Singer & Activist Radmilla Cody Speaks About Her African American And Native American Heritage (2014 YouTube video & comments)

I Love Ancestry,

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Statistics as of March 21, 2021 (9:16 AM ET) 
total # of views- 23,586
total # of likes- 469
total # of dislikes- 24
total # of comments-142

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[Video Summary from I Love Ancestry] 

Singer and Activist Radmilla Cody, of Black & Native American heritage from the Navajo Nation accepts the Initiative Radio 2012 Black History Makers Award as "National Treasure & Icon of Cultural Unity" and speaks on her Black Native American Heritage. To Buy Her Music: http://www.canyonrecords.com/

"...To reaffirm the statement on the choosing of my identity, I come from two beautiful cultures which I have embraced, bridged, balanced, and identify with. I am proud to be who I am as a Dine' (Navajo) and Nahilii (African American) woman. Hozho', , & blessings..." ~Radmilla Cody

*We refer to people of African and Native American Indian heritage as Afro Native sometimes on this website. Many refer to people of both ancestry as Black Indians, African Native Americans or Black American Indians.

Inspiring Radmilla is the award winner of the Record of the Year for her song "Shi Keyah Songs for the People".

With an angelic voice of bluebirds singing, Radmilla Cody, traditional Navajo recording artist, Indie Award Winner and two-time Native American Award Nominee continues to maintain Navajo culture by recording music that the Diné elders can be proud of and that children sing with pride.

She is of the Tla'a'schi'i' (Red-Orche-on-Cheek) clan and is born for the African-Americans. Radmilla is the 46th Miss Navajo Nation from 1997-98. Born and raised in the beautiful and picturesque plateaus of the Navajo Nation, Radmilla Cody's childhood consisted of herding sheep on foot and horseback, carding and spinning wool, and searching late into the night with her grandmother for lost sheep and their lambs.

The highlight of her sheep herding days was standing in the sheep corral singing at the top of her lungs with the sheep and goats as her audience. "All that mattered at that time was the moment of living a dream," says Radmilla about her early life, which today has become a reality for the young musician. A survivor of domestic violence, Radmilla uses her personal experiences to advocate strongly against the epidemic of violence.

It is an issue she has become very passionate about. As a biracial person she attempts to communicate positive messages about her dual identity to biracial or multiracial children who still bear the brunt of prejudice.

Radmilla Cody is of the Tlaaschii (Red Bottom People) born for Nahillii (African American) and has traveled internationally to Kenya, South America, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, and Italy.

She has earned a BS in Public Relations from Northern Arizona University and is pursuing a MA in Sociology. She was the 46th Miss Navajo and is the subject of “Hearing Radmilla”, a documentary produced and directed by Angela Webb.

Radmilla is a domestic violence advocate and founder of “Strong Spirit…Life is Beautiful not Abusive” campaign which addresses teen dating violence. Her previous recordings for Canyon Records include Seed of Life, Spirit of a Woman and Precious Friends

"The Creator has given me the strength to look forward in life, to embrace the beautiful and the positive. Now I truly walk in beauty." ~Radmilla Cody

I Love Ancestry exists to empower people to seek knowledge of ancestral heritage, preserve historical truth, and unite like-minded people. At I Love Ancestry, we envision a world where people embrace their own and each other's roots, celebrate diversity, and advocate for indigenous cultures.

On Our Website: https://iloveancestry.com/stories/ancestry/ 

[This link replaces the one that was given in this summary. That link is no longer active.]

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases a YouTube video of Radmilla Cody speaking about her African American and Native American heritage.

This post also includes some comments from this video's discussion thread.

The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Radmilla Cody for her music, her activism, and her role modeling. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to Iloveancestry.com for pubkLove the publisher of this video on YouTube.

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SELECTED COMMENTS 

These comments are given in relative chronological order based on their publishing date with the oldest comments given first except for relplies. Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.

Note: It's sometimes difficult to tell which comment is being responded to as some commenters changed their screen name and some comments may no longer be included in this discussion thread. Also, some comments appear to be in response to later [?] comments.

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybYz2IZWUfk&ab_channel=ILoveAncestry

1. Kal EL, 2016
"She's a Beautiful black woman"

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2. LoveMyCurls, 2016
"Kal EL she is not black she is a mixed NATIVE are you effin blind?!???👀👀🙄🙄"

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3. dante bigguy, 2018
"Tylona Hambrick Métis people of Canada makes them look like fools. And Métis people are mixed Natives with Europeans and some Métis even look white as snow too lol"

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4. Ambrosia Devyani, 2018
"Multiethnicgirl 6foot that's not the point. Point is she is Diné too.

