Armed white militants go free

The verdict is in on the colonizers' latest occupation of Native land:

How the government lost its case against the Oregon occupiers

Many people noted how the armed white militants got off free while unarmed Native activists didn't:

The Bundy verdict proves the US is fine with armed white militants—but not Native American activists

Criming While White Vs. Saving What Is Truly Sacred In This World

The Injustice at Standing Rock Is an American Story
I'm angry. White people in Oregon are acquitted while Native people in North Dakota are attacked by riot police from five states. And our politicians are preoccupied.

The protests at Standing Rock are necessary. What happened at Malheur was nonsense.

Dakota Access pipeline protesters see bias after Oregon militia verdict
Activists at the Malheur wildlife refuge were carrying guns – but ‘if native people were armed, we would be killed,’ says an activist at Standing Rock

The privileges of protesting while white

Why do we punish Dakota pipeline protesters but exonerate the Bundys?

Justice Looks Different in Indian Country

Some tweets on the subject:

Debbie Reese@debreese 3 days ago
White men (Bundy's) occupy gov land; desecrate Native lands, walk free. Native people protect water, are arrested, strip searched, maced.

Mark Cogan@mccogan 3 days ago
Let's be honest America. If a gang of heavily armed ppl of color took over a Federal facility, they'd be dead. No justice. #whiteprivilege

Mic@mic 2 days ago
America: Where peaceful activists are brutalized by the police but heavily armed protesters are greeted cordially.

Victor Laszlo@Impolitics 2 days ago
The armed terrorists who took over a wildlife refuge are acquitted on all counts following their brilliant defense strategy of being white.

BlueCornComics@bluecorncomics 2 days ago
The Bundy bunch immediately goes and reoccupies the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. "Why not? The court said we didn't do anything wrong."

License to occupy

Some pundits warned us to expect more of these illegal stunts:

After Oregon verdict, a hot debate: A victory for liberty, or license to intimidate?

Bundy Verdict Puts a Target on the Backs of Federal Workers

Malheur standoff = white supremacy

A good analysis of Ammon Bundy's occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January:

White Supremacy and Property Rights: Tamir Rice and the Oregon Standoff

By Anne Bonds[T]he significance of recent events in Oregon extends beyond this obvious example of the differential treatment of racial groups by the state. We argue the events at the Oregon wildlife refuge are representative of what Arlo Kempf describes as a “colonial moment,” one that bolsters white supremacy and violence against people of color, as well as the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples in the U.S. settler state.

The concept of settler colonialism emphasizes the ongoing occupation and privatization of Indigenous territories and the systems of race necessary to sustain the displacement and marginalization of Indigenous peoples. From this perspective, colonization is not an event of the past, but rather an enduring process that continuously unfolds across the landscape. Colonial moments normalize white domination and the racial status quo by obscuring histories of racial violence and exploitation and by reinforcing largely unquestioned assumptions about white settler property ownership and entitlement to stolen lands.

For some, the Bundys–both Ammon and his father Cliven–have become folk heroes for their efforts to reclaim federally owned and regulated land and for resisting the overbearing, ‘tyrannical’ federal government. However, as the chairperson of the Burns Paiute Tribe, Charlotte Rodrique, has explicitly stated, the Paiute peoples had been living on these lands for thousands of years prior to the arrival of white settlers. Deep ironies abound as the militia members demand that the federal government return the land to ranchers, loggers, and miners after claiming the federal government had usurped their rights.

Though it’s quite easy to dismiss the Bundys, their followers, and other white militias in the American West as a “radical fringe” group with a poor understanding of U.S. history, we believe that to do so would be ill informed. Not only is the Oregon standoff part of a much broader political, economic, and social movement rooted in individual private property rights and undergirded by white supremacy, the event–and popular reactions to it–sustain particular understandings of whiteness and land ownership that render invisible the displacement and exploitation of people of color that enabled white settlement and the acquisition of federal lands in this area in the first place.Comment:  For more on the Bundy bunch, see Malheur Occupation Shows Toxic Masculinity and Bundys Hold Paiute Artifacts Hostage.

Malheur occupation shows toxic masculinity

As CNN reported on January 27:The weeks-long armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge headquarters in Oregon suffered two major blows when protest leader Ammon Bundy was arrested and another key figure was killed.What's interesting is what this affair tells us about white male attitudes in America:

What The Malheur Occupation Teaches Us About Masculinity

By Susan M. ShawTo feel powerless is to fail at masculinity. To be regulated, constrained, fined and jailed is to face challenges to masculinity. And often when men don't feel like "real men," they have to dominate something or someone to reassert their masculinity. In other words, "real men" are not dominated; they dominate. And so, to re-establish their masculinity, these men took up weapons, threatened federal agents, and destroyed federal property. Apparently, running around with guns and keeping the feds at bay made them feel tough; they felt like real men.

Of course, their sense of masculinity was also propped up by their intersecting white privilege and its attendant sense of entitlement. As white men they expect that ownership, power and success are their birthright. They expect to be heard. They believe that they have the right to demand what they want, even if it is over the law and over the wishes of the people of the region.

They demanded that federal lands be returned to "the people." But by "the people" they meant themselves and other white people like them. They certainly didn't mean the Burns Paiute whose land the refuge originally was and who asked them to leave. They didn't mean the people who live in Burns; they also asked the occupiers to leave. They didn't even mean the vast diverse majority of Americans who are free to enjoy the opportunities afforded by the refuge. Somehow, all of these other Americans are not "the people."

These occupiers also counted on their white privilege to protect them from federal assault. After all, we've witnessed the willingness of law enforcement to break up, often by force, the protests of Black and Native peoples. Yet, day after day passed, and the water and electricity stayed on, supplies still came in, and the occupiers continued to destroy the refuge and threaten Burns Paiute artifacts while the federal government tried to wait them out, despite pleas from the Oregon Governor and local officials to end the occupation.Comment:  For more on Cliven Bundy, see Bundys Hold Paiute Artifacts Hostage and Bundy: Paiutes Lost Their Claim.

Bundys hold Paiute artifacts hostage

The 'hostages' of Oregon standoff: 4,000 Paiute artifacts? (+video)

The Burns Paiute tribe, whose ancestral lands are occupied by protesters at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, have asked officials to prosecute the armed activists for potential damage to sacred sites and historical artifacts.

By Molly JacksonAs the armed occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge enters its third week, with little public response from the government, many Americans' initial fascination with Ammon Bundy's eclectic group of protesters demands to return the land "to the people" has faded to weary frustration.

For the nearby Burns Paiute tribe, however, much more is at stake: 4,000 tribal artifacts, maps, and hundreds of sacred sites that they fear may be damaged or carted off for profit while their ancestral lands remain under the control of armed activists who see loggers and ranchers, not Native Americans or the federal government, as the land's rightful owners.

"As far as I'm concerned, our history is just another hostage," Paiute Tribal Council Chairwoman Charlotte Rodrique told the Associated Press.

After weeks of speaking out against the occupation, the tribe has written a letter to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which manages the refuge, asking that the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, as the occupiers are now calling themselves, be prosecuted for any damage to federally protected artifacts. A copy was also sent to the US Attorney for the state of Oregon, Billy Williams, according to the AP.Burns Paiute Tribe: Oregon Occupiers Might Sell Sacred Artifacts on eBay

By Justin StreightCharlotte Roderique (pictured above), chair of the Burns Paiute Tribal Council, released a statement on the occupation Friday.

“Armed protestors don’t belong here. They continue to desecrate one of our most important sacred sites. They should be held accountable.”

Tribal council member Jarvis Kennedy highlighted one particular fear—that the artifacts could end up for sale.

“They could be on eBay right now—we don’t know. With militia members coming and going freely from the refuge, who knows what’s leaving there?”Interior and exterior threats

Oregon Wildlife Refuge Occupiers Rifle Through Native American Artifacts

By Brendan O'ConnorA video uploaded to Facebook on Wednesday appears to show the armed militants occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge rummaging through a storage area, accusing the Bureau of Land Management of improperly storing artifacts belonging to the local, native Paiute tribe. “SHARE!” the video is captioned. “BREAKING UPDATE BURNS OREGON BLM LEFT NATIVE ARTIFACTS TO ROT IN MICE DROPPINGS!”

Earlier this week, Burns Paiute tribal chairperson Charlotte Roderique expressed concern over how the militia was handling the tribe’s history. “We are really worried about the status of the artifacts down there,” Roderique told the Indian Country Today Media Network. (Gawker could not reach Roderique for comment.)

