The Navajo Generating Station smoke stacks in Page, Arizona came crumbling down today. The smoke stacks were created for the energy needs of Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, and other off-reservation metropolitan cities. But the demand for energy shifted toward renewable energy over the last years, making the generating station no longer profitable. 2020 has been a strange year with health pandemics, high death tolls, economic hits, and shifts in energy demand. Peabody Coal made millions of dollars and some of the royalties were paid to the Navajo and Hopi tribes. All that came to an end in 2020. As you travel around the Navajo reservation, one begins to see that the pollution-emitting smoke stacks surround the Navajo reservation in the bordertowns. Besides the Page smoke stack, there are generating stations in Joseph City, Arizona (near Holbrook) and Waterflows, New Mexico. The smoke from these stations blow over the reservation causing respiratory problems such as asthma to its residents.
Besides the smoke emissions from these generating stations, there is also methane gas that New Mexico is known for. The four corners region has the highest rate of methane pollution in the nation. The map above shows how severe this problem is. That is what educated people refer to as "environmental racism," using the environment for racists intentions such as genocide.
The federal government, through its mining, also released a lot of uranium into the air and water which to this day contaminates the water and air on the reservation. And there's still people who want to mine uranium for profit. This is not to mention the biggest nuclear disaster from 1970's occurring in Church Rock, New Mexico. That was never really cleaned up by the government. More recent, the San Juan River was contaminated in the Gold King Mine Spill, and the Trump Administration allowed the disposal of foreign nuclear waste near Aneth, Utah on the northern edge of the Navajo Nation. America needs to stop this environmental racism. Although some people may think that the racism is directed at certain groups of people, we all need to realize that this goes around full circle.
President Nez has made many poor choices. The biggest one might be selecting Myron Lizer as his Vice-President because Lizer just committed political suicide by aligning with an unpopular outgoing president’s racist characterization of the Covid-19 virus. Lizer called the virus the “China virus”, as Trump calls the virus. Why would Lizer characterize the virus in that fashion and jeopardize the Navajo people by doing so? During his term as President of the US, Trump destroyed many relationships with foreign countries. That is exactly what Vice-President Lizer is doing now, destroying the Navajo Nation’s relationship with foreign countries, particularly China, a world superpower. Lizer is bad for global diplomacy, and President Nez is not saying anything about his selection. As a leader for the Navajo Nation using racial terms, Americans and other countries can now say that Navajos are racists, even though I don’t think most Navajos hold that view. In fact, most Navajos (82%) voted against Donald Trump in the recent American election and many attribute Biden’s victory to the Native American vote. (article) Based on that, most Navajos probably disapprove of the Nez Administration and probably would rather see a President with real leadership who makes good choices. It’s time to recall the Nez administration before he digs us deeper.
The Covid-19 Dashboard shows we have reached 700 deaths on the Navajo Nation from this virus pandemic. Everybody on the reservation either knows someone who has or had Covid, or someone who passed from it, or both. The virus seems to be affecting retirement-age people the most. We are losing people in theirs 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. There is hope with the vaccine, but has not been tested long term. The health authorities are saying that people are getting the virus by restaurants and bars (indoors) and on the reservation, by visiting and gatherings. They say that this second wave was caused by family gatherings from the Thanksgiving holidays. Many families enjoyed their last turkey together. Many of our people have FOMO (fear of missing out) syndrome. They get lonely and get their fix with company and visiting with others. This is how the virus is spreading. Another cause of the silent spread is the pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic people who go around others. These people don’t show signs of being sick so many of the 711 made the fatal mistake of thinking that they were safe. They are gone now and we have to continue on. It is a hard time, so the best way to stay safe now is to stay home, avoid public places, especially indoor public places, and no visiting. Remember to wear your mask and keep cleaning your hands and cell phones.
Maybe be now, more Nez voters are seeing President Nez’s true colors. Nez and some tribal council delegates are trying to decrease the amount of hardship assistance to the Navajo people. They went back on the deadline to expend the CARES money. The deadline was set into Navajo law as November 20. At that time the unspent money was supposed to go into the fund for the people. Instead, Nez tried to divert the unspent money into his own projects. Supporting Navajo law, the Controller would not sign off on the President’s illegal memorandum and as a result, the Controller got some flack from President Nez. Like Trump, Nez expects his administration to support his corrupt actions. Some tribal commentators commented that Nez was out of touch with the people. Nez does not see that the people are suffering! The wool has been pulled over the Navajo people’s eyes. Can he be removed immediately if the people want him removed?
