Before anything

INTJ, Las Vegas, Gryffindor, gender queer, pan sexual, Choctaw, Mestizo, they/them

[river-temz]

When even Rihanna can’t tolerate the Bullshit

[metaphysika-blog]

[sizvideos]

Woman Surprise Her Girlfriend With The News She Will Be Her Kidney Donor - Watch the full video

[possessedcreampuff]

OH MY GOD THIS IS LOVE

[alanacatherine]

[ghostlywriterr]

[closplaying]

“We’ll see each other again. I believe that. Thank you, my friend.”

This outfit was supposed to be posted months ago, but life really got in the way. Better late than never though, right? 

I absolutely fell in love with Rey when I saw this movie in theatres. I had never been a Star Wars fan (I still haven’t seen all the movies), but she is an amazing heroine and lead character. Despite how flowy her outfit is, I tried to avoid using a dress (but you totally could if you wanted to!) because I feel like Rey would be more comfortable in a pair of pants and a cardigan.

{Look like Rey!}

[closplaying]

“We’ll figure it out. We’ll use the Force.”

{Look like Finn!}

[metaphysika-blog]

Back at it again with the white vans

[just-shower-thoughts]

Imagine if someone handed you a box full of all the items you have lost throughout your life

[a-case-of-tragic-magic]

#it would be nice to get my sense of purpose back

[celtic-pyro-deactivated20230725]

“Oh wow my childhood innocence! Thank you for finding this,”

[stuffinspace-deactivated2017100]

“my will to live! i haven’t seen this in 15 years!”

[ilikechildren--fried-deactivate]

“I knew I lost that potential somewhere!”

[tatt00ine]

“Mental stability, my old friend!”

[gay-armadillo]

[thebestoftumbling]

This guy spent over a year throwing eggs to his unsuspecting mum (x)

[thr0atmistress-deactivated20191]

LMFAO

[bonescaro]

“NOOOO!!!”

[organasoloss]

General Organa tugged at the shoulder of her uniform, adjusting it. She shrugged. “Don’t be deceived, Poe. I’m not a legend.”

Poe grinned and shook his head. “You’re not sitting where I’m sitting, General.”

[turtleislandmohawk]

14-year-old Girl Testifying Against Native American Mascots Says Crowd Shouted ‘Get Off the Stage Squaw’

“Get off the stage, squaw!”

Bella Cornell, a 14-year old girl from the Choctaw Nation, said she heard these words as she finished her testimony against the name and mascot of the McLoud High School Redskins during a mid-December school board meeting.

In the packed audience, her mother was distraught watching her daughter. “It was horrible to see,” said Sarah Adams-Cornell, “It takes so much for one of our kids speak up. I wanted to take her out of there and protect her. She’s my child.”

A few weeks prior, Woodrow Wilson, McLoud High’s Indian Education Director, had reached out to Adams-Cornell hoping she would be willing to testify to the school’s board about Native mascots. Several local Native American families had privately voiced their concerns to him, with one family stating they no longer participated in school events because of references to “dumb, subhuman Redskins.”

A vote on the mascot had been scheduled in a meeting open to the public, but the concerned local Native families didn’t want to testify, fearing backlash and bullying against their children. “The Board wouldn’t allow anonymous comments, you had to actually be present at the meeting to speak out,” said Adams-Cornell.

Upon Wilson’s invitation, Adams-Cornell made the trip from Oklahoma City to the small town of McLoud, Oklahoma. Her daughter, Bella, refused to be left out, “My mom raised me traditionally, I know how to treat sacred items, how to treat regalia. To see it used as a plaything is wrong. People aren’t mascots.”

Bella is no stranger to experiencing hostility and ignorance about Native Americans. When she was in 8thgrade, a history teacher gave an account of America’s first peoples that left her stunned and in tears. “He called us vicious vermin and said we were cannibals. Other kids came up to me after and asked if I ate people.”

“She came out to the car in tears,” said Adams-Cornell, “I spoke with the Principal and then with the teacher. He stood by what he taught, the Principal said the school would ‘keep an eye on it.’”

At the McLoud School Board meeting, audience members heard defenders of the name state it was an honor and it was tradition. One man was particularly vocal in his defense of Native mascots, at times shouting at Native Americans speaking against mascots – he was a founder of the Native American Guardians Association, a group of Native Americans and allies that claims to preserve the positive imagery of Native mascots.

Multiple psychological studies have empirically shown Native mascots harm the self-esteem of Native youth and indoctrinate racial stereotypes in non-Native children.

The Board vote was unanimous – in a 3-0 vote, McLoud High School would remain the Redskins.

Adams-Cornell has kept in touch with the local Native families who wished to remain anonymous; they’ve now filed a complaint with the Department of Justice.

While the 23-year long legal battle between Native Americans and the NFL’s Washington Redskins rages on, several public schools that share the moniker have dropped the name. Backlash against change has been widespread, with some alumni going so far as to run for school board positions vowing to bring back the name.

“It’s strange to see someone who feels so entitled to give their perspective on something that doesn’t negatively affect them or their children,” said Adams-Cornell. “I saw one woman [at McLoud] say that giving her testimony supporting the name was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. She’s up there crying, when this actually hurts Native children.”

Though she understands her mother’s concerns after the meeting in McLoud, Bella says she will continue to fight. The Choctaw teen hosts a radio show dedicated to Native American youth advocacy. “If we give up, it tells them that they won. What happened to me is what happens when you allow racism.”

