Legend an inspiration for the push back [editorial]

It’s an unusual thing to ask of readers, but we’re going to do it anyway. Turn to the final page of editorial in this paper—the footprints page—and read this article first. The story on this page every month deals with a person who has passed away who has created a path forward for us, or broke trail, or provided us an example. This month’s story is about militant activist Russell Means who passed away on Oct. 21.

Means was a controversial figure, especially for his time, but what struck us about this recount of his life is that despite his efforts, and they were at times extreme, we are still fighting the same battles as he did some 40 years ago. It would be discouraging to think that we haven’t made any gains over all that time. We have. Still, we have to acknowledge that the larger war continues to rage on.

The footprints article on Means quotes a poem by Birgil Kills Straight. He writes, the American Indian Movement that Means led grew from the “dark violence of police brutality and voiceless despair of Indian people.” In this issue of Windspeaker, readers will find a story about yet another Indian man who suffered badly while in police custody, so we can add Robert Wright’s name to that ever growing list that represents the brutality that Aboriginal people still face when dealing with Canada’s police authorities.

“We want to see how a man, kneeling down, surrounded by police, in handcuffs, presents such a threat to three police officers that he must be ‘taken’ to the ground causing a terrible head wound,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip in calling for the release of video evidence from the night in cells where Wright suffered a brain injury.

Yes, we think that evidence should be made public too… We believe it will be just as enlightening as the footage of the disgusting treatment of Frank Paul in 1998, where Vancouver police dragged the drunken Native man out to a police wagon and then abandoned him in an alley in sub-zero temperatures where he later died of hypothermia

Another name to add to that list is Alexus Young. She is a two-spirited transgendered person who was fortunate to survive a starlight tour that the Saskatchewan police became so famous for after the death of Neil Stonechild and others.

That list is a very long one, and despite all reason, every inquiry and investigation into each incident, there remains this dangerous treatment of our people at the hands of police.

Dark violence, indeed.

And before we went to press, three BC human rights organizations released a report critical of the Missing Women’s Inquiry headed up by Wally Oppal in BC. The report said the inquiry, which will soon release its own report, excluded the voices of marginalized women from the Downtown Eastside.

“Every day that this inquiry went on, you saw Aboriginal women outside on the street protesting, not inside the inquiry testifying,” said Lindsay Lyster, president of the BC Civil Liberties Association.
“Our voices were not being heard. No one was listening to us once again. Just like when my cousin went missing, you saw it all over again,” said Lorelei Williams. Her cousin’s DNA was found on serial killer Willie Pickton’s farm and her aunt went missing in the mid-1970s and was never found.

“The biggest error is not listening to the people,” said another family member of one of the missing women.
Voiceless despair, still.

Aboriginal people, having access to a wide variety of new tools to combat the assaults on our sovereignty, our title and our rights, assaults on our very existence as Indigenous people, are showing that, for their part, they are still willing to fight for what they believe to be right, just as Russell Means did back in the 1970s.
It’s a far more sophisticated fight today, but a fight nonetheless.

And as we watch the activism from coast to coast, it’s like watching a fireworks display lighting up the sky over Canada… a burst of fire and color here, flares and fountains, Roman candles and whistling rockets, raining down over the countryside.

Not sure if Means would approve of the tactics being employed, but his memory will remain an inspiration for what is to come. And if there is no change to the way our people are being treated today, then more to come is what Canada can expect.

Windspeaker

Read the Russell Means Footprints biography: http://www.ammsa.com/publications/windspeaker/russell-means-footprints