Just half of Wolf Point’s Native students graduate from high school, compared with about three-quarters of their white peers. In June 2017, the Tribal Executive Board of Fort Peck filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights requesting a federal investigation into its contention that the Wolf Point school system discriminates against Native students.
“I think the sensitivity to different cultures, sometimes it ends with Native people,” said Ron Lessard, the acting executive director of the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education since 2017.
Source: District of Despair: On a Montana Reservation, Schools… — ProPublica
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ALONE: 2018 QUOTE
In her essay “Alone in Company,” Chelsea Bayouth reflects on the role of an artist at the end of 2018: “For me, it is to fear that every word or image is a window into public, political, and social tumult. It means you have to be more vulnerable than you or anyone in times previous has ever been…. Social capital is the currency, and if you have none you are poor. ”
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The Ivory Coast is demanding that France return 148 works once looted from the country. The Ivory Coast’s culture minister, Maurice Bandaman, confirmed that a list of works were sent to France and are set to be returned in 2019. Bandaman also told Agence-France Presse, “At least 50 museums around the world have Ivorian works, and this does not include private collection,” indicating that France is not the only country with looted works. [Agence France-Presse]
The British Museum’s ‘Looting’ Problem …headlines across the internet announced that the British Museum was to “return looted antiquities to Iraq.”
Clearly, the United States has an aversion to facing its past and is long overdue for a moment of truth and reconciliation. Read: The Field Museum’s Native North American Hall starts to ask who it represents | Feature | Chicago Reader
One more: As Belgium Reopens Africa Museum, DR Congo Demands Restitution of Artifacts
(This is a trend I am very glad to see)
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A new work by Banksy has appeared at the back of a car garage in Port Talbot, Wales last week. Since then, crowds have gathered at the scene, with local authorities having to manage and organize the groups of people. Banksy claimed responsibility for the work on his website and Instagram. The garage is owned by Ivan Lewis, a local steelworker. “I’ve never experienced anything like this,” said Lewis. “My phone is ringing, on my house phone there’s 1,000 messages on it.” [Art Daily]
**
Shan Goshorn, “a Cherokee artist and activist known for her contemporary approach to traditional basket-weaving,” died of cancer at the age of 61. [Tulsa World]
*
Under a cloud of scandal… the toxic Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is gone (fired) (top photo)
Can we call it a year now? 2017 and 2018 wore me out. Cancer didn’t help but I feel woke enough.
02019 – please, do us a favor? Be kind to us. We deserve better!
xoxoxox
LT
Banksy really ‘gets it’. Social commentary like no other.
The British Museum is still trying to hang on to anything it can. I saw a news feature where one of the curators was justifying their ‘preservation’ of things that would otherwise have been lost to history. Sadly, most of those things have never even been seen, and reside in dusty storage cellars.
I also saw a BBC World report on how Native American and Inuit people in the USA are failed by not only the education system, but the health system too. After all this time the WASPS are still trying to keep them down, by whatever means necessary.
You might enjoy this, Lara.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1xDr1w9d0TrZ3w8rqtMQdnb/the-aboriginal-australian-artist-who-found-international-fame-with-his-unique-vision
Best wishes for good health in 2019. Let’s hope we all have a better year.
With love and friendship as always, Pete.
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Ah Pete, thank you. Friends like you across the pond mean so much to me! 2019 will be better! I want that. (Thanks for that link!!)
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thanks for the good & not so good, Lara!
may there be a feeling of justice
for you and all in the new year 🙂
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smilecalm
all the best to you
every day every year
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Lara, I saw this on another blog, and thought of you.

http://www.sagchip.org/ziibiwing/
My blogging friend Ed Western took some nice photos there.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thanks so much Pete. Great to see this!
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It was indeed and exhausting year… But I tend to think it motivating. Change only happens as long as we are determined to keep exhaustion from being an excuse….Rest, but get up swinging!
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Oh I have fight left in me, KC. I’m ready to blow! (kidding) We’ll be fine (eventually)
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