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5. Titiana Bäb, 2020
"She is part Native American descent

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6. nomadic alma, 2020
" @donny peso goyard BPC  She's a mixed Navajo. There is no country called "black." It's a fake made up term. She also has African heritage but she was raised as a Diné woman."

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7. Silver SunTree, 2020
"Stating that she’s a beautiful black woman seems like a back-handed comment/compliment. She is both Navajo and Black."

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8. m. mann, 2016
"as an native-american, i hate the way many natives treat mixed natives.  we should respect and love all nstives as well as all people of the human race."

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9. dante bigguy, 2016
""you are not Black if you are born into the Tribe..you are Dine simple as that doesn't matter what Colour skin you have..Culture makes you who you are that's Native way not the colour of your skin..not gonna lie I got a kick out of hearing you speak in Dine because I understood some of it..."

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10. Tylona Hambrick, 2018
"Omg I’m so tired of the “ oh when the police pull you over you black “ blah blah blah  or the government "

Did you know that the government and official government forms have a box where it says “ more than one race “ did you not get the memo ???

mixed race people are being officially recognized now , it seems like you don’t want them to be .

Oh yeah , if the cops pull her over they would probably call her Hispanic and depending on where she lives Hispanics are considered white haaaaaa

I used to live in Florida and got pulled over by the cops on several occasions and my skin is obviously brown ( peanut butter cookie complexion ) and they classed me as white because they thought I was Mexican , when I corrected them ( with a reaction of shock mind you ) he told me

“ sorry mame , I wasn’t trying to offend you , it’s just that in the state of Florida Hispanics are classed as White “ I then had to tell him that I wasn’t Hispanic either and that I was mixed-race Half Black and Half white .

Cops are not going to call someone black unless they have all stereotypical Negro traits and it mainly the hair that would make them class you as black or not , if you’re brown and don’t have kinky hair they don’t see black they see Hispanic .

It seems you’re on this one drop kick , get over it .

Why are black people so butt hurt when a mixed-race person is seen as mixed instead of black or when that mixed person identifies as mixed/biracial instead of exclusively black. Mixed people are not black peoples property , we don’t owe it to black people to only or exclusively identify with you , just be happy that we’re acknowledging the black too when we identify as Biracial and move on ."

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11. donny peso goyard BPC, 2018
" @Tylona Hambrick  she don't need anyone permission she is black she already said that she's a black native did you guys read the title before you press play I said how all the other races hate us but that's fine we are going to continue to be living regardless don't say hi when you see us in the street"

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12. nomadic alma, 2020
" @donny peso goyard BPC  She's a mixed Navajo. There is no country called "black." It's a fake made up term. She also has African heritage but she was raised as a Diné woman."

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13. Me lolabean, 2019
"@dante bigguy  My grandmother is canadian born Chippewa ojibwe tribe and French descent we also say black too because we think she has black heritage as well but when she came to the U.S. of course she was Strip of her heritage that's why we don't know as far as her dad if he was black or not because in her times natives wasn't even introduce to blacks when she was in canada also when you came to the U.S. you were labeled as black no matter what race you were if you were dark toned your were automatically black I have hundreds of cousin still on the reservation in harrow Canada I was told though a lot of are people there are some Indians but a lot where colonized by the french so are blood relatives are different looking from just straight natives im glad to hear someone who knows about the Indians from Canada which the original come from.i also have Cherokee descent on my farther side which my grandmother  was half

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14. nomadic alma, 2020
"@esor val  Her skin isn't black, it's brown. She's a mixed Diné. I'll never understand why people insist on calling brown people black."

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15. nomadic alma, 2020
" @Tylona Hambrick  She is partially African. There is no country called "black". Most people called "African American" are already mixed with African European and sometimes Native American. I am Creole myself with Indigenous ancestry as well."

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16. Darlene Farmer, 2017
"Speak, Sister!  We are who we are!"

