Dominate Culture as a Culture of Violence

A Mother’s Kinaaldà Prayer
The child, a sacred being
whom we have been entrusted with
now herself is Changing Woman
The years of my journey on Earth Mother
to nurture her, she now begins as a woman
as I speak to the Holy Ones, I am centered
my thoughts are focused, well organized,
good thoughts for her coming of age as
She welcomes the change in her body, mind and
spirit
as she evolves into a flower of blossom for the
world to witness, behold, and honor,
she will carry her clanship into eternity
Be it her essence as she glories in the yearning
in her being, as she begins to see the universe in
a
different light, she walks lightly and gently as
not to disturb the beauty of life, the kindred spirit
she feels for her relatives of all walks, the creatures….
Now, at this time, she feels the core of who
she is, the spirit of the fire, the spirit of the water,
the spirit of the air, and she is the heartbeat of
the Earth Mother, they are one
We join her to embrace ourselves
she has always belonged, not to us,
but to the Way of Life, she is blessed
by the ancestral spirits,
the chants have beckoned them
And someday, she will be prepared and
when she is ready, in maturation, she, too,
will bring forth sacred beings to cherish
She will continue the Way of Life
-Shea Good luck


Tonight I went to a video screening and discussion of a film documentary: Listen to the Grandmothers, sponsored by The Humboldt County Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, Two Feathers Native American Family Services and Ink People Center for the Arts, and supported by Humboldt Domestic Violence Services and North Coast Rape Crisis. The video was created to help share the lessons and stories of elders as well as too help tribal governments and communities improve their support system and ground their methods and techniques of supporting and protecting women in their cultural traditions by better understanding violence against Native Women, from both traditional responses to violence as well as a cultural perspective. The video supported the response and awareness needed for survivors, advocates, tribal leaders, elders, health care workers, law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges.

It is something in our blood
It is something in our song
It is something in our soul
That makes Native Women strong
-Jayci Malone, Stockbridge,-Munsee Band of Mohicans

-Calvin Morrisseau, Ojibwe
(Anderson 2000)

For me, the film was a great reminder of women’s strength and wisdom, and that somewhere along the way, the value and respect women had has been lost. What happened to the “sacred woman?” It reminded me of the strength and importance women carry in raising a family, and how that role and those values seem to be lost. The video mentioned a few ways in which the value of women as the leaders of their communities has shifted. Reflections of this shift are due in part to both colonialism and the Native boarding school era. The genocide and oppression Natives have experienced has not only reminded me of the need of cultural values to be honored and remembered, but it has also shifted my awareness of the change in people’s relationship to alcohol, drugs, domestic violence, child abuse, mortality, depression, and suicide (this list is not exhausted by all means). Violence has real affects on the lives of children and their children’s children, and what does keeping them safe really mean? Something that was powerful for me in the video was something along the lines of hands and bodies are sacred, and were not mean to be violent. How can we as people, be responsible for our actions? How can we instill equality for women, men, and children?

“Many of the practices from the past cannot address current problems. However,
if the values attached to those practices could be reclaimed and new practices
built upon them, then it could work. For example, if the value of respect for elders
could be taught to young people in effective ways, then the knowledge of the elders
could inform youthful behavior in ways which would be acceptable to both.”
-Joan Ryan (1995)
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Calgary and
Senior researcher with the Arctic Institute of North America


The poem, quotes, and some of the information regarding this entry come from the following source:http://www.tribal-institute.org/download/Listen_to_Grandmothers_Video_Guide_%20June08.pdf

Community Organizing

"Raindrops are quite small, you know, but when enough of them gather, they just might change your day." Raindrops~Lama Drimed

