If you need support

Support Info: If you are a Survivor and need emotional support, a national crisis line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week: Residential School Survivor Support Line: 1-866-925-4419. Additional Health Support Information: Emotional, cultural, and professional support services are also available to Survivors and their families through the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program. Services can be accessed on an individual, family, or group basis.” These & regional support phone numbers are found at https://nctr.ca/contact/survivors/ . MY EMAIL: tracelara@pm.me

Thursday, August 30, 2012

UPDATED Another violation of ICWA in Arizona

NEWS:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/arizona-appeals-court-upholds-placement-of-navajo-boy-with-non-american-indian-family/2012/08/29/213b8d48-f21b-11e1-b74c-84ed55e0300b_story.html

Arizona Court of Appeals Affirms Deviation from ICWA/BIA Placement Preferences
by Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in Navajo Nation v. Arizona Dept. of Economic Security:
Navajo v ADEC
An excerpt:
The Navajo Nation (“the Nation”) appeals the juvenile court’s judgment finding good cause to deviate from the placement preferences set forth in the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (“ICWA”), 25 U.S.C. §§ 1901 to 1963 (2006), and allowing the child (“Z.”) to remain with his current non-relative, non-Indian adoptive placement. We affirm. The juvenile court properly found good cause to deviate from ICWA placement preferences because the placement family provided good care for Z., Z. had attached and bonded with the family, Z. would suffer severe distress if he was removed from that placement, the placement family would expose Z. to his Navajo culture, and the placement family had been approved to adopt Z. While the interest of the Nation and the Congressionally-presumed interest of Z. in maintaining his heritage weighed against a finding of good cause to deviate from ICWA’s preferences, on this record we cannot say the court erred in weighing all these interests.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

I am not alone anymore

I am reblogging this post from Land of Gazillion Adoptees...Karl and I just became friends on Facebook! ...Trace

http://landofgazillionadoptees.com/2012/08/29/i-am-not-alone-anymore-a-short-story-by-karl-minzenmayer/

August 29, 2012

“I am Not Alone Anymore” a Short Story by Karl Minzenmayer

by Amandablog

I can usually form intelligible sentences. Evidence suggests otherwise as I keep muttering “Damn, Damn” repeatedly. My eyes can’t refrain from staring at John. His piercing blue eyes are mine, his face while stockier is mine too. That jet black hair of his I see every morning in the bathroom mirror. Damn…..

Prior to this moment I was alone in this world. Connected to my Adoptive Parents, wife and son by love and choice. But this is NOT choice. This is the moment that connected me to a full brother I had never met, known of, or dreamed about. In front of me is undeniable physical evidence of a human being I am connected with by BLOOD. I am drowning in the power of my own emotions. Damn…..
I will never be the same.
I was 27 years old that day and John was 23.

I have alway know that my sister and I were not related and both adopted. We were given details regarding my Chippewah heritage, my birthmother being only 15 and unable to care for me. To me this meant I was not wanted before and my Adoptive Parents did want me. No one wondered aloud (near me anyway) why my white parents had these two olive skinned Indian looking kids. Maybe they all knew we were adopted, but I knew I was different.
I felt alone.
As I sit in the Seattle airport across from my brother (who by now is concerned for my vocabulary skills), I am not alone anymore.
————-
Author Karl Minzenmayer was adopted in Washington State by a military family, and has lived in Alaska, Texas, Taiwan, and Colorado. As an adult, Karl found his birth parents and discovered an entire biological family. Being part Ojibwe, he has reconnected with his Native roots. Karl calls Colorado Springs home where he has been a self-employed optician for 29 years. He is a single father of four amazing kids and one great dog. As an Eagle Scout and brother of a special needs sister, Karl is passionate about community service. He is active in non-profit eyewear for kids through the Lions Club and Native Vision, and a volunteer at the Colorado Springs Indian Center. He has been a Camp Counselor and a Special Olympics volunteer. Karl is also an active supporter and member of the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA).

