Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

January 5, 2024

Frontline Warriors on Native America Calling: Most Censored in Indian Country


Klee Benally locked down to protect Sacred San Francisco Peaks from the destruction
and sewage water snow of the tourist resort Arizona Snowbowl. Photo Save the Peaks 2011.


It was the sort of in-your-face act that people love. As a final revolutionary act, when Sac and Fox radio host Harlan McKosato left the national radio show Native America Calling, he asked for interviews with Censored News, aimed at giving voice to those that the radio station was most likely to want to silence. Klee Benally joined a great panel from the frontline and Harlan, now in the Spirit World, went out with a bang. -- Brenda, Censored News. 

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, 
Dec. 30, 2011
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Great show on Native America Calling today, which revealed the most censored Native Americans and issues of 2011.

From the Tarsands threat to the Ogallala aquifer and arrests at the White House to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline, to the lockdowns to protect San Francisco Peaks and the abuse by the US Border Patrol, Native Americans spoke out on actions largely ignored by the media this year.

Debra White Plume of Owe Aku, Bring Back the Way, spoke on the Tarsands and its threat to the land and water of Lakotas. White Plume is a longtime activist and grandmother who has also led the fight against uranium mining on Lakota Lands.


Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, speaks on the Great Law and the foundation for the struggle for Mohawks.

Klee Benally, Navajo activist and member of the Blackfire family band, speaks eloquently on the need for independent Indigenous media and the fight to protect sacred lands. Klee chained himself to equipment on Sacred San Francisco Peaks to halt the destruction by the Arizona Snowbowl tourist resort.

Ofelia Rivas, founder of the O'odham VOICE against the Wall and co-chair of the Indigenous Peoples Working Group at the Cochabamba, Bolivia, climate summit, describes the militarization of the Tohono O'odham homeland, abuse by the US Border Patrol and the new US spy towers planned for O'odham land.

Jeneda Benally, Navajo and member of Blackfire spoke of the Save the Peaks efforts and the upcoming federal court case in San Francisco to protect the Peaks from snow made from sewage water by Arizona Snowbowl. A prayer vigil will be held at 9:30a.m. on Jan. 9, 2012, at the James R. Browning US Courthouse Ninth Circuit at 95 7th Street.

Kandi Mossett, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara, describes the destruction from fracking to her homeland in North Dakota.

As one caller said, "These are the frontline warriors."

Listen to the show with host Harlan McKosato, Sac and Fox, on Native America Calling: Select 2011/December on Native America Calling website, then scroll down the list to Dec. 30 and click to listen.

http://www.nativeamericacalling.com

Previous article:

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Native America Calling will host the most censored Native American newsmakers of 2011 on Friday, Dec. 30. Guests will include the Censored News Person of the Year: The Indigenous Woman.

Debra White Plume, Lakota from Pine Ridge, S.D., who fought the Tarsands Keystone XL pipeline this year, will be among the guests on the live radio show hosted by Harlan McKosato, Sac and Fox. 

White Plume, activist and grandmother, was among those arrested at the White House in September and also fights uranium mining on Lakota lands.

Klee Benally, Navajo, is also a featured guest. The protests to protect sacred San Francisco Peaks in Arizona, and the lockdowns to heavy equipment, were the most accessed articles at Censored News in 2011. Native photographers, Youths of the Peaks, provided Censored News with photos of the lockdowns and protests as those happened.

Native American women continue to take the lead in their home communities in the struggle for justice, from Ofelia Rivas, on O'odham lands, to Louise Benally at Big Mountain on Navajoland, to Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News.

In the news this year, Wikileaks exposed US spying on Indigenous Peoples from Mapuche in South America to the Mohawks in Canada.

Further, Wikileaks exposed the role of the US in promoting mining while Indigenous Peoples were dying to protect their lands in Peru. Both Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales were targets of US State Department spying.

In the US, hacktivists Anonymous exposed Arizona police files revealing white supremacists and off duty Marines patrolling the Arizona border with assault weapons. Meanwhile, the militarization of the border continues, with drones overhead, and Border Patrol agents abusing Indian people in their homelands.

In the original, breaking news category, Censored News published a diagram of the new $1.5 billion spy towers being planned for the Tohono O'odham Nation, following the boondoggle of the previous $1 billion spy towers on the Arizona border that didn't work.

