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Greetings from Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS),
We have several calls for support that we want to relay on behalf of The People on
'The Land' (Black Mesa). You may have heard that the decades-long 'Land Dispute' has been
resolved. Indeed, there have been messages coming from the political establishment that are
quite a bit different from the daily life of the People on The Land but this is nothing new. The
Dine’ (Navajo) families that we work with are still struggling under Federally backed
Hopi/Bureau of Indian Affairs jurisdiction.
Native peoples in the Black Mesa area have been living under relocation laws for over 30 years that
has devastated their community. Dine’ homesites and camps are
subjected to a “Property Dismantaling and Disposal Project,” where families’
property and physical history are hauled away to “return the land to its original condition, protect
natural resources, environment, and interests of the Hopi Tribe and the Hopi People"
(Office of Hopi Lands website). These “interests” include the expansion of Peabody Western Coal
company's 100+ sq. mile strip mine.
Dine' communities have refused and resisted repeated orders from the federal
government to vacate their ancestral homelands of Black Mesa. Elder resisters have been
acknowledeged as heroic and their efforts have generated worldwide support. But the Dine struggle for
autonomy on Black Mesa is not over. Even with all the increasing awareness about man-made
climate change and advocacy for environmentally friendly living that 'leaders' such as Al
Gore are raising globally, coal-mining continues to threaten the people, their ancestral
homeland, and culture. Al Gore has urged fans at the recent Life Earth concerts held around the
world to commit to a seven-point pledge to cut carbon emissions and to lobby governments and
employers to do more to “save the planet”. This pledge states: "To fight for a moratorium on the
construction of any new Generating facility that burns coal Without the capacity to
safely trap and store the CO2. These companies have waged a campaign to green-wash their
image by now using a "Clean Coal Technology".
We know from the traditional inhabitants on The Land and from scientific fact that
there is nothing clean about coal. Regardless of the burning process, coal extraction is
devastating to the environment and to communities. As long as coal mining for massive energy
consumption in the US (on Black Mesa there are many communities threatened by coal mining) is
sanctioned, the threat to Dine people and their lands remains. It is a threat based on
economics, it is based on the racist presumption that only white people deserve a clean and healthy
environment and it is based on the colonialist arrogance that wishes to forget the
critical line between indigenous and the recently arrived, even in the name of democracy and the
environment.
Our interest as support has been to make connections with these families trying to
hold on to the land they live on. It is their ancestral homeland and they are the ones who
hold the stories of that land, knowledge about the sacred sites, and the right way to live on
that land. As it goes, everything shifts to property lines and economic use-value.
So we support the original inhabitants of these areas on an individual basis and in
their community-oriented organizing; wool buys, work parties, gatherings,
ceremonies, etc.
PLEASE SUPPORT:
Traditional Elder Ida Mae Clinton, the Greyeyes family and many others requests
sheepherders for the months of August and Sept.; Jenny Paddock’s family is looking for a work
crew to help with a Hogan; and Louise Benally is looking for help organizing a wool buy.
We invite all of you reading this to consider again at this time who you are and
how you are connected to and responsible to Black Mesa and the people who have lived there since
time immemorial. If you’ve been there before, you can come back with the skills you have
learned. Maybe you got pretty good with an axe, or you know how and when to put mud on the
hogan. Consider too, what an opportunity and an honor it is to walk among the resisters at
Black Mesa, the keepers of the old ways. What that connection could bring to your community,
whether it is a community of resistance now or whether it is one waiting to be--we
are all threatened by the madness going on today. You are probably already “plugged in” to
Black Mesa by the computer you are using because it is likely to run on electricity
provided in part by coal mined from the mesa.
YOU, YES YOU!:
Maybe its time to unplug that one and plug your good energy in—your handshake, your
Good ideas, your bio-diesel pickup truck, the sweat off your brow, your level-headedness,
your listening ear. Whatever it is, give it a consideration. BMIS would like to hear from
you and we’d like to connect you with one of these families and let you all go from
there.
Please check our website for details. If it is your first time coming to Black Mesa
Then please read the Cultural Sensitivity & Preparedness Booklet at
http://www.blackmesais.org/cultural_sen.html.
HELP US EXPAND OUR OUTREACH:
For over ten years BMIS volunteers have been working to support the resistance at
Black Mesa. To honor our commitment to the elders and their legacy of resistance, we are asking
for help to spread our message beyond our list-serve that we have established over the years.
Please give a minute or two to think of some person or organization that you know of to
connect us up with: media outlets, university clubs, punk-rock coffeehouses, infoshops, bowling
leagues, whomever you can think of. Lets get creative!
Ahehee* for taking the time to read this, (*Thank you, in Dine')
Black Mesa Indigenous Support