Apartheid in America

Posted by Brenda Norrell - November 12, 2009 at 1:06 pm

By Brenda Norrell

TUCSON -- Racism in America did not disappear when Barack Obama became president. Native American homelands are still targeted by corporations and some tribal governments, targeting the land for coal mining, power plants, oil drilling and toxic dumps.

The Four Corners region, homelands of the Navajo, Ute and Apache, and Lakota lands in South Dakota, were selected by the United States as National Sacrifice Zones, where the US poisoned the people, land, water and air, leaving behind strewn radioactive waste, poisoned rivers, cancer alleys and trails of deaths and broken hearts.

At the border, Indigenous Peoples in their homelands are still oppressed, harassed, detained and abused by the US Border Patrol and the Native American tribal governments who have been coopted by Homeland Security. Here, too, on Tohono O'odham land is a cancer alley from copper mining that released radioactive uranium into the groundwater.

There is a rising anger, heard across America in coffeehouses and small town cafes, about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. People of color, including American Indians, Hispanics and Afro-Americans, are still considered "expendables" and targeted in TV commercials, and by recruiters, to enlist and die.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are based on the lies of politicians. These are wars where mercenaries killed without consequence. Torture and secret renditions were carried out in violation of the Geneva Conventions, crimes which Obama must aid in holding Bush and Cheney accountable for.

Splitting the Sky, Mohawk, attempted a citizens arrest of war criminal George Bush in Canada.

Still, in America as American Indians and persons of conscience prepare for a month of actions in November, there is a "shhhh" hush in the US over the continued CIA kidnappings, secret renditions and US-sponsored torture. People of color continue to be recruited and sent to die in a war that, in the end, will only profit US war profiteers and the politicians they bankroll.

Listen to Martin Luther King, when he spoke out against the Vietnam War. Listen to Buffy Sainte Marie tell how she was censored and driven out of the music industry in the US because of her songs during the Vietnam War.

What is happening now is not new, it is what happens when all good men and women become complacent.

The world is watching and it does not like what it sees.

November events, see details at Censored News: http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

TODAY: Protest in Gallup, N.M., to halt new uranium mining in Navajo homelands

Nov. 13 (Friday) Tucson: O'odham Solidarity Event 'Apartheid in America' with Ofelia Rivas, O'odham living on the border, and Ward Churchill. Concert by Resistant Culture. (Live broadcast www.livestream.com/earthcycles )

Nov. 13 -- 15: Santa Barbara AIM: Symposium on Race and Racism, keynote speaker John Trudell

Nov. 14 --15: Tucson: Southwest Weekend to End Torture, with protest at Fort Huachuca to halt US torture training

Nov. 11 -- 23: UK/Ireland: Indigenous Environmental Network: United Kingdom Tar Sands Tour: Bloody oil: the struggle against the Tar Sands

Nov. 23 --27: San Francisco/Alcatraz: AIM West: West Coast Third Annual Conference, speakers and more (Live broadcast: http://www.livestream.com/earthcycles )

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About Brenda Norrell

Brenda Norrell has been a news reporter in Indian country for 29 years. She is publisher of Censored News, focusing on Indigenous Peoples, human rights and the US border. Now censored by the mainstream media, she previously was a staff reporter at numerous American Indian newspapers and a stringer for AP, USA Today and others. She lived on the Navajo Nation for 18 years, and then traveled with the Zapatistas. She covered the climate summits in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Cancun, Mexico, in 2010.

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
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About Brenda Norrell

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http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

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Brenda Norrell has been a news reporter in Indian country for 29 years. She is publisher of Censored News, focusing on Indigenous Peoples, human rights and the US border. Now censored by the mainstream media, she previously was a staff reporter at numerous American Indian newspapers and a stringer for AP, USA Today and others. She lived on the Navajo Nation for 18 years, and then traveled with the Zapatistas. She covered the climate summits in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Cancun, Mexico, in 2010.