Celebrating Hellraisers: Winona LaDuke
In 1982, after graduating from Harvard with a degree in native economic development, Winona LaDuke packed her bags and moved to White Earth, the ancestral lands of the Anishinabeg (Ojibwe) people, located in a poor rural county of northern Minnesota. "The thing about being an Indian person," explains LaDuke, who grew up on the West Coast with her Anishinabekwe father and Jewish mother, "is that you feel most at home with your own people."
LaDuke took a job as principal of the local reservation high school, but quickly found herself involved with a lawsuit to recover lands promised to the Anishinabeg people by an 1867 federal treaty. When the case was dismissed four years later, she founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project to continue efforts to regain lost lands. Over 90 percent of the original 837,000 acres are in the hands of non-Indians. Using grants and a $20,000 human rights prize from Reebok, the group so far has bought back 1,000 acres and hopes to acquire 30,000 more in the next 15 years.
Still, LaDuke, 36, has encountered local resistance. When people from the Land Recovery Project recently blockaded a lumber truck used in clear-cutting, the tribal council let the driver use reservation roads to get out.
Although the tribal chairman and two other tribal officials are now facing 44 separate federal indictments for election fraud, mail fraud, embezzlement, and bribery, LaDuke doesn't ignore them. "I need to deal with them because it affects other people where I live." It's the same with the power structure in any community, she says. "You've got to take them on and change them. You've also got to build an alternative to show people."
What keeps her going, in part, is the intergenerational nature of Native American organizing. "We tell our stories to the children. It's incumbent on us to offer oral history because no one else will," says LaDuke, the mother of two. "We make sure the kids are part of everything. In most of America, it seems you don't matter if you're not between 25 and 50."
Traditional Anishinabekwe religion is LaDuke's other source of power and sustenance. "Spirituality is the foundation of all my political work. In many of the progressive movements in this country, religion carries a lot of baggage. But I think that's changing. You can't dismiss the significance of Eastern religions, earth-based religions, and Western religions on political work today. What we all need to do is find the wellspring that keeps us going, that gives us the strength and patience to keep up this struggle for a long time."
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This HALF native american has no room to preach. Some of the battles she fightes should be her own inner ones. Walking though a forest, with a tin can and a large stick is not effective.
ANTI WHITE STATEMENTS!!! wow. That is evolved...lol Being that your jewish, makes you feel you are entitiled to say such things? I hope your next incarnation you are 100% white. IF it wasnt for white people, you would not have gotten a full ride to harvard.. lol
You were quoted to say this:"We make sure the kids are part of everything. In most of America, it seems you don't matter if you're not between 25 and 50." ... hmmm...I dont know where you have been, but i think you a bit out- dated in information. In fact, I think children get way more attention then elders do these days...and the lack of respect for elders is sickning. You are out of touch with how America is.
ANTI NATIVE STATEMENTS WOW!! Obviously, this hater, heckler, agent, is a real bloodline nazi's, and this is obviously the same guy e-mailing 3 different times. You dont know her, our culture, or our struggle,since you are likely a decendent to indian rapists, and murderers, maybe you should re-evaluate your poisoness thinking which has lead to this disrespectful nations cleansing, not the new world order either, you guys are real cold blooded reptiles, who cant even move without father Sun. Winona speaks some truth, i dont agree with everything she says, but maybe you are too amerikan to get it Lol. Or, are you too illuminati, so what if Your murderous,raping, genocidal maniac grandfathers created this reality, and by you taking no responsability to change this energy, you are no different! Dont get all worked up because natives have organized, and have infiltrated your babylonian weapons of mass education, media, politricks, everything to un-create amerika! You guys are really slippin, we are here as warriors of many colors, in a peaceful way, but a force never to be reckoned with! You guys have no medicine, and your new world order will only last a few months, and then, well, here come all the Condor people from the south to assist turtle islanders and all races to be victorious in the last battle against these space invaders! You have plans, we have PROPHECY! Like it or not,the light will overcome....your luciferion reptilian bloodline is done, locked into this dimension for a long time Lol. Lol. Dont ever forget about us,and think you killed us off, we are more in numbers than your guns and biological warfare can take on. the indigenous people of the western hemishere(Alaska, canada, mexico, cental, south america, and all over earth) Are all on the steps of this nation, we were civilized, the true enlightened ones, your ancestors, still our relatives, but just a little different, your ancestors were still in caves buddy...get real! I am half white as well, and maybe i would know something about my Euro blood, if they themselves actually knew anything about there history, its lost! Stealing knowledge, land, through religion and milatary, and goverment, isnt exactly the same as what you think....its genocide, and karma is here!