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17. Rhythms of The Sun, 2018
"Plot twist both races lived together way before slavery"

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18. dante bigguy, 2018
"allsports100 plot twist North America was already up and running with the help of indigenous people before blacks slaves came to America. Now how come you people never mention these things? Especially indigenous people of Canada. How come you people always leave us out of these conversations when talking about Indigenous people of North America? Seriously why?!? We have way more connections with real Natives of America because most of the Natives in America came from Canada. Now tell me again why you people never mention this?!? 635 First Nation Tribes in Canada and that’s not including Inuits and Metis(mixed Natives with Europeans)"

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19. Jeremy Rosa, 2018
" @dante bigguy  excatly much respect from your brother from the island of cuba and boriken . taiño tribe"

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20. Me lolabean, 2019
" @dante bigguy  Thank you my grandmother is of part ojibwe Chippewa and French and a bit of black descent which that's actually up in the air because Indians knew nothing of blacks in her time in Canada nor did they even migrate over there when she was there than when they came to the USA people don't understand how they were labeled as black because of skin tone but she is Canadian born native French and not sure but we say black descent but all of her/ our people are Canadian indians but a lot of the French colonized ojibwe as well."

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21. Thomas Oklahoma, 2017
"Radmilla Cody is a good role model for our Native Youth and carries her Native heritage with pride. She never forgets her Black American side too."

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22. dante bigguy, 2018
"you are not Black if you are born into the Tribe..you are Dine simple as that doesn't matter what Colour skin you have..Culture makes you who you are that's Native way not the colour of your skin..not gonna lie I got a kick out of hearing you speak in Dine because I understood some of it..."

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23. Pixie Dust, 2019
"My great grandma was half and half. Claim both sides girl! 👍🏽

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24. Prutiss Bartlow, 2020
"jimi h endrix hadnative and Irish blood.. as well as African (moor)..1/16cherokee.. look at Leon h 🎸endrix  his blood brutha.

Seattle's grandmother took him to the reservation at an early age explains why he played in concerts* moccasins LOL"

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Cherokee Freedmen Descendants Win Right to Tribal Membership (video & article excerpt)

One America News Network, Sept. 5, 2017

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases a 2017 video of  Cherokee Freedmen's efforts to win rights to Cherokee tribal membership.

This post also provides an excerpt about the Cherokee tribe's Supreme Court's ruling on this matter which removes language from the tribe's constitution that limited citizenship rights of descendents of Black people who had been enslaved by the tribe before the Civil War. 

The content of this post is presented for historical and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all Cherokee people, including descendents of Cherokee Freedmen, and thanks to all those who are featured in this video.  Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of this video on YouTube.
-snip-
Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPPmHkXljuM&ab_channel=CherokeePhoenix for a De. 28, 2020 YouTube video entitled "The Cherokee Phoenix Breakdown: Cherokee Freedmen History Project." 

The Cherokee Phoenix Breakdown is back with its seventh episode of the Cherokee Phoenix’s virtual roundtable discussion that highlights significant topics in the Cherokee Nation and Indian Country, and elaborates on their impact as it relates to Native people. In this episode, we are joined by Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin as well as Cherokee Freedmen Historian and Advocate Melissa Payne. The final episode of 2020 touches on the history of Cherokee Freedmen and the tribe’s plan to promote the history of Cherokee Freedmen and their contributions to the Cherokee Nation in 2021.

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EXCERPT  FROM ARTICLE ON THIS SUBJECT
From  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/politics/cherokee-nation-black-freedmen.html Cherokee Nation Addresses Bias Against Descendants of Enslaved People

The tribe’s Supreme Court excised language from its constitution that limited the citizenship rights of descendants of Black people who had been enslaved by the tribe before the Civil War.

By Mark Walker, Feb. 24, 2021

"WASHINGTON — It has been a long-running point of racial friction between members of the Cherokee Nation and thousands of descendants of Black people who had been enslaved by the tribe before the Civil War.

Through a series of legal and political battles, those descendants, known as Freedmen, have been pushing to win equal status as members of the tribe, including the right to run for tribal office and receive full benefits like access to tribal health care and housing. And this week the Oklahoma tribe took another big step to resolve the issue by eliminating from its Constitution language that based citizenship on being descended “by blood” from tribal members listed on a late 19th-century census.

The change effectively codified in the Cherokee Constitution the effects of a 2017 federal court ruling that held that the Cherokee Freedmen should have all the rights of tribal citizens, based on an 1866 treaty that laid out the terms of emancipation. Julie Hubbard, a spokeswoman for the Cherokee Nation, said there had been about 2,900 enrolled Freedmen citizens before the 2017 ruling; another 5,600 have become enrolled citizens since then.

The Cherokee Nation is one of the largest tribes in the country with more than 380,000 enrolled citizens. More than half live within the tribe’s reservation in northeastern Oklahoma.

“This is a big win because what this means is that the tribal government, including the tribal courts, are working to uphold the 1866 treaty obligation to the Freedmen,” said Marilyn Vann, a Cherokee citizen and president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes Association.

