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a blog for and by American Indian and First Nations adoptees who are called a STOLEN GENERATION #WhoTellsTheStoryMatters #WhyICWAMatters
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So many of us felt speechless with disgust at this State of the Union speech … at a loss for words to answer: How can this upside down world even be real? Cruelty held up as duty. Suffering drowned by applause. The showmanship of blood lust. But there is a term for the horrors we’re watching … that brand of political power when atrocity becomes policy… when they decide who is protected and who is expendable. It’s called “necropolitics.”
In this short video, I explain what necropolitics means, what political theorist Achille Mbembe calls “death worlds,” and why this framework helps us make sense of what we are witnessing right now: entire spaces dedicated to death, built to strip away the meaning not just of democracy but of humanity. Reservations. Concentration camps. ICE detention camps. Gaza. Mocking us in a realtime unironic self-parody, there’s Trump inflicting his textbook Death World.
Please watch: In 7 minutes, learn what “necropolitics” means, what “death worlds” are, and how this framework helps explain the cruelty, erasure, and normalization of suffering we’re in right now.
Within the two-hours of gaslighting, Trump handed out medals… almost more than the Olympic Committee, he joked. Not one medal for a Black person. He gave his address during Black History Month, one week after hosting Black MAGA supporters at the White House, days after the passing of Rev. Jesse Jackson, who went unacknowledged. Not a word. His only reference to race was bragging about ending DEI. Meanwhile, Epstein survivors sat in the crowd, invited by Democrats, and he had not one emotion or word for them while his DOJ actively scrubs the files that could expose the powerful men who bought and sold those girls. The lying is unimaginable.
He claimed to have ended eight wars… perverting the very meaning of peace. He called Venezuela "our new partner and friend" after illegal missile attacks and effectively kidnapping their leader and boasting about the 80 million barrels of oil “we” have “received.” He took credit for low crime in DC, a city that polls 78% against him. He called this the "golden age of America" while gutting food stamps, defunding USAID, and now revenge cutting Medicaid in Minnesota … decisions that will kill many people. Not metaphorically. Actually kill people. Worldwide. This is the definition of Necropolitics made plain: the slow, bureaucratic withdrawal of life from those the state has deemed disposable.
And then there are the ICE death cards. Agents in Colorado have been leaving Ace of Spades cards ... custom-printed with "ICE/Denver Field Office" ... in the vehicles of people they have detained. The Ace of Spades. A death symbol. Left as a message. This is not ambiguous. This is the state announcing, openly, that not only do certain bodies not matter, but they are marked and we are coming for you. It is the same logic that has always governed what happens to Native people, to Black people, to immigrants, to the poor. The dehumanization comes first. Then the death becomes possible. Then it becomes normalized. Then atrocity becomes policy.
Watch the video. Share it. Name what we are seeing together.
Wopila tanka — thank you for your solidarity.
Tokata Iron Eyes
Spokesperson & Organizer
Lakota People’s Law Project
Sacred Defense Fund
The ICT Newscast for Friday, February 27, 2026, covers continued fallout from the Department of Homeland Security, Indigenous athletes in the Olympics and Leonard Peltier reflects on his return home.
As first reported by Bridge Michigan, that $1.1 million report was never released, and a summary presented to the Legislature left out recommendations made by the consulting firm. Bridge obtained a copy of the 300-page report, which includes accounts by survivors of abuse in the homes, as well as glimpses of the roles the state and communities played in the federally funded boarding schools that closed more than 40 years ago.
Now, a House appropriations subcommittee has scheduled a hearing Feb. 27 about the report and why it was scrapped after its completion in September.
“We’d like to get some understanding of why we spent over a million dollars on a 300-page report and then threw the report in the garbage can,” said Rep. Tom Kuhn, R-Troy, chair of the general government subcommittee.
The Department of Civil Rights, which oversaw the report and then chose not to release it to the public or the Legislature, has declined an invitation to testify, he said.
Related:
KEEP READING:
Featured Work at SkirtsAFire Festival
SkirtsAFire Festival has announced I Am Eagle by Indigenous artist Matricia Bauer as a featured work for its 2026 lineup, with performances set for March 6 & 7 at Edmonton’s Walterdale Theatre.
Matricia Bauer, playwright and presenting artist of I Am Eagle, tells Raven Radio Network that bringing her life story to the stage is a dream come true.
Bauer describes the play as a journey of self-acceptance, shaped by her experience in the Sixties Scoop, foster care, and reconnecting with her culture.
Bauer adds that I Am Eagle explores cultural loss and reclamation while deepening understanding of reconciliation.
