NATIVE WOMEN ARE IN DANGER: INDIGENOUS WOMEN AND THE SEX TRADE

By Dubian Ade

Misty Upham, Native Actress (Illustration by Vin Ganapathy for The Guardian)

Native women are in danger. Around the country, Native woman are disappearing from their communities at an alarming rate. Three Indigenous women have been found dead in northern Minnesota since May of 2015. 52 year-old Lisa Isham, 31 year-old Rose Downwind, and 44 year-old Dawn Reynolds were all killed in between the months of May and December. Two more have disappeared. In Canada. Tina Fontaine was found dead in the Red River August of 2014. Her death sparked a national inquiry.

Media coverage of these deaths and disappearances have been sparse and inadequate. Police and local authorities have shown no interest in investigating. Low-income Native women and two-spirit people live in a constant state of fear.

Five hours from Minnesota in the oil-rich fields of North Dakota, scores of men toil working the oil boom that recently swept the area of the Bakken. The discovery of the Parshall Oil Field in 2006 prompted the creation of thousands of jobs and nearly doubled the population from 20,000 to 40,000 people. It also prompted the emergence of sex-trafficking rings, which formed around the worker markets. Servicing the violent sexual appetites of oil workers, low-income Native women are often abducted from surrounding reservations.

Oil companies are absolutely complicit in the sexual violence and commercial human trafficking occurring in the Bakken. Some of those companies include Exxon Mobil, Hess, US Energy, Marathon Oil, and Conoco Phillips.

The abduction and sex-trafficking of Indigenous women is not limited to Bakken. In Montana, the trafficking of Native women has increased 15% within the last year according to the Montana Native Women's Coalition. Although trafficking statistics of Native women remain scarce, according to Indian Country Today journalist Victoria Sweet research from related studies suggest that Native women and girls are disproportionately affected by the human trafficking industry.

According to the Justice Department at least 61% of Native woman have been assaulted in their lifetimes. Native women are twice as likely to be sexually assaulted then women from other ethnic groups. 1 in 3 Native women are likely to be raped in their lifetime. In Minnesota 25% of women arrested for sex-work identified as Native American but Natives represent only 2.2% of the total population. In Anchorage, Alaska 33% of women arrested for sex-work identified as Alaskan Native but Natives represent only 7.9% of the total population. In Vancouver, Canada, 52% of sex-workers identified as Native when only 7% of the total population is Indigenous.

The Save Wiyabi Project, an advocacy group dedicated to addressing violence against Native women, has tracked more than 1000 death and disappearance cases of Indigenous women in the United States. In Canada, more than 1200 unsolved murder and missing cases of Indigenous women have been reported.

Many more go unreported.

Oil fields, forestry projects, fracking operations, trucking and shipping routes, lumber yards, shipping ports, construction sites, are all hotbeds for sex trafficking.Traffickers will target young low-income Native women, many of whom are abducted, abandoned, or are runways between the ages of 15 and 20. Often times traffickers will befriend these women, give them nice things, and get them use to a life on the run. Then they will "groom" them for the markets in the cities or in places like the Bakken.

32.4% of Native children live in poverty. 50 to 80 percent of trafficking victims have been involved in the foster care system at some point in their lives. From the 1940s to the 1960s at least one third of Native children were placed in the foster care system. In foster care, Native girls in particular are vulnerable to sex-traffickers who will often use drugs and other means to indoctrinate commercial sex-workers. Many young girls involved in the sex trade were either abandoned or choose to run away from the conditions on the reservation. Many suffer from inter-generational trauma.

Sexual violence against Indigenous women in this country dates all the way back to Columbus. Native women were sold as slaves to European colonizers. Columbus himself condoned the gang rape of Indigenous women. The state sponsored forced relocations of Native tribes destroyed Indigenous families. Native children were forced to go to the Christian boarding schools where they were sexually abused and beaten.