“I understand they took a bulldozer and built a line around the refuge headquarters,” Roderique told Indian Country Today. “You can’t go and bulldoze things. I don’t know what these people are doing if they are doing things to just get a rise or to be martyr—all they are doing is making enemies out of the people they professed to support.”

Last week, the tribe delivered a letter to the U.S. Attorney and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service demanding the militants’ prosecution “if the occupiers disturb, damage, remove, alter, or deface any archaeological resource on the refuge property.”Militants claim they want to return Paiute artifacts from Oregon reserve in new video

By Arturo GarciaMembers of Ammon Bundy’s militant group released a video on Wednesday claiming they want to “open a dialogue” with members of the Burns Paiute Tribe regarding artifacts stored inside the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

The video, posted on YouTube by multiple-time felon Stanley Blaine Hicks under his “Blaine Cooper” alias, shows LaVoy Finnicum walking through a storage room at the facility, saying it contains artifacts shoved into boxes.

“You can see there’s some rat’s nests in here,” Finnicum says, motioning toward one group of boxes. However, no rats are visible at any moment during the three-minute video.

“My question is, why do they just keep them down here?” Finnicum asks.

Militants Plow New Roads At Refuge, Possibly Damaging Artifacts

By Amanda PeacherKevin Foerster, the agency’s Pacific region chief, also denounced the construction.

“There’s a reason why there’s not a road there,” said Foerster. “If there was a need for a road in that particular location, we would have over the past 108 years put a road in that location.”

The agency said the action is likely a violation of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, also known as the ARPA.

“Even disturbing 3 to 4 inches on the surface is an ARPA violation,” said Holm. “Investigators will have to excavate to determine depth of disturbance in several areas to understand the extent of the damage.”Summing it up

Bundy Militia Compared To ISIS For Pawing Through Native American Artifacts, Destroying Sites

By Kristina KillgroveOn the face of it, this doesn’t seem like a bad sentiment. For an organization obsessed with individual rights, it makes sense in a way: Finicum and others may actually be convinced that the Paiute objects need rescuing. But their paternalistic concern for people they perceive as downtrodden by the US government is misplaced. The Paiute agree that the objects need to be rescued—but rescued from Finicum and the other militia members. Rodrique is further quoted in Daily Kos as saying that “we feel strongly because we have had a good working relationship with the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge” prior to the occupation. “We view them as a protector of our cultural rights in that area.” The Paiute helped archive the artifacts at the refuge in the first place.

The Daily Kos quotes tribal council member Jarvis Kennedy as saying, “They just need to get the hell out of there. They didn’t ask anybody, we don’t want them here.” And the archaeologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Carla Burnside, told ICTMN that militants released photos of themselves in her office rifling through sensitive archaeological files. Fish and Wildlife Service assistant director of external affairs, Jason Holm, further told Oregon Public Broadcasting that the road the occupiers recently bulldozed is “an archaeological site important to the Burns Paiute Tribe.” They also removed a fence that Holm said was “a deterrent to keep fire crews from driving across the archaeological site.”

The actions of the Bundy-led militia almost certainly go against ARPA, in spite of what Finicum and friends seem to think. Legal protections have been put into place over decades in the US to protect Native sites, artifacts, and burials and to help right the wrongs done to Native archaeological remains since Europeans first landed. Finicum may think he is doing the right thing in his misguided attempt to repatriate artifacts that are being stored at the refuge by choice and by design, but the Paiute vehemently disagree. And as it’s their heritage, it’s their right to rebuff Finicum and to bring federal action against the occupants who have no idea how to handle the artifacts or how to safeguard their sacred sites.

Rodrique’s quote in ICTMN sums it up for me, and for many of the people in my Twitter feed outraged by this brash disregard for the opinions of Natives: “I don’t know what these people are doing… if they are doing things to just get a rise or to be a martyr—all they are doing is making enemies out of the people they professed to support.”Comment:  For more on Cliven Bundy, see Bundy: Paiutes Lost Their Claim and Paiutes Tell Bundys to Leave.

Bundy: Paiutes lost their claim

‘We Don’t Want Bloodshed’: Armed White Militants in Oregon v. Paiute Tribe

By Jacqueline KeelerThe tribe enjoys a strong working relationship with the Malheur Wildlife Refuge and participated extensively in creating a Comprehensive Conservation Plan in 2013.

“We utilize the refuge almost constantly,” Roderique explains, “We’ve had excursions where our elders sit down and practice traditional crafts and tell stories about how we once existed. There are petroglyphs down there—it’s a real valuable site for us. The youth program takes kids down and they make tule boats and swamp. Being Native people we think it is necessary to continue the practice of oral history. When you are down there these stories come naturally. When you take children out today and show them how we survived here so long it is an important tool to bringing the elders and the youth together so the youth are able to identify themselves as Paiute people.”

However, tribal council members expressed concerns about feeling unsafe with the arrival of more men with guns in their community. Tribal council secretary Wanda Johnson told ICTMN, “These people who have been intimidating our Indian men but they are unchallenged and they walk about town and our concern is if they could escalate things…we don’t want to see bloodshed or see anyone thrown in jail. We feel frustrated that these people can come and go in town and resupply. People are taking things out there and feeding them. Like they are out there in on an outing. It’s so frustrating.”

Some animosity towards Native people can be seen in the Harney County Committee of Safety, a local group Bundy started which refers to Natives as “savages" in their statement of purpose.Ryan Bundy: Native Americans have lost their claim to the Land.

By xxdr zombiexx This is the kicker though, buried all the way at the end of the piece.

"We also recognize that the Native Americans had the claim to the land, but they lost that claim," Bundy said. "There are things to learn from cultures of the past, but the current culture is the most important."

This is no different than the Taliban blowing up the Buddhas, or ISIS trying to find antiquities to destroy. No different whatsoever.

While these faux-militia assholes are technically entitled to their opinions, however fucking stupid those opinions are, they are using these “opinions” (delusions) to make real-world decisions that affect all sorts of people who have JUST AS MUCH RIGHT to these public spaces. And they are set to damage irreplaceable artifacts because they are so delusional about their white supremacy.Comment:  For more on Cliven Bundy, see Paiutes Tell Bundys to Leave and Bundy Bunch vs. Dann Sisters.

Paiutes tell Bundys to leave

Burns Paiute Tribe tells armed group to leave ancestral territoryLeaders of the Burns Paiute Tribe told an armed group to leave their ancestral territory as they educated the public about the true history of land ownership in Oregon.

The tribe was promised the land in and around the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by treaty that was negotiated in 1868. But the Senate never ratified the agreement and the federal government ended up taking all 1.78 million acres.

"We as a tribe view that this is still our land no matter who's living on it," Chairwoman Charlotte Rodrique said at a press conference on Wednesday, The Oregonian reported.

Tribal leaders are worried that the armed group is damaging sacred, cultural and other sites at the refuge. About 20 people have been occupying the land since Saturday.Don’t Change the Status Quo—Unless It’s to Return Land to Tribal Control

By Charlotte RodriqueThere’s no real reason to change the status quo of land ownership out West. But if anyone should assume a greater caretaking role for the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which a group of armed protesters are occupying, it's not the state, or private owners, but the Burns Paiute Tribe.

We were forcefully removed from this land (and much more) over the course of numerous bloody disputes. Negotiated ownership terms that came later—first agreed upon, but not ratified, in a peace treaty with the government in 1868—were mostly ignored and unenforced, as ranchers and mining operators pushed further into Paiute territory over the following decades.

Our access to traditional lands has steadily eroded ever since, but the Malheur sanctuary, which is about 30 miles from our reservation, is of great cultural value to us still. Today, the Burns Paiute has a good relationship with the federal employees who work there: They have been a protector of our artifacts and history, which include petroglyphs and many natural resources that are culturally relevant to our needs. We can’t hunt on the parkland, of course, but tribal people still have a right to go in and gather certain plants, such as willow and tule.And:I am not sympathetic when I hear that a group of armed individuals want territory we have lived on for thousands of years to be “returned” to the “people of Oregon.” I’ve certainly had the urge to yell and demand for respect of our ancestral land, but these individuals certainly aren't speaking for us, let alone the ranchers, who have rejected their support.Paiute tribal chair: 'Don’t tell me any of these ranchers came across the Bering Strait'



Again, who owns the land?

