who could pass an english test an officer and the rest priovates who would die first in battle. Was this fair? Why not? Because it ensured the rich white dudes with private tutors got the best spots (totally unqualified) while the poor, poc and refugees were used as cannon fodder. Many could have been good officers if the test was about competence, but it wasn’t. Some people feel this was fair.

There are still people who think they ‘did the right thing’ whilst participating in the Stolen Generations; but then, they also thought taking babies from single mothers was appropriate too. That women couldn’t vote or be trusted with money, that is was ‘kinder’ to take a stillborn away and dispose of it without the mother ever seeing... rather than let her hold them, and say goodbye the way she needed to. Not to mention the english children shipped over to Aus to be used as little slaves and cruelly abused by Priests and Nuns and ‘upright christian citizens’. Not to mention lobotomies for when people were too emotional/refusing to play the game. Forcing hormone treatments on men and women to stop their homosexuality or sexually abusing them to ‘fix them’. Not to mention all the Twilight births nonsense where they tried to remove the pregnant person from the equation entirely, and it kept causing post partum depression.  Not to mention... Not to Mention... NOT TO MENTION...

We have a lot of broken little old men and women and nonbinary (who do or don’t realise it) now, because of these “helpful interventions”.

You need to be aware of the harm that has been done, and aware of your own practice, so this damage can’t happen again and again.

Understand that your perspective and the worries/concerns you hold are often different to those of the client, because you are individuals who grew up in very different ways.

And remember, being a rich white person in a high paying job with good social standing doesn’t mean you can’t be charged for drug possession or have child safety knock on your door about the bruises you leave. Never think people are Above being awful, and never Assume people are because they are poor, a different colour, have not had your advantages, or have a disability/poor mh or addiction.

Clients are people, like you. Never think that you are above needing help too, one day. We all do, humans are built to rely on the group, on the social bonds we make from the minute we are born.

+Do you overreact to things? Sometimes a client will tell you about something that happened years ago, but they may phrase it like it happened yesterday (because of how it has returned to their mind, etc), and if you were to overreact to that immediately it can break the relationship/cause harm. You could say, “I can hear that this is very distressing for you, thank you for telling me about this difficult event in your life. Would it be alright if I asked you a follow-up question about when this occurred?” Sometimes a client will disclose things to you, and the goal is to remain in the conversation. They do a lot of this preparation at university, but you also need to have a personal ability to not panic off the bat.

+Ask yourself, is there anyone I would refuse to work with... and then examine Why. How would you react if a person like that came onto your caseload?

+Do not become overly emotionally invested in a client. It will be said in training over and over again, but you need to have clear boundaries; and being too invested in their success can hinder your ability to provide appropriate assessments for the client. Meaning they are not getting the care they need; which can sometimes be a harsh conversation about how you can see they are trying, but have backslid recently, so what is happening?

+Look at any internal biases and prejudices you may have. Did you have extreme mental health concerns that may make you feel more sympathetic to a parent or client, and this could blind you to the other concerns present? Didyou grow up rich and now have unrealistic expectations of what is necessary to be a good person? Do you think that all ‘those people’ should ______ ? Why?  Question yourself. If you find yourself stereotyping or pigeonholing someone as ‘just another ____ trying to _____’ stop. Think about it. Where did you get that idea?

+Be aware of professional boundaries, do not be friends with the clients, but don’t be cold. Always let your bosses know about potential conflicts of interest to protect you.

Like, don’t loan the client $5, don’t hang out at the cinema because they’re ‘a great person’, etc.

And be aware that you have more power in this dynamic, so you have to be careful not to abuse it.

+You need to be good at record keeping, and honest.  Everything you do is documents, referrals, reports, affidavits, forms, and a million little notes for this and that. It is imperative you are accurate, use the format required, and be honest. If you saying “Have you tried not taking drugs?” to a client sends them into a rage, you don’t write “Client was heightened and threatened me without reason at today’s session” in the notes. That’s putting a knife in their back.

”Client was triggered when I, the practitioner, made an inappropriate remark (”Have you tried not taking drugs?”) today. They told me I am a “fucking whore who should kill myself” and threw their chair across the room before leaving the building. I have discussed this matter with my supervisor, and we are going to call Client at 3pm today, to provide a formal apology for this statment and attempt to repair the professional working relationship, as they have been making significant progress with this agency until today’s event.” Whole scenario, tells the real story. You will make mistakes, but it is about being able to accept this and move forwards.

Accurate documentation is a must, may be needed for court.

+You will need to have a good memory. A good way of keeping little notes to unlock the full encounter when you write casenotes and reports.

+Make connections. Every client will need a support system around them, and if you have an inroads with different agencies, it will help them out. For example, if your client has drug concerns, then being aware of the agencies and counsellors in the region broadens their safety net.

Knowing the practitioners gives you someone to ask for professional advice around, say “Good Morning Kim, I know your agency handles Centrelink application often for non-english speaking clients. I have a client who is new to the country and is struggling to complete the financial aid forms, they speak Language. Would I be able to refer them to your agency, or will they need a more specific agency who handle Language -speaking persons?”

You have, in a deidentified way, sought help for a client through a known agency and can now refer them pending the answer. Etc.

+If you are not sure about something, ask your supervisor. They have several years on you, and almost all areas of social work prescribes to one or another Acts (legal requirements) which they are required to have a strong grasp on.

Get to know any legislation in the area you are aiming for. This will help immensely.

+Doing a degree gets you two fieldwork practicals, in different areas.  These really help you identify which area you want to go for; your main goal going into a degree may not be the one you settle on. Many people have an idea where they want to work and change their minds after their placements, or really feel connected to a different area, etc.

+Mostly, be certain this is what you want.

Have your own support network.

Be aware that you must uphold confidentiality, at all times. No posting to social media people, please...

Be aware that in small communities you are likely shopping at the same place as clients. Ask them how they want you to react when you see each other in public (eg. please don’t acknowledge me, or happy to give a wave) so they feel comfortable.

