Tag: Native Americans

CNN Cuts Ties With Contributor Rick Santorum

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CNN is parting ways with contributor Rick Santorum, the former Republican Senator and presidential candidate who has come under fire for remarks he made last month about Native American culture.

Speaking to an audience last month at an event organized by Young America’s Foundation, Santorum suggested Native American people had little influence on U.S. culture. “We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here,” he told a gathering of students. “I mean, yes, we have Native Americans, but candidly, there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.”

The comments drew criticism from groups like the National Congress of American Indians. Santorum didn’t help matters when he appeared on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” and declined to apologize for the remarks or how they were interpreted, simply telling the anchor they were taken out of context. CNN confirmed a previous report in The Huffington Post revealing that the politician and the network were cutting ties. Santorum was first named a CNN contributor in 2017. Continue reading.

In Rick Santorum’s simplified version of American history, Native Americans are a footnote

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An underrecognized component of the presidency is the frequency with which presidents issue statements about arcane subjects. Most weeks and months are at some point designated as awareness months for various causes; many international events trigger formal responses that generally evade the American public’s attention.

On Saturday, though, the Biden administration issued a statement that actually raised some interest. In an annual statement about Armenian Remembrance Day, President Biden’s team inserted one controversial word: genocide.

“Each year on this day,” Biden’s 2021 statement read, “we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring.” Compare that with the phrasing in 2016, when Biden was vice president: “Today we solemnly reflect on the first mass atrocity of the 20th century — the Armenian Meds Yeghern — when one and a half million Armenian people were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman empire.” Continue reading.

Minnesota House of Representatives to host Sovereignty Day, hear presentations from tribal leaders

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — The Minnesota House of Representatives will hold Sovereignty Day at the Capitol on Monday, February 18, 2019. Sovereignty Day at the Capitol is an educational event for members of the Minnesota House of Representatives that will include tribal history and culture, sovereignty, and the interplay between federal, state, and tribal law. This event will include the leaders of the eleven federally-recognized sovereign nations in Minnesota and Minnesota House members. A portion of the gallery will open to the public on this day as well as a public viewing room in Capitol 120.

Members of the press will be allowed in the House Gallery (West Section) and the chamber alcoves. Video cameras are only allowed in the gallery. Interview requests for tribal leaders can be requested through the respective tribes.

WHO:  Members of the Minnesota House of Representatives, Minnesota’s tribal nations, Lieutenant
WHAT:  Sovereignty Day at the Capitol
WHERE:  Minnesota House of Representatives – House Chamber; Minnesota State Capitol, 75 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, St. Paul, MN 55155
WHEN:  9:00 am – 4:30 pm, Monday, February 18, 2019.

Agenda

9:00 am – 9:10 am — Gavel in Session, Recess, Pledge, Prayer

9:10 am-9:40 am — Drum Group, Flag procession, Convocation

9:40 am – 10:10 am — Welcome & Introductions from Tribal Leaders

10:10 am – 12:00 pm — Presentations

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm — Lunch

1:30 pm – 2:00 pm — Presentation/Q & A from Members

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm — Tribal Leaders Panel

Discussion of issues of interest to the tribal nations, pending legislation, government to government relations, working with the legislature, sovereignty

3:00 pm – 3:15 pm — Drum closing and final remarks

3:15 pm – 3:30 pm — Closing and Gavel out Session

3:30 pm – 4:30 pm — Reception in Capitol Vault Room (tunnel level of Capitol)

Trump and the White House don’t acknowledge Native Americans in push not to ‘erase’ Columbus’s legacy

The following article by Eugene Scott was posted on the Washington Post website October 9, 2017:

A member of the Dakota Nation (Sioux) tribe arrives at the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples outside the United Nations in Manhattan in 2013. (Adrees Latifs/Reuters)

A growing number of Americans are rethinking how they should talk about Italian explorer Christopher Columbus on the October day designated to honor his voyage. But the Trump campaign is not joining them.

Instead, the campaign is doubling down on honoring the colonizer who is increasingly being scrutinized for his mistreatment of Native Americans and African slaves.

The president’s reelection campaign is having a Columbus Day sale to allow customers supportive of the navigator’s voyage (which did not make it to what is now the United States of America) to purchase the “Make America Great Again” merchandise of their choice for a discounted price. Continue reading “Trump and the White House don’t acknowledge Native Americans in push not to ‘erase’ Columbus’s legacy”