Q&A: For Native Community, Irony and Shaky Claims in Oregon Standoff

By Anna ChalletWhat do you make of the Bundy militia’s demand that the federal government return the land to the people of Harney County?

It shows a lot of ignorance that most Americans have about the shaky nature, legally speaking, of the authority that the U.S. government has over the land it purports to own. It goes back to the Doctrine of Discovery, which was formulated by the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court … when a discovering Christian nation sets foot on land in the Americas, the title to that land immediately reverts to that discovering nation, and for the Native people, the indigenous people, their title disappears.

The indigenous people in the Americas are the only people in the world who do not possess fee simple title to their land. The Supreme Court has cited the Discovery doctrine as recently as 2005 as still being the law of the land, in a case between the city of Sherrill, New York and the Oneida Nation.Oregon's Land Dispute: Who Are the Original Owners?

By Jacqueline KeelerWhen Ammon Bundy, son of Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who led an armed standoff against the US Bureau of Land Management in 2014, charged into the Malheur Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon, he said he was going to return the land from an overreaching federal government to its "original owners" he was not thinking of the Burns Paiute Tribe.

And he has since admitted he knows very little about them.

When he charged into town proclaiming he was "getting ranchers back to ranching, getting the loggers back to logging, getting the miners back to mining" the "original owners" he was thinking about? Without a doubt they were European Americans like himself.

But in fact, it is the Burns Paiute Tribe and other Northern Paiute tribes who are the "original owners" and possess the strongest legal claim to the land, particularly to the wildlife refuge which was once part of their former Malheur Indian Reservation. A 1.78 million acre reservation that was later opened to white settlement after the Paiute and another tribe, the Bannock, facing starvation rose up against settler depredations.Comment:  For more on Cliven Bundy, see Bundy Bunch vs. Dann Sisters and Bundy Bunch Occupies Paiute Land.

Bundy bunch vs. Dann sisters

Here’s What Happened When These Unarmed Native American Sisters Defended Their Land from the Feds

By Amanda GirardIn September of 2001, the government sent in the cavalry to show it was serious about its claim to the Shoshone tract:

The government considers it public land, and to drive the point home, 40 agents from the Bureau of Land Management descended on the Danns’ ranch in September, heavily armed and fortified with helicopters, and confiscated 232 cattle, which were later sold.

The sisters and their supporters argue that their tribe never legally ceded these range lands. Though the federal government controls 85 percent of Nevada, they contend that it has no legitimate title to the land—or the gold, water, oil and geothermal energy beneath it.

Because the Dann sisters refused to leave their land, the government once again began seizing large numbers of their livestock in 2003, claiming the horses and cattle were grazing at the public’s expense. BLM officials even deputized local cowboys to assist with the livestock seizure. At which point, the sisters were forced to remove over 400 remaining horses from the disputed range, many of them pregnant mares, but they lost track of many in the forced move.

And a comment to go with this photo:This is how the BLM and Dept of Interior handled elderly unarmed Shoshones refusing to cede their treaty rights to ancestral lands. The Dann sisters were attacked and detained numerous times over several decades sometimes with police and sometimes by mob and constantly monitored. Their horses and cattle were driven off to die of starvation. The Danns were not millionaires like the Bundys.No crackdown on whites

Other postings confirm that white conservatives like the Bundys get special treatment:

Yes, the armed Oregon occupiers would be raided if they weren’t white—same goes if they were leftists

The U.S. gov't is fundamentally right wing, and supports many of the things the Bundys & militants are calling for

By Ben NortonIn response, social media and Op-Ed pages of newspapers were inundated with condemnations of white privilege and arguments that the far-right militants would have been violently removed if they were people of color.

There is a crucial point missing from many of the liberal hot takes on the Oregon paramilitary occupation, however. In their hyper-emphasis on white privilege, many are depoliticizing the situation.

To be clear, these articles are absolutely correct. If the extremists occupying the federal building were not white, they would be attacked.

But if they were leftists, even if they were still white, countless historical examples show they would be attacked, too.Unarmed black protesters were ‘forcibly removed’ and jailed after they tried to occupy a wildlife refuge in 1979

By Travis GettysBut that’s not what happened nearly 37 years ago in Georgia.

Federal authorities secured a court order to remove the “squatters” one day after they set up camp at Harris Neck—but four of the unarmed protesters refused to leave.

They were “forcibly removed” May 2, 1979—just three days after they arrived on the land where their parents and grandparents had farmed, hunted and fished.

The four men were each sentenced to a month in jail for trespassing, and courts have ruled that the land belongs to the U.S. government—and not to the slaves’ descendants.

If you wondered if the Danns' treatment was based on racism, wonder no longer. Now we have evidence. White people get treated differently in similar circumstances. That's privilege and prejudice in action.

Final word

A couple of days later, another comment on the disparate treatment of whites and Natives:

With Militants Occupying Ancestral Land, Native Tribe Is 'Very Offended'Rodrique says she's frustrated that the federal government hasn't forced the occupiers out, and compares how law enforcement treats the anti-federalists with how the U.S. historically treated native tribes. She says the occupiers are allowed to go into town to buy groceries and gas, then return to their armed occupation.

"They did disconnect their utilities and things like that, but it's not really forcing them out," Rodrique says. "You know, in our history, that was how the military got us. They basically starved us into submission. And you could do the same thing with these occupiers."

Rodrique would like the FBI to remove the armed men, and she thinks the FBI's inaction is a double standard.

"If I, as a native person, a person of color, were to go down there and do the same thing, they would have hit me on the forehead with a baton" and dragged her out, she says. But "because they're white people, I feel that they're being treated differently."For more on Cliven Bundy, see Bundy Bunch Occupies Paiute Land and Gun Nuts' Hypocrisy on Government Power.

Bundy bunch occupies Paiute land

The Bundy bunch--the offspring of Cliven Bundy and their followers--are back with another protest based on racist conservative beliefs. They think the government owes them a handout--free grazing on public land--because they're white.

At first their protest was notable because of how the government was treating them with kid gloves. Unlike, say, every protest by people of color. But then the Native connection came to the fore.

Oregon “Militia” Says Feds Stole Their Land–Turns Out It Was Stolen from Paiute Tribe

By John Paul BrammerAccording to Steve Russell at Indian Country Today Media Network, President Grant established the Malheur Indian Reservation in 1872, and it wasn’t until the Bannock War of 1878 that the Bannocks and the Paiute were removed from the reservation. Since then, the wildlife refuge has existed as an alternative use of federal land.

In other words, the only reason the militiamen feel they have a leg to stand on when it comes sovereignty over this land is because of the federal government they are attacking.

When you consider the plight of the Paiute, it makes Ammon Bundy’s Facebook post on December 30th—in which he complained about the federal government stealing land—look deeply ironic:

“Simply put, the federal government has adversely stolen the lands and resources from the people, destroyed thousands of jobs, and the economy of an entire county. Now anyone who has enough guts to stand against them, they annihilate through their own court systems…”These Aren't the First Armed Whites to Take Over That Oregon Land: Just Ask the Native Paiute PeopleJACQUELINE KEELER: Yes. Well, I’d like to start off saying that today, in January, this is the 137th anniversary of when 500 Paiutes were loaded onto wagons and walked, under heavy armed guard, from their—from the lands where the Bundys are right now holding it and to the Yakama Reservation in Washington state, some 300 miles, knee-deep in snow. And they were forced to march, shackled two by two. And so, that’s some of the background there.

AMY GOODMAN: And then, continue. Take us through to today. What happened to this land? How did it change hands?

JACQUELINE KEELER: Well, the area called the—now called the Malheur, it was called the Malheur Reservation, and it actually constituted nearly 1.7 million acres of land. But with incursions from white settlers, they basically pressured the federal government to open it up to settlement. And so, in 1876, President Grant did that. And then, after there was an uprising with the Bannock Indian War in 1878, due to issues of starvation and deprivation in the middle of winter again, the Bannock and the Paiute rose up, and then that’s when they were force-marched out of the area and lost most of the land.Bundy Militia Claims Indigenous Paiute Land as Oregon Land



Whose land is it?

Oregon native tribe bewildered by gun-toting ‘glory hounds’: That land belongs to the Paiute

By ReutersThe reservation is not far from the wildlife reserve and the tribe has been living off the arid western Oregon mountains since long before Europeans arrived in North America.

“There was never an agreement that we were giving up this land. We were dragged out of here,” Rodrique said.