Don’t disclose personal information to a client.  There’s a difference between “Yes, I can see that you are having trouble with baby; I recall they get quite fussy at teething time, have you tried a cold biting ring?” and “My son, Chadley, is eight but when he was two he used to just keep biting the furniture and his poor teacher, Mrs Allyways! At least he’s grown out of it now, but I just know Bailey’s going into that phase soon, the dangers of having kids a few years apart!”

I know who your child had as a teacher, and now the school as well, esp if its a small town. I know you have two children, their names, and your last name so I could go get them from school if I wanted to. I know you work until 5pm, and someone could pick them up.

Etc.

Mostly, be a decent human being who does their best and doesn’t walk in thinking they’re better than everyone, and you can do okay. Have a good support network, use them, and seek help if you struggle.

Uni is drawn out and a bit boring, but you will get a lot from it (even if you only see it in hindsight).

[bonerp]

SPECIAL ABILITIES

coupled with the species lore, we have some abilities lore as well! some are standard to the hp-verse, while there are some new additions that we wanted to toss in to make things interesting. let us know if you have any questions!

ANIMAGI

Becoming an Animagi is a very complicated process, as it gives us the opportunity to take on an animal figure. According to the law of the Ministry of Magic, all animagus must register in the List of Animagus, and anyone who fails to comply with this statement and is found to be exercising this ability will be imprisoned in Azkaban with immediate effect. Hogwarts students learn about the Animagus for the first time in their third year as part of the Transformation curriculum, but the practice of the ability can only be started from the fifth year forward due to the difficult nature of the process.

The process of becoming an Animagus is not easy at all. For example, one step is to keep a mandrake leaf in your mouth for a month. Unfortunately, we are unable to choose what kind of animal we will become at the end of the process but we do know that it will be closely related to our personality. If we master the Patronus spell sooner than we become an Animagus, we could deduce it from that, since these two are oftentime the same (though not always). Animagi may seem like a perfect disguise to us, yet, it may happen that we will carry some of our hallmarks in our animal form as well. It is important to note that the animagus animal cannot be a magical creature such as a dragon or thestral!

In North America, animagus are sometimes known as "Skinwalkers." Indigenous animagus are very closely related to the legend of skinwalkers. The myth is about evil witches and wizards who could turn into animals and acquired this ability by sacrificing a family member. These, of course, were just rumors they used to terrify those without magic.

The exact process is extremely difficult and can lead to disaster (e.g., a semi-animal, semi-human mutation) if done incorrectly. First of all, anyone who wants to be an animagus must keep a mandrake leaf in their mouth for about a month (from a full moon to a full moon). If this leaf is removed somehow, the process must start all over again. At the next clear full moon (if the moon is not clearly visible, it should be postponed), one must spit the leaf into a vial at the clear rays of the moon. They will also need to put their own hair, a silver teaspoon of dew (from a place that has not been affected by sunlight or human feet for seven days) - and a cocoon of a death-head butterfly. The mixture should be placed in a quiet, dark place and should not be touched or disturbed in any way.

The next step is to just wait for an electrical storm. During this waiting period, at every sunrise and sunset, the spell of the Amato Animo Animato Animagus must be chanted while placing the tip of one's wand over their heart. Finally, when the storm arrives, the user needs to secure a big, safe place, say the spell one last time, and drink the potion.

APPARITION

Apparition is a magical method of transportation and is essentially the magical action of travelling by having the user focus on a desired location in their mind, then disappear from their current location and instantly reappear. In short, it is a form of teleportation. It is by far the fastest way to get to one's destination, but is tricky to pull off correctly and disastrous if botched.

Apparition is a very popular method of travel in the wizarding world, though brooms, Floo Powder or portkeys may be preferred as the feeling of Apparition can be unpleasant to some. According to Wilkie Twycross, a prior Ministry of Magic official and Apparition Instructor, one has but to recall The Three D's: Destination, Determination and Deliberation. Users must be completely determined to reach one's destination, and move without haste, but with deliberation.

Apparition can cause an audible noise ranging from a small faint pop to a loud crack that may sound to Muggles like a car backfiring. House-elves may also Apparate but without some of the restrictions that wizards have. When they apparate, the sound is mostly a loud crack.

A variant of Apparition used to transport two or more individuals at once is called Side-Along Apparition. This method may be used by adults seeking to transport underage wizards or in some cases a licensed individual may use this method to transport an injured party. To perform this version of Apparition, the more able party Apparates with the other party holding onto their arm. This method is recommended by the Ministry of Magic for parents with underage children to escape from danger quickly. House-elves can also do Side-Along Apparition. Side-Along Apparition can also be forced against the other person's will, though this does require great concentration of the perpetrator.

A Licence to Apparate is required to practise Apparition legally. Users must be at least seventeen years old to obtain such a licence. While it is physically possible to Apparate without a licence it is not advisable, because injury could result. Splinching can occur when one has insufficient determination to reach one's goal, causing certain body parts to fail to arrive at the destination with the wizard. Apparition may have a certain range and becomes increasingly difficult with the distance to be travelled. Inter-continental Apparition should only be attempted by the most highly skilled of wizards.

LEGILIMENS/OCCLUMENS

Muggles often refer to the ability of legilimency as ”mind-reading”. The mind is a complex and multifaceted thing and those who develop this ability to perfection can say that they will also be able to read thoughts in some sense. The person who practices this art is known as a Legilimens in the wizarding world, and its counterpart is Occlumency. There are also beings in nature who are capable of a similar process, but it is precisely because of their racial differences that these methods differ from those of man. A good example of this is one of the symbols of Ilvermorny’s four houses, the Wampus, which is thought to apply its ability through its eyes.

It is not known which witch or wizard 'invented' Legilimency or exactly when. There are witches and wizards who can easily master the ability - born talents, although in several cases it later turns out that someone passed on their knowledge to them - and there are those who can take a lot of time, even years, to develop it. The most talented can use it without a wand or nonverbally. In all other cases the spell of Legilimens is needed.

