Vital Native American Eco-Resistance (1980 & 2016)

Standing Rock

Standing Rock 2

Native American-Led Protests Against Dakota Access Oil Pipeline,  October 2016

Some sort of synchronicity. We had scheduled this post (Allen at Naropa in 1980, announcing a Native American-led protest against the sacrilege and environmental disaster of the proposal for South Dakota uranium mining), prior to the breaking news of Amy Goodman‘s arrest (and yesterday’s acquittal) over reporting on demonstrations against the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline

For more on the Pipeline and for Democracy Now‘s full coverage of the issue – see here

Amy Goodman, hosting Democracy Now! from Mandan, North Dakota

Amy  isn’t the only high-profile journalist who has been arrested.  Deia Schlosberg, documentary filmmaker, is currently facing 45 years in prison on three felony charges. More on her story – here

So, to the posting:

Briefly detouring from his Naropa class on “Basic Poetics” (the English poetic tradition) – “we’ve gotten so discontinuous”,  Allen announces today then (February 1980) –  contemporary activity regarding local activism, specifically by the Native American movement against the encroachment and sacrilege of the mining companies

AG:  There’s apparently the beginning of a very interesting American Indian conference (with American Indian [Native American] poets and prophets, and Hopi Orayvi people). There’s one going on now [February, 1980], actually, I think, one of the Hopi leaders is now giving a little prophetic talk to the CU (Colorado University) students, eight (o’clock) to nine (o’clock) tonight, and they’ll be…it’ll be going on all week. You can get.. you can get information at the Oyate Indian club at the university (University Memorial Center, University of Colorado, Boulder – Room 183C ) – I don’t have a phone number for them. I got a notice from the Black Hills Alliance national office, and also from a local, I think, American Indian Defence Rights notice. But, on… this’ll be going on all week, and in the evenings, and this Thursday coming, when we were going to have our class, from seven to midnight (or seven  to eleven), there’s going to be a lot of interesting stuff at the Glenn Miller Ballroom.  Simon Ortiz, who’s a West Coast American Indian poet, is going to be giving a reading, just at the same time as this class. So, if you’re not here, it’ll be alright if you’re going over to (hear) Simon Ortiz because he’s really interesting (but I’ll be here for the class anyway, because I… there’s something.. we’ve gotten so discontinuous that I’d like to continue this.) There’ll be other poets, Indian folk-singers, that night after our class – Robert Nakademian (sic) and Paul Ortega. But this is something that’s going on from seven to eleven at the UMC Ballroom on Thursday. Do you have a notice for that somewhere?

Simon Ortiz

Student: Yeah, I just got one here.
AG: Yeah, what does it say?
Student: Ten to eleven on Thursday night there’s….. it doesn’t say where.. oh, at the Glenn Miller ballroom.
AG: It’s the Glenn Miller Ballroom from seven to eleven, all evening.
Student: Phone number?
AG: Is there a phone nunber there to check things out?
Student: No… I don’t think so.
Student 2: It should post that at Naropa
AG: Yeah.
Student: If you do go there, you’ll see Oyate.. during the afternoon, before three o’clock poetry class, I’m pretty sure they have a booth there..
AG: You’re in contact with that scene? Where did you get that? Is that in the paper?
Student: Yeah
AG: Which
StudentColorado Review
AG: Uh-huh – Yeah, it looks interesting. There’ll be things on… Tonight it’s  Thomas Banyacya, who’s from, I think, from,  a Hopi elder from the Third Mesaor something like that. I’ve met him somewhere along the line, a couple of years ago. And then, this Friday is a sort of a climax, there’s stuff about..  see what they’re trying to do is take off the Indian Black Hills, and, apparently American Indian territory has most of the uranium in the United States. So it’s like this double-, triple-, quadruple- whammy symbolic rape, (not only, you know,  getting the poisoned metals out of the ground but also taking it out of the sacred territories, so, it’s like apocalyptically, symbolically, fitting. And so, (on) Friday, they’ll have a whole bunch of stuff on  energy development and how it affects people, with representatives of the American Indian Environmental Council, Alburquerque (all sorts of local groups coming in). And then March 1st, there’s going to be a….1980 Black Hills International Survival Gathering  – “Members of the Black Hills Alliance National Office will meet in the Denver Boulder area. There is a phone.. yeah.. Three White Mountain Alliance (449-9487),  if anybody’s interested in that.
Student: 449-9487?
AG: 449-9487  449-9487  0r 469-8630,  from nine a.m to six pm –  “The purpose of the meeting is to establish a support network from Colorado for the Black Hills gathering and Mount Taylor action” (I guess Mount Taylor action is Southern Colorado? –  or New Mexico? – New Mexico – Mount Taylor, New Mexico, was right south of Los Alamos, which is a big..   I flew over that last year, took a plane, and it’s this giant desert area. I don’t know if you’ve ever been down there, but that, it’s this vast desert area in the mid…. right in the middle of New Mexico, and then, as you fly over, you see, all these uranium mines owned by Kerr-McGee, and, I guess, Exxonor whoever. And with all their poisonous-looking green tailings going down into the streams and into big tailing ponds, that is the detritus for the mining building up in river water beds and river courses. So, apparently, there’s a whole series of mobilizations of protests on that. And I think there’s a 1980 Black Hills Gathering, July 18th-27th in Black Hills, South Dakota.
I’ll pass this (announcement) around if anybody wants to see it:


[Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately forty-two-and-a-half minutes  in and concluding at approximately  forty-eight-and-a-quarter minutes in]

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