The tribe’s approach has typically been less provocative than the protesters who picked up guns to further their anti-government cause.

“I’m, like, hold on a minute, if you want to get technical about it … the land belongs to the Paiute here,” said Selena Sam, a member of the tribe’s council who waitresses at a local diner.Native American Tribe Has Witty Quip for Oregon Protesters

Educating the Oregon Militia on The Northern Paiute’s ‘Trail of Tears’

By Jacqueline KeelerBurns Tribal chairperson Charlotte Roderique at a press conference yesterday, had a stern rebuke of Bundy’s occupation of her homeland, “Yesterday, the Burns Paiute Tribe joined other community leaders calling for an end to armed protestors at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. Armed protestors do not belong to here. They are endangering our sacred sites and our children. Malheur Wildlife Refuge was a wintering gathering ground before the settlers come here.”

And tribal councilman Jarvis Kennedy had even stronger words, “What would happen to Indians who did this? We, as Harney County residents don’t need some clown to stand up for us, we are hard-working people…we survived without them. We need them to get the hell out of here. They are jeopardizing and scaring our people.”

Despite this, Bundy’s actions have brought national media coverage of the January of 1879 forced march of 500 Paiutes from the Malheur Indian Reservation some 350 miles in knee-deep snow, many shackled two by two, to the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington State—the Northern Paiutes’ “Trail of Tears.” One group that was force-marched by the U.S. army simply disappeared. No one knows what happened to them. Still more died and when a few Paiute returned to Burns, Oregon, they were considered outlaws, many were landless as their reservation had been opened completely to settlers and large California ranching corporations.

“The one thing I’m really proud of is the tenacity of our people.” Roderique noted, “420 people are descendants of people who were able to get back here from Yakama. I wouldn’t drop my children off from Yakama and tell my children to walk back. They wouldn’t know what to eat, what river to follow.”Comment:  For more on Cliven Bundy, see Gun Nuts' Hypocrisy on Government Power and ATV Rally Threatens Native Sites.

Gun nuts' hypocrisy on government power

A writer searches the NRA website in vain for opinions on Ferguson:

'Jack-Booted Thugs' With NRA Approval?

By Francis WilkinsonWhat I was looking for, of course, was outrage over "jack-booted thugs" terrorizing the populace. After fundraising and paranoia, outrage is the NRA's chief product. Whether it's President Barack Obama conspiring to subvert the constitution and strip citizens of self-defense, or former President Bill Clinton deliberately fomenting violent crime as a predicate to gun control, NRA leader Wayne LaPierre has always been extra vigilant about government's potential to abuse its police powers.

"If you have a badge" under the freedom-hating Clinton administration, he said in 1995, "you have the government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens."

I wonder: Has the shooting death of the Missouri teen traumatized LaPierre into silence?

After all, Twitter is full of images of police dressed in camouflage and looking for all the world like a powerful government militia terrorizing the citizens of Ferguson. The NRA has previously lamented "black-suited, masked, massively armed mobs of screaming, swearing agents invading the homes of innocents." LaPierre has expressed grave concern over "federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens." Surely, if anyone in the U.S. is concerned about police forces abusing their lethal powers, it must be LaPierre, self-styled guardian of individual rights, protector of the little guy, scourge of overzealous government agents.

Yet once again, an unarmed black boy or man has been shot dead by police, and LaPierre is silent. I just can't figure it out.Later postings make a similar point:

Why Isn't the NRA Defending Ferguson’s Blacks?

Every dystopian warning of the gun group has come true in Missouri, yet the organization is offering no sympathy for the African American victims.

By Cliff SchecterYet somehow, the NRA seems to have missed the whole thing with the SWAT teams and the tank-like vehicles and the snipers and the LRAD sound cannon and the tear gas and the rubber bullets being trained on unarmed Americans. Not a peep from LaPierre on this extended assault on citizens of Ferguson, at least that I can find.

If I were suspicious of their motives--and I am--I might point out that when I visited their 9 acres of militarized gun-fun also known as their convention in Indianapolis, I saw fewer black faces than in your average episode of The Dukes of Hazzard. I'd also point out that LaPierre blows just about every tune he knows on his dog whistle, when warning his membership of the horrors confronting them during this period when violent crime has fallen to its lowest level in a generation:We don't trust government, because government itself has proven unworthy of our trust. We trust ourselves and we trust what we know in our hearts to be right. We trust our freedom. In this uncertain world, surrounded by lies and corruption everywhere you look, there is no greater freedom than the right to survive and protect our families with all the rifles, shotguns, and handguns we want. We know in the world that surrounds us there are terrorists and there are home invaders, drug cartels, carjackers, knockout gamers, and rapers, and haters, and campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse our society that sustains us all.Besides making you wonder who spiked his drink with goofballs, what jumps out about that friendly little harangue? Who do you think LaPierre's speech is meant for when he mentions "terrorists" and "drug cartels" and "carjackers" and "knockout gamers?" I promise you the hardcore gun fetishists he's preaching to are not picturing Eric Rudolph or George Jung.

If in doubt, the NRA's board can clarify the leadership’s view of the world. Burnt out rock n' roller Ted Nugent has referred to the "Dark Continent of Africa," and called President Obama “an avowed racist who claimed because Trayvon Martin was black…a gangster and an attacker and a doper, that he could have been his son."

The Blatant Hypocrisy Shown by Fox News and Conservatives Toward Ferguson

By Allen Clifton[O]ne thing I’ve noticed is an absolute hypocrisy by conservatives and the right-wing media in general toward this situation. Where is their unwavering support for Mike Brown and the people protesting in Ferguson?

Isn’t the common narrative behind this story that a law enforcement officer unjustly killed unarmed man?

Heck, after Cliven Bundy was found guilty in a court of law several times many pundits on Fox News, and conservatives in general, rushed to the defense of Bundy’s “stance against injustice.”

“Militias” (aka guys who bought camouflage and guns at Walmart) showed up in force to “defend against” law enforcement officials carrying out court orders. But they didn’t just show up, they stayed for weeks after. Hell, to many, Bundy is still a “conservative hero” despite the fact that he’s been found guilty of breaking the law by several different judges.

So, where are these people now?

Isn’t that what these protesters say happened in Ferguson–an injustice? Aren’t many people claiming that the force shown by local law enforcement is an attack on the constitutional rights of those Americans?

Well, where the hell are these “patriots”? Where’s the “local militia” defending these people against the “overreaching arm of law enforcement”? Where’s Sean Hannity spending hour after hour, day after day defending their rights on Fox News?

Oh, that’s right, they’re no where to be found.

Because like with everything else, conservatives only care about the constitutional rights for those who they think should have them. In Cliven Bundy, they took a look at him and many conservatives saw themselves in the mirror. A white, Christian anti-government individual who lived out in the country and loved guns. To them, that means he’s more deserving of their support.

That’s why when it comes to Mike Brown, and finding out the truth of what happened, most of them honestly couldn’t care less. Because he’s not exactly the “conservative type” like Cliven Bundy was, if you know what I mean.Comment:  Yes, when will all the cowardly Bundy Ranch and border patrol types march to Ferguson and take on Obama's stormtroopers? When?!

Oh, wait. They want protection from black and brown government. Also known as socialism, paganism, and Sharia. Not protection from white government. Also known as the real America, the Constitution, and God's country.

Never mind.

Some tweets on the subject:

Kragar @Kragar_LGF · Aug 14
#Ferguson has exposed the rank hypocrisy of the Conservative "anti-govt" screed.

They love a police state that enforces their rules.

BlueCornComics @bluecorncomics · Aug 14
Now's your chance, gun nuts. Stand up to the jack-booted stormtroopers in #Ferguson. Show us the 2nd Amendment vs. paramilitary gov't thugs.

ATV rally threatens Native sites

Welfare Cowboy Jr. Leads 300 Armed Protesters on Crusade for More Stuff They Aren’t Entitled To

By Josh KilburnThe entitled lowlifes at the Bundy Ranch are back at it again, and this time gathering 300 strong to ride roughshod through the Four Corners region that is home to ancient dwellings and other cultural resources to the Ancestral Pueblo—because the White man cannot do enough damage to Native American history, he also has to run ATVs through historically important land as well.ATV Rally to Ride Through Sacred Native American Burial Sites

By Scott Gaudinier[B]oth Native Americans and environmentalists state that the current ATV ban is vital at Recapture Canyon, as there are fragile artifacts, burials and homes of ancient Pueblo peoples, all of which need to be preserved. Current Navajo inhabitants claim that the dwellings and artifacts left there belonged to their direct ancestors, and that the sacred land needs to not be trodden upon out of respect for their people.