The exotized and eroticized images of Native women make them even more desirable for trafficking markets. The hyper sexual images of the "Pocahontas" pervade mainstream media and pop-culture. White women want to wear headdresses with dream-catcher earrings and be sexy native princesses for Halloween. Everywhere the Native woman's body is rendered disposable, objectified and dehumanized.

Native actress Misty Upham went missing on October 5, 2014 in Auburn, Washington. She was best known for her role in the award-winning 2008 film Frozen River, in which she was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female.

Upham was last seen leaving her family's home on the Muckleshoot Reservation after going through emotional distress. Misty Upham body was found a week later at the bottom of a ravine. According to the medical examiner, Upham died of blunt-force injuries. Police refused to help with the investigation. They did not send a search party when Upham went missing. Local authorities claimed that her disappearance did not fit the criteria for a full-fledged investigation. Volunteers made up of family and fiends had to find Misty's body on their own.

Charles Upham, Misty's father, was told that a witness saw two men beat his daughter and throw her down the ravine. No arrests have been made.

Native women are in danger.

---

Dubian Ade

THE DECOLONIZER
February 2016

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A PORTRAIT OF ITHACA COLLEGE PRESIDENT TOM ROCHON IN VERSE

by Dubian Ade

Image source: campuslately.com

He has no shame

his dry mouth

talking empty things as

if reading from a teleprompter

his commitment to diversity.

He is a string of arbitrary 

alibis hastily put together

Posture bent to one side

wringing his hands he

wipes his forehead

with the Klan hood

stuffed in his back pocket

He dresses himself well.

Eats well. Lives in a house

owned by the institution.

Drives a car that is owned by

the institution. Swipes with a 

credit card owned by the

institution.

Makes over 500,000 dollars a

year.

Adjunct faculty make less

than 20,000 a year. Can't even

afford the roof over their

heads. Staff work overtime to

feed hungry families. Hand to

mouth

students pay 60,000 to be at

the college. Tomorrow it will

be 70,000. It is not unusual to

see them struggle.

Students of color can barely

afford this institution at all. 

Meanwhile, he lives

comfortably.

In his spare time he enjoys

structural racism and white

supremacy.

When he is not busy, he is

finding new ways

of domination. Appoint new

trustees. Change the provost.

Silence the newspapers.

Punish the faculty.

You can find him re-imagining

blue skies.

Still hasn't apologized to Tatiana 

Sy

A body of lies 

he doesn't give a shit about

people of color.

His favorite word is "dialogue"

As in "listen to me talk about

bullshit"

His favorite color is money

When he grows up he wants to

be an obnoxious, wealthy,

incompetent, white supremacist,

president of a college institution.

He has two jobs. The first is

president of Ithaca College. The

second is as chairman of

Tompkins County Financial, where

he makes another 60,000 a year.  

When he speaks to the campus

body, his fly is generally showing.

He is generally fearful. He wrings

his hands. He stands awkwardly.

He is white fragility.   

sweat patches under his arms

he makes a fool of himself.

The campus body is humiliated for him.

Once he compared racism to having a bad hair

day.

He is the inside joke among students and

faculty

He is the kind of person who tries

To sneak out of the front entrance

of the administrative building to avoid student

protesters.

When he comes to work in the morning, he

sneaks in through the side door to avoid

people.

Not a people person.

Ask him a question about structural racism and

he will run circles around you like a wet dog

chasing his tail.

Ask him if he cares about Black lives

and he will let you know that Black lives are

your issue.

He will infiltrate a Black church because he

wants "dialogue" and desecrate it with his

whiteness 

They say he studied social movements in order

to suppress and ignore them.

He happily signs off on every microaggression

that runs by his desk

He thinks that an institution of higher

education should run like a business.

He is a puppet who sits in the lap of the board

of trustees.

He refuses to resign.

He has no shame.

THE DECOLONIZER strongly urges President Tom Rochon's immediate resignation.