If the target is not trained in Occlumency, the caster is able to see into their thoughts, emotions, memories. There are highly educated individuals who can influence those as well - from a simple emotional shock to a false vision. This trait is usually attributed to dark magic practitioners.Hogwarts does not teach Legilimency or Occlumency, as the use violates people’s privacy; it is also legally restricted and regulated.

An experienced Occlumens is able to completely close their mind to the legilimens. Occlumency can completely prevent the Legilimens from accessing and influencing thoughts, emotions, and memories. The most basic form of Occlumency is when the caster completely empties their mind. More advanced Occlumens have the ability to suppress feelings within them, hide their memories, completely contradict, and show only what they want to the Legilimens to see. They are able to create a false layer that the Legilimens may believe is real while they are hiding in a deeper point in their minds. This requires a great deal of effort as well as mental and emotional discipline.

METAMORPHMAGUS

The Metamorphmagus trait is a rare ability that endows the possessor with voluntary body modification. This quality can only be acquired through birth (inheritance). The difference between Animagi and Metamorphmagi is that while a Metamorphmagus can take many forms, change their gender, age, or even just part of their appearance (such as the color of their hair), an Animagi can only change into a single animal shape. The characteristic details on which the existence of Metamorphmagus abilities can appear early on for the owner, even as a newborn.

Due to the rarity of witches and wizard with Metamorphmagi skills, there is no training available on which they can develop their skill; they learn largely from their own mistakes and attempts. They don’t need a wand to transform and are able to eventually get to the point where they can focus on their specific transformations. Often, however, a Metamorphmagus is influenced by their emotions, which is reflected in their appearance. Severe traumas and persistent emotional states such as grief and shock can prevent or even limit entirely the use of the ability.

NONVERBAL MAGIC

Nonverbal spells are those typically performed with a wand but without needing to say the incantation out loud. The advantage is that those who progress to using magic without shouting incantations gain an element of surprise in their spell-casting, but it’s a feat that requires enormous concentration and mind power with the spell-caster having to summon the spell in their mind, rather than out loud. Some simpler spells are easier to perform nonverbally than others. Most spells, however, seemed to be less effective than normal when the incantation was not said.

Different wand woods and cores might also affect the performance of casting non-verbal magic. Many wands made from Dogwood are rather noisy and refuse to perform nonverbal magic, whereas wands of Pine are some of the most sensitive to nonverbal magic. Willow wands possess a well-founded reputation for enabling advanced, non-verbal magic, but of all woods, Alder is known as being the best suited for non-verbal magic.

OMNILINGUALISM

Omnilingualism is a lesser-known trait and special ability. The origin of which is unclear, but those who have the ability are extremely receptive to language learning which extends to the languages of magical beings and their seemingly unlearnable dialects. One of the main theories is that it appears in bloodlines where there was a magic creature among the ancestors, but there is no clear evidence for this.

Although those with the ability also go through the process of language learning, unlike others, it almost “sticks” on them. They immediately understand the logic and patterns in the language as well as excel in pronunciation. If they recognize their talent in time, they may become a great interpreter and translator and in the most extreme cases, be able to learn more than a hundred languages.

Throughout history, a small amount of witches and wizards with have been thought to possess this quality and showcased certain talents in speaking to other species (such as merfolk), but none of them have been about to access languages that are unique abilities in their own right — for example, not a single Omnilingual could replicate the innate senses Parseltongues are born with.

PARSELTONGUE

It is a truly rare, genetically based ability that was indeed recorded before Salazar Slytherin, though most modern day Parselmouths are direct descendants of the Hogwarts founder in some fashion. Possessors of the ability may be able to do more than simply communicating with snakes depending on systematic, supervised practice. Such practices and the ability itself should be treated with the utmost discretion, possibly cultivated in secret because of the general negative judgments on the ability. Snakes symbolize danger in many cultures, and accordingly, in the world of witches and wizards, the ability can cause fear towards the user.

The speech of snakes is not like the foreign languages spoken by humans and is in no way similar to the languages of magical beings. Those can be mastered with more or less practice by anyone, but the Parseltongue cannot be learned. There have been cases where a few words work with repetitio and if a snake were nearby they could understand, but full mastery is impossible for those without the ability. However, with the immediate proximity of a snake, or the idea of face-to-face, even the weaker members of the ability are able to communicate easily and instinctively with the slithering animals.

Of course, whoever is more receptive to a close-to-nature lifestyle and likes the world of reptiles will find it easier to master the basics of Parseltongue. Communication with each other is not a problem for such people either. A very small proportion of parselmouths are not only able to talk to snakes but can easily influence and manipulate them. While typically viewed as a dark ability, the Ministry has struggled to regulate it and strive to learn about the ability through research. As one might imagine, finding volunteers for this research is not an easy task.

PSYCHOMETRY

Psychometry is a branch of magic which allows the caster to detect the magical and emotional residue present in objects and, if the practitioner is skilled enough, people. This allows the user to gain knowledge and insight into the past, present and future of the object or persons they come into contact with.

An ability more commonly possessed by ghosts, as a bloodhound can sniff trail withs amazing accuracy, spirits can access any objects that have been associated with us and playback any scenes that are trapped in the article. One could use the thoughts attached to an object to find the spirits who left their vibrations since each spirit has a unique vibrator identification.

A perceptive trait that is typically innate (although in some rare circumstances can be learned), it starts off with small objects like rings or necklaces. It can then expand to cars, to trees, then to whole places. One does not need physical contact after a while; simply directing your attention to the thing, person, or area is sufficient if someone has truly honed their skill.

Thoughts can pop into your head that aren't yours: visions, memories, feelings, places, sensations. It's a useful form of spiritual perception and a basic practice for beginners before they interact with spirits or other non-physical entities, because it builds on the skills of perception gained from practicing psychometry.

An important note about psychometry is that it works differently for different people. With enough practice, two people can feel the same sensations off a particular object, but at first they'll often see different things. One person might see places where the thing was used or worn, another might get the emotions or memories that the object absorbed, yet another might get a particular force that the object itself is associated with.