Lyman, in response to Native American criticism, stated that it would be possible for ATVs to ride through the area while preserving sacred ancient artifacts. However, Jessica Goad from the Center for Western Priorities strongly disagreed with Lyman’s statement, explaining how ATV riders ruined any chance of riding through the area when two men were discovered by authorities using picks and shovels to construct another trail for ATVs before the original ban had been instituted.

The ATV rally to ride through sacred Native American burial sites has since spurred anger among Natives, as well as environmentalists and other groups opposed to the rising threat of right-wing action in Western states. According to these groups, not only do these actions show extreme lack of respect to Native cultures, but it also shows a high amount of ignorance about the government’s involvement in the lives of citizens. This is due to both far-right individuals like rancher Cliven Bundy and the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, who each provoked the event.

Bundy supporters defy feds by riding ATVs in off-limits Utah canyon[BLM Utah director Juan Palma] said he was concerned the riders may have damaged artifacts and dwellings that "tell the story of the first farmers in the Four Corners region" of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.

"Damage to archaeological sites is permanent and the information about our collective past is then lost forever," Jerry Spangler, of the Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance, said to the Salt Lake Tribune. "It is sad that irreplaceable treasures of importance to all Americans would be sacrificed on the altar of anti-government fervor. It is worse that protesters would be so blinded to their own insensitivity as to what others consider to be sacred treasures of their past."

Palma also pointed out in his statement that there are more than 2,800 miles of trails on public lands that are open to ATV use within a short drive of Blanding. He also noted that BLM-managed public lands in Utah provide $490 million in local and national economic benefits in 2012.ATVs in Recapture Canyon: What Are They Fighting For?

By Christina RoseLyman said he knows the area is sacred but somehow believes that ATV riders can preserve the area while riding down paths too narrow to pass without damaging the area.

“The trail within the closure area is very narrow. There are many points throughout the closed area where there are remains, relics, artifacts.” Crandall said. “Some are right next to the trail and some are even on the trail. You are risking those resources by using those vehicles.”

In a letter to the Salt Lake Tribune, Willie Grayeyes, chair of a nonprofit that lobbies to protect Navajo land, wrote that a Veterans Retreat had to be cancelled because of the rally.

“This opportunity for healing, to help these men and women has been postponed due to the threats of illegal activities by San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman on behalf of those who desire to drive their ATV toys over the sacred ruins of others.” Grayeyes wrote. “Contrary to the beliefs of many, southeastern Utah was not an empty place that no one wanted just waiting to be inhabited by European settlers or discovered as a recreation playground, but rather it was and remains our home.”

Lyman has complained that Blanding’s ancestors used that path 150 years ago to travel north and the townspeople have a right to the area, which is still legally accessible on foot and on horseback.

“I understand the viewpoint that many of the descendants of the original Blandings were there 150 years ago, but I would also say that the Native Americans have been here for two millennia,” Crandall responded.How Cliven Bundy and the Land Rights Movement Screws Native Americans

Land Rights activists like to invoke ‘ancestral rights’ to federally owned land, even as they run roughshod over preservation sites for ancient Native American cultures.

By Caitlin DicksonThe piece of Recapture Canyon that Saturday’s protesters insist they have a right to drive on is closed off in order to preserve artifacts that offer invaluable insight into how ancient Native Americans lived.

“Damage to archaeological sites is permanent and the information about our collective past is then lost forever,” the Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance’s Jerry Spangler told The Salt Lake Tribune in response to the protest. “It is sad that irreplaceable treasures of importance to all Americans would be sacrificed on the altar of anti-government fervor. It is worse that protesters would be so blinded to their own insensitive as to what others consider to be sacred treasures of their past.”

Libertarians—the proponents of hands-off government, including land rights activists—are fond of appropriating Native American imagery to evoke negative sentiments toward the federal government, especially with regards to gun control. Last year, several gun control opponents warned that federal gun regulations would lead to a massacre akin to that of nearly 300 Lakota Indians by U.S. soldiers near the South Dakota’s Wounded Knee Creek in 1890. “Wounded Knee was among the first federally backed gun confiscation attempts in United States history,” one blogger at Libertarian politician Ron Paul’s website DailyPaul.com wrote last year. “It ended in the senseless murder of 297 people.” A popular Internet meme picturing a Native American tribal leader surrounding the words, “I’m all for total gun control and trusting the government to protect you…After all, it worked great for us,”promotes the same message.

That believers of the same ideology would try to appeal to the emotions of Native Americans to promote one agenda, while shamelessly ignoring the rights of those same people in an effort to further another cause, is ironic to say the least. So, too, is Bundy, a literal freeloader in every sense of the word, suggesting that black people would be better off as slaves than “under government subsidy.”Arrest the bums

BLM Says It Will Prosecute Illegal ATV Riders at Recapture Canyon

By Public News ServiceThe federal government says it plans to prosecute everyone who illegally rode an ATV on federally protected lands in southeastern Utah over the weekend. Juan Palma with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) says his agency will "pursue all available redress through the legal system to hold the lawbreakers accountable."

Motorized vehicles have been banned in the area, which contains ancient Native American cultural assets, since 2007.Comment:  I hope prosecutions will happen, but I wouldn't bet on it. No one wants to go up against the gun-wielding Bundy "patriots" aka terrorists.

For more on Cliven Bundy, see ATV Rally in Off-Limit Canyon and What Bundy and Sterling Tell Us.

ATV rally in off-limits canyon

With links to welfare cowboy Cliven Bundy, anti-government "patriots" planned to show their contempt for the Constitution, the law, and Native Americans.

Gov. Herbert: Uphold laws during ATV protest

By Brady McCombsAn idyllic Utah canyon home to ancient cliff dwellings and native burials will be the site of a protest Saturday by a group of people who plan to mount their ATVs and ride a trail that has been off limits to motorized vehicles since 2007.

The Bureau of Land Management is warning riders to stay out, vowing prosecution against those who ignore a law put in place after an illegal trail was found that cuts through ruins that are nearly 2,000 years old. The canyon is open to hikers and horseback riders.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said he understands frustration around the issue, but urged people to uphold the law and not disrupt public safety during the protest.

The protest is the latest illustration of tension between Western residents and the federal government over management of public lands. But the off-road protest isn't expected to end in a confrontation like other recent ones.Saturday’s Illegal Cliven Bundy-Endorsed ATV Rally Runs Through Sacred American Indian Sites

By Matt Lee-AshleyAn illegal all-terrain vehicle (ATV) ride planned this weekend through Recapture Canyon in Utah is the latest flashpoint between anti-government activists and federal land managers. The illegal ride is already drawing criticism from the Navajo Nation, putting American Indian burial sites and cultural resources at risk, and has even forced the cancellation of a traditional Navajo Warrior welcome home ceremony for veterans.

Yet San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman (R-UT) and his supporters appear determined to defy federal law by riding their ATVs through Recapture Canyon, an area of southeast Utah known as a “mini-Mesa Verde” because it contains one of the highest densities of archaeological sites in the country.

Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who has refused to pay more than $1 million in grazing fees he owes U.S. taxpayers, has reportedly urged his supporters-–who include armed militia members–-to join Lyman in Utah this weekend.

“We need to help the people of Blanding re-establish who is in control of the land,” said Bundy and his wife, Carol, in an email that was reported by E&E News. “This is your next stand. Will you be there to help them like you helped us?”NCAI Urges Cliven Bundy to Respect Native Ancestral Sites; Cancel RallyCliven Bundy’s group plans to ride roughshod through the Utah Canyon with a gang of all-terrain vehicles which would endanger places of cultural significance to Native peoples. Bundy thinks he is protecting his rights, but he is endangering the cultural integrity of the homelands of Native peoples.

Since well before the state of Nevada, the federal government, and farmers and ranchers occupied the area, tribal nations–including the Las Vegas Band of Paiute, Moapa Band of Paiute, and other tribes in the area–have respected and honored the Utah Canyon as a sacred place. Native peoples believe the canyon contains many markers from their ancestors. An action like this is no more appropriate than a similar activity at a church or other place of worship.

