No Substitute For Respect - White Supremacists Infesting Maine, As Usual #mepolitics

 Elizabeth Ann Mitchell, Penobscot, On Why She Interrupted Janet Mills With Some Truth

Central Mainers often claim, We're not racist because there are no people of color around to be racist to. It's not true and never has been, but it's a pitch perfect example of why racism is not about the hatefulness of any individual. Racism is a systemic problem that affects and harms every single person living under it, no matter whether they are deemed by their appearance to be one of the "superior" group or one of the targeted groups.

Native people have maintained their culture, including language, while being sytematically robbed of their territory and persecuted for their beliefs in Maine. 

The Penobscot and Passamoquoddy are sovereign nations, and if anyone should leave so that a homogenous group of people can live in paradise, it certainly isn't Natives who should go. Skowhegan Area High School in central Maine continues to cling to its racist mascot the "Indian" despite the sobering testimony of Natives explaining how damaging this is to their children. 

Now lots of immigrants from around the globe have settled in Maine and are subject to racist harrassment and microaggressions daily. Check out this substitute teacher addressing a high school student with Lebanese ancestry. Brody Elahmar recorded her threatening him with deportation (though it's doubtful she knows such a big word) and ordering him to "speak her language." 

His comeback is priceless: "How many languages do you speak? I speak three."


Posted to YouTube by Brody Elahmar with the comment: "My teacher was harassing me because of my color !"

On the heels of this abuse of power by a public employee came news that the town manager of far north town Jackman is an avid white segragationist who invented a flag for an all-white New England devoted to Anglo culture that he imagines. With the ironic name Kawczynski, he is now trying to raise funds on a site called Hatreon (I can't make this shit up) that lacks guidelines banning hate speech like other crowdfunding sites have.

The town's selectmen may not have known about his desire to build an all-white "Albion" when they hired him, but he's been really active on social media since last November. Currently, they are conferring with their lawyer and I suspect he, like the substitute teacher, will be fired. 

The Chamber of Commerce in Jackman has already come out publicly in favor of firing him. 

(Too bad the Skowhegan Chamber of Commerce has not done the same; instead, it concocts racist promotions to "help" local businesses.) Jackman relies heavily on tourism for revenue, and a boycott would hit them where it hurts.

Here is the letter I sent to them via the contact listed on the town's website, Administrative Secretary Heidi.Dionne@Jackmanme.net:

Dear Jackman selectmen,

Your recently hired town manager, Tom Kawczynski, is making quite a splash as the public face of racism and religious bigotry in northern Maine. I am going to assume that you knew nothing of this when you hired him. Of course he is entitled to his views and to express them under the 1st amendment. But, in his capacity as town manager, encouraging those who share his hate to move to Jackman is problematic.

As a resident of central Maine along Route 201 I am concerned that a nearby town's manager is an active white supremacist. I hope the hateful crowds who descended on Charlottesville, Virginia last year do not feel welcome to congregate near my little town on the Kennebec.

As a teacher I will continue providing opportunities for children to learn what we all have in common: our humanity, our compassion, and our critical thinking abilities. As a history major I have a keen appreciation of what happens to societies who descend into hateful beliefs and practices. It is not a happy outcome for any group, however much they consider themselves "superior" to other people.

Sincerely,

Lisa Savage

Solon

I think such groups and individuals are afraid of competition. Who wants to be outdone by a teenager that speaks more languages than you do? 

Would it surprise you to learn that the KKK was active in Maine in the 1920's marching against Francophone immigrants who were taking "our" jobs?

The KKK in Maine is having a resurgence in these troubled times.

It is time for those quietly watching the rise of white supremacists in office to stand up and be counted.

More Concerned With The Tone Of Someone’s Message Than You Are With The Message Itself? #MillsVsPenobscots

Chloe Cekada and Iris SanGiovanni of Greater Portland SURJ disrupt Maine Attorney Janet Mills

calling for her to respect Native rights to protect the Penobscot River and its many life forms.

Guest post from Sass Linneken, program coordinator for Resources for Organizing and Social Change, who had just returned from a Maine People's Alliance event on June 29, 2017 (MPA is a "progressive" Democratic Party lobbying organization).

Musings on Maine’s Democratic Party, white feminism, and how white men take up space:

I went to the Resistance Rising summit hosted by MPA tonight and came away with some thoughts I need to roll out before going to sleep.