I am not alone anymore

“I am Not Alone Anymore” a Short Story by Karl Minzenmayer

by Amandablog

I am not alone anymore

“I am Not Alone Anymore” a Short Story by Karl Minzenmayer

by Amandablog

I am not alone anymore

“I am Not Alone Anymore” a Short Story by Karl Minzenmayer

by Amandablog

I am not alone anymore

“I am Not Alone Anymore” a Short Story by Karl Minzenmayer

by Amandablog

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

NICWA's September training institutes

Archive photo

This is the last chance to register for National Indian Child Welfare Association's (NICWA) September training institutes.
There is just a little over a week left to prepare for the September training institutes in Portland, Oregon. Register now for either "Promoting Youth and Family Involvement" or "Promoting Best Practices in Engagement and Recruitment of Tribal Foster Homes."

NICWA is looking for dynamic and powerful American Indian and Alaska Native artwork.
The deadline in our annual Call for Artists is September 28, 2012, which means that there is just a month for Native artists to put their inspiration to work and send in a piece that they feel will best represent the spirit of "Protecting Our Children".
Information is available online http://www.nicwa.org/ for NICWA's annual competition for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) artists. The winner gets $1,500 and the exposure of having their work incorporated into conference materials reaching thousands!

NICWA's Call for Presentations information is now available online at http://www.nicwa.org/.
The 31st Annual Protecting Our Children National American Indian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect is being held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, April 7-10, 2013. NICWA's annual call for workshop presentations is officially underway, and we are looking for people hoping to share their research, stories, successes, and lessons learned in their work as champions and advocates for American Indian and Alaska Native children and families.

Want to Know More? To learn more about this training institute, please visit the September training institute page of the NICWA website. If you have any questions about course content or travel logistics, check out our Frequently Asked Questions page, or you may contact Event Manager Laurie Evans at laurie@nicwa. org or by calling (503) 222-4044, ext. 124.

Information on the 2013 Protecting Our Children conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is available on the conference page of the NICWA website.

The deadline for workshop content is October 19, 2012. Save the Date!

Other Upcoming NICWA Events

December 4-6, 2012
ICW Training Institutes
Portland, Oregon
Information on the next round of ICW training institutes available at www.nicwa.org/ training/ institutes.

April 7-10, 2013
31st Annual Protecting Our Children National American Indian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Information on this conference is available online at www.nicwa.org/ conference.

April 13-16, 2014
31st Annual Protecting Our Children National American Indian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Information on this conference is available online at www.nicwa.org/ calendar.

Questions?

For answers to questions regarding the upcoming training institutes, the Call for Artists competition, and NICWA's annual "Protecting Our Children" conference, please contact NICWA Event Manager Laurie Evans at laurie@nicwa. org or by calling (503) 222-4044, extension 124. http://www.nicwa.org/

NICWA is a national nonprofit and the most comprehensive source of information on American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) child welfare and works on behalf of AI/AN children and families.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Part One: Victims of Adoption and Lies

Trace was born in 1956 and legally adopted in 1958.

By Trace A. DeMeyer

I woke up with thoughts: there are two victims of adoption who need help and not necessarily from each other: the adoptee and the first mother. Each has its own burden and neither can heal the other.

Speaking with adoptee friends on Facebook, many added their own ideas when I posted my thoughts.

One friend injected: what about the mother who made the choice (freely) to give her up as a baby.
Well, that is true - she was free to decide - but also consider she had the adoption industry, churches, family and society telling her (insisting) that was her only option: Give up her baby to new parents.
Had this mother known her child would suffer emotionally from being adopted, would she have made the same choice?
(No one imagined a child was injured or hurt being adopted - not until recently.)
We know this mother had to live with her choice and live with the loss of her child. That was obviously a burden.
Finding and meeting her child again in reunion - after many years - will not and cannot reverse or ease or erase that pain and loss. Each mother who relinquished a baby will have to deal with this on her own terms, and hopefully receive counselling, and find support from other mothers who also lost their child to adoption.
Some mothers are adopting their child back, what I call "adoption in reverse."