SEER

True seers are very rare in our world, there are many misconceptions about their abilities in the wizarding world - which a talented seer would probably know in advance. Seeing the future, even if it occurs in different ways and at different stages of life, has intensity changes that can be very debilitating for the user.

There are seers who predict and write prophecies that are stored in the Ministry of Magic; their identities are unknown to keep them safe. Still, there are many wizards and witches who try to make a living from their supposed or real abilities in schemes that are similar to a con-artist. The Daily Prophet reports each week more and more cases of someone being swindled by a supposed Seer.

Divination, or the art of psychic arts, is taught at Hogwarts and almost miraculously avoids being removed from the curriculum every year. Visions are often just assumptions, because to the best of our knowledge, the mind interprets what it sees based on its own conclusions — however, in history, many have been able to make accurate revelations, so the only thing that is certain about seers is that they are diverse and interpret everything diverse.

There are those among them who experience the future only through their dreams rather by intuition, while others look almost constantly at their third/inner eye: some go insane, while some profit off of their knowledge in everyday life.

WANDLESS MAGIC

Wandless magic is the performance of magic without the use of a wand. Such magic is often difficult to perform and can have unexpected results if not done properly. Usually witches and wizards accustomed to using wands can only reliably perform wandless magic if they possess extreme skill (and this requires years of practice). However, within regions of the wizarding world that historically did not use wands, wandless magic is considered the norm and using a wand is optional. What's true, however, is that the wand not only provides a focus, it's actually a magical artifact itself, aiding in the casting.

Wands are predominantly a European invention that helped wizards channel their magic, focus it, and make it easier to control. Other wizarding communities do not necessarily use wands. Native American and African wizards residing on rural areas of their respective countries are particularly good at wandless magic. The African school of Uagadou teaches actively its students wandless magic.

Wandless magic can undermine the International Statute of Secrecy however. When wizards exclusively use wands, it is much easier to detect and wandless magic has been a long debated subject within the walls of the Ministry. Elves and goblins are able to perform magic without wands. Goblins sometimes refer to wizards and witches as "wand bearers" and humans' failure to share wand knowledge with goblins is a source of ill-feeling between the two species.

[newstfionline]

Friday, August 6, 2021

US plans to require COVID-19 shots for foreign travelers (AP) The Biden administration is taking the first steps toward requiring nearly all foreign visitors to the U.S. to be vaccinated for the coronavirus, a White House official said. The requirement would come as part of the administration’s phased approach to easing travel restrictions for foreign citizens to the country. No timeline has yet been determined, as interagency working groups study how and when to safely move toward resuming normal travel. Eventually all foreign citizens entering the country, with some limited exceptions, are expected to need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter the U.S.

Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work (Ars Technica) All across the United States, the leaders at large tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook are engaged in a delicate dance with thousands of employees who have recently become convinced that physically commuting to an office every day is an empty and unacceptable demand from their employers. The COVID-19 pandemic forced these companies to operate with mostly remote workforces for months straight. And since many of them are based in areas with relatively high vaccination rates, the calls to return to the physical office began to sound over the summer. But thousands of high-paid workers at these companies aren’t having it. Many of them don’t want to go back to the office full time, even if they’re willing to do so a few days a week. Workers are even pointing to how effective they were when fully remote and using that to question why they have to keep living in the expensive cities where these offices are located. Some tech leaders (like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey) agreed, or at least they saw the writing on the wall. They enacted permanent or semipermanent changes to their companies’ policies to make partial or even full-time remote work the norm. Others (like Apple’s Tim Cook) are working hard to find a way to get everyone back in their assigned seats as soon as is practical, despite organized resistance. In either case, the work cultures at tech companies that make everything from the iPhone to Google search are facing a major wave of transformation.

At least 10 dead as van carrying migrants crashes in Texas (AP) An overloaded van carrying 29 migrants crashed Wednesday on a remote South Texas highway, killing at least 10 people, including the driver, and injuring 20 others, authorities said. The crash happened shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday on U.S. 281 in Encino, Texas, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of McAllen. A surge in migrants crossing the border illegally has brought about an uptick in the number of crashes involving vehicles jammed with migrants who pay large amounts to be smuggled into the country. The Dallas Morning News has reported that the recruitment of young drivers for the smuggling runs, combined with excessive speed and reckless driving by those youths, have led to horrific crashes.

Turkish wildfires are worst ever, Erdogan says, as power plant breached (Reuters) Turkey is battling the worst wildfires in its history, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday, as fires spread to a power station in the country’s southwest after reducing swathes of coastal forest to ashes. Fanned by high temperatures and a strong, dry wind, the fires have forced thousands of Turks and foreign tourists to flee homes and hotels near the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts. Eight people have died in the blazes since last week. Planes and dozens of helicopters have joined scores of emergency crews on the ground to battle the fires, but Erdogan’s government has faced criticism over the scale and speed of the response. In the last two weeks, fires in Turkey have burnt more than three times the area affected in an average year, a European fire agency said. Neighbouring countries have also battled blazes fanned by heatwaves and strong winds.

Sri Lanka’s financial problems (Foreign Policy) Sri Lanka is threatening to become South Asia’s economic weak link. It’s mired in a severe debt crisis, and its budget deficit exceeded 11 percent of GDP during the last fiscal year, which ended in March. The country’s foreign reserves can only pay for three months of imports, prompting Colombo to cut back on many foreign imports, including turmeric, a staple product. Fitch Ratings has warned default is a real possibility. Sri Lanka’s woes stem in great part from a floundering tourism sector. Tourism typically accounts for at least 5 percent of GDP, and some estimates even put the figure at 12.5 percent. The sector’s troubles began before the coronavirus pandemic, when suicide bombers killed at least 290 people in churches and hotels in April 2019, keeping visitors away. But the pandemic still dealt a giant blow. A 2021 assessment found tourist arrivals between January and April fell nearly 100 percent from the same period in 2020.

