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roriferas:

beatrice-otter:

ouyangdan:

look i am not about to discredit any of the hard work done by amazing people like stacey abrams (LIKE GO BUY HER BOOKS SO SHE CAN KEEP BEING AWESOME WHILE FINANCIALLY SECURE), but unless we are aggressive about reminding people of the work Natives do, no one is going to hear about it.

the trump administrations failures and deliberate efforts of harm have caused a disproportionate amount of harm to Indian Country/Natives living on tribal lands. the losses we’ve seen are incomparable, and the devastation beyond repair. every Elder death due to the failures of trump and co. is another bit of culture, history, and language lost.

you won’t hear much about it because our numbers are small. because of the ongoing genocide of Natives on our own lands. the numbers are small, but the percentages by which we are being harmed are astronomical.

but so is our determination.

we are still here and we will not be silenced or forgotten.

And you know why so many southwest states are in play this year? It’s because Native people got out the vote. All the work that Stacey Abrams did, for which she is justly praised, a whole lotta tribes have been doing too.

I want to give a shout out to Menominee County, which is the bluest county (highest percentage of Democratic votes) in Wisconsin this year, despite being up in the majority-conservative northern part of the state and not having a major urban center like Milwaukee or Madison to help bolster Democratic support. In fact, Menominee has always been Wisconsin’s bluest county in every presidential election since it was formed in 1959.

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Menominee County is home to the Menominee Indian Reservation. Most of the people who live in the county are members of the Menominee Nation. Wisconsin had an extremely small margin this election and I, a non-Native person living in Wisconsin, am so grateful to the people of the Menominee Nation for showing up and going SO HARD, this year and every year, in the face of toxic opposition. 

Also, I hope this is okay to add on: for years, the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin has been fighting against the “Back Forty Mine Project,“ a proposed open-pit metallic sulfide mine on the shores of the Menominee River.

They have put together a website, noback40.org, with information about the project (including a handout and a basic fact sheet with lots of great information all in one place) as well as information about how we can help. There is also a long-running, still-open GoFundMe (open since 2017).

In January of this year, the Menominee Tribe lost their appeal demanding the permits for the mine’s construction be reviewed by federal authorities, not the state of Michigan. Per the WPR article: “If permitting for the project rested with federal agencies, they would be required to conduct official consultation with the tribe on the project.” 

Despite what Aquila Resources, the owner of the project, have claimed, as of July of this year they do not yet have all required permits to move forward, and have been further set back by Covd-19.

Menominee County and the Menominee people came through and indeed always comes through for Democratic candidates. If you can, maybe take a bit of time today to research this important issue and see if there is anything you can do to help!