---

Dubian Ade

THE DECOLONIZER
December 2015

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BRIEF HISTORIES: THE REBELLION OF TUPAC AMARU II

by Dubian Ade

Tupac Amaru II

The very last ruler of the Incan Empire was publicly assassinated before the people of Cuzco by the Spanish Viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo in 1572. His name was Tupac Amaru, the rightful heir of the Incan throne who was shafted in a series of political maneuvers by the Viceroy and his own Incan officials. The crowd of thousands mourned over his death as the Spanish crown moved in to begin the genocide in Peru. October of that year Toledo ordered the Libro de Tasas, a document which began the process of systematically annihilating all vestiges of Inca rule.

It is said that Tupac Amaru was survived by two daughters, Juana and Magdalena, who found refuge with the Archbishop of Lima. Juana would later marry the curaca of Surimani and Tungasuca named Condorcanqui. Her decedent was Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, who would later be known as Tupac Amaru II.

The colonizing process in Peru moved forward with harshest domination. The Spanish Crown regarded the Indigenous peoples as its immediate subordinates. The Christianization of indigenous populations was made into policy. The repartimiento system, which allotted plots of land and native labor to Spanish colonizers, was introduced. The conditions on the repartimientos and in the mines in which Indigenous workers toiled were absolutely deplorable. For the native members of the mitta who were forced to work in the obrajes the situation was particularly atrocious.  

  

The country was divided into small jurisdictions called corregimientos. Each corregimiento was overseen by a corregidor. Many of the corregidors were Spanish viceroyalty and the unregulated abuse from the corregidors ran rampent. The corregidors collected increasingly large amounts of taxes from the Indigenous people living in these areas for the purpose of keeping them in a perpetual state of debt to the Spanish colonizers. Native rights to trade were restricted. The Christian church generally became an extortion ring as tribute was demanded as well as fees for baptisms, weddings, and burials. The native ruling class of the curacas generally aligned themselves with the Spanish colonizers and served to reinforce the exploitation of the impoverished native sectors. The gradual worsening of conditions for Indigenous Peruvians continued for more than a century.

In the late 1700’s the Corregidor of Tinta, Antonio Arriaga, had a notorious reputation for ruthlessness and colonial tyranny especially among native people. Arriaga’s callousness was further amplified by the imposed Bourbon Reforms which raised taxes significantly in the corregimientos. In 1777 a curaca of Tinta traveled to Lima to express his grievances and to represent the natives of the region before the Spanish administration. After talks with the corregidors proved fruitless, Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui traveled back to his home in Tungasuca, Tinta. He changed his name to Tupac Amaru II.

On November 4, 1780 Tupac Amaru II and a few others ambushed Antonio Arriaga on his way home from a dinner party. Arriaga was taken prisoner in Tungasuca and large ransom was demanded from the Spaniards. On November 10^th before a crowd of dispossessed Indigenous people, the hated Arriaga was executed.                       

Arriga's execution set all the conditions needed for a massive Indigenous up-rising. Within a matter of days Tupac Amaru II had assembled a crew of several hundred people. Amaru used the money secured from Arriga’s ransom to win over the loyalty many more native people.  On November 17^th 1780, the rebel force successfully attacked Sangarara as Spanish troops fled to a nearby church. The church caught on fire after being pelted by the rebel forces. Over 500 Spaniards were killed. The victory at Sangarara greatly encouraged many natives to join the insurgency.

It is said that Tupac Amaru’s forces numbered close to 60,000 at this point. The rebel forces moved southward and split into three factions, some of which went to the region of Ayaviri and Azangaro. Many cruelties and atrocities were committed by the forces in Ayaviri and Azangaro against Spanish sympathizers.

Tupac Amaru returned to Tungasuca on December 14^th and with the partnership of his wife Micaela Bastidas staged two failed attempts to take the city of Cuzco that January.  Though the insurgency was widely supported by the native curacas and the rebel army was significantly larger than the Spanish forces, the insurgents were unable to overcome the Spanish defenses. Receiving word of the revolts, the Spanish colonial administrator Jose Antonio de Areche had heavily armed the colonial militias and ordered troops to be imported from Lima and surrounding areas. Spanish defenses were able to successfully repel the rebel forces.