The Cherokee and other Native American nations originally in the South had purchased enslaved Black people as laborers in the 18th and 19th centuries, and had brought them along when they were driven westward by white settlers.

After the Civil War, the practice ended with the 1866 treaty, which also guaranteed that freed Black people and their descendants would “have all the rights and privileges of native Cherokees.”

But what followed were broken promises, exclusions and painful fights that only escalated in the past several decades over whether tens of thousands of descendants of the Freedmen were being afforded equal rights by the Cherokee Nation.

The latest development came on Monday, when the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court issued a ruling that removed the “by blood” language from the Cherokee Nation Constitution and made any related laws illegal.

“The ‘by blood’ language found within the Cherokee Nation Constitution, and any laws which flow from that language, is illegal, obsolete and repugnant to the ideal of liberty,” the ruling states. “These words insult and degrade the descendants of Freedmen much like the Jim Crow laws found lingering on the books in Southern state some fifty-seven years after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.”…

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Comments From A DailyKos Political Diary About Some Of The Contributions Of Alaskan Native Americans To United States Civil Rights Laws

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams posts presents a comment exchange from a DailyKos diary about the contributions of Native Americans in Alaska to United States civil rights laws.

The content of this post is presented for historical and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to jennybravo and all those who are quoted in this post.

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COMMENT EXCHANGE FROM DAILY KOS POST
Pancocojams Editor's note:
This Daily Kos diary is about work that Senator Kamala Harris' did in her capacity as California Attorney General against certain Indian tribes' land sovereignty. The cases appear to be quite complicated and -in my opinion- the title of this diary may not be warranted.

The comment exchange that I'm republishing in this pancocojams post doesn't focus on those issues although I certainly recognize their importance.

I'm numbering these comments for referencing purposes only. Comment #4 is the comment that contains information about some of the contributions of Alaskan Native Americans to the United States civil rights laws.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/2/15/1834892/-Kamala-Harris-is-no-friend-of-American-Indians "Kamala Harris is no friend of American Indians" by jennybravo, Friday February 15, 2019 · 2:00 PM EST

1. Got a Grip February 15 · 06:47:33 PM
"Thanks for the diary, jennybravo. I see a lot of people trying to police you for your tone. And while it’s true that a gentler tone might be better in the sense that more people might not be distracted by a rougher tone, you have every right to say what you feel needs said in the manner you choose. This is clearly a personal and emotional issue for you. I appreciate you sharing it with us.

I also want to say that I saw what happened to you yesterday, the way you tried to bring this matter up and were dismissed rudely, as were those that tried to defend your right to comment. That was wrong, and those that did so should know better.

Again, thanks for writing your own diary from your perspective. I, for one appreciate it, and the information. Take care and good luck!"

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2. jennybravo Got a Grip February 15 · 08:43:58 PM
"Thank you for your comment and attempting to see where I am coming from. I am actually in tears over this. It saddens me because Daily Kos and many of its contributors do not care about issues important to my people. We are always last except on the rare occasion when we can swing a state or local election.

In Alaska Tribes and members often had summer homes and winter homes depending on the availability of needed resources at the time. My grandma’s family had a spring encampment they used every year for berry and roots picking and fishing. My uncle took me to see the land after it was no longer ours. In the 1920’s White men just came and took over the land with the blessing of the State of Alaska. Her family was driven away at gunpoint. This was common in Alaska."

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3. Got a Grip jennybravo February 15 · 08:54:14 PM
"I’m so sorry, jenny, both for the devastating history of your family’s experience and what you were put through trying to get your voice heard here. I found it quite distressing to see how you were treated yesterday, especially at the hands of those that should know intimately what it’s like to be disrespected. It’s entirely appropriate to demand respect for yourself and your people. Don’t let those thoughtless acts get you down. There are those of us that support you and hear your concerns. Hang in there, you’re not alone."

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4. jennybravo Got a Grip February 15 · 10:07:54 PM
Thanks again. There is so much people don’t realize about Native American history. That was just one story. In the [mid 1930]* my mom and dad and their brothers an sisters and other Native children in SE Alaska were used as guinea pigs for the BCG tuberculosis vaccine. This was without their parent’s permission. One day all the Indian kids were called out of class and told to go to the main hall and were inoculated with the BCG vaccine. Many had no idea what was happening to them. They found out 60 years later when a follow-up was done to determine the effectiveness of the vaccine. My dad and his sister were doused with DDT when they were sent to Indian Boarding schools. Alaska had its own Jim Crow laws about Native Americans,

Eleven years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, Alberta Schenck – a part Eskimo, part Irish teenager – was arrested for not leaving the ‘white only’ section of a theater in Nome. Her action and many others before it contributed to the passing of one of the first civil rights bills effective on U.S. territory – the Alaska equal rights bill of 1945.

