https://archive.md/sb3lM
"ONAMIA, Minn. — One after another, the survivors rose, shaking, often in
tears, some singing or chanting to share their stories of childhood horror.
“I will grieve with you. I will weep with you. I will feel your pain, as we
mourn what was lost,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, sitting before them
in the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe community gym last month.
An enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna, Haaland is the first Native person
to serve as a Cabinet secretary, leading a department that oversees a fifth of
U.S. land and was long charged with the systematic removal of Indigenous people
from their tribal homelands.
“You have done more for Indian Country than any secretary who came before you.
Others before you have tried to whitewash the history of war crimes against our
people,” Mille Lacs Band Chief Executive Melanie Benjamin told her, addressing
an audience of about 150 before a Road to Healing event in June addressing the
brutal legacy of Indian boarding schools.
Haaland keeps her hair long, true to Indigenous custom. Native jewelry is a
constant — thick silver necklaces, shoulder-sweeping earrings. She was sworn in
wearing a Native ribbon skirt, and her office doubles as a gallery of
Indigenous art and artifacts. By comparison, Donald Trump’s first interior
secretary, Ryan Zinke, arrived his first day astride a bay roan named Tonto and
filled the same room with a surfeit of taxidermy.
“Representation matters, not only representation mattering for Indigenous
people, but also for people who are just everyday Americans,” she said over
coffee before the Ojibwe meeting last month. “I’m feeling like I represent
those people, too, right?”
The 54th secretary of the interior and only the third woman to serve, Haaland
possesses a biography familiar to many Americans. She has been a single mother
who at times has been on food stamps, in forbearance and without housing,
crashing on friends’ couches.
“I know what it’s like to have $5 in your checking account,” she said. “I know
what it’s like to decide between paying the rent or, you know, buying groceries
for my child.”"
Via
Future Crunch:
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-clean-energy-aids-big-cats-africa/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