The defeats at Cuzco were a serious blow for Tupac Amaru’s army, which took refuge in Tinta to recuperate. By this time more than 17,000 of the Spanish forces from Lima had arrived under General Jose del Valle y Torres. Fighting began on March 12, 1781 and a series of battles in the Vilcamayu Alley led to the complete defeat of the rebel army at Checcacupe on April 6, 1781. Tupac Amaru, Micaela Bastidas, their two children, and numerous others were captured. Sixty-seven insurgents were hung in Tinta.

The captives were taken to Cuzco were they were tortured. On May 18^th, by order of Jose Antonio de Areche, Tupac Amaru was forced to watch the execution of his wife and children. His tongue was ripped out of his mouth and his limbs were tied to four horses running in different directions. When that failed to dismember him he was beheaded, his body was burned, and his remains were distributed among the native villages. Afterwards, Areche banned the use of the Quechua language in the Peruvian territories and commanded that all documents, folktales, and literature in Quechua be destroyed. In addition all of Tupac Amaru’s property was thoroughly destroyed and all members of the Incan royal family line were hunted down by the Spanish administration and viciously murdered.       

---

Brief Histories, Dubian Ade

THE DECOLONIZER
December 2015

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ON THE FRONT LINES: #RISEUPOCTOBER #WHATSIDEAREYOUON

by Dubian Ade

As I enter the confines of Washington Square Park I am met with busy people hunched over, chalk drawing liberation into the concrete floor. The massive stone arch towers over them, adjourn with colonial European faces that seem to shrink at the sight of the people gathering increasingly at its base. At any second it seemed the masses would rise up in fury to topple the stone landmark. A woman stationed at the edge hands me a copy of The Revolution newspaper.

Another black woman yells "Get your buttons! Black Lives Matter, get your buttons." Another black woman follows alongside her selling black liberation flags. The sound of drums waters the space in rhythms synced with the beautiful chaos of the people organizing at every direction. Filled with sounds, conversation, movement, smells, tastes swirl behind a backdrop of words ferociously spoken from a microphone.

They are the families. Sandra Bland, Micheal Brown, Eric Gardner, Tamir Rice, the kind of testimonies that tear at the insides like swallowed rust nails. "Until you experience this you will never know my pain!" she rages as a loved one concerned, hurt written on his face reaches from behind the stage for her "No, no until they been through what I have experience you will never know!"

The microphone drops. It is a thud felt in the pit of a collective stomach.

ON VIOLENCE

by Dubian Ade

We have lived barely. Our naked bodies
clothed with thinning patience. Kept
warm between chapped hands rubbed
together, pealed at the cuticle smell of
deferred dreams
in Chicago it gets so cold.
In New York it gets so cold.
It takes the cold to realize that
maybe these buildings could make a good bonfire.
We watched in front of the TV screen the
night Baltimore made a name for its self.
Broadcast to the colonized the possibility
of exploding cars, molotov bottles, state
troopers who had soiled their uniforms
and will hang them up on cloths pins to
dry tomorrow.
I curl up underneath my rage to keep
warm and live out my vengeance through
the TV screen, my aggression vicarious,
extended outward.
My blood boils. Bubbling underneath the
skin like Fanon's Leukemia.
It is the possibility of the thing.
To be beaten in the streets and not roll over to
die. To respond with anything lying within
reach. A plank, a bat, a machete.
To be resurrected from police custody.
Freddie Gray's ghost poring gasoline onto
garbage cans. Sandra Bland throwing
hands with lieutenants. Water for the
martyr lamented.
Some of us are too young to remember
Watts. Killing us with white fragility we
forgot the possibility. Of the people giving
birth each second they destroy.
You misunderstand us. So we speak in
the language of now and borrowed
tongue. A violent system can only
understand violence. There is nothing
reasonable about occupation. There is nothing
reasonable about racism. There
is nothing reasonable about rape.
You misunderstand us. So come, let me show you:
There are revolts beneath my tongue and
under my eyelids. I did not put them
there.
Who put them there?

