I'm donating another $20.00 to My Sister Friends' House, which is in desperate - DESPERATE - need of funding, lest they be shut down next month.
As this recommended post has stressed earlier, My Sister Friends' House is a vital, necessary need in the Native American community as a shelter for battered women in a world where locals know they can simply drive onto a Native Reservation, find a woman to beat and rape, and get away with it scot free.
Data gathered by the United States Department of Justice shows Native American women are more than 2.5x likely to be sexually assaulted/raped than other women in the United States. 86% of Native American survivors report that the perpetrator was white.Source pp. 3-4
Is there something I can do today - right now that will make a difference?
I hope you had a chance to read gjohnsit's Daily Kos diary The Great California Genocide. gjohnsit chronicles hundreds of years deliberate (if not uniform) policy of extermination by the white Europeans against Native Americans:
The state of California also got involved. The government paid about $1.1 Million in 1852 to militias to hunt down and kill indians. In 1857 the California legislature allocated another $410,000 for the same purposes.
In 1856 the state of California paid 25 cents for each indian scalp. In 1860 the bounty was increased to $5.
You might think these horrors are confined to our past; a relic from which we are distanced by more than a century. In a sense you are absolutely right. We don't pay a bounty for murdered Indians any more. But we allow white men to rape Indian women and get away with it.
That's why Rape Tourism exists today - white men looking for a quick, violent thrill heading to a reservation to find a woman to rape.
I know times are tough right now; a lot of people are out of work, others are working two or three jobs to make ends meet. Prices are rising on the necessities.
But I am asking you to stop and see if you have $20 or $10 or even $5 to spare for My Sister Friends' House - Mita Maske Ti Ki, a Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault shelter for women and children.
They have lost their grant funding and face closure by September if they don't get enough funding to continue to operate as a shelter. They need $11,000 by August 31st to operate through September.
The end goal is $35,000 by September 30th - three months of operating expenses as they apply for grant funding and get established out on their own.
If not, just skip this diary. It will annoy the hell out of you.
KELO in Sioux Falls did the introduction to this situation for me:
Sioux Falls shelter for women and children who have been abused is at risk of shutting down.
The shelter has been running on grants and federal funding since 2000, but those grants are coming to an end. Now the director says the women at the shelter may have to move out.
The Mita Maske Ti Ki shelter, which means "My Sister Friends' House," houses about a dozen women and children who have left abusive homes and are trying to turn their lives around. But with their funding running out at the end of August, those victims of domestic violence could soon lose their sanctuary.
I read that soldiers with PSTD are purposely being diagnosed with personality disorders because the US does not want to pay benefits to the men and women who come back disabled in mind, spirit and soul.
These people go on to their civilian lives without treatment. They become a danger to themselves and sometimes to others.
Sometimes I wonder why people (1) have children. Doesn't it stand to reason that if you don't want a child, aren't willing and happy to accept the "responsibility" or the crimp in your party animal lifestyle, you'd take some precautions to avoid bringing yet another unwanted child into the world?
Another little girl is missing in Florida. And yes, I do take it personally. I'm not here to sit in judgment of her mother or play amateur sleuth or keyboard crimesolver. The dread that washes over me is not, I'm sorry to say, a unique experience, because children "go missing" with startling frequency in this country and I want to know how in coño we watch it happen over and over again on television and do nada but wring our hands and pray.
Will Native American women finally get equal protection under the law?
Right now Native American women on reservations are 3 times as likely to be raped as a white woman. Due to an insanely complex series of jurisdictional issues, limited law enforcement, minimal political will and racism, perpetrators of sexual assault and domestic violence against Native American women often commit their crimes with impunity, knowing they will likely never face prosecution. All of this was documented in sickening detail last year by Amnesty International's report Maze of Injustice
The legislation is designed to boost law enforcement efforts by providing tools to tribal justice officials to fight crime in their own communities, improving coordination between law enforcement agencies, and increasing accountability standards.
This title is not an exaggeration or misstatement, although I really wish it were. I did not go to Netroots Nation to learn that it was possible to rape a woman, right here in the United States and walk away with absolutely no consequences to the rapist. But that’s what I learned in a panel discussion on Friday morning.
Come over the fold and I’ll tell you exactly how this happens – and you can take an action, a small first step towards ending this nightmare.
Remember Pretty Bird Woman House(PBWH)? The Lakota Sioux women’s shelter the progressive netroots raised $87,000 to buy them a new house when their old one was destroyed by arson? Many of you expressed an admiration for PBWH Director, Georgia LittleShield – a woman who had managed PBWH through threats of closure due to lack of funds, burglary, threats of violence and even arson. She faces down rapists in court, convinces hostile police to enforce domestic violence laws, literally enters homes to rescue battered women.
