Clare Consultation, LLCTruth Be Told – Montgomery
On her MoreThanTours, Michelle Browder tells the truth. She starts on the banks of the Alabama River where the lands of the Alabama Tribes were stolen, by hostility or trickery: Apache, Caddo, Alabama-Quassarte, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Arapaho, Cherokee, Cheyenne. Where black American slaves were marched from ships to storehouses to market. People descended from the Africans stolen into involuntary servitude. After 1808, when stealing people from outside our country was banned, domestic trade sustained… Read More
The justice possible with knowing we (white people) do not know as much as we think we do.
We know Roy Moore is a monster, a total embarrassment to our state. But in the eyes of black voters, what makes him more of a monster than the parade of sleazy politicians who have stood against black interests for generations? So yes, I’m voting for Doug Jones but only because it’s a vote against Roy Moore. And that’s not good enough to rally a base of voters who are already stricken… Read More
My Nephew’s Body will be Buried Today
“It will always be important to have a community of people who support each other and work together for the struggle. Yes, for the struggle for all people.” Bruce McQuakay Saturday Memorial Day weekend, 2017 Seven years ago, on Fathers’ Day, Bruce McQuakay and I saw one another at the annual Delta Park pow wow. Bruce, who described himself as Tlingit and Apache, was not a father yet – that was still… Read More
#NoDAPL – A Closer View from a Young Anishinaabe Woman
More helpful words from another clear thinker. This time, a young woman. Kayla DeVault is an Anishinaabe, enrolled Shawnee. She lives on the Navajo nation where she is studying Diné studies at Diné College and working as a civil engineer for the Navajo Nation Division of Transportation. She is also a youth ambassador for Generation Indigenous who has attended meetings at the White House. Several weeks ago, she spoke before the leadership… Read More
Three Quotes for Weary Citizens
In days when helpful words don’t come easily, these Elders are, for me, clearings in the fog. George Takei wrote this in the past week – [you may know him for his role as Sulu in Star Trek.] Just a few weeks after my fifth birthday, in the spring of 1942, my parents got my younger brother, my baby sister, and me up very early, hurriedly dressed us, and quickly started to pack…. Read More
A Protest Vote Decades in the Making
“White people elected Trump.” Over these last 10 days, these words are showing up everywhere. Mostly because they’re true. And white progressives actually helped. Among most white people I know who think of themselves as social progressives and who, like I, have had loads of access to privilege – aka education, careers, financial literacy, problems of identity that way outnumber problems of monetary survival – reactions to the election of Donald Trump… Read More
Indians. Current Events. NO, REALLY. PAY ATTENTION.
Breaking news – The moment I posted the last blog*, the news came through of acquittal of the white, male, armed and militant protestors who occupied the federal lands of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge last winter. That same moment, the news emerged of another round of arrests of Dokata Access Pipeline protestors, most of them Native Americans, and most of them peaceful. Coincidence? Yes, likely. Hipocritical and racist? Well, you judge for… Read More
Indians. Current Events.
I am non-Indian. I benefit from clean water, clean air and healthy soils. I benefit from social agreements that support those things. I benefit from social agreements that protect the dignity and civil rights of all of the people who rely on clean water and air, the food and the human community those make possible. Right now the Cleveland Indians are in the World Series for the first time in over 7… Read More
An Elephant on Fire
From time to time, a bad habit bursts into flame. Most bad habits are, by definition, world views and behaviors that don’t necessarily play well. But, for the most part, they stay at a level low enough to be ignored. Chewing on fingernails, for example. Interrupting is another one. Some of these bad habits arise from social agreements about the worth of people that just aren’t fair – that erase dignity. And… Read More
Slow Down. Learn. Wake Up and Do What ONLY YOU Can Do to Save the World.
Brussels is in lockdown following explosions that killed dozens last night. ISIS is claiming responsibility. This morning, The Dallas Morning News reported on a Frisco, TX football coach who resigned in January after threatening black and Latino athletes: “You see that rope over there, you see that tree back there? I’m going to hang you in that tree. I’m going to hang you by your toes.” And throughout the day, the most hostile presidential race in my… Read More