The NCAI strongly urges federal authorities to act–as part of its trust responsibility to tribal nations–to prevent this potential destruction of sacred places. We would oppose an action of this type not only by Mr. Bundy and his supporters, but by anyone with a disregard for Native peoples and cultures.During the event

Trail ride challenges federal control of Utah land

By Jennifer DobnerHundreds of activists seeking to directly challenge federal control of swathes of territory in the U.S. West on Saturday drove dozens of all-terrain vehicles into protected land in Utah that is home to Native American artifacts and where such journeys are banned.

The ride into Recapture Canyon, which comes amid heightened political tensions, is a protest against indecision by federal land managers on whether to reopen canyon trails to recreational vehicle use after more than seven years of study.

About 300 people rallied at a nearby park before dozens of people, some of them armed with guns, set off in about 60 ATVs down a closed-off trail, which winds through red rock desert. The local sheriff had armed officers on horseback monitoring the protest.

The dispute is the latest squabble between conservative states' rights advocates in Utah and across the West, who want to take back millions of acres of public land over which federal agencies have authority. More than 60 percent of Utah's land is under federal control.

The canyon in the Four Corners region of Utah is home to the ruins of ancient dwellings and other cultural resources of Ancestral Puebloans. The Bureau of Land Management closed the area in 2007 after an illegally constructed trail was found and some artifact sites were damaged.

Utah ATV protest peaceful

But BLM says it documented illegal use

By John PeelATV riders drove at least a couple miles into an off-limits area Saturday to protest the closure of a trail in a popular canyon with ancestral Puebloan artifacts just east of town.

A rally before the ride and the ride itself both went off peacefully Saturday morning. But there were some testy moments at the morning rally at Centennial Park on the southwest edge of town as visitors from outside the area exhorted San Juan County residents to fully flaunt their right to the part of Recapture Canyon in question, located on Bureau of Land Management land and closed to ATVs in September 2007.

Also, a statement issued after the ride from BLM Utah Director Juan Palma said the agency had documented those who rode Saturday into the area closed to motorized use.

“The BLM was in Recapture Canyon today collecting evidence and will continue to investigate,” Palma’s statement said. “The BLM will pursue all available redress through the legal system to hold the lawbreakers accountable.”Protesters in Utah drive ATVs onto federal land—but find no showdown

By John M. GlionnaThe ATVs kicked up sprays of dirt, their riders waving American flags and protest signs as they rumbled along a disputed canyon trail that federal officials had closed to motorized vehicles.

Their message Saturday was clear amid the dust: This was the latest challenge by citizens saying they are defending state and local rights against an increasingly arrogant federal government that has overstepped its role in small communities such as Blanding.

The protagonist this time wasn't a private rancher like Cliven Bundy, who prevailed in a standoff with the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada. This protest was the brainchild of a public official, San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, who contends that this town of 3,500 residents has tried hard to compromise with the bureau to reopen scenic Recapture Canyon to all-terrain vehicles.

BLM officials banned the vehicles to protect archaeological sites, a move residents say has cheated them out of a prime recreational area. Unlike in the Bundy incident, no guns were brandished here, but the words were volatile. "If you make a rule that I have to lick your boots," Lyman said of federal officials, "I'm just not going to do that."Dozens of protesters ride ATVs in off-limits canyon

Protesters ride ATVs through canyon despite ban, BLM officials document illegal activity

Welfare Cowboy Jr. Leads 300 Armed Protesters on Crusade for More Stuff They Aren’t Entitled To

Comment:  For more on Cliven Bundy, see What Bundy and Sterling Tell Us and Cliven Bundy vs. Dann Sisters.

Why no NFL crackdown on racism?

As expected, critics have noted the contrast between the NBA's ban on Donald Sterling and the NFL's embrace of Dan Snyder:

Members of Congress link NBA’s Sterling controversy to NFL’s debate over Redskins

By Aaron C. DavisA victory over racism in the NBA? How about the NFL and the Redskins? That’s the link made Wednesday by members of Congress who are set on forcing the Washington team to abandon its controversial name.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s nonvoting member of Congress, sought to capi­tal­ize on the National Basketball Association’s swift action against Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, saying the National Football League could learn a lesson about dealing with racism in its ranks.

Norton called on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to follow the “moral example” of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who on Tuesday banned Sterling for life from the league over comments about African Americans.

“It shows a big difference between two major sports leaders,” Norton said in an interview. “One was willing to act and clearly separate his league from racism. The other is appearing to condone it by not even requesting [Redskins owner Daniel] Snyder to change the name.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) went further, saying that national outrage should now be directed toward the NFL for its refusal to change the name of the Washington Redskins.

“How long will the NFL continue to do nothing—zero—as one of its teams bears a name that inflicts so much pain on Native Americans?” Reid asked.The NBA won't tolerate racism, so why does the NFL tolerate 'Redskins'?

By Chris Feliciano ArnoldIf the NBA is finally willing to take a stand against owners spewing racist bile in private conversations, how can the NFL continue to defend Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, which continues to use a name and logo widely seen as disrespectful to Native Americans? Oh yeah, money. Washington’s team was ranked third on Forbes’ list of the most valuable NFL franchises in 2013 with an estimated worth of $1.7 billion.

Granted, Sterling and Snyder are not a perfect bigot-to-bigot comparison. Sterling’s 19th century plantation worldview is especially stomach-churning given that African Americans represent the majority of the NBA’s players, stars and legends—and a vital fan base. Snyder, on the other hand, is free to profit from racial exploitation of a people who remain among the most marginalized in our society. (One problem is the lack of Native American representation in the NFL. According to 2013 data, Native American representation among league management is well below 1%, with similarly low numbers among players, coaches and management across the league.)

The Sterling debacle should give NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell inspiration to emulate Silver. While the term “redskin” is relatively innocuous in its historical context, time has rendered it a relic that reinforces offensive Wild West stereotypes. A white billionaire’s determination to exploit those stereotypes reduces years of genocide against Native Americans to a crude exercise in branding. The name has incited debate for more than 20 years, but the NBA’s action against Sterling opens the door for Goodell to leverage his power and demonstrate that no single franchise, no matter how profitable, trumps the values of the entire league.

If that were the happen, the Sterling circus could usher in a better era in American pro sports, pressuring other franchises to follow suit by retiring names and mascots like the Cleveland Indians’ “Chief Wahoo,” a gross caricature that has been protested for years.

NBA Rejects Racism, MLB And NFL Continue Their Silence

By Chris WeigantThe Cleveland Indians seem to be slowly getting rid of this blatantly racist image, and replacing it with a block letter "C." But the image still appears on the Indian's official homepage, and still appears on team uniforms and team merchandise sold to the public. Why is this not considered universally unacceptable, when a basketball team owner just got a lifetime ban for something he said in private to his girlfriend?

The Washington Redskins and Chief Wahoo are not something said in private. They are as public as it gets. Millions of dollars are made each year by the sale of merchandise with these names and logos prominently appearing. Yet the leagues do nothing.

It's not like they are unaware that people are offended, either. The Redskins are in a legal battle against a group which is trying to get their trademark revoked (for being patently offensive), and members of Congress have weighed in on the controversy by asking the team owner to change the name. The Redskins are well aware of the problem. The team owner refuses to budge. The league remains mostly silent. Silence, in this instance, equals consent. Why is blatant racism unacceptable when directed against African Americans but acceptable when directed against Native Americans? You'll have to ask the leaders of the NFL and MLB, because I have no answer to that question.

There are other team names and logos which use Native American names and images (the Chiefs and the Braves, to name two). However, the Redskins and Chief Wahoo are the worst examples. The Braves retired their mascot ("Chief Noc-A-Homa"... get it?), but still do an awfully offensive "tomahawk chop" chant at their home games.First Nations and the repugnant, racist side of pro sports

By Michael BabadTo recap, the National Basketball Association won justifiable praise this week when it banned Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, for racist comments about African Americans in a private conversation caught on tape and made public.

This wasn’t lost on First Nations, who have long suffered open racism as society tolerates pro club names like the Washington Redskins, the Atlanta Braves and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Not to mention the Cleveland Indians and their repugnant caricature of a smiling Chief Wahoo. The club has now playing up a new logo–a big C–but reportedly the other will still exist.

There is pressure on Washington to change the club’s name, but there’s no sign of that happening. Indeed, owner Dan Snyder has reportedly said he won’t.

