Racial violence won’t be tolerated, Farmington officials tell Navajo group
The mayor and other city officials from Farmington, N.M., met with a Navajo human rights group last week to give them the message that racial violence won’t be tolerated in their town. The meeting follows an incident in which a developmentally delayed Navajo man was held by three other men who branded his arm with a swastika. The Navajo Times reports on the meeting here. Meanwhile, Farmington police are doing an internal investigation into how the incident initially was handled, KQRE reports (see video above). The first officer on the scene didn’t recognize that the man was disabled, and thought he was drunk, police say.
First Nations protest honorary degree to former Ontario premier
Former Ontario premier Mike Harris is scheduled to get an honorary doctorate of letters next month from Nipissing University. But that plan doesn’t well with aboriginal groups within Ontario, who recall the fatal shooting of a First Nations protester in 1995 at Ipperwash Provincial Park in southwestern Ontario, according to this Canadian Press story. Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Patrick Madahbee says Ontario’s First Nations feel Harris doesn’t deserve it. The groups cite the “hostile” relationship between the provincial government under Harris at the time of the shooting.
Native American group denounces new Arizona ethnic studies law
Members of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association invited Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva to their Tucson convention to discuss a new law that effectively bans ethnic studies – including Native American studies – in Arizona public schools, KGUN 9 News reports here. Fifteen students recently were arrested during a protest against the law.
GOP gubernatorial candidates in South Dakota pledge tribal outreach
“Listen.” That’s the approach state government should take in working to heal old wounds and improve relations with Native American tribes in South Dakota, Republican candidates for governor told Rapid City (S.D.) Journal reporter Kevin Woster, here.
New book takes fresh approach to Little Bighorn Battle
Check out this review of Nathaniel Philbrick’s “The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.” Lorna Thackeray of the Billings (Mont.) Gazette calls it “one of the most readable ever to emerge” from the hundreds of books on the subject.
Touring Native American veterans exhibit comes to Flathead Reservation
A Smithsonian exhibit honoring Native American veterans will be touring Montana for the next year, making stops at all of the seven Indian reservations within the state. It’s starting out at the Peoples Center on the Flathead Indian Reservation, the Char-Koosta News reports here.
This sort of news is a discouraging way to start off the week. Albuquerque TV station KRQE reports here on an attack on a mentally challenged Native American man.
Three men in Farmington are accused of luring the 22-year-old man into an apartment late last month and then burning a swastikas into his arm and shaved one onto his head.
“They held him down and forcibly branded him,” Farmington Police Sgt. Robert Perez tells KRQE. The men used a wire hanger, he says.
The men also wrote words and drew hateful images onto his body, Perez says. And, they apparently videotaped the event.
The victim named Paul Beebee, Jesse Sanford and William Hatch. Sanford is in custody, held on $175,000 cash bond, but the other two men are being sought. They’re charged with kidnapping and aggravated battery, and the FBI is making a determination if it constitutes a hate crime.
Deidra Mannie, 22, studies for an English class in a stairwell Monday at San Juan College. Mannie, a computer science major, graduated from Farmington High School in 2006. (Xavier Mascareñas/The Daily Times)
Here’s one conclusion that might be drawn from this story in the Farmington, N.M., Daily Times — that if Native Americans students can get through high school, it bodes well for the rest of their education.
The woeful graduation rate for Native American high school students was a topic of the Farmington Inter-Tribal Indian Organization meeting yesterday.
Only half the Indian students who start high school graduate, according to the state.
It’s hard to look at this story without thinking of this one we posted yesterday, about a largely Native district in Alberta, Canada, whose students performed so poorly that the entire school board was just fired. Sounds as though in Farmington, they’re taking steps to avoid that sort of drastic action by looking now for improvements.
On the plus side in New Mexico, enrollment is swelling at San Juan Community College, where Native students comprise about a quarter of the population.
Farmington school Superintendent Janel Ryan says that district is focusing on Native students’ performance.
“We don’t have all the answers, but we sure keep looking for our kids to succeed,” she says.
