The Miami Herald has published a comprehensive look by reporter Joseph Goodman at how the ever-flowing BP oil spill threatens to impact the region’s Indigenous peoples, namely, the Chitimacha and the Houma.
As far back as May 6, 2010, the chief of Pointe-au-Chien shared his concern with mediaINDIGENA about the spill, given “almost 80% of his over 700 community members rely on fishing for their livelihoods.”
As the Herald article acknowledges, the spill could be the decisive blow for “an eroding landscape destroyed by the actions of oil and gas companies over the decades,” a looming threat that prompted one Houma crabber to predict
It’s only a matter of time. This oil is just going to finish us.
Other media featuring coverage on how Indigenous lands, waters and economies could be affected by the spill include Mother Earth Journal and CNN.
In this presentation at TEDxDU at University of Denver, non-Aboriginal photographer Aaron Huey discusses his series of images taken over 5 years on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota Sioux reservation, a place Huey describes as “ground zero for Native issues in the U.S.” Juxtaposing historical milestones in the US/Lakota relationship with contemporary photographs, Huey showcases the strength and sorrow of Indigenous life in America, then and now.
I remember my very first political protest. The premier of Québec said he was prepared to bulldoze the Cree into the modern age over some massive hydro-electric project that would divert entire rivers and flood areas of land bigger than some American states. The prime minister of Canada said Indians had no special rights and were simply historical might-have-beens. I joined a few hundred people marching down what was then Dorchester Boulevard (Blvd. Réné Levésque today) because I considered both men to be a pair of historical boobs.
Both men were concerned more with their own settler populations than with the Indigenous peoples who were here long before their ancestors ever dreamed of getting lost on the high seas. Nothing they did during the rest of their lives changed my opinion of them either, despite what their own judges forced them to do in the years after.
Our demonstrations failed to stop the bulldozers. Nor did they prevent huge areas of traditional Cree territory from being blasted or flooded. But those demonstrations helped awaken people across the country of all colours and backgrounds to begin to understand that some things done in the name of Canada were just plain wrong. Then they told those two to stop acting like a pair of ignorant boobs.
Stop KOFF Beer ads
What brought me to these thoughts? A Facebook protest by one woman who saw something she considered offensive and decided to speak out online. Her name? Columba Bobb. Her profession? Artist, actor, human being. Her cause? A line of beer commercials produced for a Danish company called Carlsberg. Those Koff Beer commercials used Indigenous actors dressed in stereotypical Hollywood Indian costumes in commercials with stupid or non-existent story lines.
You can probably see from my description why Ms. Bobb was upset.
The latest bit of news is that a Carlsberg rep wrote her a letter to say they were pulling the ads. Victory for Ms. Bobb – for one voice in protest, for a set of principles that reminded the boobs at a beer company that they were dealing with real people and not inanimate objects. Perhaps more importantly to Ms. Bobb – the Indigenous actor – was the reminder to other actors that they have a responsibility to fight racism, debunk ugly and demeaning stereotypes on-stage or in front of the camera, and recognize the internalized racism that we have all experienced.
Ms. Bobb has said she’ll now pull her FB page. So hurry and view her page while you still can.
Just discovered a great new comic by talented U.S. artist/satirist Matt Bors, Idiot Box. This particular strip offers his take on Arizona’s controversial immigration law:
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