No tolerance for racism (against blacks)

Some thoughts on why black players spoke out against Sterling:

Sterling's Comments, Snyder's Condescension: Two Sides of Same Coin

By Jacqueline KeelerWhen comparing the differences in response to the NBA’s banning of racist L.A. Clippers owner Don Sterling to NFL Commissioner Goodell’s support of Washington Redsk*ns owner Dan Snyder, we must look at the ways in which racist stereotyping of Native people is seen as more acceptable than that of African Americans and other ethnic groups in the United States. We also must look at why Black players and sponsors do not take racism against Native people as seriously as racism against other Americans. We must ask, Why is it okay for Dan Snyder to talk down to Native concerns about using a racial slur as the name of his team and for our fellow Americans of color to ignore us?

When Snyder says, “WE’LL NEVER CHANGE THE NAME. It’s that simple. Never—you can use caps,” and Sterling says “We live in a culture, we have to live within that culture. I DON’T WANT TO CHANGE,” we are looking at two sides of the same coin. It is in direct contrast to President Obama’s refrain from his 2008 election night acceptance speech, “Change is coming to America.” An America built on the invention of the very concept of “race” to uphold the dual practices of slavery and land theft that lies at the very foundation of this colonial-settler country that is now threatened by a Black President, Black athletic excellence and success and Native people asserting control over their representations in the media and in sports.

Cliven Bundy wondered in a taped interview if Black people “were better off as slaves” and accused them of being welfare freeloaders--Cliven Bundy, a white man who has been grazing for free for 20 years on land half the size of Rhode Island and owes the U.S. one million dollars in fees and fines. You can see how little many in the United States have moved on from the Civil War, the rupture that was the first real attack on the slavery/land theft complex that birthed this country.

I thought a lot about the differences in American perspectives—particularly those of Black Americans, like the Washington Redsk*ns player DeAngelo Hall, who said earlier this year in an interview with Mike Hill of Fox Sports, “They probably should [change the name], but they won’t for awhile at least.” He then backtracked on this rather tepid support of Native American concerns after ostensibly receiving pressure from Snyder, saying, “I can’t claim to understand where they’re coming from or their viewpoint, so for me to say what’s right or wrong or what should be changed is out of my pay grade. That decision ultimately--you know me, all teammates and I have stayed away from this topic. It’s one where you really can’t be right.”Short version: Because America has repudiated explicit racism against blacks but not Indians.



Bad people vs. flawed system

And some thoughts on why many people spoke out against Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling:

This Town Needs a Better Class of Racist

It's easy for polite American society to condemn Cliven Bundy and banish Donald Sterling while turning away from the elegant, monstrous racism that remains.

By Ta-Nehisi CoatesThe problem with Bundy isn't that he is a racist but that he is an oafish racist. The elegant racist knows how to injure non-white people while never summoning the specter of white guilt.

The problem with Cliven Bundy isn't that he is a racist but that he is an oafish racist. He invokes the crudest stereotypes, like cotton picking. This makes white people feel bad. The elegant racist knows how to injure non-white people while never summoning the specter of white guilt. Elegant racism requires plausible deniability, as when Reagan just happened to stumble into the Neshoba County fair and mention state's rights. Oafish racism leaves no escape hatch, as when Trent Lott praised Strom Thurmond's singularly segregationist candidacy.And:Like Cliven Bundy, Donald Sterling confirms our comfortable view of racists. Donald Sterling is a "bad person." He's mean to women. He carouses with prostitutes. He uses the word "nigger." He fits our idea of what an actual racist must look like: snarling, villainous, immoral, ignorant, gauche. That the actual racism that Sterling long practiced, that this society has long practiced (and is still practicing) must attract significantly less note. That is because to see racism in all its elegance is to implicate not just its active practitioners, but to implicate ourselves.

How can it be that in a "black league," as Charles Barkley calls the NBA, an on-the-record structural racist like Donald Sterling was allowed to thrive? Everyone now wants to speak to Elgin Baylor. Where were all these people before? Where was Kevin Johnson? Where was the Los Angeles NAACP? When Donald Sterling was driving black tenants out of his buildings, where was David Stern?

Far better to implicate Donald Sterling and be done with the whole business. Far better to banish Cliven Bundy and table the uncomfortable reality of our political system.Comment:  This applies to the Washington Redskins, Chief Wahoo, and other examples of sports stereotyping. "They didn't mean any harm," people tell themselves about the offenders. "They didn't attack or insult Indians. They're just thinking about their teams, their fans, and 'tradition.' As long as no one's compared to a slave or treated like an animal, what's the problem?"

And so the racism in America continues. Perpetuated by people who assure themselves they aren't racists. "It's bad people like Bundy and Sterling who are the problem, not me."

For more on the subject, see What Bundy and Sterling Tell Us and First Sterling, Then Snyder?

What Bundy and Sterling tell us

The paternalism of rich white men aka the 1%:

Donald Sterling’s disgusting 1 percent ramblings: Let’s pity the racist billionaire

Donald Sterling's racism is cut from the GOP playbook--a classic case of "makers vs. takers" delusion

By Paul RosenbergDS: You just, do I know? I support them and give them food, and clothes, and cars, and houses. Who gives it to them? Does someone else give it to them? Do I know that I have—Who makes the game? Do I make the game, or do they make the game? Is there 30 owners, that created the league? (emphasis added)

Excuse me. Donald Sterling gives the players on his team food? Clothes? Cars? Houses? They don’t work their asses off earning what they buy for themselves, building on a lifetime of hard work and practice, and years of unmitigated exploitation as unpaid athletes along the way?

Does anyone other than Sterling have the slightest difficulty in hearing how much he sounds like a classic 19th century slave owner, talking about everything he’s done for his ungrateful slaves?

Certainly his question, “Who makes the game?” recalls the slaveholders’ delusion that they alone created the enormous wealth they enjoyed. It was a believable fiction, I suppose, if first you absolutely convinced yourself that the slaves who did all the actual work were not people at all, but mere property, nothing more than livestock, really. One has to wonder: Is that what Sterling thinks of the men who play on his team today?Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy’s ignorant paternalism: Angry old white men gone wild, again!

Donald Sterling’s racial views are worse than Cliven Bundy’s, yet some on the right defend the racist billionaire

By Joan WalshIt’s just another episode of “Angry Old White Men Gone Wild,” but the two men’s sins aren’t the same. Racism wasn’t entirely shocking coming from the not-too-sharp Nevada cattleman who seems to have marinated in the paranoid anti-government thinking that’s taken hold in marginal white communities. Its crude expression was much more disturbing coming from the powerful, wealthy Sterling.

But there’s more than simple anti-black racism linking the views of Bundy and Sterling. They share an ignorant, self-serving paternalism.And:Comparing the situation of Sterling’s players—talented, wealthy athletes with agents and contracts—to slavery is silly. Still, a twisted and racist paternalism links Cliven Bundy’s slavery rant with Sterling’s talk about his players. “I give them food, and clothes, and cars, and houses” is only a few bad leaps of logic away from slavery being good for black people because it gave them “homes with their chickens and their gardens and their children around them, and their man having something to do.” In both cases, black people are simple, passive and not entirely capable of caring for themselves. They should be grateful for the good will of the men who exploit their labor and accept their position at the bottom of society, because they’re not meant for more than that.

Of course I’d say it’s the players who give Sterling food, and clothes, and cars, and houses. Without their labor, their talent and their extraordinary dedication to do everything it takes to win, Donald Sterling wouldn’t have a basketball team. Now, he’d still have food and clothes and cars and houses, because he’s a predatory real estate mogul who paid $2.725 million to settle a Justice Department suit that accused him of driving African-Americans, Latinos and families with children out of his apartment complexes.

Systemic racism

White racism won’t just die off: No utopia awaits when retrograde attitudes like Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy’s are gone

Sterling and Bundy belong to a different generation, but Paul Ryan and the Supreme Court are enshrining white power

By Brittney CooperThe staggering political and historical amnesia that allowed six justices to co-sign such a policy caused Justice Sonia Sotomayor to both write and read a 58-page dissent before the court. Sotomayor rightfully suggested that those, like Chief Justice John Roberts, who believe racial discrimination will end by restricting the right of race to be a consideration hold a “sentiment out of touch with reality.” Such a view reminds me of my academic colleagues who put the term “race” in scare quotations, and tell themselves that because race is a social construction–a biological fiction–that they no longer have to think about the real material impact that centuries of race-based discourse have had on constructing a racist world.

“Race matters,” Sotomayor wrote. And “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.”

The dangerous, backward and wrongheaded thinking of Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling represent just two of the most obvious iterations of these kinds of “unfortunate effects.” And we are powerless to advocate for ourselves against systemic expressions of such thinking because the Supreme Court has chosen a “see no evil, hear no evil” approach to the problem.