Here's a brief history of presidential remarks about Native Americans and here's to hoping that someday soon we can add a quote from a president of American Indian, Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian heritage.
"Indians and wolves are both beasts of prey, tho' they differ in shape."
George Washington
"If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi… in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy them all."
Thomas Jefferson

Andrew Jackson
"Ordered that of the Indians and Half-breeds sentenced to be hanged by the military commission, composed of Colonel Crooks, Lt. Colonel Marshall, Captain Grant, Captain Bailey, and Lieutenant Olin, and lately sitting in Minnesota, you cause to be executed on Friday the nineteenth day of December, instant, the following names, to wit… " - Text from order made by President Lincoln to General Sibley ordering the execution of American Indians in Minnesota.
Abraham Lincoln
"I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth."
Theodore Roosevelt
"All of our people all over the country - except the pure blooded Indians - are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, including even those who came over here on the Mayflower."
Franklin Roosevelt
"The United States, which would live on Christian principles with all of the peoples of the world, cannot omit a fair deal for its own Indian citizens."
Harry Truman
"There has been a vigorous acceleration of health, resource and education programs designed to advance the role of the American Indian in our society. Last Fall, for example, 91 percent of the Indian children between the ages of 6 and 18 on reservations were enrolled in school. This is a rise of 12 percent since 1953."
Dwight Eisenhower
President
John F. Kennedy meeting with National Congress of American Indians
president Walter Wetzel, Sen. Lee Metcalf and Sen. Mike Mansfield, 1963.
(Photo probably by Robert L. Knudsen / National Museum of the American
Indian)
John Kennedy
"The American Indian, once proud and free, is torn now between White and tribal values; between the politics and language of the White man and his own historic culture. His problems, sharpened by years of defeat and exploitation, neglect and inadequate effort, will take many years to overcome."
Lyndon Johnson
"What we have done with the American Indian is in its way as bad as what we imposed on the Negroes. We took a proud and independent race and virtually destroyed them. We have to find ways to bring them back into decent lives in this country."
Richard Nixon
"I am committed to furthering the self-determination of Indian communities but without terminating the special relationship between the Federal Government and the Indian people. I am strongly opposed to termination. Self-determination means that you can decide the nature of your tribe's relationship with the Federal Government within the framework of the Self-Determination Act, which I signed in January of 1975."
Gerald Ford
"It is the fundamental right of every American, as guaranteed by the first amendment of the Constitution, to worship as he or she pleases … This legislation sets forth the policy of the United States to protect and preserve the inherent right of American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiian people to believe, express, and exercise their traditional religions."
as he signed into law the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.
Jimmy Carter
"Let me tell you just a little something about the American Indian in our land. We have provided millions of acres of land for what are called preservations - or reservations, I should say. They, from the beginning, announced that they wanted to maintain their way of life, as they had always lived there in the desert and the plains and so forth. And we set up these reservations so they could, and have a Bureau of Indian Affairs to help take care of them. At the same time, we provide education for them - schools on the reservations. And they're free also to leave the reservations and be American citizens among the rest of us, and many do. Some still prefer, however, that way - that early way of life. And we've done everything we can to meet their demands as to how they want to live. Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we should not have humored them in that wanting to stay in that kind of primitive lifestyle. Maybe we should have said, no, come join us; be citizens along with the rest of us."
Ronald Reagan
"This government-to-government relationship is the result of sovereign and independent tribal governments being incorporated into the fabric of our Nation, of Indian tribes becoming what our courts have come to refer to as quasi-sovereign domestic dependent nations. Over the years the relationship has flourished, grown, and evolved into a vibrant partnership in which over 500 tribal governments stand shoulder to shoulder with the other governmental units that form our Republic."
George Herbert Walker Bush
"Let us rededicate ourselves to the principle that all Americans have the tools to make the most of their God-given potential. For Indian tribes and tribal members, this means that the authority of tribal governments must be accorded the respect and support to which they are entitled under the law. It means that American Indian children and youth must be provided a solid education and the opportunity to go on to college. It means that more must be done to stimulate tribal economies, create jobs, and increase economic opportunities."
Bill Clinton
"Tribal sovereignty means that. It's sovereign. You're a… you're a… you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity."
George W. Bush
"We also recommit to supporting tribal self-determination, security, and prosperity for all Native Americans. While we cannot erase the scourges or broken promises of our past, we will move ahead together in writing a new, brighter chapter in our joint history."
Barack Obama
"You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her 'Pocahontas.'
Donald Trump

“The federal government has long broken promises to Native American tribes who have been on this land since time immemorial. With her appointment, Congresswoman Haaland will help me strengthen the nation-to-nation relationship.”
