These are some Native American-related news stories that made headlines this week:
Justice Department to bolster support of regional MMIP investigations
The U.S. Justice Department has announced a new Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) Regional Outreach Program to help prevent or respond to cases of missing and murdered Indigenous men, women and children.
DOJ will be sending five attorneys and five coordinators to offices across the U.S. to assist in investigations and promote communication and collaboration between federal, local, state and tribal police departments.
“This new program mobilizes the Justice Department’s resources to combat the crisis of Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons, which has shattered the lives of victims, their families and entire tribal communities,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “The Justice Department will continue to accelerate our efforts, in partnership with Tribes, to keep their communities safe and pursue justice for American Indian and Alaska Native families.”
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Chemehuevi Tribe can’t access water it’s entitled to
Two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Navajo Nation’s bid to access water from the lower Colorado River, ProPublica reports on a California tribe’s fight to access water from the same river.
The Chemehuevi Tribe’s 13,000-hectare reservation fronts nearly 50 kilometers of the lower Colorado River in California. In 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that federally established tribes have a right to water inside or bordering their reservations; in a separate ruling in 1964, the high court gave the Chemehuevi rights to divert 11,340 acre feet (14 million cubic meters) of Colorado River water per year (AFY) — about 3.7 billion gallons.
But neither the federal government nor California has allocated funds for the tribe to build a water delivery system to access that water. Today, they rely on a single diesel pump and can access only about 307 AFY; the rest is channeled to big cities in California, including Los Angeles.
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Feds announce new online tool to support Native-owned businesses
The U.S. General Services Administration this week launched a new online search tool designed to boost the visibility of Native American-owned businesses and help them compete for government contracts.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to forging cooperative relationships with Tribal Nations that are built on trust, consensus building, and shared goals – and that includes supporting the economic growth of Native-owned businesses,” GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan said. “Making it easier for buyers to obtain quality commercial products and services from Native-owned businesses is good for federal agency missions, good for the federal marketplace, and good for the communities we serve.”
The GSA is an independent federal agency that manages and supports dozens of U.S. government agencies and helps connect commercial entities with opportunities to do business with the U.S. government.
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July Fourth celebrations in small Iowa city spark big outrage
Social media users, both Native American and non-, are furious over “an egregious act of racism” that took place during a Fourth of July parade in the town of Muscatine, Iowa. It featured a woman dressed in a generic “American Indian” costume, her wrists tied, being pulled by a second woman on horseback.
The women claimed they were “paying homage” to historic injustices inflicted on the Cherokees. VOA notes that the Cherokee Nation is located 800 kilometers away in the state of Oklahoma; the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, the only federally recognized tribe in the state, is located just 185 kilometers away.
Sikowis Nobiss, executive director at the Great Plains Action Society, told local media the incident was offensive not just because of Natives’ historical treatment.
“We also have a very high rate of being sold and taken into the sex trafficking industry. And so, this really reminded me of … how, you know, settlers view us still. Like less than human,” Nobiss said.
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Will conservatives force well-known ice cream makers to follow their own advice?
Conservatives are calling for a boycott of America’s biggest ice cream manufacturer for calling on Americans to return land stolen from Native Americans, beginning with Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
“On the Fourth of July, many people in the U.S. celebrate liberty and independence — our country’s and our own,” the company posted on its website. “But what is the meaning of Independence Day for those whose land this country stole, those who were murdered and forced with brutal violence onto reservations, those who were pushed from their holy places and denied their freedom?”
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem told Fox News she wasn’t going to listen to “a bunch of liberal Vermont businessmen who think they know everything about this country and haven’t studied our history.”
Ben and Jerry’s explained that history on their website Tuesday:
“In 1970, Indigenous activists climbed Mount Rushmore and occupied it for months, demanding that land be returned to the Sioux,” the notice reads. “Ten years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills had indeed been stolen … and awarded the Sioux $105 million in damages, but the tribes refused the payment.”
As Newsweek noted this week, “Some have argued that Ben & Jerry’s Vermont headquarters is itself built on what it describes as ‘stolen’ land of the Abenaki tribe — prompting questions as to whether it would give the property up and move elsewhere,”
Even some Native Americans took issue with Ben and Jerry’s call to action:
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