"We dident cross the borders, the borders crossed us"
"Turtle island.....HO!"
Peace, moloch, your owl is falling apart, go home, to the starbelt you came from, we are children of earth!
The half-wit that posted the first three comments needs to take an American History course. Native Americans inhabited this soil LONG before white Europeans set foot on it, and demanded ownership of it. And you should be a little more original than to post 3 derogatory statements under names that are so closely related if you want other people to believe that there are 3 morons who read this article, instead of only one.
Actually, that individual
Actually, that individual most likely did take an American History course--that's the problem. Its not the uneducated that are causing our country's problems; its those who have enjoyed the privileges of a liberal education and hence have learned what is proper and what is not.
to all who submit commentary...realize that despite our best intentions, passions with a negative commentary only hurt the cause of "good". Let's all try to see the positives in each others passions, and leave the rest to our own thoughts to work through. People who respond with anti anything are doing so out of fear. Lets just send them love and not add fuel to their fire. "Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice." Lets help those who can't see, to see. With love, not anger. Amen.
In my native language I say this to the sacred Ruru (Owl Spirit) kei a koe tou tika! (this means each to their own 'truth') The Owl as harbinger of Great signs from the Creator has given into you an expression of most Kuare (the ignorant) to overcome me whakamarama koe (seek understanding with a peaceful heart). Nothing good comes of living out of alignment between heart, head and mouth. Hating serves no one especially the dispenser. Aroha ki a koe e kare (love the Creator sprinkle Love upon your being).
Other than that, nga mihi mahana ki oku whanaunga (A great big Native hullo and greetings to our Red brothers and sisters keeping our Mother from needless suffering from real estate terrorism, unchecked greed and arrogant truckloads of me! me! me! political masturbation. For those of our White sisters and brothers who this does not refer to; I bid you all greetings and good tidings.
Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui Winona and the many tireless Keepers of the Way of Balance - we are all with you praying every moment for the Mauri Ora (Life force Well being) of our Dear Mother Earth to be freed simply...to be...as we her descendants also strive to recover what has been stolen at the point of big guns and angry mobs lost and fearful. A perfect recipe for fanaticism in many guises. If we base our lives on what we are prepared to find out...and we remain ignorant of our Sacred World relationships...than so shall we reap!!! Profit bottom lines define Nations of Takers. Consider what defines Nations of Givers, in whom abundance-infused respect is a bottomless ocean. Balance is the distance any of us is prepared to travel to inhabit this duality at its nexus committed to its sustenance. Is that you? Kia ora ano; be well and live long ...my enemy....my friend....my Spirit sisters and brothers.
Heioi ano
from Rotorua
Winona Laduke Does alot of
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Winona Laduke Does alot of good work white earth& it's land base. But she is not the only person fighting this on- going stuggle between the US government and its original landlords. Land base is the main thing we as Indigenous people need to fight for! I just needed to add this if Columbus and his lost following hadn't stumbled into the kind arms of our ancestors he wouldn't be in todays history books!!!! P.S. if you study indian studies beyond elementary school you may begin to understand who were the aliens of the group! Ancestors of the Iriquois Confederacy were the founders of the basis of our government today, it just so happens George Washington & Thomas Jefferson were there to alter it enough to make it fit there profiles. In my eyes all Indian tribes throughout the US should be granted half of each state they live in!!!!! After all we owned it from ocean to ocean at one point in time !!!!! Ingnorance is bliss !!!!!!!!
Winona does good work with
Winona does good work with social justice and politically activating native students. she is claiming land back to the rightful owners that were murdered and raped unfortunatelly by the genocidal consensus we call manifest destiny.