EDITOR NOTE: I wrote this: When words won't come, as I turn to poetry to grieve... Trace
Joy writes: |
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Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop. |
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Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control. |
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Open the door, then close it behind you. |
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Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel |
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Give back with gratitude. |
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If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back. |
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Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire. |
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Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. |
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Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters. |
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Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you. |
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Don’t worry. |
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The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more. |
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Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time. |
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Do not hold regrets. |
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When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed. |
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You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant. |
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Cut the ties you have to failure and shame. |
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Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction. |
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Ask for forgiveness. |
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Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor. |
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Call yourself back. You will find yourself caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse. |
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You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return. |
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Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It will return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long. |
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Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes. |
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Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go. |
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Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short. |
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Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark. |
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© Joy Harjo. Conflict Resolution From Holy Beings. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015. |
Billie Eilish Said "No One Is Illegal on Stolen Land"— In Reality, The Theft of Native Land Is a Blueprint for Border Patrol and ICE by Kahlil Greene
The slogan sparked outrage across the political spectrum, but the connection between Native dispossession and immigration enforcement is structural, not symbolic.
Read on SubstackIn the long month of January 2026, federal officers operating under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown tear-gassed an infant, tackled public school teachers, dragged a disabled woman out of her car, detained a preschooler, and killed two American citizens on the streets of Minneapolis. This the violence that sparked national outrage and Billie Eilish’s comments. “It’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now,” the singer continued, “I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting.”
“Fuck ICE,” she concluded.
The backlash to Eilish’s acceptance speech at the 68th annual Grammy Award was immediate. Republican and right-wing leaders were outraged by the singer’s comments, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz. “One simple question: are we right now on stolen land?” Cruz asked a Netflix executive during a Senate hearing days later.
“When you see an entertainer say, ‘Nobody is illegal while we’re on stolen land,’” Cruz went on. “And then you see entertainers leap to their feet, clapping so excitedly at the notion that America is fundamentally illegitimate, it starts to convey that the entertainment world is deeply corrupt.”
So to recap, in the past two weeks, the slogan “no one is illegal on stolen land” received a standing ovation at the Grammys, scrutiny at a Senate hearing, and widespread debate on social media. But what does that slogan actually mean?
The Failed Spectacle of Operation ‘Racial Purge’ by Sean Sherman
Or how Minneapolis became a modern day Sundown Town in 2026
Read on SubstackWhat we have witnessed over the past 60 days in Minneapolis was
never about immigration enforcement for the safety of Americans.
This
was a deliberate, calculated assault on communities of color
masquerading as public safety. And as I write this from the headquarters
of our Indigenous non profit NATIFS (North American Traditional
Indigenous Food Systems) I can tell you that every person in our
organization and thousands across the Twin Cities understands this the
same way. This was a racial purge brought on by our own federal
government.
I went to hear Thomas speak in the early 90s in Seattle. He gave this talk back in 1972.

For decades, Native women and other women of color were subjected to forced sterilization by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service.
New Mexico lawmakers introduced a memorial last week to create a truth and reconciliation commission that would conduct a study into the history, and continuing impacts of this abuse.
KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) has this report.
Senate memorial 14 includes research dating to the 1970s which shows between 25%-50% of Indigenous women were sterilized, with some of the highest incidents occurring in New Mexico.
The memorial would develop a plan to create a state truth and reconciliation commission to research and find all cases of sterilization in the state, gather survivor testimony, and review and recommend educational policy.
Keely Badger is a human rights advocate who wrote her dissertation on the forced sterilization of Native women.
Lawmakers asked her about challenges finding and accessing records.
“I do think that the requests have to come from an official state body, official agencies, to get to the heart of this information. It is going to be more than one person’s ability to accumulate this information.”
She says this may have been intentional by the states.
“At a national level, they have sealed some of these records for a reason, in the same way that a lot of the information about the boarding school system was very challenging; took decades and decades of research to accumulate to get to a point where we could have a national apology.
“I believe that this is one of those situations where it is going to require real political will and advocacy from civil society groups to get to the real heart of this from a national perspective.”
If the memorial goes into law, New Mexico would be the first state in the nation to formally investigate and acknowledge these violations.
The memorial will head to the senate floor for a vote and if passed, will go to the House of Representatives.
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| Merle Locke's Ledger Art |
I had warned last year that the news was becoming less frequent, that not many stories are being written about adoptees, 60s Scoop and Stolen Generations. Mostly because the internet has changed and is slowly eroding with a.i. slop, it's harder to find relevant articles to share with you. But I will keep looking.
