Several friends and colleagues of mine took part in this inspiring and necessary conference in Saskatchewan whose title “Missing Women: Decolonization, Third Wave Feminism and Indigenous People of Canada and Mexico” says it all.

Travel and work conflicts prevented me from being there physically, but I can tell you that I’m emotionally shaken and stirred by the good work that has come out of it, which you can read about here.

I’ve always personally tried to make it a priority to highlight the strong matriarchy that exists in so many of our Indigenous nations. We were the FIRST feminists which is often forgotten in a lot of mainstream feminist dialogue, and it’s a shame especially when you consider what’s happened to many of the women in our communities today.

More than 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing or been murdered over the past 15 years and we have the highest rates of sexual assault and domestic violence against our women than any other race. However what we need to be focussing on now is the things that are happening to prevent these statistics and what we are doing in our communities ourselves to effect positive change.

Where we’ve come from is this strong, ancestral lineage of woman-power culture. Sadly we’ve now arrived at is this consistently prejudicial place where many of us wonder whether, if any of these victims were White, would people care more or do more to seek justice?

A youth patch for the quilt of hope by the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition

You’d be forgiven for not knowing what a blogging carnival is, but lately they’ve been catching on in popularity. Basically, one person introduces a theme and calls for others to blog about it and send them the links, and then they collect them all together into a single post.

Angry Black Woman held a Carnival of Allies back in April, and this week the organizer of yennenga - a LiveJournal community for women of colour - posted the results of a Women of Colour and Beauty Carnival she held after a conversation with a Native friend about cultural values of beauty and attractiveness.

Racialicious has exerpts from some of the best posts.

I’m a huge fan of rap and like many other things in this world, some of it has become commercialized, misogynized, and otherwise distorted from where it started.

Lest we forget that rap was born out of an activist movement. Grandfathers from the early days of its creation include politikin’ movers and shakers like Public Enemy, Grand Master Flash, and KRS-One who courageously spoke out about the grave injustices in oppressed communities of colour.

I get fed up of hearing that rap is only about hating on women or just talks about cash money and cars.

I’m not saying there isn’t a lot of that out there, but I definitely don’t see the same type of subject matter criticism towards various bubble-gum pop stars like Hilary Duff or Miley Cyrus who confuse me every time they sing about not conforming (but maybe they get left alone more with how they present it since they are nice, pretty, light-skinned girls?)

In comes Eekwol, who is an incredibly gifted Native rapper from Saskatoon, giving it to you straight up to let the truth be known. A Cree from the Muskoday First Nation, she not only makes me brim with pride from a cultural and musical perspective, but also as a woman. As you’ll see very quickly from any of her songs or listening to her talk, she clearly owns all of who she is.

Watch her shine in this interview about the role of gender in rap:

And do yourself a favour and stop by her Myspace page to listen on in to some deep tunes that really get to the heart of the issues so many of our communities are facing (the “Respect Your History” song gives me chills every time I hear it).

Flint, Michigan has now joined the ranks of several other US states who have passed bylaws that make the the wearing of baggy, sagging, or low-riding pants illegal.

Police chief David Dicks said that wearing pants below the waist is a crime — a violation of the city’s disorderly conduct ordinance — and can give police probable cause to search saggers for other crimes, such as weapon or drug possession.

You could get 93 days to a year in jail and fines of up to $500 for wearing your pants low (a larger sentence than some sexual assault perpetrators are getting these days).

Now say what you want about agreeing or disagreeing with baggy pants, but believing that’s enough evidence to search people thinking they all must be thugs who commit crimes is just asking for racial profiling.

It’s no secret that youth in communities of colour are going to be the ones feeling the brunt of this racist, ludicrous law, and hey, why not since they are already incarcerated at soaringly higher rates than White youth?!

And trust me, I was equally as angry in my Catholic high school when they prohibited low-cut or belly shirts telling me I looked “promiscuous” and could “distract the boys’ education”. I actually believe in freedom of expression and think there are bigger battles we have to wage in this world.

Thankfully the ACLU has threatened to file suit against the city of Flint if this ordinance sticks and is asking citizens who are being targeted to come forward and tell their stories.

I recently saw this sign walking out of an interstate road stop.

I was one of three lone persons of colour in the place and when we walked by, stopped to look at it, made some snarky comments that included shock and dismay, we turned around. Staring back at us were “suspicious” faces (that’s what they uttered) who looked us up and down, looked back at the sign, and then turned to each other with a “well what should do we do now?” kind of sentiment.

