More about racism
Ahi ahi marie
I am just back in the office having spent the morning in a small Tribal community in the Northern part of Washington State. During the meeting an elder recalled the advice that she had received from her mother - which was “Don’t tell anybody that you are an Indian - because people don’t like Indians”.
I was also aware of a blog post that I read yesterday where several non-Native high school students attended the Stanford Powwow dressed up in the kind of “Indian” costumes that you might get from a more risque costume store.
It is very clear to me that the high school students were trying to be funny. That is, they were trying to make a joke out of pretending to be Indians. I think that the bottom line of this kind of thinking is a dislike for Native people. I can’t see how you can try and participate in this kind of stereotyping without having some form of enmity at its base. I also think that this particular group of students were also most likely not the brightest bunch.
At Potlatch Fund we observe incidences like this on an almost daily basis. The cost of this enmity, this stereotyping and this racism is that Native peoples are taught that “they don’t like us”, they are taught to hide the fact that they are Indian.
The elder’s pain as she recounted her story this morning was both very moving and real. She then spoke about the moves that the Tribe is making to remind the community of the pride that they once had and are now starting to recover.
In the non-Native community we need to be reeducated about the history of colonization in the Americas and in the rest of the world. An unbelievable amount of damage was done in the cause of progress and at the very least we can start to stop damaging further by challenging racist and stereotyped beliefs and starting to relearn what has really gone on here.
Naku noa
Ken Gordon
Social Media Training
Morena
Last week Heather Miller completed the two day Social Media Training. Social Media is burgeoning and it provides us with the opportunity to connect directly with our networks.
Day two of the training was completed when each attendee designed and published a FaceBook Page and a Blog.
This week Heather and I are prepping for a training that we will be taking part in to help brief local lawyers about the need to develop more non-profits in Indian Country.
Regards
Ken Gordon
Social Media Training
Morena (good morning)
We are running a Social Media training today. My first experience with the mainstream media was working for a medium sized city. At that city we had a very strained relationship with our local media. It didn’t really matter what we did, the local media would take the opportunity to try to find a negative spin.
Social Media provides Indian Country with the opportunity to bypass the mainstream media filters that often look at our work in an unhelpful way. Social Media runs the gambit from websites (very formal communications), through forums like this blog, and to fan and cause pages. Social Media also involves emails, updates and twitters.
To get our message out we use all of these services. It can be overwhelming, and we need to balance being lost in the clutter and also focusing on our mission.
Heather Miller is running this training and I have to say that I am learning more that I ever wanted to know….
Naku noa
Ken Gordon
Longhouse Media Responds to the Use of “March Point” Image in Hate Crime
Hello Friends,
As the staff member that deals mostly with Potlatch Fund’s finances, I don’t often get the opportunity to blog about our daily activities because - well, it’s just not that newsworthy. However, I am very active in Seattle’s Native community and do a lot of volunteer work including sitting on Longhouse Media’s Board of Directors as a Board Intern. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Longhouse Media, they are a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to catalyze indigenous people and communities to use media as a tool for self-expression, cultural preservation, and social change”. The organization runs Native Lens, a youth filmmaking program that works with Native American youth in the Pacific Northwest, and has produced award-winning films that are screened at film festivals locally and internationally. Longhouse Media is also an organization that Potlatch Fund fiscally sponsors and has worked with and supported over the years.
It is with shock and sadness that I write this blog post today though. On Thursday, March 4th, I received an email from Longhouse Media’s Executive Director Tracy Rector asking for my help. The CBC News in Canada had just broken the news that a production image showing three Native youth from Longhouse Media’s film “March Point” was used in a racist online advertisement in Winnipeg, Manitoba and reporters were beginning to email and call Tracy for a statement from the organization. With her experience in the field of media and communications, Tracy knew that an immediate and powerful statement needed to be crafted within 24-72 hours.
With the help of seasoned journalist Valerie Taliman and statements from Longhouse Media’s board members, we were able to quickly respond to this hateful and racist act with a post to the organization’s website and a press release within 24 hours (see full press release as an attachment at www.longhousemedia.org ). The following text is a condensed version of the response:
“Longhouse Media is appalled by the use of our image for such hateful and demeaning purposes. The photo of the three adolescent boys in the “Native Extraction Service” advertisement placed in the UsedWinnipeg.com website, was taken from promotional material for our film MARCH POINT, an award-winning documentary. This film was made with these three young filmmakers and tells the story of their coming of age struggles in a Native community in the United States. That this image would be used for such deviant ends is deeply hurtful to these young men and their families, and to the Native community as a whole.
We hope this advertisement was taken down before any violent crimes occurred; in any case damage was inflicted on indigenous youth in the form of threat and intimidation. The Criminal Code of Canada says, ‘a hate crime is committed to intimidate, harm or terrify not only a person, but an entire group of people to which the victim belongs. The victims are targeted for who they are, not because of anything they have done. Hate crimes involve intimidation, harassment, physical force or threat of physical force against a person, a family or a property.’ — Section 319(1): Public Incitement of Hatred, Criminal Code of Canada. We condemn this as a hate crime, and will join with others to see the perpetrators are brought to justice.”
By the middle of the following week, the statement had been widely circulated through email, facebook, numerous blogs, and several articles and editorials at Indian Country Today. Through these sources, people across the nation and in Canada have voiced their support for Longhouse Media, the three Native youth depicted in the advertisement, and Native youth everywhere. The message has been clear: Native American and First Nations communities will not tolerate racist attacks on our youth. We will fight back and we will seek justice against those who perpetrate racist language and actions against us.