Australia to spend $813M to address Indigenous disadvantage (AP) Australia’s government on Thursday pledged 1.1 billion Australian dollars ($813 million) to address Indigenous disadvantage, including compensation to thousands of mixed-race children who were taken from their families over decades. The AU$378.6 million ($279.7 million) to be used to compensate the so-called Stolen Generations by 2026 is the most expensive component of the package aimed at boosting Indigenous living standards in Australia. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the compensation was a recognition of the harm caused by forced removal of children from families.

Israel launches airstrikes on Lebanon in response to rockets (AP) Israel on Thursday escalated its response to rocket attacks this week by launching rare airstrikes on Lebanon, the army said. The army said in a statement that jets struck the launch sites from which rockets had been fired over the previous day, as well as an additional target used to attack Israel in the past. The IDF blamed the state of Lebanon for the shelling and warned “against further attempts to harm Israeli civilians and Israel’s sovereignty.” The overnight airstrikes were a marked escalation at a politically sensitive time. Israel’s new eight-party governing coalition is trying to keep peace under a fragile cease fire that ended an 11-day war with Hamas’ militant rulers in Gaza in May.

‘Winning a medal doesn’t make him Jewish’ (Washington Post) When gymnast Artem Dolgopyat stepped off the podium as only the second Israeli to win an Olympic gold medal, he triggered one of Israel’s many cultural tripwires: It quickly emerged that the country’s newest sports hero is banned from marrying his fiancee here because he is not considered Jewish enough by the rabbis who control Israel’s marriage law. Immediately after Dolgopyat took top honors in the men’s floor exercise, his mother took the chance to complain that Israeli religious law is keeping her engaged 24-year-old son from tying the knot because only his father’s side of the family is Jewish. Marriage law is tightly controlled by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate. And for generations, couples who are of mixed religions—or who are atheists, gay or inadequately Jewish—have been forced to marry outside the country. Dolgopyat’s training schedule has made that impossible, said his mother, Angela Bilan. “I want grandchildren,” Bilan said Sunday in an interview with Israeli radio.

Talking to strangers (Atlantic) A hefty body of research has found that an overwhelmingly strong predictor of happiness and well-being is the quality of a person’s social relationships. But most of those studies have looked at only close ties: family, friends, co-workers. In the past decade and a half, professors have begun to wonder if interacting with strangers could be good for us too: not as a replacement for close relationships, but as a complement to them. The results of that research have been striking. Again and again, studies have shown that talking with strangers can make us happier, more connected to our communities, mentally sharper, healthier, less lonely, and more trustful and optimistic.

But tanks make such handy snowplows... (BBC) A German retiree was fined nearly $300,000 by local authorities on Tuesday following the discovery of a World War-II era tank in his basement along with other items of the period, including a flak cannon and multiple machine guns. The Panther tank was removed from the man’s property in 2015, a job that took 20 soldiers almost nine hours to complete. The unnamed 84-year-old might have been able to hold on to his tank and the rest of his collection—which must now be donated to a museum within two years, according to Tuesday’s ruling—had he kept it a better secret. “He was chugging around in that thing during the snow catastrophe in 1978,” Heikendorf Mayor Alexander Orth told reporters.

[mistyskeleton]

PRO LIFERS STOP SCROLLING

i’m well aware of how long this is, but bear with me, ok?

if you are, as you say: “pro-life”, then here’s the things you should be/campaigning for:

-vegetarianism and veganism 

-free universal healthcare

-free contraception and sex education reform

-abolishing ICE

-pro-vaccinations

-prison reform and removing the death penalty

-Black Lives Matter

-supporting MMIW causes

-gun control

-raising the minimum wage

-marriage equality

-foster-system reform and adoption equality

-religious freedom

-stopping climate change

vegetarianism and veganism actively save lives of animals, and you actually shouldn’t even be eating plants, fruits, or vegetables because they have life too, right?

free universal healthcare will save many lives of people who can’t afford live saving treatment like chemotherapy and surgery. it will also help close the financial gap between patients as you won’t need to pay out of pocket for insulin or other life saving medications. most of these people have no choice in their illnesses, and insulin prices were about $300 for about one-and-a-half to two months of necessary medical items. many people died or suffered even more health issues because they couldn’t afford it. also, pregnancy is quite expensive, if a mother who cannot even afford to feed herself everyday gets pregnant, she won’t have to pay upwards of $5,000 to have the baby. where were you pro-lifers when bernie sanders and alexandria ocasio cortez proposed free universal healthcare? 

free contraception and pregnancy prevention items such as birth control and condoms would drastically decrease the amount of unwanted pregnancies. same with reforming sex education. an abstinence only education actually causes more unwanted pregnancies than education that teaches how pregnancy occurs and how to prevent it. so why aren’t you campaigning for these?

abolishing ICE is actually pretty obvious. deporting undocumented immigrants for no reason other than for their own egos disrupts people’s lives, and sometimes it sends them into a deadly situation. not to mention the treatment of families at the border. putting kids in cages, separating families, not providing soap to these people. many people at the border have died because of diseases that could’ve been prevented had they were given soap. not to mention, many children who were at the border said that they were extremely mistreated. where were you?

vaccinations prevent completely preventable and potentially deadly diseases and viruses such as measles, small pox, chicken pox, and the flu. children have died from these illnesses, and just because some people think that vaccinations are ‘dangerous’ or will ‘cause autism’, which is all de-bunked by many reputable scientists. why are you not spreading that vaccinations should be mandatory (unless you’re allergic to the vaccine)?

prison dramatically affects the lives of many who are sent there. most for unnecessary crimes such as selling pot-brownies, resisting arrest, etc. many of the people that committed these ‘crimes’ will never be able to find a job and therefore, become poor and not be able to afford basic things like food, healthcare, and other necessities or could possibly become homeless. also, studies have shown that about half of the people on death row could potentially be innocent and killed for no reason. even killing criminals who are very much guilty goes against your ‘pro-life’ argument. 

the black lives matter movement is actively protesting against absolutely unnecessary killing of black people by white police officers. like freddie gray who was arrested for ‘possession of a knife’ (which is a bullshit reason to be arrested, but that goes with prison reform), while he was in police custody, in hand-cuffs mind you, he ‘mysteriously’ became beaten and fell into a coma. the officer walked free. where were you pro-lifers then and countless other times when things like this occur?