---

Dubian Ade

THE DECOLONIZER
November 2015

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BRIEF HISTORIES: THE NEW JEWEL MOVEMENT (GRENADA)

by Dubian Ade

via berniegrantarchive.org

The New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation group (NEW JEWEL) was established in March of 1973 in response to the deplorable economic conditions under Eric Gairy's neocolonial administration and Gairy's increasing corruption within the government. Gairy had been pushing an agenda for Grenadian independence and began talks with the British Crown as early as 1970. Gairy had intentionally excluded the Grenadian people from the negotiations.

Gairy had first come to prominence as the founder of the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP). Under the GULP ticket, Gairy had won the election of 1951 and was elected to leader of the Grenadian assembly. Gairy had become the first Black Grenadian to hold that office.

Gairy's tenure as leader of the assembly was marked with serious corruption. So much so that in 1962 the British colonial administration intervened in Grenada to schedule new elections. Gairy was defeated by Hurbert Blaize but was reelected to leader of the assembly in 1967 after economic conditions failed to improve. Grenada was granted its independence on February 7th 1974 after more than two centuries of British rule. Gairy had become the country's first prime minister.

CAMPAIGN ZERO

Black Lives Matter organizers Johnetta Elizie, Brittany Packnett and DeRay McKesson team up with researchers and analysts to launch a comprehensive agenda to end police brutality.

by Dubian Ade

Campaign Zero

As the state-sanctioned murder of black and brown bodies continues to occur in the United States, critics of the Black Lives Matter movement have claimed that no official agenda to stop police violence has been released. In an interview with NPR's Audie Cornish,Brittany Packnett righteously explained "we've had demands for over the last year."

Why these demands, screamed from the top of the lungs of protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson were still unclear remains a mystery. But Black Lives Matter organizers from Ferguson along with researchers and data analysts have put together a comprehensive package of urgent policy solutions to change policing in this country. The agenda has been called Campaign Zero.

BRIEF HISTORIES: MOTHER EMANUEL AME CHURCH

by Dubian Ade

via emanuelamechurch.org

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1816 in the midst of protests. White Methodists in Charleston announced plans to build a shed directly on top of a black burial ground. In response over 4,000 blacks decided to part from the white Methodist church and to establish a religious institution of their own. Under the ministry of Rev. Morris Brown and Denmark Vesey, Mother Emanuel came to be the epicenter of black religious life in Charleston.

The church was a target for white citizens and city officials. City and state ordinances prohibited black worship after sunset without the presence of a majority white congregation. White terror consistently descended upon Mother Emanuel. Service was routinely interrupted and dispersed. Charleston authorities accused the ministry of teaching blacks reading and writing, which was against state policy. By 1818, whites had stormed the church and arrested 140 freed and enslaved blacks in violation of the state's anti-literacy policy. Ministers were fined and given lashes.

DOMINICAN-HAITIANS FACE ETHNIC CLEANSING AND MASS DEPORTATION

Dominican-Haitians flood processing centers as DR prepares for mass deportation.

by Dubian Ade

via Al Jazeera

You are an undocumented Haitian who has lived in the Dominican Republic for generations. Your family has made a home here, your children born onto this soil. You moved here for work; in fact you were recruited here by the Dominican government under its bilateral agreements of 1959 and 1966. You and your relatives have worked on Dominican plantations cutting sugar cane for more that thirty years.

June 17th was the deadline declared by the Dominican government for you to register for a two-year visa. After this date you face mass deportation. The lines stretch around the corners of buildings with people who had camped outside of the registering offices since 3 AM in the morning. People are confused and pleading. Some whisper the need for special documentation from Haiti. You have no documentation from Haiti. You have no connection to Haiti as you have lived in the Dominican Republic for most of your life. You have no place to go back to in Haiti. You and your children will most likely be homeless.