As I sit in my community work course every week, and read the text from our “Community Practice” book I question what it really means to do community work. Thus far our course assignments and class discussions have only given me a very small glimpse of ways in which to see or do community activism, mostly which consist of cyber assignments. I am still seeking tangible or relevant examples of what community work looks like in my own community, or further developing my practical skills in application of community organizing. As my classmates bantered back in forth in class last week on how to go about organizing and uploading a class assignment of adding a class definition to Wikipedia, it downed on me that my course work in my undergraduate degree provided me with exactly what I felt had been missing in this course. I instantly reflected back on my own experiences of what I think a piece of community work could look like. For my senior project in my undergraduate studies, I organized a Take Back the Night rally and candle light vigil for my community of Prescott, Az. As I thought about the achievement I had accomplished many years ago, I slowly began to remember all the pieces that came together to organize this event. Although my experience of community work is not reflective or representational of an agency, or organization, nor of service delivery or client contact, it was providing a voice to often silent experiences of discrimination and oppression.

In order to graduate, we are asked to design a senior project that demonstrated our depth, understanding, and proficiency in our chosen field of study. I had designed my own competency studies in human development with an emphasis in gender studies, and I knew I wanted a hands-on project that would involve and give back to my community. I remember brain-storming with my faculty advisor, and came up with the idea to bridge my interests in gender studies with a community outreach project. A take Back the Night event used to take place in Prescott many years prior, but no one had continued to organize this event. Fortunately during the same semester that I was putting together my senior project, I was also taking a Women’s Psychology course taught by my advisor. We decided that one of the course assignments would be to help me organize this project. I facilitated tasks that I needed assistance in making this project happen, and worked with my classmates in getting them done. I put together student committees to help me, which included: getting food donations for a reception after the event, deigning and printing t-shirt logo, gathering musicians and speakers, organizing the candle light vigil and ceremony at the end, and assisting in flyer distribution and advertisement.

I saw a need to bring awareness to the community about violence and oppression against women. I began to gather information and research what other communities have done to organize this kind of event, as well as researching issues and work done around violence, and sexualized violence against women and children. I also began to build a resources list of community partners that may be interested in supporting the event, or by tabling a booth to represent their resources/services in the community. I made phone calls, sent out letters, met with individuals, and held a community meeting to discuss ideas and concerns. The main concern that came up in one of the meetings was providing support services for individuals who attend the event and may experience triggering events or thoughts of their own experiences surrounding sexualized violence. Counselors at school and community providers offered to be available if needed.

I remember that I also put together a small grant proposal to the student union counsel at my school requesting funding for my project, which was granted. I had a vision to make t-shirts for the event, and to sell them and donate the profits to the local domestic violence shelter as another way to give back to the community. In the end, I was able to donate over $500 to the shelter.

As the keynote speaker, musicians, poets, etc came together, other logistical and safety considerations that were brought to my attention. I needed to obtain and pay for a permit to hold the vent on our town square, and I also need to notify law enforcement.Eventually it all came together, and the vent took place late April.

Part of my intention and goal for this senior project, besides bringing more awareness around issues of violence, was to produce a binder of resources and how-to’s on putting on this event that I could leave with the school after I graduated, in hopes that other students or classes would take on this project annually.As far as I know, the Psychology of Women's course now organizes this event annually.

Columbus Day or Indiginous People's Week?

Today, October 12, many people celebrate Columbus Day. Remember the old elementary school saying that we were taught as children "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue?" He was said to be the first to discover North America in 1492, but instead Columbus essentially initiated the European colonization of the "new world," which was already inhabited by Indigenous People, but is not what was taught in grade school. So today instead of celebrating the discovery of my country, I reflect back on the genocide of the Indigenous People, and honor them for their courage and continual efforts to end oppression.

Amy Goodman, on Democracy Now, interviewed singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie, an activist in the American Indian Movement. Check out what she has to say and sing about Native American genocide, oppression, colonization, and assimilation.



Also an interesting video clip from the documentary film, the Canary Effect: Kill the Indian, Save the Man is below.