#1) I get anxious when I’m going into crowds, and anxiety is for the birds.

#2) The Democratic party is in no way leading anything resembling resistance at this point.

#3) The Democrats are having a difficult time realizing that taking a paternalistic/tone-policing attitude toward people they view as disruptive is not helping them to galvanize their base, it’s doing the opposite.

Villainizing disrupters is supremacist, and it completely negates the truths that exist within the disruption, for instance, the very fact that political disruption is a small thing compared to whatever issue is at the root of the disrupters’ cause.

***Case in point: Disrupting Janet Mills might feel egregious to people who support Mills, but that disruption is not going to kill her, or take her self-determination from her. On the flip-side of that coin, her refusal to support the Penobscots instead of lead the charge to steal their water rights and redraw the boundaries of their reservation when they hold less than 1% of the land they once did *will* impact their livelihoods and impact their ability to self-determine their own futures.

Letter found by Community Water Justice organizer Nickie Sekera in her son Luke's
pocket. Luke just graduated from middle school and is already a seasoned water protector.

Refusing to revisit the standards for justification in state-sanctioned police violence when there has been a drastic increase in police shooting fatalities *will* result in avoidable deaths, particularly of those who don’t look or live like Janet Mills. Rudeness in messaging should really be the least of worries in this context.***

Luke Sekera speaking at a previous event where Mills was confronted about her attack on
the rights of the Penobscot people to protect their water against industrial polluters the state of Maine protects.
Luke is being protected by Elizabeth Ann Mitchell, a Penobscot water protector.

#4) A candidate should not get a free pass if she’s a woman because she has it harder than her male counter-parts on the campaign trail or in office, and to suggest that the only reason she’s being held accountable is because she’s a woman is as sexist as the perceived sexism in the allegation to begin with.

#5) Saying that a candidate deserves our respect because she’s a champion for women’s rights when she is simultaneously engaging in an agenda that hurts women of color is the epitome of white feminism.

It’s not only hella problematic in its analysis of women’s rights, it’s detrimental to any perceived effort of resistance. To the contrary, it’s the very upholding of the systems and structures liberals/progressives claim to want to smash.

#6) If you’re a cisgender, able-bodied white guy, you’ve had the floor long enough. Shut the hell up.

The fact is, if your platform is not centering and considering the needs of PoC, you’re doing it wrong.

Trump was no accident, and if you think his agenda is egregious, it’s time to look in the mirror and ask yourself how you are complicit in his getting to where he’s at. And I don’t say that sitting on any kind of a pedestal, I’m a white person on a life-long learning curve.

All I’m saying is if you’re more concerned with the tone of someone’s message than you are the message itself, you are more a part of the problem than the solution, and that should matter to you if you want things to change.

Sass

Will You Fight To Protect Your Water? Because You Are Going To Have To Fight Long And Hard

Cynthia Howard at yesterday's "Water Is Life" rally in Bangor (wabi.tv coverage here and MPBN coverage here)

By now we all know about targeted internet advertising. Like most artifical intelligence, it often misses the mark by a mile and sometimes in funny ways.

For example, I often see ads for military clothing or military facebook groups because I read articles about the metastisizing U.S. military and its deadly misadventures around the globe. 

Also, I keep seeing ads for the exact dress I just bought to wear to a family wedding. What is the point of that?

This morning I clicked on a shared article from Essence magazine titled "Why Supporting 'Wonder Woman' Is Dangerous For My Black Feminism And Liberation." The weekend is when I get time to do a lot of reading around the internet, finding authors I've not read before and exploring areas I don't know enough about. I'm vaguely aware of the controvery around the Israeli army veteran who plays Wonder Woman, and more aware of a general trend in the U.S. mass media culture to portray woman as violent, aggressive and allegedly desirable on those grounds. 

Imagine my surprise when a pop up ad blocked the Essence article to brag about how the Nestlé corporation has captured the watershed just miles from my home.

Of course the word Nestlé is never used because that multinational water thief hides behind the local Maine label of a company they purchased years ago. The hubristic brag of the tagline "greatness springs from here" is a hint at the men behind the curtain.

Why am I seeing this ad? Because yesterday I attended and posted photos from a Penobscot rally to protect the water upon which all life depends? I didn't even post a photo or report the words of Nickie Sekera who spoke for Community Water Justice and urged all of us to return home and seek local water sovereignty ordinances in our towns in advance of Nestlé coming for our aquifers.

