Angry Teapot

ao3 is angryteapot. over 21; please call me angry mr teapot was my father

[heartpdf]

[isuggestlandback]

Silenced Reports & Epstein Files: Murdered & Missing Indigenous Women Still Don’t Make News

Long before there was Jeffrey Epstein and his repulsive rape ring, there was the terror of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls.

Article text:

Long before there was Jeffrey Epstein and his repulsive rape ring, there was the terror of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls.

The MMIW crisis spans decades, arguably centuries, and involves 1000s of cases in the US and Canada, and yet, even as the Epstein story captures mass media attention and builds pressure for more prosecutions, Indigenous women and girls and women-identified people continue to turn up dead, or simply don’t turn up at all – and only native activists seem to care.

I felt the ice of that terror freeze a new friend once, in a Holiday Inn parking lot off a flat highway in Minnesota. We’d pulled in, just before dark, after a hot, dusty pipeline protest followed by some earnest pleading from two happy, helpful, just-barely teenage girls. Brave before cops and mobs, I saw the skin around the eyes of their mother, my new friend, tighten. An experienced native organizer, her smile squeezed to a clench as she saw white men with trucks milling about. One swim. In my eyesight. No leaving your room – for any reason. We left early. I got it: terror. Happy indigenous girls are an endangered species in America.

In 2022, the National Crime Information Center reported 5,487 cases of missing Native American and Alaska Native women and girls in the United States, where the majority of missing persons cases involved girls aged 0-17 years old. It is estimated that Indigenous women are murdered at a rate at least ten times higher than the national average in some counties, but the data is hard to nail down and record-keeping has always been weak.

Not long ago, a record four Indigenous women managed to get themselves elected to Congress where they did something historic. They passed the Not Invisible Act, authored by then-Rep. Deb Haaland, and signed by President Trump, which created a Commission to study the problem and lay out an action plan.

“The federal government must act now; not tomorrow; not next week; not next month; and not next year. Once and for all, the federal government must end its systematic failure to address this crisis, and react, redress, and resolve this,” declared the Not Invisible Act Commissioners.

In one virtual, and seven in-person hearings in places including Billings, MO, Tulsa, OK, and Anchorage, AK , Commission members heard testimony from tribal leaders, law enforcement officers, service providers, and family members. Motivated by the same righteous rage that moves the relatives of Epstein’s trafficked girls, the family members of murdered and missing Indigenous people made often arduous journeys to testify.

With heroic nerve, Indigenous survivors of human trafficking stood in front of strangers and recalled the worst horrors of their lives. America’s indigenous survivors shared their warnings with the same mix of gratitude and skepticism that we’ve heard from the victims of Epstein. (Someone is finally listening, but will anything, ever, be done? )

Commissioners heard several versions of the same witness sentiment: “I don’t want anyone else to have to live through this nightmare.”

After 260 witnesses and hours of testimony, the Not Invisible Act Commission produced a report. It described in damning detail the many sources of the problem: longstanding white racism, a limited tribal justice system, jurisdictional cracks – more like chasms — into which most MMIW cases fall. Above all, they expressed the urgent need for adequate funding for investigation, prosecution, prevention and care.

The Not Invisible Act Commission Report was posted on the Justice Department’s website in November of 2023.

By February of this year, that link was dead. The report disappeared soon after Donald Trump resumed office, along with nearly half of all federal funding allocated to federally recognized Native American and Alaska Native nations, and massive cuts to hundreds of safety and justice-related grants. Today, the website of the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women (a primary source of support for MMIW- and MMIP-related resources) features a warning to applicants about falling “out of scope”. Under the administration’s new “anti-DEI” and “anti-woke” regulations, it’s a violation, for example, to “frame domestic violence or sexual assault as systemic social justice issues rather than criminal offenses” or “addressing missing or murdered indigenous persons (MMIP) unrelated to domestic violence or sexual assault.” ) As of November, 21, the site reads “There are no FY 2025 open notices of funding opportunity at this time.”

Where’s the outcry? A bi-partisan Congress has voted to force Trump’s DOJ to release the full Epstein files. Now, how about making the Not Invisible Commission Report visible once again, and implementing its recommendations? Funding for prosecution, prevention and healing in Indigenous communities was never sufficient. It’s in tragically short supply now.

Blaming and shaming the elite and the powerful people around Epstein is necessary and satisfying, but justice for victims of gender-and-race-based violence requires much more than a few high-profile perp-walks. When it comes to the use and abuse of women, we as a nation need a fundamental culture shift, and that demands turning our collective conscience to the colonial cruelty at the heart of so much of our story.

Finally cherishing Indigenous women and girls would be a good way to start.

[relelvance]

Does he have "nonbinary vibes" or is he just east asian

[relelvance]

[lakemojave]

Important addition

[robotpussy]

Moonlight (2016) Dir. Barry Jenkins

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

He wants to keep her from changing as much as he has 😭

And when she acts why he says he's an actor so he can handle it

(the last screenshot is just for pretty eyelashes)

[itszonez]

SURYA BONALY | appreciation post; The only Olympic figure skater to land a backflip on one blade

[loveridden1999]

DOECHII CAME OUT AS LESBIAN?????? HELLOOO

[loveridden1999]

we are so fucking back

[gayvampyr]

“no one is asking for open borders” i am actually

[alltoowsll]

GOD BLESS AMERICA. AND HE NAMED EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN COUNTRY

[run-of-the-milf]

I highly recommend watching this testimony from Aliya Rahman, the disabled woman who was dragged out of her car and kidnapped by ICE on her way to a doctor appointment in Minneapolis a few weeks ago.

Truly my worst nightmare.