One adoptee friend found out the social workers told her natural mother that she was being placed with a doctor's family - so I guess that would have put her mother's mind at ease - thinking of the prosperity and safety her baby girl would have had growing up. But the truth was my friend was not placed with a doctor's family.
If her mother had found out this was a lie, how would she have reacted? Wouldn't she worry about her baby and carry that burden for years?
In my friend's case, her birthmother never told the man (the birthfather) she was expecting his child. It's possible my friend's dad would not have allowed this adoption to take place. He loved kids and would have raised his daughter on his reservation in Michigan. Why? The Ojibwe used kinship adoption (babies are adopted by relatives).

[Since the 1900s, governments swept up children with their Indian Adoption Projects (which were closed adoptions with non-Indian parents). Adoption meant assimilation. It was meant to make the child "white."]

Even though her mother did tell the social workers her baby was also Indian, did it matter? Back then, no. This was in the 1960s. The social workers would prefer not to mention a child had some Indian blood. Even social workers displayed overt racism and wrote lies in the paperwork. They practiced "matching" which meant a "mixed race child" who looked white would not have to be told their ancestry was American Indian.

My friend's adoption (like my own) was before the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.
If it happened after 1978, and social workers knew my friend was also Indian, the tribe and her father would have been notified. The tribes would've handled the baby and her placement. That's federal law in every state now (and sadly it is not always upheld, even now in 2012.) Last year, it was reported 32 states are in violation of the ICWA.

Each story like this gets complicated with lies and omissions of what is truth. My friend's mother was a victim of lies and so was her Ojibwe father - who was never told.

My point here is the adoption industry created "lies" for everyone to believe.

PART TWO will continue in a week... Please share your thoughts in the comments... Trace

Yes to berries, no to salt (what a traditional diet can do for us)

Photo from www.fingerlakesfeasting.com

"When you are born into poverty, you kind of eat what you can afford."

Yes to berries, no to salt

Native man goes back to his roots in order to lose weight, live healthier

http://www.vancouversun.com/berries+salt/6648452/story.html

BY ARMINA LIGAYA, NATIONAL POST

For 18 months, Bossy Ducharme has eaten the same 15 basic foods, day in and day out. A strict diet, including wild rice, raw pumpkin seeds, berries and elk. No salt, pepper or sugar. If his aboriginal ancestors wouldn't have eaten it, neither will he.

"I'm not going to put anything in my body that was not here before the Europeans arrived, because there is something wrong here," said Mr. Ducharme, a Métis from Duck Bay, Man. "Ever since colonization, my people went from being a fit, athletic race of people to the most sickly and lame. The most obese. The highest diabetes rate.... We went from eating our natural food to a diet completely different from 100 years ago."

More than a third of Canadian aboriginals are obese, and about a fifth told the 2011 First Nations Regional Health Surveythey had diabetes, according to its preliminary results.

Mr. Ducharme himself was 223 pounds and managed to drop to 145 pounds without exercising. He has more energy and both a clearer complexion and mind, he says.

"But mostly it was that I felt so present in my daily life," he said. "That is definitely something that I wouldn't have anticipated before starting this."

Mr. Ducharme, who is in his 40s, has been filming his dietary journey, with the hopes of making a documentary and inspiring others to make similar changes.

He does not eat beef, chicken or pork (none of these are native to North America, he says), dairy, coffee or refined foods of any kind.

Even bannock, a heavy bread traditionally eaten by indigenous peoples in North America, is off limits, says Mr. Ducharme.

"The bannock of today is made from white bleached flour, mixed with salt and lard and yeast to make it rise.... My own people think it's traditional and it's not. And it's certainly not good for us native people," he says.

Mr. Ducharme's diet is not what his family ate while growing up in suburban Winnipeg, said his brother, Ronald.

"It wasn't very easy for us to eat as healthy," he said. "When you are born into poverty, you kind of eat what you can afford. You spend the money on bigger portions - the pastas, the sugars. That was our diet and our upbringing."

Mr. Ducharme in particular had a hefty appetite. When someone couldn't finish their food at their family dinners, they would say "Oh, give it to Bossy. He'll eat it," said Ronald, a paramedic.