I wish you could have been with me at the kitchen table in Porcupine, South Dakota, in the early 1990s. First, I met Lakota ledger artist Merle Locke at an art show in Oregon, and told him I was trying to write children's stories about a Lakota boy named Redman. He told me to go meet his sister in Porcupine, and she might be able to help me.
Merle's sister Ellowyn was a traditional Oglala, a descendant of Crazy Horse's people, and she was fluent in Lakota. She was traditional in every way. I wrote to her, since she didn't have a phone, and asked if I could visit. She wrote back, "yes."
Like meeting anyone new, it takes time and good talks to get to know one another. I had not met my birthfather Earl yet; that happened later in 1994. I was honest with her: I didn't know what tribe or tribes I was, and was still searching for answers. I explained all that.
Thankfully in Seattle, I was going to "good talks" given by Steven Little Coyote, Northern Cheyenne, who was also traditional. His tribe are "brothers" to the Lakota, so they share many teachings. I learned from Steven, and he helped me to contact the Sundance Medicine Man in Rosebud, to get permission to come to the Sundance in August. I planned to go there first then drive to Pine Ridge and Porcupine to meet Ellowyn. It was necessary I find out what I needed to do and what not to do, and bring food, gifts and money, etc.
After meeting Ellowyn, I went back every year to see her. Sitting at her kitchen table, I took pages of notes, writing down "history" from her perspective, and history she had saved on paper to share with me. The version of history we are given in "school" is either false, wrong, or simply made-up. I didn't know that. I knew so little. I still am learning.
My entire world changed at that kitchen table. I do this blog so you can sit with me, and I'll share what I find.
Mitakuye Oyasin, Ellowyn told me, means we are ALL RELATED. All of us. She said that was the most important teaching of all.
SUBSTACK: We examine the U.S. government’s Federal Indian Boarding School Report, often framed as a historic apology. We analyze its language, its focus on “assimilation” and “dispossession,” and what it reveals—and obscures—about domination, genocide, and the continuing structure of federal Indian policy
The FEDERAL INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOL REPORT: Apology, Assimilation, Domination by Peter d'Errico
More than a historical document—it’s the ongoing reality of domination, land dispossession, and the attempted erasure of entire peoples.
Read on SubstackAs we walk through volumes one and two of the report, we look beyond the bureaucratic language and euphemisms to examine how these so called boarding schools functioned as prisons for children — an admitted tool in the overall program to seize Indigenous lands.
We connect the report’s own admissions—about cultural “assimilation,” forced citizenship, and the U.S. government’s ‘trust’ doctrine—to the broader system that tried to destroy Indigenous nationhood while training Native children to identify with “our nation,” the United States, instead of their own peoples.
In this discussion, we also bring in powerful firsthand accounts and historical testimony that the official report only partially grapples with: the chaining and flogging of children, the dungeons and unmarked graves, the parents imprisoned for resisting the kidnapping of their own sons and daughters.
We don’t dwell on these stories to shock, but to insist that any “healing” conversation must be grounded in truth—truth about genocide, about land theft, and about a still active domination system that did not end when the schools closed.
We talk about what a rightful education looks like, about how language shapes identity, and why “remembrance” without legal change serves to mask the operations of the ongoing system.
We encourage you to watch and listen to this conversation and then explore the resources linked with it, including the Boarding School reports themselves and the book Massacre by Robert Gesner.
Resources:
“Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report” –
Volume I - https://www.bia.gov/sites/default/files/dup/inline-files/bsi_investigative_report_may_2022_508.pdf
“Indian Civilization Act” (1819) - https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/3/STATUTE-3-Pg516b.pdf
“Report of the Committee, to whom was referred so much of the President’s message as relates to the civilization of the Indian tribes” - https://www.loc.gov/item/ca25001025/
“Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide” - https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2t4ds5
Robert Gessner, Massacre; a survey of today’s American Indian - https://archive.org/details/massacresurveyof0000gess_i8w6
Sandy WhiteHawk needs our prayers, please...
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Your History Class Was a F*cking Lie by Sean Sherman (Or: How the American Educational System Has Always Been a Racist Propaganda Program...
We conclude this series & continue the conversation by naming that adoption is genocide. This naming refers to the process of genocide that breaks kinship ties through adoption & other forms of family separation & policing 🧵#NAAM2022 #AdoptionIsTraumaAND #AdopteeTwitter #FFY 1/6 pic.twitter.com/46v0mWISZ1
— Adoptee Futures CIC (@AdopteeFutures) November 29, 2022
LISTEN AT WEBSITE: https://ravenradio.ca/2026/02/06/i-am-eagle-announced-as-featured-work-at-skirtsafire-festival/