[liitohauki]

Transcript of Aliya Rahman's speech:

Thank you members, for taking the time to be here today, and thank you staff for making this happen.

My name is Aliya Rahman, and I am a resident of South Minneapolis. I am a Bangladeshi American born in Northern Wisconsin. And I’m a disabled person with autism and a traumatic brain injury.

Not all autistic brains do this, but mine fixates on sounds, numbers, and patterns. And while what the world saw happen to me exactly three weeks ago today on video was a terrible violation it is still nothing compared to the horrific practices I saw inside the Whipple center.

So I am here today with a duty to the people who have not had the privilege of coming home, and I offer this data because these practices must end now.

On January 13th on the way to my 39th appointment at Hennepin County’s traumatic brain injury center, I encountered a traffic jam caused by ICE vehicles and no signs indicating how to get around it. I had not wanted to pull in to a blocked, chaotic intersection, but verbally agreed to do so and rolled down my window after an agent yelled, “Move! I will break your f-ing window!”

His first instruction.

Agents on all sides of my vehicle yelled conflicting threats and instructions that I could not process while watching for pedestrians.

Then, the glass of the passenger side window flew across my face.

I yelled, “I’m disabled!” at the hands grabbing at me and an agent said, “Too late.”

I felt immersed in a pattern, and I thought of Jenoah Donald, an autistic black man killed by the police during a traffic stop in 2021.

I remembered mister Silverio Villegas González, who was killed by ICE in his vehicle last year.

An agent pulled a large combat knife in front of my face, which I thought was for cutting me, and later learned was used to cut off my seat belt. Shooting pain went through my head, neck, and wrists when I hit the ground face first and people leaned on my back.

I felt the pattern, and I thought of mister George Floyd, who was killed four blocks away.

I was carried face down through the street by my cuffed arms and legs while yelling that I had a brain injury and was disabled. I now cannot lift my arms normally.

I was never asked for ID.

Never told I was under arrest.

Never read my rights.

And never charged with a crime.

Approaching the Whipple center, I saw black and brown bodies shackled together, chained together, being marched by yelling agents outdoors. I continued to hear the word “bodies”, because that is how agents referred to us:

“We’re bringing in a body.”

“They’re bringing in bodies 7, 8 at a time, where do I put ‘em?”

“We can’t use that room, there’s already a body in there.”

You have no reason to believe you will make it out alive if you’re already being called a body.

Agents repeatedly had to stop and ask how to do tasks. I received no medical screening, phone call, or access to a lawyer. I was denied a communication navigator when my speech began to slur. Agents laughed as I tried to immobilize my own neck. I asked for my cane and was told no, pulled up by my arms and prodded forward in leg irons by agents laughing and saying, “Walk! You can do it, walk.”

Agents did not know if the facility had a wheelchair.

When I was finally placed in one to be taken to interrogation an agent taunted, “You were driving, right? So your legs do work.”

I pleaded for emergency medical care for over an hour after my vision had become blurry, my heart rate went through the roof, and the pain in my neck and head became unbearable.

It was denied.

When I became unable to speak my cellmate pleaded for me.

The last sounds I remember before I blacked out on the cell floor were my cellmate banging on the door, pleading for a medic, and a voice outside saying, “We don’t wanna step on ICE’s toes.”

When I opened my eyes at Hennepin County’s emergency room, I learned I was brought there to be treated for assault.

The impacts of DHS detention on my physical, mental and financial well-being and safety have been very severe, but I do not deserve more humane treatment than anyone else, US citizen or not. And I am here today with a strong spirit and a duty to the many people who haven’t had the privilege to tell their stories or see their loved ones come home. I am extremely distressed by the pattern that violence from law enforcement has been happening to black and indigenous communities for centuries, and to DHS survivors for over 20 years.

We call ourselves a civilized nation, but we lack rules and accountability around what a person claiming to be law enforcement is permitted to do to another human being.

I am not afraid, and I’m not afraid to keep working on this problem even after ICE is gone. Thank you for your time.

[angryteapott]

it took me a long time to realize i was demisexual because i thought sexual attraction like that was made up by the cw

[madaimaobutterfly]

my wife

[rovethings]

Also lowkey insane but also highkey expected that the implication here is that the plan to go to Lionel for help (hoping he institutionalizes Lex again i guess?????) came from Martha. Throwing that "it's for Lex's sake too" there also like jesus christ Martha *would* so throw anyone under the bus if she thought it would keep Clark safe

[itshype]

Yes, the fics where Ilya goes to Shane's game in his jersey are cute and romantic. But why has no one even considered:

[boybeetles]

We should start doing this for all artists actually

[silvermoon424]

Bro absolutely COOKED with this.

EDIT: Y'all OOP is not whitewashing and brushing past the crimes of the fucking Taliban, they're simply pointing out that unlike the American elite- who have never suffered a day in their lives- terrorists like the Taliban usually go through some radicalizing event caused by poor life circumstances. That absolutely does not excuse or condone the horrible things they do, of course.

Also, Somali pirates and the Taliban were explicitly mentioned because this comment is in response to a couple of their former hostages saying said groups supplied them with soap and toothpaste, which the US government refuses to give to migrants. You can stop misinterpreting and derailing this post now, thanks.

[comikbook]

ngl the most important thing i was taught growing up was that its not enough to just be anti racist but to also be pro black

[comikbook]

hating racists is good ! but if youre only hating the oppressor and not uplifting the oppressed all you are doing is using a performative method to direct your anger at. being angry is good, but its not enough. you have to love too. uplift the ones that should be uplifted. celebrate black art and culture and people. celebrate blackness for the beauty it is