When his brother came to visit him in Winnipeg last December, looking slim and shunning the Kentucky Fried Chicken they would often eat together, Ronald was surprised. Even when surrounded by a dozen family and friends and greasy fare, Mr. Ducharme did not waver.

"While we were eating toast and pizza and chicken and Chinese food, sitting in the midst of everyone else he was just eating his fish and his berries," he said.

Mr. Ducharme transformed his diet after a health scare - and a nightmare. In 2007, his doctor told Mr. Ducharme, then a generally sedentary office manager, he was, at 5'9" and 223 pounds, obese.

"I was a typical single man, eating a typical single bachelor's diet," Mr. Ducharme said. "Fast food. Drank a lot of coffee. Smoked cigarettes."

One night, he had a vivid dream that he died. He still remembers the feeling of staring at his dead body, as he floated away.

"It was so real, it was so lucid.... I said, 'If you let me live, creator, I will do my best to take care of me', " Mr. Ducharme said.

When he awoke, he cried on his bedroom floor for hours, he says. And he vowed to make a fresh start.

Mr. Ducharme began to think about how his ancestors lived, and about what would happen if he re-connected with their old food traditions. He started researching what aboriginal peoples would have eaten before colonization, flipping through books in libraries, surfing on the Internet, and asking everyone he knew.

He discovered that there was no agreement on what a traditional indigenous diet was, so he created his own.

Over the next three years, Mr. Ducharme prepared for his diet by researching, saving up and slowly adjusting his food choices, and worked odd jobs to support himself. He also saved up to go back to school and study documentary film, building upon his past experience as an actor on television and the stage.

Mr. Ducharme began his diet on Sept. 21, 2010. The date was specifically chosen because it marks the fall equinox.

"It's a time of change, traditionally," Mr. Ducharme said.

He had been slowly weaning himself off his favourite foods in the months before, but going cold turkey was a shock.

The self-confessed "saltaholic" says everything felt tasteless.

"My tastebuds had been spoiled by a lifetime of processed foods," he said. "After a month of everything tasting the same, I was like, 'I don't know if I want to do this.' I wanted to lick the curb, [because] I was craving salt. I was smelling food from a mile away."

After a month, Mr. Ducharme's tongue began to adjust. Now, he no longer likes the taste of prepared food.

"Everything tasted as it should. And I liked it," he said.

But the diet took its toll on his disposition - he was constantly hungry, moody, and emotional. His friends stopped eating their luscious meals in front of him to avoid tempting him, or taunting him with what he could not indulge in.

He could rarely order food at restaurants that adhered to his strict requirements, so Mr. Ducharme carried seeds, rice and berries in Rubbermaid containers everywhere he went.

Eventually, he discovered the solution to fending off hunger and his mood swings was to eat all the time. He no longer had breakfast, lunch and dinner - his portable buffet enabled him to eat whenever hunger struck him.

Mr. Ducharme buys buffalo, elk and other wild game from the vendors at St. Lawrence Market, one of the few places in Toronto that offer it. He also buys wild rice, pumpkin seeds, and maple syrup there, but would rely on markets in his neighbourhood for berries and indigenous vegetables.

His diet follows an ancient pattern, but he still uses modern cooking tools, such as a blender for berry smoothies.

"My ancestors didn't have blenders, but I didn't say I was going to cook like them. Just eat what they ate," Mr. Ducharme wrote on his blog. "I also use a slow cooker, for my meats, which makes my life so much easier."

The cost of buying healthy foods, however, can add up. Mr. Ducharme said he is not a status Indian, and he does not have some of the financial supports offered to other aboriginal groups. He now works at a Toronto industrial installer, which helps set up new retail stores, to pay for his living expenses and for continuing education film courses at George Brown.

Friends and family periodically buy rice for him. He even snagged a sponsor, Meadowview Honey, which gave him maple syrup.

"It's a lot easier to eat unhealthy ... but I'm the average person. And I'm not privileged, and I did it. I know it can be done."

In mid-February, Mr. Ducharme began to add so-called regular food, in small portions, back into his diet. He says he wanted his documentary to show the effects of returning to a normal diet.