Georgia LittleShield is coming to Netroots Nation to tell you about life is like for women and children on an Indian reservation in one of the poorest parts of the country. She’s here to tell you how you – the netroots – can help change things. And Georgia isn’t coming alone. She’s bringing her posse.
I just wanted to thank Kossacks and Street Prophet folks for helping AndyT out with his Netroots Nation pickle in response to the diary I wrote on Wednesday.
As usual, this community has demonstrated an incredible level of commitment, generosity and compassion.
If you didn't see the diary the other day, here are a few details below the fold.
What he didn't announce was the lengths to which he went to get Georgia Little Shield, the director of Pretty Bird Woman House, there.
Andy went so far above and beyond the call of duty in his commitment to the shelter that I wanted to tell you about it, and see if anybody could help him out of a little pickle he got himself in because of it.
In 2007, the progressive Netroots reached out to a tiny women's shelter on a Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota. Pretty Bird Woman House, named for a Sioux woman who was raped and murdered, faced closure. Lack of funds crippled their ability to function and staff labored without pay. Then, they lost their home to extreme vandalism and arson.
Over 2,000 individual members of the netroots raised in excess of $100,000 to keep Pretty Woman Bird House open, functioning with paid staff, and in the end, bought a new house for PBWH to carry out their mission.
But PBWH is just the tip of the iceberg. Native American women are subject to much higher levels of sexual and domestic violence than any other women in the United States. Come join us on Friday, July 18th 9:00am for: Examining the Maze of Injustice: Our Nation's Failure to Protect Indigenous Women From Violence. This panel will explore what can be done to ensure equal protection under the law for Native American women and the role the Netroots can play in combating these injustices.
Steve King is one of the most loathsome members of Congress, but that is not news to most people. A compendium of his greatest hits can be found here. My personal favorite is his observation that Al Qaeda will be dancing in the streets if Obama wins. If not Wanker of the Year, he is certainly a contestant.
But this diary is about the man who is running to retire him: Rob Hubler, minister, veteran, and passionate progressive.
Domestic violence is an issue close to my heart, and Hubler is not only on the right side of it, but began his campaign with visits to shelters and talking about the need to fund them.
In his speech on Saturday, he did a great riff on the theme of "where I come from."
No, she did not die; although there were times when she wished death would come. She left the area. Moved away. Vamoosed. Not because it was what she wanted to do, but because it was what she had to do. You see, she is/was the wife of an abuser. Oh, he was slick with it. He was always so oily nice that it was hard for me to believe he was an abuser. He seemed to take such good care of her. Always concerned about her, always thinking of her best interest. Smiling in all the right places. Holding onto her. But when you looked at her, she was afraid and a tiny bit sad. Her eyes were always watching. Always wary. Always shifting. Always careful. Her speech was always stilted. Never hopeful. Never funny. Just always a bit sad.
There ought to be a series anyone can feel free to contribute to. So here goes. I'm going to call it "Oh, Magoo, You've Done It Again" (OMYDIA).
Consider it a repository for the slew of bumbling, stumbling, McCain-isms (or Magoo-isms) that we have heard, are hearing and will hear more of.
Everything from confusing Iraq and Iran, Sunni and Shiite, and foolish posing about off-shore drilling being a 'feel-good' non-solution for $4-5 gas prices.
If you know my name, you know that I have writen tributes to our fallen servicemen and women on DailyKos for the past year. I, along with my fellow IGTNT diarists, put much care into paying tribute to these men and women by researching as much as we can to properly honor them.
I've written about the loss of some remarkable people and I cry over every one of them.
Last August I wrote a diary that included tributes to two soldiers - Spc. Kamisha Block and Staff Sgt. Paul Norris - who had died in what the Army called a "non-combat related incident." The family was initially led to believe it was "friendly fire."
As it turns out, Paul Norris murdered Kamisha and then took his own life. But it took 6 months for Kamisha's family to learn the truth about her death. Beyond that, the Army has admitted that it failed to protect her from abuse.
While I agree that there are far too many black kids in America growing up without a father around, and that needs to be highlighted and adressed. There is one paragraph in the NYT piece that I have a lot of trouble with. "On Friday, Mr. Obama announced that he would be a co-sponsor of a bill with Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, that his campaign said would address the “national epidemic of absentee fathers.” If passed, the legislation would increase the enforcement of child support payments and strengthen domestic violence prevention services." I worry about strengthening domestic violence prevention services, IF that grants mandates to law enforcement to throw the father in jail upon a complaint even if there is no evidence of physical abuse.