MMIW causes, or missing/murdered indigenous women causes, should be supported. indigenous women are more likely to be assaulted, murdered, or go missing than any other race, for no reason other than the fact that they are indigenous. where are you pro-lifers when these atrocities happen?

gun control will actively save the lives of many americans. shootings have killed thousands of americans, whether they were civilians, students, concert-goers, etc. if you say you are ‘pro-life’ then you should be fighting for universal background checks and gun licenses, because these show that gun deaths will drastically go down if these were to occur. 

raising the minimum wage will increase the quality of life among many people across the country. minimum wage currently is not a livable wage, especially with the average rent being at an all time high in our country. also, many mothers who have an abortion because they cannot afford to raise it (because let’s face it, kids are expensive) will have a better opportunity to not raise it in poverty. why are you not campaigning for this?

same goes for marriage equality. if you allow people to marry who they want, their quality of life increases. and studies have shown that ending homophobia and being accepting of their sexualities actually decreases the amount of LGBTQ+ suicides. if you’re pro life you should NOT  be homophobic. 

thousands of children are in the foster care system, and many of the foster families they can get sent to are abusive and absolutely horrible to them. if you’re pro-life and say that ‘adoption is an option’, then you should be trying to reform the system in which these children will be put into. also, you should support gay couples adopting children, because this will increase the number of children getting adopted and will give children a better chance at life. but you say you don’t want gay couples adopting children because it will ‘corrupt’ them? grow up. 

religious freedom will improve the lives of many americans of numerous different faiths. if you end islamophobia and anti-semitism, there will be less hate-crimes against people of these faiths. they won’t have to be afraid of practicing their faiths, they won’t have to be escorted by police to their temples or mosques. why are so many of you pro-lifers anti islam?

stopping climate change will save the lives of everyone on earth, because if climate change is not stopped, it is predicted to kill us by 2060. but why are so many pro-lifers actively against stopping climate change?

and one last thing that you should support if you really are ‘pro-life’:

abortion.

you know why? 

there was a young girl at the age of eleven, that’s right, ELEVEN, who was a victim of rape. she got pregnant because of this, and was forced to carry her baby to term. 

pregnancy is a dangerous and invasive thing, and people who will get their lives ruined because of it should not have to go through it. because then it directly interferes with your mantra of ‘all life should be given a chance’. 

oh? you don’t support all of these things? then guess what:

YOU’RE NOT PRO-LIFE, YOU ARE PRO-BIRTH. IF YOU DO NOT CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CHILD AFTER IT IS BORN OR THE MOTHER AFTER SHE GIVES BIRTH THEN YOU C A N N O T CALL YOURSELF PRO-LIFE. 

rethink your choices. 

[rootfauna]

Loss of the chance of life

A while ago I found out my grandmother was one of the many native american women who were forcibly sterilized. I wrote this article.

In 1972 Janet Clifton, an Osage woman, walked into the IHS in Clairemore, Oklahoma. For years she had been having severe pelvic cramps and they had become too much to bear. She was put in a gown and lead to a room in which sat the dreaded stirruped chair many women have despised since it’s invention. The anxiety is understandable even in modern times when women’s healthcare is arguably the most advanced it’s ever been. It’s frightening, then, to imagine approaching that chair in the 60’s and 70’s, when modern women’s healthcare was in it’s infancy, and for a Native American woman, it could be absolutely terrifying.

When Janet signed in to the clinic, she’d been asked the usual questions, one of which was ‘are you married’, which she was, and was asked if she had any children, which she did. Three to be exact. She was only twenty-five and all her children were born just under three years, so it is no surprise that when she was asked if she was religious she replied that she was Catholic. Christianity and native Americans have a strange relationship. The religion was used to justify atrocities done to us too numerous not only for this paper, but for anyone to ever list. Arguably it’s greatest crime was to mold itself into a cardboard beacon, offering native Americans sanctuary from it’s own ugliness. For centuries Native American men made the decision to convert for the rest of the family. The rules of life changed for them, but it’s unclear if they realized the changes it meant for their wives. Their roles in many nations were reduced, as was their agency over their bodies. Contraceptives in their earliest days were known throughout the world, including the Americas, yet now they were forbidden. As ridiculous and ineffective as they could be, they at least offered the illusion of body autonomy, mostly for women.

When Janet went to the IHS the Women’s Health Movement (WHM) had only recently begun, along with second wave feminism. It spoke loftily and justly about abortion rights and about changing the traditional maternity ward practices into more family oriented ones, with the fathers allowed in the delivery room. There was a resurgence of midwifery. However, these improvements did not scratch the blood soaked surface of Native American health care. As Janet lay in the chair, three white doctors entered the room. The Indian Clinic did not have any native doctors, so doctors were driven in from nearby Tulsa Oklahoma, thus continuing the tradition of white doctors working with an exclusively non-white clientele. “I felt like I was being experimented on,” she would later say. She would be in good company. A Google search of “experiments on native women” will instantly bring up several articles about the forced sterilization of Native American women, and many give examples of experimental procedures that were performed in front of many doctors under the guise of research. Janet, who only wanted treatment for what we now know as polycystic ovary syndrome, never knew she would join their ranks. “One of the doctors told me that they were going to burn the cysts off. The procedure was never really explained to me and it was probably a combination of me being a woman and being Native American. They thought I was too dumb to understand anyway.” Had she known more on the subject she might have thought he was referring to a ovarian wedge resection, a common treatment at the time. It involves opening the patient up in an operating theater and exposing the ovaries. The cysts are then carefully removed with a cauterization tool not only keep the cyst from bursting, but to ensure the ovary heals properly. Instead of doing this, Janet and her doctors remained in the exam room where he gave her a local anesthetic, inserted a cauterizing into her vaginally, and performed what was most likely a tubal litigation. This is the most common form of female sterilization and only severs the fallopian tubes. My grandmother’s painful ovaries would remain untouched and untreated.  