"I gained 30 pounds in one month," he said.

Mr. Ducharme plans to return to his traditional diet by June. He intends to stick with it until at least 2014, when he plans to submit his documentary to the Sundance Film Festival. He may continue with his strict eating habits beyond that, but he says he is taking it one step at a time.

He is also seeking funding for his documentary, and is fundraising for a trip to New Zealand, where he has been invited to speak to the Maori community about his traditional diet.

In any case, Mr. Ducharme has already made an impact on his own family.

His brother Ronald has started buying more fruits and nuts as snacks for his family of three kids and has shrunk from 255 pounds to 218 pounds on his 6-foot frame. Their younger sister, Beatrice, also switched pop for water, started exercising and has dropped about 20 pounds, Ronald says.

"He changed our immediate family's view on eating ... my kids are going to have a different [mentality]. We're going to change that in our generation. It hasn't been changed since my grandma. My grandma passed that on to my mom, and my mom passed that down to us. And it would definitely pass on to my kids. So, this [change] definitely helps."

look at Bossy Ducharme's diet for Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010

- 7: 00 a.m. - strawberries, raspberries
- 10:10 a.m. - buffalo, corn, wild rice
- 12: 00 p.m. - buffalo, corn, wild rice, strawberries
- 2:35 p.m. - raspberries
- 5:53 p.m. - buffalo, corn, wild rice
- snack - pumpkin seeds
- 9:00 p.m. - buffalo, corn, wild rice, drank only water

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/berries+salt/6648452/story.html#ixzz24ToksFYc
© Copyright (c) National Post--*If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this message, please retain this credit. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= UBCIC's Protecting Knowledge Conference site: http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/Resources/conferences/PK.htm

I was thinking about my natural mother who died from complications of diabetes - I look at diets all the time... Trace

Friday, August 24, 2012

Yurok Traditional Adoption

Cal. COA Decides ICWA Case involving Yurok Traditional Adoption Statute

by Matthew L.M. Fletcher
Turtle Talk on the web

Here is the opinion:
In re HR
An excerpt:
In 2010, legislation was enacted establishing “tribal customary adoption” as an alternative permanent plan for a dependent Indian child who cannot be reunited with his or her parents. Tribal customary adoption is intended to provide an Indian child with the same stability and permanency as traditional adoption under state law without the termination of parental rights, which is contrary to the cultural beliefs of many Native American tribes. In this case, the Yurok Tribe (the tribe) intervened in the dependency proceedings prior to the jurisdictional hearing and recommended tribal customary adoption as the permanent plan for the minor. The tribe now contends the juvenile court erred in terminating parental rights and selecting traditional adoption as the permanent plan. We disagree with the tribe's contention that the court was required to select tribal customary adoption as the child's permanent plan simply because the tribe elected such a plan but conclude that, in the absence of a finding that tribal customary adoption would be detrimental to the minor, the court erred in failing to select such a permanent plan in this case.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Native America Calling August 17, 2012

Friday, August 17, 2012 – Finding Your Native Roots After Being Adopted:

Imagine if you grew up away from your tribal community and had no clue that you were an Indigenous person and the only identity that you had to hold onto was from a non-Native family who was raising you as one of their own. Now just what would you do if you felt the call of your people and the reservation wanting you to come home? Would you act on it? Is it easy for a person who has been adopted out to come home when they feel the need? What does it mean to discover your Native roots? Do our tribal communities welcome those that have the urge to return? Join us as we talk with Sarah Koi (Cree) a Native adoptee discovering her Native roots, adoptee Adrian Greybuffalo (Sisseton/Wahpeton) and Rachel Banks-Kupcho (Leech Lake Ojibwe) Anu Family Services.

