. A little while back I stopped in at the New York branch of the National Museum of the American Indian. It is housed in the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, a monumental Beaux Arts building at the Battery and a National Historic Landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has been adapted on […]
In Memory of Elouise Cobell
. This blog began in late 2008 to recount my yearlong nationwide travels through Indian Country with documentary photographer Julia Dean. Those travels themselves were inspired by my publication earlier that year of “Aboriginal Sin,” in Tikkun. The article (scroll down for an image link on the right) presented an overview of the historic assault […]
“Special” Rights and the Accomplices to Discrimination That Are Those Who Call Them So
In a recent Indian Country Today essay, Peter d’Errico, the eminent Native American rights advocate, argued that “we need to be careful with the phrase ‘special rights.’ Perhaps we shouldn’t even use it.” In this instance, I think d’Errico is too moderate in his judgment. d’Errico was writing about the term specifically in its application […]
Time to Renounce the Doctrine of Discovery
Not much reason amid all the attention on reaching a debt deal that most people, including in the media, would have paid any attention to a meeting of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Not much reason ever, by normal lights. Still, the happy advent of Gay marriage in New York managed to catch […]
From the Annals of Indigenous Resistance: “Terrorism”
How, you were wondering, is the field of power like a four-walled racquetball court? Sometimes the strikes are straight on, at the front wall or (oops, sorry) at your opponent’s back. Sometimes – often, in fact – there is the ricochet, off the side wall, angled then low on the back, then low to the […]