Capitalism: A Love Story

"Without a you, without a me, how else could it be." Raindrops~Lama Drimed

A few weeks ago I went and saw Michael Moore's newest film documentary, Capitalism: a Love Story. The film depicts our current financial crisis, and the recovery stimulus, all the while critiquing what capitalism really means in this democratic society. Typical of Moore's films, chock value of appalling footage is at the forefront of providing case examples of the corrupt and money driven world we live in. For those who haven't seen it, I encourage you to check it out. Below is a short clip of the documentary.

“The Deadly Choices at Memorial”

"The human condition-according to the sixteenth-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, each one of us carries the full burden of the human condition. All that we see in others-both the darkness and the light-is also present in ourselves." 1,001 Meditations~Mike George


A few weeks back I was listening to Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. The show was discussing past events that took place after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005, specifically about the deadly choices that were made at Memorial Medical Center. The clip painted a vivid picture of not only the hospital working conditions, but what the doctors, nurses and patients faced after the hurricane. The main piece of the show was interviewing Sherri Fink, a reporter for ProPublica, and a doctor, who spent the last two-and-a-half-years investigating the many human tragedies that occurred in the aftermath of the storm. To gain a richer understanding, I also read her article, “The Deadly Choices at Memorial: Strained by Katrina, A Hospital Faced Deadly Choices,” a 13,000-word article that illustrates the full story of what really happened to some of the patients at Memorial. The article made the cover of New York Times Sunday Magazine published August 30, 2009, four years after Katrina.
Both the article and interview on Democracy Now made the following points:
• Thousands of people lost their lives in the actual hurricane and in the subsequent floods. In all, 45 of those people were patients at Memorial hospital, who all died within days after the storm, 9 of which went under investigation as potential victims, 4 of which were concluded as homicide.
• On the morning of Aug 29th 2005 the hospital overall took the hit well, the backup power generator was working. Over 2,000 people were inside the hospital when Katrina hit, about 200 patients and 600 workers. On Tuesday, the water started to rise, and the temperature began to rise above 100 degrees. 48 hours after Katrina hit the generators went out.
• Mandatory evacuation was given to everyone in New Orleans except those in the hospitals.
• They needed to get the patients out, so they began to triage (a word from the army) patients, and gave them each numbers 1, 2, 3’s. 1’s being the first evacuated out. Their initial decision was to evacuate babies in neonatal care, pregnant mothers, and critical I.C.U patients first.
• All D.N.R. (Do Not Resuscitate) patients were scheduled to go last. (DNR is almost always signed by a doctor with informed patient consent, and means a patient whose heartbeat or breathing has stopped will not be revived. This is different than a living will). Dr. Deichman said in an interview that D.N.R. patients most likely had terminal or irreversible conditions, and he believed they should be evacuated last because they had the “least to lose.”
• Nurses and doctors worked days none-stop with very little sleep and under very stressful conditions. Many used manual ventilators to assist patients in breathing once the power went out.
• LifeCare Hospital of New Orleans rented the 7th floor of Memorial, and their goal was to assist long term acute patients until they improved enough to return home or to a nursing facility. Many of the 52 patients at LifeCare were on ventilators and were bed-bound. When the power went out, their conditions decreased rapidly.
• Anna Pou, a 49 year-old head and neck cancer surgeon, who was said to have a very strong work ethic and liked by many of her patients was put at the forefront of investigation into the deaths of patients at Memorial. She pleaded “I am not murderer, we are not murderers.”
• Did the doctors, primarily Dr. Pou work in good faith? She claimed she was “helping her patients through their pain.”
• Decisions were made to inject morphine and midazolam into patients, 17 total, 9 of which were on the seventh floor, 4 of which were later concluded as homicide. Emmett Everette, who was alert throughout, said “I’m ready to rock and roll” when people around were talking about evacuation, but because of a spinal cord injury which left him paraplegic, and possibly because he weighed 300+ lbs (although other people over 300 lbs were evacuated out of the hospital) drugs (morphine and midazolam) were used to “ease” his pain.
