Indigenous Activists March on US Embassy in Copenhagen Urging Obama to “Stop the US Energy Industry’s War on Native Peoples and Lands”

DemocracyNow!
December 10, 2009

Shortly before President Obama received his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, a coalition of North American indigenous groups marched to the US embassy in Copenhagen calling on Obama to stop what they described as the war on native peoples and lands waged by the US energy industry. Speakers at the protest included Faith Gemmill from Arctic Village, Alaska and Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Canadian-based Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign...

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Mixed-Race TV Contestant Ignites Debate In China

by Louisa Lim
National Public Radio
November 11, 2009

President Obama's arrival in China on Sunday is being eagerly awaited by many people, especially one young woman in Shanghai. Lou Jing is of mixed race, with a Chinese mother and an African-American father. She became famous nationally after her participation in an American Idol-type program sparked a spate of vitriolic online racist abuse...

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Mixed Race Americans Picture A 'Blended Nation'

November 8, 2009
National Public Radio

The 2000 U.S. census was the first to give Americans the option to check more than one box for race. Nearly 7 million people declared themselves to be multiracial that year, a number that's expected to shoot up in the 2010 count. As more of the nation's population identifies itself as being of mixed race, the authors of a new book say Americans' traditional ideas of racial identity are in for a challenge...

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Skin whiteners labeled racist

by Sara Sidner
CNN
September 9, 2009

Story Highlights

Indian lawmaker slams skin whitener products as racist, highly objectionable

Series of advertisements in Asia give impression light skin better than dark skin

Many looking to marry say they want light-skinned partner

Companies say their products are meeting a demand

[Blogger's note: Cosmetic purveyors are historically notorious for using fear to sell their product, and also ignoring health risks...]

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Wave Of Violence Strikes Eastern Europe's Gypsies

by Eric Westervelt
National Public Radio
September 2, 2009

The Roma minority, known as Gypsies, unfortunately, are used to discrimination and violent attacks. But recent violence in Eastern Europe has reached a new level of ferocity.

Several Roma, including children, have been killed in attacks this year involving firearms, gasoline bombs and hand grenades. Roma activists blame right-wing groups, which appear to have grown in strength as the economic crisis has deepened across much of Eastern Europe...

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Report: State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2009

Minority Rights Group International

Education for all is a goal that has been reaffirmed by states the world over many times in the last decade. It is meant to be achieved by 2015. But as this book clearly shows, a quality education is not eaching the world’s most vulnerable communities: minorities and indigenous peoples...

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Destroying Indigenous Populations

Saturday 20 June 2009
by: Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

"There is uranium all around the Black Hills, South and North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. Mining companies came in and dug large holes through these lands to extract uranium in the 1950's and 1960's prior to any prohibitive regulations. Abandoned uranium mines in southwestern South Dakota number 142. In the Cave Hills area, another sacred place in South Dakota used for vision quests and burial sites, there are 89 abandoned uranium mines. In occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, the uranium that has caused genocide of sorts at home has proceeded to wreak new havoc."

Senate Apologizes For Slavery

by David Welna
All Things Considered
National Public Radio
June 18, 2009

The resolution states the congressional apology is made to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States for "the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors." That is followed, however, by a disclaimer that says nothing in the resolution authorizes any claim against the United States...

As Tensions Flare in Peruvian Amazon, Award-Winning Actor Q’orianka Kilcher Heads to Peru to Support Indigenous Rights

DemocracyNow!
June 10, 2009

Peruvian indigenous leader Alberto Pizango has been granted asylum in Nicaragua after leading protests against oil and mining projects in the northern Peruvian Amazonian province of Bagua. Over the weekend, an estimated sixty people died after police tried to break up a blockade. We speak to actor Q’orianka Kilcher, of part Indigenous Quechua descent, who is heading to Peru to support the Amazonian protest.

Native American Environmental Leader Tom Goldtooth: Climate Change Bill Fails to Address Indigenous Rights

DemocracyNow.org
May 22, 2009

Tom Goldtooth is executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network headquartered at Bemidji, Minnesota. For over thirty years, he has been an environmental and economic justice leader in the Native American community. He joins us to talk about the congressional climate change bill and Native American efforts to address the resource extractions causing environmental degradation in their communities...

As Requirements Change, Just Who Is An Indian?

by Brian Bull
National Public Radio

Morning Edition, May 11, 2009 · Many Native American communities are struggling with a basic question: just who is an Indian? As tribal numbers dwindle, many are reexamining how they define what it means to be a member. But lowering the blood requirement for membership has both political and economic impacts for many groups...

Pullman Porters Helped Build Black Middle Class

National Public Radio

Morning Edition, May 7, 2009 · Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown were descendants of Pullman porters — that distinctive and distinguished figure from yesteryear — the uniformed African-American train worker, who forged his way into the middle class.

As part of this year's National Train Day celebration on Saturday, Amtrak is honoring the legacy of Pullman porters in Philadelphia. The porters served first-class passengers traveling in the luxurious Pullman sleeping cars, and the safe, steady work that allowed tens of thousands of African-Americans access to middle-class life.

The legacy of Pullman porters is complex, author Larry Tye tells NPR's Steve Inskeep...

Breaking the Bonds of People and Land:

TITLE: Breaking the Bonds of People and Land: Native American Removal in the United States and Mexico

SPEAKER: Claudia Haake
EVENT DATE: 06/12/2008
RUNNING TIME: 62 minutes

The lecture drew some general conclusions from an investigation of two cases of Native American forced migration: the Delawares in the United States and the Yaquis in Mexico. Although the basic intention behind the removal policies was the same in both countries, the ways in which they were carried out were oftentimes different. In both the Delawares and Yaquis examples, greed and land hunger on the part of the U.S. and Mexican governments appears to have been the main reasons for the forced migration of these indigenous people.

Yet, variations in method, circumstances, and legality occasionally disguised the reality. While the Delaware tribe was/is a so-called domestic dependent nation and the Yaquis were at least nominally Mexican citizens, both removal policies are illustrative of colonialism in action--indigenous peoples were forced from their proprietary homelands. Clearly, the rise of the nation-state as well as periodic nation building or re-building in both countries was instrumental in bringing about the removal. Both Mexico and the United States were advancing technologically, and improvement in communications and transport contributed to the successful removal of these two tribes in a number of different ways. However, a closer look at the two cases in question suggests an increasing awareness on the part of both the U.S. and Mexican governments was the determining factor in bringing about the forced migrations.

Speaker Biography: Kluge Fellow Claudia Haake is from the University of York in the United Kingdom.