“I remember smelling something burning,” recalled Janet, “I looked down and saw smoke.”She was sent home directly after the procedure, unaware of what had actually happened to her and uninformed of the possible side effects. There was pain, of course, and in a candid moment she also confessed that she was never able to feel sexual pleasure with her husband again. Worst of all, because there had been no attempt to treat the cysts, and the pain that started the entire ordeal returned within weeks.

Pain seems to be woven into the fabric of every Native American woman’s life and this has not gone unnoticed artists, native and non-native alike. When native women are not posing nude on a biker’s bicep, we are huddled into blankets, riding our horses, our backs bent and heads hung low. Sometimes we stand on hills, gazing at nothing with blank faces and sometimes we kneel by our tipis and look at the ground. Though the past few decades have brought forward more animated depictions of Native American women, my grandmother’s house was filled with the old fashioned kind. As a child, I thought they were pretty, if boring. I never perceived any greater meaning than a woman simply looking down. Maybe she was watching a bug. As a child I was also blissfully unaware of the majority of the atrocities faced by our people and what I did know, I largely new in name only. It wasn’t until I grew older that I’d look at these paintings and think ‘huh, she actually looks kinda sad’. Now I look at these paintings and think ‘she looks utterly defeated’. Knowing what really happened to us makes me notice details I never had before, like how so many of them have textbook thousand yard stares while portraits of chiefs and warriors in the same stye still seem to have fire in their eyes. The men are also more likely to be depicted upright, whether standing or on horseback, still tall in some way or another. The woman have deflated. We slump over our horse’s necks, we kneel, we sit. It seems as though these women have accepted that pain is just something they must endure silently and with dignity, whatever the source. My grandmother is not like these women, so when the pain that had sent her to the doctor in the first place returned, so did she.

The doctors made little effort with pretense this time - she would have a hysterectomy and that was that. At this point there was no reason to try and treat her as Janet could no longer have children, and in the end her hysterectomy would succeed in ridding her of her pain. Why then does it seem to hold so much more significance? European invaders managed to erase many aspects of various indigenous cultures, but some roots run too deep to be completely torn out and in so many of our cultures it was the female ability bring forth life that created the world. The association with women and new life was so strong that even in some nations it was observed that women sewed the seeds for the new crops and tended to them, but it was the men who reaped them. Their reasoning was that women brought life, and men took it. Some Lakota Sioux would not acknowledge a girl’s transition to womanhood until she has had a child. This doesn’t mean that a woman’s only value was her ability to have children and in many nations women held high political power, were religious leaders, and even warriors. Still, it is virtually impossible to completely separate a woman’s potential reproductive capabilities and how she was viewed in societies that place more value on the concept of new life, birth, or rebirth. So many Native American nations fell into this category, and on some level or another, a woman’s womb was sacred. In 1972, at age 25, my grandmother’s was ripped from her body.

From an outsiders perspective, it seems as though these sterilized women have become those broken women from the paintings. In doing research for this paper, I found very little. The ambiguity is unsettling. Is the near total absence of initial medical documentation a result of apathy towards Native American health, or an intentional coverup? Did the women affected not speak out about this at the time because of the taboo around reproductive systems? Was it shame, or a feeling that no one would listen anyway? I have to wonder, too, how many woman are like my grandmother who only now realizes what was done to her. Whitehorse also did not realize what happened to her until later. “I was trying to have more babies, but was having trouble getting pregnant, so I went to the IHS clinic. That’s when they told me about what they did to me,” She said. She had been sterilized during a previous surgery.“I was in so much pain when I went in for the appendectomy; they gave me a bunch of papers to sign. They never explained anything to me; I had no idea I was giving them permission to sterilize me.” she said. It wasn’t only abdominal pain that allowed doctors to trick women into sterilization. One of the more famous cases of sterilization involved two girls, both under fifteen years old, who were sterilized during surgery to remove their tonsils. It’s been estimated that between 1960 and 1970, for every seven native babies born, one woman was sterilized, culminating in roughly 25% of the potentially fertile female population. Even this was not enough of an attack on the Native American woman. Native American boarding schools, run by the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) where still common in that era. A 1971 census stated that approximately 35,000 Native American children lived in boarding schools rather than at home. In these schools, children were stripped of their language, their culture, their religion, their names, and often, their sanity. Abuse was rampant and the chances of escape were bleak. While non-native children were begging for bell bottoms and watching t.v, two native boys fled, only to freeze to death in their attempt to return home. Suicide rates amongst teenage boarders could reach as high as one hundred times the national average. The rest of the nation, if it noticed, soon turned away and continued to focus on disco. Native mothers could do little to stop the abuse of their children, but a growing number were being offered a choice. If they agreed to be sterilized, their existing children might be allowed to stay with them. It can’t be said if it was in defeat or defiance that a mother made her choice, whichever it was. It would a lie to say that no woman was defeated, and sat slumped over a bottle of whiskey rather than a horse.

However, when my grandmother was wheeled into the recovery bay, she discovered that she was not the only woman who refused stoop down and be silent, though she did not yet know what bond she shared with these women. They were a small group, all in various stages of recovery. They smiled and chatted if and when they could, and because the nurses were about as helpful as a match under water, they tended to each other. The women adjusted each others hospital beds by hand, fetched each other glasses of water and just as importantly, they kept each other in good spirits. Decades later, Janet will still smile and laugh when she remembers a woman that was truly fed up with the barely edible hospital food. “You guys want some pizza?” The woman had asked, and then she got up and climbed out the window. A while later she returned the same way, pizza in hand. They might have been neglected and in pain, but in that moment they were normal women diving into a pizza and giddy with their own mischief. It seems like such a small gesture, valuable in that it’s a light hearted tidbit from an otherwise tragic story, but it is so much more than that. Expand the perspective and you’ll find it’s really the story of how a Native American woman was had her reproductive organs seared into oblivion against her will by white doctors, was neglected by nurses in a recovery room filled with strangers, and this woman still had the strength and spark to climb out a window and return with pizza to share with her sisters. Our solidarity is our fortitude. Native women have an incredible ability to come together and to accomplish incredible things. One of they key elements that allows us to do this is our ability to communicate with each other, and despite what modern white hippies may think, we can’t do that with telepathy and talking animals. I would not have been able to tell my grandmother’s story without calling her and having several lengthy phone calls. This chapter of our history is in danger of being forgotten. It’s imperative we learn as much as we can, but that is not enough. It’s through communication that bond over our people’s losses and triumphs and encourage others to learn along with us. If I am to end this essay with one request, it is that when you read this chapter of our history, please read it out loud.

