dakota access pipeline

How do Black and Indigenous communities intersect? This special feature for Indigenous People’s day explores the forces that have both facilitated and thwarted collaboration and movement-making among Black and Indigenous people in the United States. Exploitation of Black and Indigenous people was integral to the founding of this country, but the nature of that exploitation wasn’t exactly the same. Mitra Kalita and Sara Lomax Reese of URL Media return for this month’s “Meet the BIPOC Press”. Their guests are Levi Rickert, a citizen of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, founder and publisher, Native News Online and Dr. Kyle T. Mays from the Saginaw Chippewa Nations, Afro-Indigenous scholar and author of An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States. Mays asks: “How can we imagine and put into praxis a world in the aftermath of settler colonialism and white supremacy?”

“It’s imperative to not only center blackness, but also to center Indigenous peoples because upon whose land were African Americans exploited? This is Indigenous land.” - Dr. Kyle T. Mays

“We need to keep the gas pedal on getting Congress to appropriate the proper level of funding. We still have some of the highest levels of disparity when it comes to health disparity and lack of housing. A third of the people on the Navajo nation do not have running water or electricity. These are Third World living conditions, and this is what our native people are still living with.” - Levi Rickert

Guests:

Levi Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) Publisher & Editor, Native News Online;  Author of Visions for a Better Indian Country: One Potawatomi Editor’s Opinions

Kyle T. Mays, Ph.D. (Saginaw Chippewa Nation) Associate Professor UCLA,  Departments of African American Studies, American Indian Studies & History;  Author, An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

S. Mitra Kalita (Co-Host): Co-Founder, URL Media

Sara Lomax-Reese (Co-Host): Co-Founder, URL Media

Tickets are on sale now for our first in-person fundraiser! Show your support for the LF Show in Sullivan County, NY, where the show is produced. Plus, environmentalist Bill McKibben will be there for a live Q&A and book signing! Find more information and tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/419711015947 

The Laura Flanders Show Crew:  Laura Flanders, Sabrina Artel, David Neuman, Nat Needham, Rory O'Conner, Janet Hernandez, Sarah Miller and Jeannie Hopper

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ACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Seeking to halt the fossil fuel emissions responsible for so much environmental damage, activists sprung into action across the country to protest against dangerous projects like the Dakota Access pipeline.  So, why is the government now equating protest with terrorism?

Like so many of the Boston musicians we have talked to, Avi Salloway from the band Billy Wylder is a very thoughtful guy who has learned that as an activist, you need to understand how to be an ally.   

Avi just released a new EP called Whatcha Looking For and we were fortunate enough to hear a few tunes from it. He has played music around the globe, from working with Israeli and Palestinian youth to develop creative nonviolent tools for social change with the Non Profit organization Heartbeat, to his travels to Standing Rock to unite with the native-led nonviolent movement to resist the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.  

Avi shows up.  

Not only does he show up, but he does so with some pretty incredible musicians, notably Tuareg guitar master, Bombino, and other renowned artists like Jack Johnson, Pete Seeger, Celia Woodsmith of Della Mae, and a slew of other Boston musicians who make this city a great place for the arts.  

His belief in the power of music to unite and face challenges is incredible and if we could all have his kind of optimism, the world would be a better place.