Prior to this legislation, Alaska Natives – just like Black Americans in the South – were often forced to live in separate neighborhoods, attend separate schools, patronize separate businesses, worship in separate churches, and sit in certain sections of entertainment venues. Such practices appear to have arisen very early in the history of U.S. expansion into Alaska. In the 1880s, when the white owner of a general store was asked why he insisted on creating two separate departments for Natives and Whites he said, “so that tourist would no longer be obliged to rub elbows with smelly, lamp black-smeared Tlingits.” This kind of racial reasoning – that Natives smell bad and are ‘uncivilized’ – continued to serve as the white justification for segregation throughout the first half of the 20th century.Most discriminatory practices arose as unwritten custom, but schools were officially segregated by law. The Nelson Act of 1905 mandated that local and territorial governments fund the education of white children, while leaving Natives to be educated by the federal government. Unfortunately, federal Indian schools focused on rudimentary education, teaching English and vocations, while white high schools sent a high percentage of graduates to college. Within this system, ‘mixed-blood’ children faced a particular dilemma – in order to attend white city or town schools, both parent and child had to prove that they were ‘civilized’ enough. To district courts, ‘civilization’ often meant giving up Native languages, foods, religions, and even associations with other Natives.

https://historyastruth.wordpress.com/
[Source] Nov.20 – The Jim Crow Nobody Talks About: Civil Rights in Alaska
NOVEMBER 22, 2016
Based heavily on: “Jim Crow in Alaska: The Passage of the Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945” by Terrence M. Cole

This the environment my parents grew up in. And it messed them up some. And in turn they messed us kids up some. And I’m sure I messed my kids up some. It’s just like some people say slavery can not still affect Blacks. Of course, it can. Especially since it was followed by Jim Crow, segregation and the terror of white racism. These things affect generations upon generations. It is a shame. The ignorance and excuses are shameful as hell.
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The commenter originally wrote “mid 1920s", but corrected the date in this subsequent comment:
5. jennybravo jennybravo February 15 · 10:19:10 PM
"oops. It was actually the mid 30s. My mom wasn’t born until 1928.”

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6. Got a Grip jennybravo February 15 · 10:54:23 PM
Thanks for sharing, jenny. Very interesting, disturbing, and very sad. Racism is ugly in all its forms, and many of us feel the shame of what our forebears have done. We feel shame for what still occurs while we’re not paying attention. My most sincere apologies for what is done is in our names.

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7. RiveroftheWest jennybravo February 15 · 09:53:36 PM
"Thank you for this— for your diary and for insisting that your voice be heard and your people’s concerns be recognized. Too few of us know Alaska’s history outside of the Gold Rush.

Commenters often focus on their own narrowed vision of what’s important, failing to recognize the blinders that keep them from seeing other equally important issues. Please keep speaking out, jenny."

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Children's Concentration Camps: Baby Jails In The United States- AGAIN! - Article Excerpt & Comments About Trump's Atrocious Immigration Policy Of Forcible Separating Children From Their Parents

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post provides a Daily Kos article excerpt and selected comments about Trump's atrocious immigration policy with a special focus on how this policy of separating children from their parents has happened before in the United States to Native Americans and to some other children of Color.

The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, and political purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to all those who are working to end this atrocious, inhumane policy.
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For more information about this subject, click https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tender-age-shelters-trump-border-family-separations_us_5b29d2d0e4b05d6c16c8c122
"Trump Administration Holding Babies And Toddlers In Multiple ‘Tender Age’ Shelters: AP

There are three shelters running in South Texas, with a fourth one planned for Houston, the report said."
By Dominique Mosbergen, 06/20/2018 01:04 am ET.
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UPDATE: June 22, 2018 11:04 PM- I added the label "race and racism" to this and other pancocojams posts about Trump's policy of separating immigrant children from their parents/caretakers. I've done so to highlight that I and many others believe that these children's race/ethnicity is one of the significant factors of this policy.

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ARTICLE EXCERPT AND COMMENTS ABOUT THIS SUBJECT
From
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/6/19/1773218/-Gov-t-s-separation-of-immigrant-children-from-their-parents-revives-deep-pain-among-American-Indians Gov't's separation of immigrant children from their parents revives deep pain among American Indians
Meteor Blades, Daily Kos Staff
Tuesday June 19, 2018 · 12:23 PM EDT
..."Nobody with a heart can listen to the wails of the caged children of undocumented immigrants who have been separated from their parents without sprouting some tears of their own. Which is why in the past couple of weeks we’ve had reconfirmed for us that there are heartless people in charge of the nation’s immigration machinery. In all the rancid policies imposed so far by the Trump regime, none matches this one for pure evil.