As an additional note, while this experience has been painful for those involved, it has also been a learning experience in how to deal with the media in crises situations like this. As Tracy knew, time is of essence in responding the media since journalists are trying to meet the deadlines and contribute to a story while the topic is still in the minds of their readers. Longhouse Media was also very wise in how they used their contacts, including those within their social media networks, to distribute this information widely and make sure that their message was heard. Finally, they needed to make some critical decisions about how to respond given all of the factors at play, including having sensitivity towards the youth pictured in the advertisement and their families and tribal community.
While we hope that other Native nonprofit organizations will not have to go through an experience similar to this, we also know that racism is still alive in this country and often perpetuated by the media in their coverage of Native issues. If you are interested in learning some strategies for how to deal with situations like this, please consider attending one of Media Management trainings for tips on public relations, communications, and media management - including social media. This training focuses on how to present your organization or story to the media and emphasizes the need for a plan – especially for those times when things go bad. Our next training is coincidentally this week, 3/18 & 3/19, but check our calendar for more dates in the coming months.
Please check out all of the embedded links and websites for more information…
Dana Arviso
Quick Update
Morena
There is a lot going on at the moment. I have asked Heather Miller to do a special blog on the Potlatch Fund’s team fundraising efforts which will again take place at this year’s Seattle Marathon. As readers may recall both Dana Arviso and I participated in Seattle Marathon events in 2009 and we were able to raise more than $2,500. This year we are going to expand the team and invite other supporters to join us in the event.
Dana Arviso is also going to copy a story about the appropriation of images from local Native group, Native Lens, which were then illegally used in racist advertisements in Canada. Native Lens is seeking to have these advertisements ruled as Hate Crimes so that the Police are compelled to investigate.
As people who follow us on Facebook may be aware the Potlatch Fund staff have recently been having Lushootseed Language classes. We had our second lesson with Mike Evans yesterday and we are having great fun getting our tounges around some of the unique words.
Today, I have discussions planned with some of our funders. I also have a meeting with a group that would like us to fiscally sponsor their work while they get their 501(c)3 non-profit up and running. This afternoon we have another meeting of the Seattle Native Circle.
We are also rearraing the office to accomodate Kelly Gemmell who will be our new Office Manager and who will start here on Monday the 15th.
In the meantime Heather Miller and I are also preparing for the two presentations that we will make this week at the Native Language Conference. We will have to see if we will be brave enough to introduce ourselves in Lushootseed.
We are also preparing for a retreat that will take place in April of the Potlatch Fund Board. This is an important meeting, and one of the most important discussions is the process of managing my transition from the ED’s role which is programmed to take place in September 2011. Potlatch Fund is committed, and I fully support this commitment, to seeking a Native American person for this role. This will be an exciting opportunity for a person with a proven commitment to Indian Country, Native American development, Tribal development and the development of Non-profits in Indian Country. Obviously we are still very early in the process, which may have up to 18 months to run, however anyone who is interested in this role should feel free to touch base with me.
Lastly, Heather Miller is also prepping for a workshop that she will be running next week on Social Media. Social Media is very important to Indian Country because it is a way to get your message out directly and to bypass the mainstream media which often overlook Indian Country. We are lucky in the Pacific Northwest because some of our media outlets do do a great job. In this morning’s Seattle Times, Lynda Mapes, has written a great article about the Hoh Tribe and their quest to get more land so they can move their Reservation out of a flood zone.
That’s all for me today.
Naku noa
Ken Gordon
Native People’s in the Media
Ahi ahi Marie
I think like many people I was uplifted to see the prominent and positive way in which the indigenous people from Canada participated in the opening ceremony at the winter Olympics. Their participation lent a sense of welcome and cultural inclusion often left out of such international events.
Local artist Louie Gong is also participating as part of a Native showcase at the games. The Seattle Times wrote a story about this exciting young man in the weekend and you can find that story at this link.
NPR also ran a story about a language revitalisation program being run in Hopi and I also recommend that people give this a listen.
That’s all for now.
Naku noa
Ken Gordon
Another website review
Hello readers,
Yesterday the Potlatch Fund staff got together to celebrate the holidays with some food and a movie. We had a great time spending a little time away from the office and just relaxing and celebrating with one another. Ken, Lawrence, Dana and I all shared what we have been thankful for this past year and we collectively would like to say that we are thankful to you, our supporters who follow us online, attend our trainings, receive our grants, provide financial support to us and who help us fulfill our mission of expanding philanthropy in Northwest Indian Country. We couldn’t do our work without you.
In addition to our fabulous holiday party yesterday, I also came across another wonderful resource that I would like to share with other folks. The Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media have created a funding database for media projects. This database provides Funders with the opportunity to search for media projects by topic and area of interest. If a foundation is interested in funding a documentary on women leaders of color they can search this database using these key words and find project matching their criteria.
In order to help Funders identify these projects, individuals and organizations can list their projects in the database. I read through the recently updated project list and was so inspired by several of the project descriptions. I love to see what other people are doing with media these days and am always hoping to discover another new and excellent resource to share with others. Projects can only be listed in the database if they have some funding already committed. Even if you do not work with media I suggest looking through the database to gain an understanding of what is out in the world in terms of interesting media projects.
As I research social media I will continually pass along resources that I find of interest, however if you have a blog or website about social media and networking that has changed your life, please share it with me by sending heather@potlatchfund.org an email.
Thanks and have a wonderful day,
Heather