In the third episode of About Us, we talk with my good friend Judith LeBlanc. Judith is the director of the Native Organizers Alliance. She provides and facilitates technical support, strategic planning, mentoring, and on the ground campaign development to Native groups. I met Judith in 2003 in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq when she organized with United For Peace and Justice.
Judith is one of two native people I interviewed in November of 2019. The other is John Martin, also known as @Lakotaman1 on tweeter. John continually educates me with history tweets and comments. Next episode, we talk with John, and I will tell you about the tweet that led me to want to speak to him.
Both interviews are fantastic, and I learned a lot. Judith’s and John’s shared experience of being told they do not exist as native Americans astounded me. They do not know each other, and they live on opposite sides of the country. Look out for that in Judith’s interview coming up and John’s in episode 4.
This is the tweet from Krystal Two Bulls, I mentioned in the podcast as well as a link to About Face Veterans Against the War.
Pretty sure it was already Native American History Month. 🤔
Yo! Part of the colonial process was to ignore, silence and erase the real history of this land and it’s Original Peoples. Here’s, yet another way the white supremacy this country was founded on, continues to erase us! pic.twitter.com/976W16zHRl
— Krystal Two Bulls (@KrystalRain8) November 5, 2019
Coronavirus
The coronavirus is on everyone’s mind. It is really important we do not pass bad information about the pandemic. I use this site nCoV2019.live built by Avi Schiffman, a 17-year-old student in the Seattle area. He was featured on Democracy Now.
To read about the basics of the disease and the guidelines to protect yourself and fight community spread, go to the Center for Disease Control site, www.cdc.gov.
and The Gray Zone founded by Max Blumenthal is a great site to read global news about the pandemic that you probably will not see reported by the dominant media. Blumenthal has written for The New York Times, The Nation, and Al Jazeera English, among other publications. Here is a sad report about the impact of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela’s ability to appropriately respond to the coronavirus.
X
In the last episode, I talked briefly about the Netflix documentary, Who Killed Malcolm X? So far I’ve watched only one episode of the 6 part series. The documentary has led to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York announcing it will launch a review of the investigation into the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X that could potentially lead to a reinvestigation of the case.
Of course, the series is about Malcolm’s murder and the ensuing investigation, but it is also the story of Abdur-Rahman Muhammad’s mission to find the truth about Malcolm’s assassination. Abdur-Rahman, a Washington, D.C., historian, and expert on Malcolm X. He is the person who uncovering questions and pushing for answers. The documentary nor the review of the case would have happened without Muhammad.
I do not have an update on the review, but I did come across some controversy about the series that I think is an important conversation.
I have not seen the whole series yet, but according to an open letter from three female scholars, Jeanne Theoharis, Brooklyn College, CUNY Keisha N. Blain, the University of Pittsburgh and Ashley D. Farmer, the University of Texas at Austin, the documentary had few women activists and no women scholars. The letter was published in Ms. Magazine.
I do not know if the documentary producers responded. We will follow up on this story.
Atatiana Jefferson
In the last episode, I give a brief update about Atatiana Jefferson who was killed by a now-fired Fort WOrth police officer Aaron Dean. Dean is scheduled to face a jury for murder. Both Atatiana’s parents, Marquis Jefferson 59 and Yolanda Carr 55 died within months of her death from health complications. I am sure seeing their daughter die to police violence pushed them over the edge.
But there is some good news out of the tragedy. Before Marquis died, he set up a the Atatiana Tay Jefferson Foundation to honor his daughter. Learn more about the foundation here or listen to the podcast.