Censored News also published an Attorney General report showing that Project Gunrunner began in 2005 in Texas under the Bush administration. An ATF brochure of assault weapons of Project Gunrunner in 2008 that were allowed to "walk" to drug cartels in Mexico, was also published. It was exposed when Lulzsec hacked the Arizona police files.

The US/Mexico border series at Censored News followed the Protect the Peaks articles and was the second most accessed group of articles this year.

Throughout Indigenous lands in the Americas, Indian people continue to fight the environmental genocide of coal-fired power plants, uranium mining, silver and gold mining, and oil and gas drilling. Wikaritari (Huicholes) battle silver mining on their sacred lands in Mexico. On the Blood Reserve in Canada, women stood in front of oil and gas trucks to stop the destruction.

Throughout Indian lands, the battle continues for clean drinking water, the protection of the aquifers and to halt the theft of Indian water rights.

In the US, Northern Paiute Wesley Dick, Kwassuh, led a battle against the Nevada Game and Fish Department and won, after he was charged while gathering (tules) cattails for traditional crafts.

In Phoenix in November, Navajo and O'odham led protests against ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, corporate profiteers coopting the state legislature. Private prison profiteers, who pack their jails with migrants, American Indians and other people of color, are among them.

The ALEC protests included an action at the Salt River Project, which operates one of the Navajo Nation's three coal-fired power plants. The protesters were pepper sprayed by police at the Scottsdale resort where the conference was held. O'odham veteran David Ortega was hospitalized.

Racism continued, from violent beatings of Indian people by white supremacists, to the censorship of their voices in the newsrooms.

Join us on Friday, Dec. 30, 2011. Listen online at http://www.nativeamericacalling.com 
1 pm Eastern; noon Central; 11 am Mountain; 10 am Pacific.

Top stories 2011:

#1: Locked Down: Protest halts destruction on San Francisco Peaks
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/06/locked-down-protest-halts-snowbowl.html
#2: Lakotas to Diane Sawyer: Let Lakotas tell their story
Updated with video from Lakota teens: ‘We are more than that’
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/10/lakotas-to-diane-sawyer-let-lakotas.html
#3: Hacked data reveals US Marines as contract killers
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/06/hacked-data-reveals-us-marines-contract.html
#4: Video: Who shot Scott Olsen at Occupy Oakland?
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/10/video-who-shot-scott-olsen-at-occupy.html
#5: Neo Nazis and militia show up armed at Occupy Phoenix
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/10/neo-nazis-show-up-armed-to-counter.html
#6: Video: Police beating Berkeley students, young women:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/11/video-police-beating-berkeley-students.html
#7: Tucson: Hackers reveal data targeting ethnic studies
School cop reports ethnic studies
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/06/tucson-hackers-reveal-data-targeting.html
#8: Flagstaff police attack and arrest Protect the Peaks marchers
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/06/tucson-hackers-reveal-data-targeting.html
Top story now:
Anonymous on a holiday roll with Stratfor and the hashtag subpoena:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/anonymous-on-holiday-roll-with-stratfor.html
Top stories in December:
Censored News Person of the Year: The Indigenous Woman:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/censored-news-person-of-year-indigenous.html
Obama’s nearly secret meeting with Native American leaders:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/11/obamas-nearly-secret-meeting-with.html
O’odham Pepper Sprayed in ALEC protest
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/11/oodham-pepper-sprayed-in-phoenix-alec.html
Censored Person of the Year: The Indigenous Woman
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/censored-news-person-of-year-indigenous.html
Navajo Louise Benally upstages Obama
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/arizona-navajo-louise-benally-upstages.html
Ute Tribe urges investigation of Maori pepper sprayed by police
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/censored-news-top-stories-for-2011.html
De-Occupy O'odham Lands: In Defense of the Land and Peoples
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/de-occupy-oodham-lands-in-defense-of.html
Washington: Native Leaders to Obama: 'NO' to Tarsands Pipeline:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/washington-lakota-leaders-to-obama-no.html
The American Indian Genocide Museum: The Confederate Flag, Buffalo Soliders at Wounded Knee and Clarifying History
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/washington-lakota-leaders-to-obama-no.html

Brenda Norrell has been a reporter in Indian country since 1982. During the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation, she reported for Navajo Times, Associated Press and USA Today. After serving as a longtime staff reporter for Indian Country Today, she was censored, then terminated, and created Censored News, in 2006.

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