In today's news, Arizona Governor Ducey got some courage to ignore President Trump when Ducey was signing the vote certifying the Biden and Harris ticket. The definition of "insanity" is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. But today, the definition of "insanity" is not conceding and still thinking "there's still a chance" in an election where all your lawsuits have been rejected. Now Ducey needs to get on board and issue a mask mandate to #stopthespread.
This is what failed leadership looks like, make the people wait in line in the cold snow for application for the CARES hardship assistance. Our leadership had all summer (when it was warm) to make monies available for our Dine. Remember this picture when voting time comes in 2022. More than 500 people already died due to COVID and more is sure to come with this second wave. Hold tight shi Dine'e. This is a harsh environment. Hold on and we will get through this tough time.
Most of all, what does Vice-President Lizer have to say about Donald Trump’s environmental policy allowing 136 tons of radioactive waste from Japan to be dumped on the northern side of the Navajo reservation (South of Blanding, Utah)? (Radioactive waste dumped). This seeps into the Navajo aquifer and causes cancer to its residents. This is what Bears Ears is all about. What does Lizer, who supports Trump so adamantly, saying there will be a “better way of life” under a Trump administration, have to say about that? What does Delegate Charlene Tso have to say about that? That is near her area. Or the community leaders of Aneth?
The US Federal Government is determined to execute Lezmund Mitchell today despite the Navajo Nation's request to spare him from the death penalty. ("Trump prepares to execute Lezmund Mitchell") There's something wrong with this situation at many different levels.
Two Navajo men were convicted of murdering a Navajo grandmother and her 9-year-old grandchild and stealing their vehicle. When we go down a reservation road, there are many hitchhikers with their thumbs out asking for a ride. Most people don't stop because of violent hitchhiker stories such as the grizzly murders that Mitchell was involved in. According to Mitchell, he did not commit the killings, Johnny Oslinger (his accomplice) committed the killings. But his accomplice is not facing the death penalty because he was a minor at the time of the murders. For some reason, minors committing gruesome murders do not get the death penalty in America. They only get life in prison. But Mitchell is scheduled for execution this evening at 6:00 PM Eastern Time because he was the "adult" in the crime. Oslinger will continue to live with life in prison.
At the international level, the US and the Navajo Nation are suppose to have a "nation-to-nation" relationship. But in Mitchell's situation, the US rejects the "nation-to-nation" relation by ignoring the Navajo Nation's request to spare Mitchell of the death penalty. By doing so, the US government weakens itself as a nation whose word and laws are not worth believing and honoring. One famous judge said "great nations, like great men, should keep their word." The US passed the Federal Death Penalty Act promising not to impose the death penalty on tribal members whose tribes opt-out of the death penalty. By finding a loophole in the law, the US disregards its promise, and its relations with other sovereigns. If carried out by the end of the day, the execution will create an awkward situation between American and tribal leaders. It will be hard to regard the US as a great nation. What are the tribal leaders suppose to do?
As for Mitchell, one perspective that has not really been heard is the voice of Daniel Lee, the father of the slain girl. In one interview, Lee stated that he supports Mitchell's execution for depriving him of of his daughter.
"On Sunday, the Associated Press ran a report on the enduring impact of the crime on the community, which quoted Daniel Lee. “He took my daughter away, and no remorse or anything like that,” Lee said about Mitchell. “The Navajo Nation president, the council, they don’t speak for me. I speak for myself and for my daughter.”"
In fact, Lee said that he was going to attend the execution in person in Indiana. Our Navajo leaders have yet to address Lee's statement.
"This request honors our religious and traditional beliefs, the Navajo Nation's long-standing position on the death penalty for Native Americans, and our respect for the decision of the victim's family."
"Our religious and traditional beliefs"? Is he talking about Navajo or Christian beliefs? I thought Nez was Christian. So how can he claim Navajo traditional belief? Doesn't the Vice-President take offense? President Nez is a fraud. He needs to be honest with the United States government, his own Dine people, and his Christian followers. President Nez is really against traditional Navajo religion, but he uses it to his benefit only when it suits him, like many others.