I did post a picture of the amazing Elizabeth Ann Mitchell at the rally. (You can read her guest post here about how she disrupted Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills on behalf of the Penobscot watershed.) 

And just a few minutes ago I shared a link to a WERU community radio "Radioactive" podcast about the Maine so-called Department of Environmental Protection granting permission to expand the Juniper Ridge Landfill.

This toxic waste dump receives truckloads of debris from outside our state, and it leaches into the Penobscot watershed. Perhaps Casella, which operates the landfill at a proft, and Nestlé, which trucks out our water in plastic bottles at a profit, will go head to head over water quality someday soon?

That would be a battle I'd be far more likely to watch than a comic superheroine battling fake forces of evil.

My biggest takeaway from yesterday was a telling of the Penobscot story about Glooskap and the Black Snake. Dawn Eve York prefaced her sharing of it by saying that her amazing young daugher tells it better. Someday I hope to hear Woli tell it; maybe I will be so lucky at the upcoming ceremony for Healing the Wounds of Turtle Island on the Penboscot reservation (you can donate to support travel expenses for the indigenous elders who are coming here).

These stories are meant to be told, not written down so I'll just summarize here: Wabanaki hero Glooskap returns home from a long trip to find a bad smell emanating from the water. As he travels upstream he realizes it is coming from a black snake and he begins to fight the snake. He is helped by a woodpecker who indicates the weakest point to strike, and when the snake is killed the river is stained red with its blood. Glooskap touches the head of his friend the woodpecker with some of the blood; a red spot remains, and the water transforms back to its pristine and lovely original condition.

The black snake of oil pipelines is foretold in the prophecies of various native groups in the Americas, and there were many veterans of the stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline present at yesterday's rally.

Sherri Mitchell also reminded us yesterday that it is the Penobscot Nation that fought to restore their river to a condition that did not raise sores on the skin of their children after swimming.

Industrial pollution still continues to threaten: besides the landfill, there is a massive mercury deposit in the riverbed upstream of Indian Island from a defunct paper mill.

We of the industrialized and colonized USA have much to learn about stewardship of our relatives the plants, the soil, air and water -- in other words, the sustenance of life.

Governments both at the state and federal level have abandoned protection, instead viewing water and land as commodities to be consumed in the pursuit of private profits. I learned yesterday that Nestlé is one of the fastest growing corporations on the planet, and that bottled water is one of its fasting growing sectors.

Capitalism loves growth of profits and will die without them. It willingly pollutes waterways and drains aquifers, even during periods of drought, as a path to more "growth" for its executives and shareholders.

We should love clean water because we will die without it. That is what mni wiconi means in the Lakota language.

Will you fight to protect your water? 

Attorney For State Of #Maine Claims Penobscot People Never Used Boats To Fish In The River

Sherri Mitchell (center) being interviewed following the court hearing of Penobscot Nation v. Mills,
October 14, 2015   photo credit: Lee DeCora Francis

Report from Sherri Mitchell of the Penobscot Nation, an attorney in her own right:

"Overview of today's court proceedings - Penobscot Nation v. Mills - A case to protect the ancestral fishing rights of the Penobscot Nation.

The State's position failed to pass the straight face test. They asserted that the Tribe does not have any retained water rights, despite the fact that they have clearly delineated sustenance fishing rights. The Judge asked the State's Attorney how they reconciled their position with the fact that the Tribe clearly has retained sustenance fishing rights? They had no logical response, since no logical response exists. Instead, they claimed that the Tribe only had the right to fish from shore, in accordance to their "traditional practices, since time immemorial." 

The Judge responded by saying "So, what you're saying is that since time immemorial Indians didn't use boats, and they never fished from the river"? The Attorney for the State said "Yes." to that ridiculous conclusion. They then claimed that tribal members could fish with one foot on the land and one foot in the water. The absurdity of the State's argument was an embarrassment. Had I been the Attorney that had to argue that position, I would have resigned.

It is also noteworthy that neither the Attorney for the State nor the Interveners referred to the Tribe by name throughout the proceedings. They kept saying "the Indians" or "those Indians." Of course, this was strategic. To refer to the tribe by name - The Penobscot Nation - would have drawn too close a tie between the Tribe and the river that bears its name. Afterall, they wouldn't want to confuse the court by using the name of the Tribe, or the name of the river in their oral arguments, due to the fact that the name of the Tribe and the name of the river are interchangeable. The court might get the wrong idea if they realized that the Penobscot River and the Penobscot Nation bear the name of the same Penobscot people claiming these rights.