This is not the first time children in the United States have been forcibly separated from their parents. Our nation has a history of it. This was done to hundreds of thousands of slave children whose parents or themselves were sold to new, often distant owners. It happened to tens of thousands of American Indian children who were snatched from their parents and forced to attend boarding schools where they were abused and their heritage denigrated and desecrated.

In the words of the founder of the most famous such schools, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, these institutions had as their primary purpose to “kill the Indian, and save the man.” In other words, to engage in a form of ethnic cleansing, a forced acculturation that left behind the wholesale slaughter of the previous era, but was as lethal at destroying culture, religion, and language as any massacre or scalp bounty. They dared call it civilizing.

But, in fact, while the mission was supposedly to save the Indian without killing the person, hundreds of Indian children died at these schools with188 buried at Carlisle alone. Others are known to have died soon after they were returned home after years away.

[...]

About 100 government-run and government-funded boarding schools lasted from the 1870s, when the Army was still actively killing Indians physically, until the 1970s. A readable summary of some the horrors of those schools can be found here. https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/cultural-genocide-veiled-as-education-the-time-for-healing-is-now-vBOUQUlvUky9sxP6Ukg3BA/ "Cultural Genocide Veiled as Education—The Time for Healing Is Now" by Indian Country Today
Jun 22, 2014

[...]

While most of the boarding schools have long been shuttered, and those that remain are very different than in the old days, hundreds of thousands of Indians today are personally affected by what happened in those schools even if they did not themselves attend boarding school.

In my case, it was my grandmother Simmalikee, who raised me until she died when I was nine, my mother being a young teen when I was born. When my grandmother was nine, she was shipped off to boarding school in South Carolina where everything was done to take away her language and culture for seven years. When she returned home to Florida in 1918, she vowed never again to speak English though she knew it perfectly well, sticking solely to Muscogee (Creek), one of the two Seminole languages.

Another boarding school abductee was the mother of my friend and colleague Neeta Lind, the Navajo who is Director of Community at Daily Kos. Her mother, the late Flora Sombrero, was taken at age five to the Mormon-run Tuba City Boarding School in the late 1920s. The attack on her culture began right in front of her parents at Inscription House on the Navajo Nation. The kidnappers cut off Flora’s traditional hair bun and threw it on the ground in front of them, placed her in the back of a pick-up with other children and drove away.

Her sister, who was also taken, ran away from the boarding school so often that they took away her shoes. So she ran away barefoot. They finally gave up. She was one of the lucky ones. On more than one occasion, indigenous children at some boarding schools in the United States and so-called residential schools in Canada ran away in winter and froze to death.

[...]

My colleague Laura Clawson has noted today that the trauma of immigrant children now being separated from their parents by the government will last a lifetime*. Indeed, the psychological impact may very well be intergenerational, as it has been for countless American Indians.

While most of those immigrant children presumably will not be separated from their parents for years as many Native children were, the parallels are unsettling.

[...]

Deb Haaland
‏
Verified account

@Deb4CongressNM
Follow Follow @Deb4CongressNM
"Tent cities are being built in Texas that Trump hopes will eventually house 4,000 children. 4,000 traumatized children, living in tents in the Texas heat. This outrageous policy needs to stop. I will always fight to keep families together. #EndFamilySeparation #nm01 #nmpolDeb Haaland added,"

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[Deb4Congress retweeted Hillary Clinton]

Hillary Clinton
‏
Verified account

@HillaryClinton
Follow Follow @HillaryClinton
More
What’s happening to families at the border right now is a humanitarian crisis. Every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged.

1:20 PM - 18 Jun 2018


* https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/6/19/1773250/--The-earlier-they-re-out-the-better-Migrant-kids-face-lifelong-trauma-thanks-to-Trump?_=2018-06-19T07:15:39.742-07:00 'The earlier they’re out, the better': Migrant kids face lifelong trauma thanks to Trump
Laura Clawson, Daily Kos Staff, Tuesday June 19, 2018 · 10:15 AM EDT
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Selected comments, with numbers assigned for referencing purposes only
1. Neeta Lind June 19 · 12:29:42 PM
"I’ll never get over that photo at the top.