Though the racial views of Bundy/Sterling on one hand and the Supreme Court on the other exist rhetorically at opposite ends of the spectrum, both point to an insidious and unchecked march of continued racism that disadvantages and harms black people, in particular. Bundy/Sterling vocally promote the kind of racial thinking that makes even the most conservative white person cringe, while Chief Justice John Roberts and five other justices promote the kind of colorblind view that seems to represent the highest expression of our national understandings of liberty and justice for all.

However, what Sterling’s and Bundy’s views demonstrate is the extent to which retrograde racial attitudes are alive and well among white men with money, power and control over the livelihoods of black people. And what the Supreme Court’s abdication of responsibility suggests is that the government has no responsibility to remedy the discrimination that clearly still exists in institutions that are run largely by white men who belong to the same generation and school of thought as Bundy and Sterling.Donald Sterling was more than just a “painful episode”

The Clippers owner has been publicly shamed and banned from the NBA. But that won't fix the root of the problem

By Roxane GayFor now, the NBA’s punishment is, like the security theater to which we are subjected at airports, an elaborate performance. “Look,” the NBA is saying, “look how quickly we have dispatched with this racist aberration in our midst.” Unfortunately, it is not a new revelation that Donald Sterling is racist (and sexist). He is not an aberration. He has been made to pay for his racism twice before—in 2003 and 2009—in housing discrimination lawsuits, which are far graver infractions than his racist comments and behavior over the years. The NBA simply remained silent in 2003 and 2009 because there wasn’t yet enough public outrage for them to have to perform some kind of response. It took a splashy gossip spill from TMZ (and what an unexpected meter of justice that site is) for Sterling to face any kind of comeuppance that is not really comeuppance.

There has been and there will continue to be vigorous discussions about race in America. I worry that little will come of these discussions because we aren’t addressing what must be done to change the current racial climate. Donald Sterling’s lack of interest in having black people at Clippers’ games is on par with rancher Cliven Bundy’s nostalgia for slavery as a means of giving black folk something to do. These men’s racial attitudes are troubling and indicative of the racist beliefs far too many people hold. More important, these men and their ilk are propped up by a system for which the consequences for extolling such beliefs are painfully inadequate. They are propped up by a system that enables voter suppression, segregation, the retrenchment of affirmative action supported by even the Supreme Court, a glass ceiling in far too many industries, and the list goes on.

What truly worries me, though, is that far too many people seem surprised when racists like Sterling or Bundy are revealed, as if these men are closer to the exception than the rule. What worries me is that I am not at all surprised when these men are revealed for who they truly are. What worries me is that “post-racial” America is not that different from the Americas that have preceded us, and it might not ever be.Comment:  Bundy and Sterling have been rich and racist most of their lives. They've been acting on their racist beliefs all this time. Sterling even had a record of housing discrimination. Yet most of us are just learning about this racism, just reacting to it now.

Both cases are great examples of how systemic racism surrounds us. People like Bundy and Sterling are in charge of the large powerful entities--government, business, the military, churches, the media--that dominate our lives. And this power is mostly invisible to the naked eye.

What matters isn't whether our next-door neighbor is considerate or not. What matters is who's in charge of things such as defense, finance, taxation, health, welfare, education, and the environment. And the answer is generally rich white men who support the military-industrial complex run by other rich white men. They decide who gets most of society's benefits, and it's them, not us.

For more on systemic racism, see Whites Think They're Losing to Blacks and Educating DMarks About Systemic Racism.

Bundy the conservative racist

Not surprisingly, Cliven Bundy the welfare cowboy turned out to be a racist. The media has been overflowing with the news this week. Some examples with a few comments from me:

UPDATED: Cliven Bundy Muses On What He Knows 'About The Negro'

Conservatives begin backing away after Cliven Bundy’s remarks disparaging ‘the Negro’

Conservative Pundit Dana Loesch: All Bundy Needed Was Some Media Training!

Use code-words, dummy! Don't name the people you're denigrating openly! C'mon, that's Republican Race-Baiting 101!

Republicans Blast Nevada Rancher for Failing to Use Commonly Accepted Racial Code Words

Militia Supporters Rally Around Bundy: 'Rumors' Won't Keep A 'Good Man' Down

Some of his best friends are Negroes!



Government = slavery?

Not Sorry: Bundy Spends Another 20 Minutes Rambling About 'The Negro'

Cliven Bundy’s Racist (On Video) Rant Is Nothing New For Conservatives Who Praise Slavery

Coulter, Bachmann, Santorum, and Buchanan are among the mainstream Republicans who think Negroes might've been better off under slavery than under welfare.

CNN Asks Cliven Bundy: ‘How are You Not a Welfare Queen in a Cowboy Hat?’ (Video)

Racist domestic terrorist and freeloading welfare cowboy!

Lawless Rancher's Slavery Comments Echo Conservative Media Rhetoric

Again, conservatives are denouncing Bundy for saying explicitly what they believe implicitly. To them, telling the truth about conservative racism is a Bozo no-no.

You can't say you support Cliven Bundy except for his racist views. He's anti-government because he's anti-minority and vice versa. ‪#‎racism‬

Conservatives love racists

The funniest part of this is how so many conservatives loved Bundy until his anti-government (racist) views became clear.

7 worst right-wing moments of the week—Conservatives overdose on Bundy

The Nevada rancher sends more shockwaves through right-wing media, making fools out of Hannity and Alex Jones

By Janet Allon1. Cliven Bundy: Black people were better off as slaves. Now, they put themselves in jail.

That Cliven Bundy turned out to be a colossal racist is not a hugely surprising twist ending to the ridiculous Hannity/Bundy love affair, media circus and saga that was such a marvel to behold this week. If there is a more perfect example of Fox and the right being exposed as the utterly backward haters they are, we cannot imagine it. The greatest fiction writer in the world would be hard-pressed to come up with a more airtight scenario. Truth cannot only be stranger than fiction; it can be more satirical than satire itself.

Still, Sean Hannity was shocked—shocked, I tell you—that a man who had previously said perfectly reasonable things, like he did not believe in the existence of the federal government, the face of which just happens to be a black man, turned out also to harbor morally repugnant views about race.

Seething hate even Fox News can’t deny: Cliven Bundy is not an outlier

There should be no surprise here: GOP thinking is that government "free stuff" is a form of slavery

By Arthur GoldwagNo, all right wingers are not racists, but if you open your ears and listen to what the fringe hate groups that even the likes of Sean Hannity and Fox News can’t deny are racist are saying, if you take the time to read some of their broadsides and books (and especially their footnotes and bibliographies), you would realize two things.

First, that that there is a not-so-golden thread running through American history that connects a certain brand of White Protestant Supremacism with a broad trend of rural populism.

Second, that a lot of modern mainstream Republican wisdom comes down to pretty much exactly what Cliven Bundy said—that a dependence on the “free stuff” that the government hands out is just a more insidious form of slavery.

“The specter of slavery,” I wrote in my book “The New Hate,” “has been a perennial theme in American political polemics, from rants against the British during the run-up to the Revolutionary War to Henry Ford’s International Jew.” Here’s Herman Cain, back in 2011: “Our tax code is the 21st century version of slavery. The IRS has become the overseer of the American people.” And here’s former U.S. Representative Allen West, in 2012: “the Democratic appetite for ever-increasing redistributionary handouts is in fact the most insidious form of slavery remaining in the world today, and it does not promote economic freedom.” Both of those guys are black, so they couldn’t be racist, right?Another Native comparison

Conservatives, or at least Bundy's daughter, are still trying to compare Bundy to Indians:

Cliven Bundy’s Daughter Condemns Sean Hannity for Denouncing Daddy’s Racism

By John PragerShiree Bundy-Cox, daughter of domestic terrorist and “not-racist” Welfare Cowboy Cliven Bundy, broke her “silence” to strongly condemn Sean Hannity for his decision to stop supporting her father, who feels that “negroes” sit around lazily on their porch collecting welfare benefits and “wonders” if they might be better off picking cotton as field slaves.

Post by Shiree Bundy Cox.

To state the obvious, America's Indians and Germany Jews had a legal and moral right to be where they were. Bundy the welfare cowboy does not have a legal or moral right to graze his cows on federal land. Not for free, anyway.

In other words, the comparison fails. In simplified form, Indians and Jews = legal. Bundy = illegal.