Move over Prez Nez! We want Chairman Frazer from Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe as our president. While our people suffer and die during this pandemic, you just sit on the money, just get interviewed in your fancy suits, and do a victory dance against your people on Tik Tok. How disgusting. Some of us didn’t vote for you. Others just didn’t want several more years of Shirley. I hope Shirley doesn’t run again to spare us of more horrible presidents. Chairman Frazier is protecting his people from those potentially positive bike riders, something that Nez should have done, protecting us from those Covid-19 church gatherings. We desperately want some real leadership. He needs to oppose the schools reopening to protect us. What ever happened to the white collar crime investigation into the Disneyland trips?
Over a decade ago, one young Navajo man tortured and killed a grandmother and her grandchild. He carjacked the vehicle. Now he is on deathrow for his crimes scheduled to be executed in two weeks on August 26, 2020. There was a law that allowed tribes to opt-out of capital punishment for tribal members on death row. Navajo Nation opted out of capital punishment, but lawyers under the Trump administration found a loophole in the federal law and are now seeking to get this Navajo man executed quickly. There is a petition circulating among advocates asking President Trump to spare this man's life. On the Navajo reservation, there are many violent and evil people. I hope that these people are looking at this case to see if the Navajo man's life get spared. Taking a life should not be taken lightly. People tend to think that what they do does not affect others. But here, there are a lot of people trying to protect this Navajo man's life, even though he ended two people's lives himself. From all side, where is the fairness?
Navajo Times Letter to the Editor said it best, there are more intelligent Dine leaders who can do a better job than just passing out food in order to prepare for the next election. The bottom line is our Dine are dying. We should not be fighting about the CARES money. There’s no Ahilna’anish which was promised during campaign. Let’s vote in someone who cares for our Dine ways.
Leadership has become a Nez-Lizer campaign tool
June 18, 2020
It has become alarmingly obvious that the leadership in Window Rock has segued into a campaign run for President Nez and Veep Lizer.
All of these visits to the chapters/areas of need and the resulting photo ops are just a paid advertisement to support them in the next election. This is the time that they should be spending in a war room with phones connecting them to the Navajo Nation department heads, BIA, IHS, chapters and field reps.
They should also have constant contact with the COVID-19 relief groups in order to help coordinate an effective relief effort. Another obvious sign about the lack of maturity, wisdom, and seriousness about leading our Navajo Nation is the constant infighting within our tribal government. Important logistics issues should be discussed daily, using maps, briefings, and movement of donations.
Every time I see their pictures in full PPE gear and police officers standing near them with only a mask, I get very worried. We should not be sacrificing Navajo Police officers just so the president and his entourage can look good on camera. Recalling this administration in the middle of a pandemic might fix the problem.
The Black Lives Matter has become a fierce storm in America, so fierce that many American cities are removing racists depictions of American history. One such historical figure is Kit Carson who betrayed the Dine by leading the American military against the Navajos. The Mayor of Santa Fe has decided to remove Kit Carson's statue that was standing in Downtown Santa Fe. (Santa Fe mayor calls for removal of controversial monuments, statue of Spanish conquistador) Navajo Historian Wally Brown explains that the Dine rescued and revived a young Kit Carson in the San Juan Mountains. The Dine adopted Carson and gave him a Navajo wife. Later on, Carson led the charge against the Dine and executed the Scorched earth campaign against the Dine in Canyon De Chelly. Like the first Pilgrims that came to America, Kit Carson represents that despicable human being who kills the hands that helped him.
Wally Brown explains that Navajos recued Kit Carson and adopted him
The NPR put out an interesting article about loss of Navajo culture during the pandemic. (Navajo Nation Loses Elders And Tradition To COVID-19) The pandemic is impacting the elder community by a ratio of about 2-to-1. For every three deaths, two are elders age 60 and above. This is particularly true for the Navajo. The Navajos are losing many elders due to the pandemic. In this article, Medicine Man Ty David says that he knows about five medicine people who have passed away from Covid. He is concerned that no-one bothered to relearned these medicine people's ceremonies. All the kids are in school learning the white man's ways of western education.
But even prior to the pandemic, the Navajo Nation was in a crisis of losing its traditional culture. The crisis came to head in the 2015 Navajo Presidential Election. Some tribal leaders tried to support the traditional values by putting in a requirement that our leaders speak Dine. However, the Navajo People themselves voted out that requirement by making it meaningless by giving it back to the people to decide by their election vote. Since then the Navajo People have mostly ignored and avoided this culture-loss issue, perhaps because the Navajo People don't want to deal with the loss of language and tradition within their own selves, families, and circles, and it is too hard to relearn. Perhaps the Dine people avoided this issue because their families have switched to other beliefs, or they engage in interracial relationships. After the election, it was apparent that we were losing our language and culture rapidly, but few people took any real measure to save our language and traditions. Meanwhile our elders, the people who are knowledgeable and carry the culture, have been dying at a fast rate, so fast that we are now losing endangered ceremonies to extinction. Like Ty Davis says, the Covid pandemic has exacerbated this trend.