—- This essay is dedicate to Janet Stork, I cannot give enough thanks to my grandmother for letting me interview her. Rather than mourn her loss, she seemed happy throughout every conversation, as if she was glad that someone wanted to hear what she had to say. This is such a sensitive topic, one that would make many young students here cringe and shy away from, but my grandmother made every conversation a comfortable one. No question was off limits, there was no withholding of details. I feel so lucky to have a grandmother like her, and I’m amazed that it’s through her strength I exist today.

[xtruss]

Statue of White Woman Holding Hatchet and Scalps Sparks Backlash in New England

Hannah Duston, subject of the first publicly funded US monument to a woman, is implicated in the deaths of 10 Native Americans

— Nick Fiorellini | Monday August 3, 2020 | Guardian USA

The Hannah Duston statue in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Another stands in Boscawen, New Hampshire. Photograph: North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy Stock Photo

The statue is the earliest publicly funded monument to a woman in the US.

It stands in the out-of-the-way town of Boscawen, New Hampshire. It shows a woman holding a hatchet in one hand and a fistful of scalps in the other. Her name is Hannah Duston.

As protests across the US topple statues of historical figures with connections to colonialism and slavery, Duston’s name has largely stayed out of the national conversation. But concerns about the New Hampshire statue, and another in Haverhill, Massachusetts, are now emerging.

This is because Duston is implicated in the deaths, and scalping, of 10 Native Americans.

“The statues were made to send a message to the indigenous community, that they are inferior, that their land would be seized, and they would be removed and put on reservations,” Judy Matthews, a Haverhill resident, told the Guardian.

The Duston statue vandalized in Boscawen, New Hampshire. Photograph: Denise Pouliot

She spoke during a 30 June city council meeting in Haverhill, asking officials to consider moving the statue to a less public place.

Those who support keeping the Duston statues claim their removal alone won’t benefit indigenous people, and that Duston was acting in self-defense.

Duston was born and raised in Haverhill, then a small farming town, amid disputes among English colonists, the French in Canada, and various Native American nations. She was a homemaker with nine children, and her cousin and uncle were tried at the Salem witch trials.

She was captured by the Abenaki nation during a military engagement in 1697 with her nurse-maid and newborn and was forced to trek a great distance to an encampment in present-day Boscawen, where she claimed the Abenaki killed her baby by bashing her head against a tree.

Duston, probably with the help of other captive colonists, killed the Native Americans – six of whom were children – before escaping and being generously rewarded for the scalps.

The two statues were erected in the mid-19th century to vilify Native Americans following the civil war and to promote the idea of westward expansion. Several other markers and memorials that do not bear Duston’s image were put up in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

For decades, Abenaki, residents, scholars and local municipalities have debated what should be done with the two statues, and those concerns have come to a boil.

On 3 July, an online petition began to circulate among local social media groups calling for the removal of the Haverhill statue. A counter-petition shortly followed. Ten days after Matthews spoke at the city council meeting, the monument was vandalized with the words “Haverhill’s own monument to genocide” written in chalk.

Shortly after the vandalism, Haverhill’s mayor, James Fiorentini, appointed two Native Americans to the Haverhill Historical Commission (HHC), which protects the town’s historic structures, to make recommendations for the future of the monument.

“I want to tell the other side of the story – of the Native Americans who lived here, of the immigrants who built the shoe factories, of the African Americans who were freed from slavery, and of African Americans who lived here as slaves in Haverhill,” said Fiorentini.

Yet the historical commission has not met since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and does not have a plan for when it will do so again.

Descendants of Duston, such as Diane Dustin Itasaka, who works alongside other family members at the Dustin Garrison House, are glad these conversations are happening but believe people should delve more deeply into Duston’s history before declaring that the statue must go.

“I want people to know that Hannah or any of the other women, children, babies, and men who had gone through any raid like this, if she really did do the unthinkable, it wasn’t because they were natives but because they were her captors,” Itasaka said. “If the French had captured her, it would have been the French. It wasn’t because they were native.”

Itasaka hopes the saga will be included in the history curriculum at local schools because “if school kids or adults knew more of the history, they would understand more of how and where we are today”.

Similar conversations are happening in New Hampshire. Elizabeth Dubrelle, the head of education and public programs at the New Hampshire Historical Society, says the group made the conscious decision not to include Duston’s story in the revamped school curriculum.

That is “in part because we don’t think it’s appropriate for kids”, she said. “I think it’s way too violent. No matter whose side you take, or what you think about it, I just don’t think it’s a good story for kids.”

Unlike in Massachusetts, there is now a concrete plan to adapt the New Hampshire statue. Proposed by representatives of the Cowasuck band of the Pennacook Abenaki people and New Hampshire state officials, it was approved on 17 July.

The changes include renaming the site of the Duston statue from the Hannah Duston Memorial Site to Unity Park N’dakinna, which means “our land” in Abenaki, and adding additional signage and monuments around the statue discussing discrepancies within the story, allowing the visitor to come up with their own conclusions.

For Denise Pouliot, who is Abenaki and involved in the project, one of the most important things to come out of it might simply be reminding others of her people’s long history in the region.

“If you go out on to anywhere on the other side of the Mississippi [River] and you ask about an indigenous tribe in New England, they’ll tell you there are none,” she said. “That’s a fundamental educational problem within this country, and how are we going to move forward as a nation if even our history is so broken?”