• Dr. Cook, a week into an administrator position at Memorial, pronounced a patient dead and left the time blank as he directed a nurse to increase the pain killers and walked away. In an interview, Cook said “To me, it was a no-brainer, and to this day I don’t feel bad about what I did. I gave her medicine so I could get rid of her faster, get the nurses off the floor…there is no question I hastened her demise.”
• New Orleans grand jury did not indict Pou and the two nurses associated with second degree murder. The case has been closed and will not reopen for investigation.
Why is important to Social work; The social justice slant:
• What kind of disaster preparedness do we have? Is it a failure of government that doctors and nurses are put into these situations?
• Poe asked this question in national conference of hospital disaster planning, “how long should health care workers have to be with their patients who may not survive?”
• Fink (news investigator) asked these questions in her article: “Which patients get limited care, and who decides? Where is the line between appropriate care and mercy killing?
• Is what happened at Memorial ethical or is it illegal?
• Also mentioned were the issues/concerns of euthanasia (assisted suicide)?
• Tracy Washington (a civil rights attorney), also interviewed on Democracy Now, noted that recovery in New Orleans was based on promises and not based on rights. She mentioned Charity Public Hospital, a teaching hospital, which was hit by the storm, is still not reopened, and that it was the best trauma one facility in the area. After Katrina, it was cleaned out and prepared to take in patients and was put into “surgery ready” condition. The state of Louisiana said that they could get money from federal government to repair the hospital, but due to lack of coordination between the state and federal government, the hospital is still closed. She also mentioned inadequate mental health services after Katrina. She said if you have a mental health crisis, the only place to go is Parish Prison, where you can be locked up for 30 day. She brought up issues of race and class status pertaining to housing. She said the most marginalized people, Blacks and Hispanics, are having difficulty returning home. They got a one-way ticket and no way of affording to get back. She said, “It affects this community, it affects how we live and it affects the color of this community.” Has the recovery plan of New Orleans failed to include comprehensive health and mental health services?
• Also on Democracy Now activist Rebecca Solnit, who studies disaster sociology, made a powerful point that amidst the chaos of disaster, a sense of community was built. She wrote a book called A Paradise Built in hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. She wonders how did they come together? Improvised communities were built up all over New Orleans yet the media framed a picture savageness and fear amongst people. A sense of joy in helping each other was achieved but not talked about. Normal roles and boundaries were removed, and people had to make strong decisions to take care of each other, really people came together. The truth is that the majority of people were altruistic, generous and heroic. They displayed courage.
As I reflect back on my own training as a certified EMT and Wilderness First Responder, and soon to be social worker, I wonder what decisions I would have made under those same conditions. Has anyone trained or actually done CPR for more than two minutes? It gets very tiring fast. What values do we as a sociality hold against the sick and ageing? As a social worker, what social justice ethics does this bring up? What policies can we lobby for to protect ALL people in future natural disasters? What inequalities and injustices were made against people of color and low economic status? How can we take the ideas of building healthy and positive communities and put them into practice not only after disaster strikes? These questions came to me as I read and listened to the stories told about the decisions made Memorial Hospital. I don’t necessarily have the answers, it just brings up so much, but find it important to consider when talking about human rights.

References
Fink, S. (2009) Strained By Katrina, a Hospital Faced Deadly Choices. New York Times Magazine. Retrieved 9/8/09: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30doctors.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=%93T e%20Deadly%20Choices%20at%20Memorial%94%96Investigation%20of%20New%2 Orleans%20Hospital%20Tells%20Story%20of%20How%20Medical%20Staff%20Euth nized%20Patients%20in%20Katrina%20Aftermath&st=cse
Goodman, Amy (August 31, 2009). Democracy Now: The War and Peace Report (Radio Broadcast). Pacifica Public Broadcast.