I’ll never get over what happened to my mother. Today’s news brings back the terrible pain of listening to my mom and her siblings talk about being kidnapped and held prisoners. My mom would cry EVERY time she remembered, even as an elderly woman. Multi-generational trauma.
-snip-
[photo caption] "This 1884 photo shows some of 10,000 or so Native children the Carlisle Indian Industrial School separated from their parents as part of a government policy designed to take away their Indian-ness by removing their hair, their language, their culture, and their religion."

**
2. jennybravo reply to Neeta Lind June 19 · 05:04:40 PM
"Most people don’t understand that by being raised in boarding schools and rarely if ever seeing their own parents, many of the children did not learn to be parents themselves. Most people learn to parent by watching their own parents. Without that living example, traditional parenting skills may not be passed on. And when you take children away, many parents become depressed and lack a reason to improve their own lives. This is how these practices affect generation after generation of Native families."

**
3. Neeta Lind reply to jennybravo June 19 · 11:15:27 PM
"Completely agree. I had a conversation with another person like me whose mother was captured and raised by the government. She said she always wondered why her mom never hugged her or was affectionate or lovingly parented her. As an adult she realized why. This is tragic and affects generations after."

**
4. koNko reply to Neeta Lind June 19 · 11:48:08 PM
"This was also a common practice to emasculate and shame Chinese immigrants.

The City of San Francisco drafted a law, the Pigtail Ordinance, requiring that Chinese men arrested have their queues (pigtail braids) cut within an inch of their scalps. Although vetoed, the State of California passed a law and proliferated the practice until a Chinese immigrant, arrested for vagrancy, sued the sheriff for irreparable harm, and took it all the way to the Supreme Court, obtaining a ruling that the law violated the 14th Amendment.

Native Americans and Chinese share similar traditions and beliefs about their hair. In fact, I have often advised Western people not to touch or pet adult Chinese in an overly familiar way, as we find it an offensive overly intimate contact if not invited.1

I can imagine your mother’s distress at such a personal violation.

1 Three things my wife finds uncivilized and intolerable: bare feet on the floor, uninvited touching of her hair and a man touching her towels, chopsticks or rice bowl (typically Asian). Modern girl in other respects."

**
5. Neeta Lind replyto koNko June 20 · 12:11:02 AM
"Our hair is our memory. To remember who we are. We are not to cut it all off."

**
6. slowbutsure June 19 · 02:01:09 PM
"In the movie “Animal Proof Fence”, there was a scene of a priggish administrator played by Kenneth Branagh ripping Aboriginal children from their parents to go to boarding school for ‘their own good’. (Spoiler alert — the kids slipped away and returned home...)"

**
Clark Nova reply to slowbutsure June 19 · 02:29:13 PM
"A true story and the last of those kids died just a week ago. BTW, it’s Rabbit Proof Fence."

**
7. Meteor Blades reply to slowbutsure June 19 · 03:08:28 PM
Fantastic movie. I once labeled it “my favorite big-screen movie of American Indians”:

But that’s an Australian movie, you say? Yep. The best film of American Indians is a Down Under 2002 movie about aboriginals without a loin-cloth, smear of war paint or drop of firewater in sight. It’s the story of three young mixed-race girls who find their way home after being ripped away from their parents in 1931 by the government and trained to focus on their “white side” so they can become somebody’s servants. A few critics have complained that this based-on-a-true-story movie goes overboard in demonizing the main white character (Kenneth Branagh) and depicting most other whites of the era as deeply bigoted, morally uncourageous paternalists. What could the director have been thinking?

The American version of Rabbit-Proof Fence has been out there for the telling ever since Thomas Edison showed his “movie” Hopi Snake Dance at the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893 on the brand-new kinetoscope his staff had developed. It’s the story of how American Indian children were torn from their customs, religions, languages, tribes and parents by demons and paternalists who saw cultural genocide as the proper modern alternative to the centuries-old physical genocide that had become no longer an acceptable course of action. But of all the hundreds of movie Westerns depicting Indians, this story has failed to generate excitement among four or five generations of movie-makers. Instead, the Hollywood Indian has prevailed.

**
8. elfling June 19 · 01:14:53 PM
"The picture of the rosaries taken from asylum seekers and migrants, to be tossed in the trash, how did we get here? How can this still be a thing?

Not to mention, their ID, their cellphones, their cash, and their children!!!

That children are being taken from their parents and apparently not even with any records of who goes with whom being kept???"
-snip-
Click https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-janitors-collection-of-things-confiscated-from-migrants-in-the-desert "A Janitor Preserves the Seized Belongings of Migrants"
By Peter C. BakerMarch 12, 2017 for the above mentioned article/photos of rosaries taken from asylum seekers and migrants.