What does this all mean? You tell me.

(I mean, I always thought that the real threat of terrorism was right here at home, with the Conservatives, antis, racists, and other oppressors, but hey, that’s just me).

I have to give a loud and proud shout-out to Anti-dote, the amazing Multiracial Women’s and Girl’s Network, since I just got done talking about doing more programming with them.

If you’ve never heard of Anti-dote, mosey yourself on over to their website and check out their fabulousness. Not only do there need to be more opportunities for those of us in communities of colour to exist in safe spaces where we can just be our authentic ourselves and talk about the ongoing issues so many of us are facing, but growing up in this multi-layered racist, classist, and otherwise oppressive world is still a tough thing. Anti-dote has circles of aunties, grandmothers, and sistahs who provide the familial mentorship we all need to carry on and just be!

They are based in Victoria, but hey, it’s all about unity across lands right? So let’s join in and keep these kinds of circles going!

Mounties pinned me down in cell and tasered me, Manitoba girl says.

Yep you read that right: ‘tasered’. That means a machine named after a comic book hero and meant to be used as an alternative to deadly force when apprehending someone armed or otherwise dangerous was used on an un-armed 16 year old girl, in her cell, BY FOUR COPS WHILE THEY HELD HER DOWN.

Oh sorry, was I yelling?

Tasers are already getting enough bad press what with the alarming number of taser deaths in Canada to date. Why not add a few child-abusing cops with tasers to the mix?

The girl decided to report the incident following the death on Tuesday of a Métis youth who was also shot with a taser. In the Globe article she describes her experience at the hands of Manitoba’s finest:

“She was held down by four officers, one for each limb, while a taser was used on her legs and groin area. She said the third shock lasted between five and eight seconds and left her screaming in pain.”

I am going to let Jessica take a crack at dealing with the fact that both of the youth tasered in Manitoba were of Native descent, I feel I have said all I can say without resorting to more all-caps.

This story actually made me cry.

5 year old Adriel Arocha is being blocked from attending school in a Houston-area school district.

The reason?

As an Apache, he has long hair that he has been growing in his Native cultural tradition that “violates” this school’s dress code rules.

The kicker though is that the school board is willing to make exceptions on religious or other “proven” moral grounds, but doesn’t think that being Native American cuts it.

Even after Adriel’s father Kenny submitted a DNA sample of his blood and explained the long history of why many of us do not cut our hair until a family member dies, he received this response from superintendent Curtis Rhodes:

“To make exceptions, you have to be provided evidence of something, and to this point, I don’t feel I’ve been provided evidence to make an exception.”

Oh really now? Well what would they have us do so this child can attend school, show them a biblical text that says God told Native people to have long hair? Growing out your hair is a tradition in many Indigenous cultures that has been going on for centuries, long before our education was institutionalized. Long hair carries our life experiences and reminds us about the teachings we’ve received along the way.

So even when you take away our land, ignore our human rights, and try to destroy our cultre, it’s still not good enough to go to your schools?

And people wonder why it’s so hard for us to keep our identity strong.

This is something I’ve been saying quite a lot lately with the recent Harper apology for residential schools. Sure, government regulated residential schools might have closed, but they’ve been replaced with the systematic apprehension of our people forced to become prisoners yet again for reacting to centuries of abuse.

As part of their eight-part series on Crime and Punishment, this Sunday’s Toronto Star had a full front-page spread on Prisons Poisoning Natives.

Just to review the statistics:

3.8% of the Canadian population is Aboriginal

We make up almost 20% of the prison population

33% of our youth are currently incarcerated

I recently took part in a county jail and state prison panel in the United States where, for some reason, when we were discussing “minority” representation, no one knew that Native American youth are incarcerated 2.5 times more than White youth (some studies show as many as 40% of our youth are ending up in jail).

How much more can we handle? We’re still reeling from 500 years of colonization, and people expect that we should have bucked up and solved it all ourselves in the last 50 (not to mention the fact that colonization is still ongoing, you can look at the abhorrent resource extraction going on in Inuit territory for that).

We need our culture back, and we need our youth back. They are our future and if we don’t have them, then we’ve lost the most sacred part of who we are as a people. (Oh but they’ll try and take it away from us every chance they get, as proven by the recent removal of tobacco, one of the most important rituals to many Native cultures, in prisons).

Watch this inspiring video by the Red Tail Lodge youth prison in Chino, California to see how young people are changing these statistics, using the power of our our culture, for the next generation.