The Attorney for the State and the Attorney for the Interveners also claimed that their position was a protective (preemptive) one. They were simply trying to avoid a scenario where the Tribe might one day decide to try to take control of the river and prevent others from using it, or they might try to regulate non-native industry from discharging into the river. This came after the Tribe clearly stated that they did not believe that it was their right to prevent usage by others or to regulate non-native industrial landowners. Unsurprisingly, the State and the Interveners could not point to one example where this "fear" had any basis in fact, or reality.

The Judge pointed out that the Tribe had clearly stated that this case was only about retaining their ancestral fishing rights, and had asserted no claims to expand their reach beyond that position. Then, the Attorney for the Tribe wisely reminded the Judge that the court could only decide the issue that was presently before the court, not a speculative scenario that had been manufactured out of whole cloth by the State or the Interveners.

The State also claimed that the Tribe does not possess the riparian rights afforded to all other owners along the same waterway. Overall, the State's case is weak and the Intervener's case is nonexistent. In my opinion, the Tribe's position was clearly supported by the law and the legislative history. Now, we wait for the Judge's order, to see how he interpreted this case."

To learn more about this historic battle to defend indigenous territory and rights, you can see a new documentary by the Sunlight Media Collective. Here's their press release about it:

Sunlight  Media Collective Releases Documentary on the Battle Over Contested Penobscot River Territory

Indian Island, ME: On Friday, Sunlight Media Collective released The Penobscot: Ancestral River, Contested Territory, a documentary film that explores the conflict between the state of Maine and the Penobscot Nation over contested river territory. 

Spanning from the 1700's to the present-day legal battle of Penobscot Nation v. Mills, the film illustrates the Penobscots' centuries-long fight to retain their territory and their inherent, treaty-reserved sustenance fishing rights for future generations. Featuring first-person accounts, thefilm tells the urgent, inspiring story of a struggle for justice and cultural survival in the face of an astonishingly open abuse of state power.

The documentary release closely follows a meeting between Penobscot Chief Kirk Francis and President Obama, where they discussed the Penobscot Nation v. Mills case. The Penobscot Nation is suing the state of Maine in response to a decision by former Attorney General William Schneider that the Penobscot Indian reservation, which includes more than 200 islands in the Penobscot River, does not include any portion of the water— a decision that amounts to territorial theft by the state. Oral arguments for the case are scheduled for October 14th at the US District Court in Portland, ME.

The case is taking place in the context of a larger state battle over river jurisdiction and water quality standards. In February, the federal EPA ruled that Maine must improve its water quality standards to protect Penobscot sustenance fishing rights. Governor Paul LePage has called the ruling “outrageous” and threatened to relinquish state regulatory responsibilities to the federal EPA if they did not reverse the ruling.

The Penobscot: Ancestral River, Contested Territory chronicles the Penobscot’s struggle to maintain their centuries-long stewardship to ensure a healthy ecosystem for all of Maine, a struggle exemplified by these contemporary legal battles. According to Penobscot Chief Kirk Francis, the Penobscot v. Mills case “is really not about controlling the river system, or controlling individuals within the system. It’s really about our ability to manage a subsistence resource that we have a responsibility for, for multiple generations.”

Funded by Broad Reach Fund of the Maine Community Foundation, The Penobscot: Ancestral River, Contested Territory is available for free on the Sunlight Media Collective website (www.sunlightmediacollective.org), and DVDs are available by order. To schedule a screening, please email sunlightmediacollective@gmail.com.

The Sunlight Media Collective is a collaboration between Penobscot and non-native filmmakers. The film is just one example of an up-swell of activism and work on issues affecting the Wabanaki tribes. In October, Upstander Productions will also release a short documentary entitled First Light, on the recently completed Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Screenings of The Penobscot: Ancestral River, Contested Territory currently scheduled:

October 21st, Belfast Free Library, Belfast, 6:00PM

October 24th, Gates Auditorium, College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, 1:30PM

For more information, contact Sunlight Media Collective Co-Founders Maria Girouard & Meredith DeFrancesco: sunlightmediacollective@gmail.com