**
9. DragonflyInTheSun reply to elfling June 19 · 02:26:30 PM
"I don’t know how to stop it."

**
10. TrueBlueMajority reply to DragonflyInTheSun June 19 · 06:26:46 PM
"yes you do

keep talking about it. to everyone.

keep connecting with like minded people who will reassure you you are not crazy.

keep the pressure on elected officials."

**
11. Capuchos reply to DragonflyInTheSun June 19 · 01:38:13 PM
"According to John Sandweg, who served as acting director of ICE under the Obama administration from 2013-2014; that is a real possibility:

"You could easily end up in a situation where the gap between a parent's deportation and a child's deportation is years," Sandweg said.

As a result, parents may find themselves back in their home countries struggling to find their children. Many do not have access to legal counsel or understand the U.S. immigration or judicial systems.

Children who stay in the foster system for lengthy periods of time may become wards of the state and finally adopted.

"You could be creating thousands of immigrant orphans in the U.S. that one day could become eligible for citizenship when they are adopted," Sandweg explained.

Sandweg says he has seen permanent separation happen when a parent is deported without his or her child.

Immigration lawyers in the U.S. and Central America say many parent immigrants who have been deported are having a hard time locating their children. The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy was announced in April.

Parents are given a paper slip written in English and Spanish that explains they have been charged with a crime for entering the United States illegally and will be separated from their child while they await their court hearing.
www.nbcnews.com/..."

**
12. FJA reply to Capuchos June 19 · 02:50:04 PM
"This really messes with kids’ heads. Not just being taken away, but their sense of object constancy in relationships, identity formation. It’s a recipe for Borderline Personality Disorder down the road, which is no fun.

“Children who stay in the foster system for lengthy periods of time may become wards of the state and finally adopted.” Hundred percent — CPS or whomever will say it’s too traumatic for the child to change guardians again to go back to their parents."

**
13. maregug DragonflyInTheSun June 19 · 02:50:17 PM
Not only these children, the largely CA kids now in the concentration camps, but a whole generation of NA and FN kids are in a similar position. This tweet* really hit home...the destruction of brown families is ongoing, whether they be asylum seekers, immigrants, indigenous, or black.
-snip-
NA= Native Americans [also known as American Indians]
FN= First Nation [Canadian referent for "Native American"/"American Indians"

* This tweet: Julie S. Lalonde
‏
Verified account
@JulieSLalonde
"Canadians out here, horrified by ICE separating children at the US border but 🤷🏼‍♀️ that Canada has more Indigenous kids in foster care right now than there was in residential schools.

Cool, cool.

5:19 PM - 17 Jun 2018"

**
14. Clark Nova June 19 · 03:02:07 PM
"Here in NM, children were still being stolen from Native families (by the BIA) up til the late ‘60’s (the 1960’s, not the 1860’s but you’d hardly know it). They were adopted by / sold to White families only and the Feds pocketed the profits."
-snip-
NM = [US state: New Mexico]

BIA= Bureau of Indian Affairs

**
15. susan larson reply to Clark Nova June 19 · 05:02:59 PM
"Stopped in 1979. Some sick Howleys"

**
16. ramara June 19 · 01:13:13 PM
"It’s still being done, with foster care agencies separating Indian children, and other minority chidren, from their families, and too often with Indian children, illegally from their culture."

**
17. grumpelstillchen June 19 · 01:14:33 PM
As per my comment here*, both these “chapters” in US history are de facto acts of genocide according to the definition of said crime by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

I do not, cannot, will not ever understand why the other member states of the UN have not gone after the US for these clear and unequivocal violations of UN Conventions as perpetrated against American Indians, African Americans, and other Black/Brown peoples in this country.

Now, with this administration most likely to withdraw from any and all alliances with other “civilized” nations, it’s probably too fucking late.

Over the past 20 years, I have learned not to expect a majority of my fellow “Americans” to agree with me on this or to take any action to stop it from happening, so it doesn’t surprise me that it has come to this. But I really expected more from the other so-called “civilized” nations."
-snip-
*https://www.dailykos.com/comments/1773305/70486912#comment_70486912

**
18. proudliberal4life June 19 · 01:29:53 PM
"We are repeating a horrific historical pattern. This also used to happen with slavery, with families being broken up and sold off to the highest bidder.

This is why we fight. If we allow this to continue, what’s next?"

**
19. proudliberal4life June 19 · 02:00:30 PM
"1936 germany"

****
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