The article goes further highlighting other medicine practitioners who blame colonization and the church. Medicine Man Avery Denny blames President Jonathan Nez for imposing a foreign religion on the Dine by selecting a pastor for a vice-president, having his Monday morning meetings with Church evangelicals, covering up and protecting the virus break-out from the church rally gatherings in Chilchinbito and other western agency chapters, giving exemptions to Church faith groups to meet during the lockdown, disrespecting Dine traditions by going to Israel to praise a religion foreign to our ancestors.
One Navajo Council delegate posted that the virus came to the Dine because President Nez ran to Hweeldi where he broke a major restriction set by our Dine ancestors to avoid Fort Sumner. Our people say thar our people, particularly Dine leaders, should respect our ancestors and our people and going to Hweeldi is plain disrespectful to the ancestors, elders, and people.
Currently, a lot of people are concerned that President Nez vetoed the Navajo Council's plan to spend the $600 million CARES funding because he claims that the Council's proposed plan was not comprehensive. People are particularly concerned that Vice-President Lizer has been meeting with a national evangelist. (Franklin Graham visits the Navajo Nation to offer support for COVID-19 response efforts) I hope that the President does not pay his Church buddies using the CARES funding. How much more can the Dine people tolerate to have their inherent beliefs trampled on by the most visible Navajo leader? Do the people care?
Overall, the article was a great article. It highlighted some strong issues that the Navajo are contending with during this world pandemic.
Former Miss Navajo Jennifer Wheeler is making videos about food recipes. T'aa Dine Bizaadji yalti'go iyiila. The Navajo Times ran a story about her Dine Bizaad preservation efforts. ("Former Miss Navajo spends curfew making recipe videos") In this time of the Covid Pandemic, we are all quarantined inside with shelter-in-place orders. "T'aa hoghandi nahasoota," goes the saying. Please stay at home. Save lives as the life you save may be your own! While we are sheltering in place, now may be a time to dust off that Navajo dictionary, to tap on that Dine Bizaad app icon and start learning. Ohool'aah! Very great job by Miss Wheeler. I hope she is very successful with her efforts. Great job Navajo Times. Yeego Idahool'aah!
Mark Ruffalo explains the Protect the Sacred effort. It is an effort started by a young Dine from Farmington to help protect our Navajo elders during this virus crisis because they are the ones who carry the sacred traditional knowledge of our ancestors, and they are the ones most at risk during this pandemic. Once these people pass away, their knowledge is gone. Most of our young folks are not relearning the traditional ceremonies because they are preoccupied with school and work. This is a real good cause. But even with this effort, the elders only have a few more years before they reach old age. So either way, our young people need to start relearning for the Dine to keep its tribal identity.
I would urge our Dine, especially the Christian Navajos, to watch this video and get educated about what Joseph Austin is saying. These are the real issues. Try to figure out where the church fits into this lecture. Excellent job, Mr. Austin!
Mayor Teppan and his family when he became Page Mayor in 2018
The Mayor of the City of Page made some controversial remarks about the Dine, that the Dine should address the alcohol problem like it does the Corona virus. Immediately, he reissued an apology saying that he meant to say that the Navajo Nation and Page should work together to address these issues. ("Page mayor apologizes for alcohol comment") This previous statement by the city's leadership and the earlier post by a Page resident calling for the shooting of Navajos because they carry the virus shows us the atmosphere in Page. I repeat,
Shi Dine'e, be aware of your surroundings. There are many racist people in our bordertowns who want to harm and destroy the Navajo People and destroy the Navajo way of life. I hope Frazen gets the max. There's no room for racism in Page.
As we Dine get more educated into the American mainstream society, we need to remember and reeducate ourselves of our true identity as Dine.
Youtuber Jo Jo Jackson here shows us the disparities between Navajo and other areas of the United States. These disparities is one of the major reasons Navajos have more positive Corona cases on a per capita basis than the rest of the United States except for New York and New Jersey. These disparities exist because of historical genocide consisting of broken treaties, disparate treatment, and racism which Jackson talks about. This is what we need to be educated on. Our Dine Youth are starting to come out and be vocal on these issues on a national scale. Excellent!