[meladoodle]

my granddad just called me to tell me how big his cauliflowers are growing and it was so cute theyre “TWICE as big as the ones you get in the shop”

[meladoodle]

[meladoodle]

i told my granddad this post has 3,500 notes and he said ‘who are they? do i know them?’ he wanted me to list everyone and see if he knew anyone

[auburngal]

If you don’t reblog cauliflower granddad, then you’re just a mean person.

[metaphysika-blog]

Too cute

[lastrealindians-deactivated2015]

Indian Child Welfare Act: A Historical and Legal Context Part 2 by Brit Reed

This three part series aimed to create a greater understanding of ICWA for both natives and non-natives so that we might be better able to protect our children and strengthen the law were there is need for it to be strengthened. Part one of the series discussed how the U.S. government transitioned from a policy of taking our children and assimilating through boarding school to a policy of assimilating them through adoption. Part one also briefly discussed how ICWA came out of one of the fiercest and most successful battles by Native communities to protect Native American children from the predatory grasp of child welfare agencies. This second part will outline titles I, II, III, and IV of ICWA and discuss what it means. The third part of this series will discuss the state of ICWA since the passing of the Act in 1978.

In spite of the fact that ICWA has been in place for nearly 40 years, many child welfare agencies, courts, and the general public have little understanding of what the law means and how to utilize correctly and efficiently. Many misunderstandings, such as ICWA being a race-based law, prevail leading to court cases such as Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl aka the Baby Veronica case and A.D. v. Washburn. It is for this reason that I part two of this series is focused solely on what is included in the language of ICWA, what rights tribal nations and eligible individuals have under ICWA.

Although ICWA contains four titles, Title I, “Child Custody Proceedings,” and Title II, “Indian Child and Family Programs,” contain what most scholars consider to be the bulk of the most important pieces of the Act (Johnson, 1981). However, Title III and Title IV of the ICWA concern specific key record-keeping requirements under the Act; and are considered the most important relevant aspects of the Act for native adoptees who have been adopted out to non-Native American families and wish to return to their birth families and tribal nations. ICWA sought to solve many of the issues that Native American communities had faced prior to the passage of the law.

READ THE REST HERE

[lastrealindians-deactivated2015]

Indian Child Welfare Act: A Historical and Legal Context Part III, By: Brit Reed

On July 8, 2015, Indian Country Today Media Network reported that Phoenix, Arizona based based Goldwater Institute announced filing a lawsuit title A. D. v. Washburn that claims that the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 quote, “discriminates against native children.” This lawsuit follows in the footsteps of the many lawsuits that have historically sought to undermine the ICWA.

In part one of this series, Indian Child Welfare Act: A Historical and Legal Context, discussed how the U.S. government transitioned from a policy of taking our children and assimilating through boarding school to a policy of assimilating them through adoption. Part one also briefly discussed how ICWA came out of one of the fiercest and most successful battles by Native communities to protect Native American children from the predatory grasp of child welfare agencies. Part two outlined titles I, II, III, and IV of ICWA and discuss what it means. This third and final part to this series will continue to discuss what ICWA as a legal document means and the continuing power struggle for sovereignty between tribal nations and states.

Trace DeMeyer, a pre-ICWA adoptee, wrote in her short essay Carry Their Blood, “The Indian Child Welfare Act Was signed into law in 1978, after the Indian adoption projects, which placed children… with non-[Native American] parents to end tribal affiliations. If I was born after the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, then the social workers would have been required by federal law to notify my father and the tribe. I would not have been placed with strangers who know nothing about me or my ancestry. My dad Earl told me when we met he would have raised me, or one of his sisters would have, which is kinship adoption and traditional in Indian Country. Even though my mother didn’t choose to raise me, my dad would have raised me.” Lou Matheson states that in 1989, a report was released that stated that since the passage of ICWA, rates in which Native American parents were notified when their children were at risk of removal had increased. Prior to the passage of ICWA the rate was zero percent, but had increased to sixty-five to seventy percent of the time after the passage of the Act. Likewise, as of 1989, tribes were notified eighty percent of the time, and Native American children who were removed from homes were placed in the homes of extended families forty-seven percent of the time. Nevertheless, according to Troy R. Johnson’s article The State and the American Indian: Who Gets the Child, a study published in 1988 by CSR Incorporated (Washington, DC) and it’s subcontractor, Three Feathers Associates (Norman, Oklahoma) found that, “While some states have supported the intent of the law through the passage of state Indian child welfare legislation and the negotiation of state-tribal agreements, the implementation of the ICWA has been unevenly applied. In fact, 1987 figures reflect an increase in the percentage of [Native American] children placed in substitute care: thirty-five percent of all [Native American] children were placed in substitute care with eighty-five percent of that number being placed in non-[Native American] homes.” In my research, it became apparent that tribal nations understanding of ICWA often lined up with that of the federal government. Tribal Child Welfare website pages, such as those belonging to Choctaw Nation Oklahoma and Cherokee Nation, often cited the frequently asked question (FAQ) page belonging to the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA); who intern often took their answers from the wording within the Act.

READ THE REST HERE

[metaphysika-blog]

Fred and George: *watching marauders map*

George: draco is following harry again

Fred and George: omg otp

[retrogaydad-deactivated20190324]

“why are there so many gays on TV???” 

because.. there are gays… in real life…. walking among us…. living… breathing…… gaying

[mysharona1987]

America: The only place on the planet that will blame a toy gun for a little black boy’s death, then turn around and staunchly deny that a REAL semi-automatic gun had anything to do with 20 little school kids dying at Sandy Hook.

Fucking hell, man. 

Certain people’s minds have taken a wander off of the map. That’s all I’m saying. 

[walkerrainge]

PREACH 👏🏾👏🏾✊🏿✊🏿🙏🏾🙏🏾