Native America Calling August 17, 2012

Native America Calling on #NDN Adoption

Friday, August 17, 2012 – Finding Your Native Roots After Being Adopted: (listen)
Imagine if you grew up away from your tribal community and had no clue that you were an Indigenous person and the only identity that you had to hold onto was from a non-Native family who was raising you as one of their own. Now just what would you do if you felt the call of your people and the reservation wanting you to come home? Would you act on it? Is it easy for a person who has been adopted out to come home when they feel the need? What does it mean to discover your Native roots? Do our tribal communities welcome those that have the urge to return? Join us as we talk with Sarah Koi (Cree) a Native adoptee discovering her Native roots, adoptee Adrian Greywolf (Sisseton/Wahpeton) and Rachel Banks-Kupcho (Leech Lake Ojibwe) Anu Family Services.

The New Abolition: Ending Adoption in Our Time

Here is more from my brilliant articulate adoptee friend Daniel Ibn Zayd, a follow-up to my interview (on August 13). He posted The New Abolition: Ending Adoption in Our Time on the website DISSIDENT VOICE... Here are a few quotes that resonated with me... He is working on a book!

"The implication here is that the adoptee also traverses the phases of being “colonized”: coddled by the seeming safety of his new-found place, seduced by the imposed mythology of a dominant culture, and abetted by the willfully distanced memory of his generational past. ...a clear definition for what is often referred to within adoptee circles as “the fog”, or “drinking the Kool-Aid”: the acceptance of a fragile notion of security sustained by a false sense of self within an alien and alienating environment....

"As our activism has grown over this near decade, I have been greatly inspired by adoptees in South Korea, for just one example, who have helped shut down adoption in that country as of this year. Other source countries are following suit, and I am further heartened to see an expansion of this activism, here citing just a few examples: mothers in Guatemala, demanding the repatriation of their kidnapped children; in Argentina, demonstrating for an accounting of the infants born to the imprisoned and then disappeared; in Spain, investigating the stolen children of the Franco era and beyond; in Russia, criticizing the despicable treatment of their children exported abroad; in indigenous American Nations, parents reclaiming their stolen progeny. This list grows longer every day.

"I invoke this term (abolition) fully aware of its weight as concerns the movement to abolish slavery, and to clarify this usage, I define adoption as follows:

Adoption is, in and of itself, a violence based in inequality. It is candy-coated, marketed, and packaged to seemingly concern families and children, but it is an economically and politically incentivized crime. It stems culturally and historically from the “peculiar institution” of Anglo-Saxon indentured servitude and not family creation. It is not universal and is not considered valid by most communal cultures. It is a treating of symptoms and not of disease. It is a negation of families and an annihilation of communities not imbued with any notion of humanity due to the adoptive culture’s inscribed bias concerning race, class, and human relevancy...

"...And thus American Indian reservations, secret bases of extradition, Japanese internment camps, urban and rural ghettoes, the corporate-industrial prison complex, vigilante terrorism directed against immigrants, the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans. Shamefully added to this list are the children sent to adoption rehabilitation camps in Montana, Russian boys returned alone on airplanes, disrupted adoptions, deported adoptees, the stockpiling of children by adoptive collectors and hoarders, RAD therapies, rebirthings and other pseudo-treatments bordering on outright torture, over-medication of our “mental illnesses”, as well as our “treatment” and study by an army of therapists, social workers, academics, assorted quacks and other misery-industry profiteers. The very existence of this cavalcade of systemic jerry-builders is a greater condemnation of the dysfunctional societal structures undergirding the industry of adoption than anything possibly expressed by the critics thereof. This, in and of itself, should give us great pause...."

http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/08/the-new-abolition-ending-adoption-in-our-time/

Daniel Ibn Zayd currently lives in Beirut. This article is distilled from a book in progress comparing the political and economic aspects of adoption. He can be reached by email at:daniel.ibnzayd@inquisitor.com. Read other articles by Daniel, or visit Daniel's website.

The New Abolition: Ending Adoption in Our Time

"As our activism has grown over this near decade, I have been greatly inspired by adoptees in South Korea, for just one example, who have helped shut down adoption in that country as of this year. Other source countries are following suit, and I am further heartened to see an expansion of this activism, here citing just a few examples: mothers in Guatemala, demanding the repatriation of their kidnapped children; in Argentina, demonstrating for an accounting of the infants born to the imprisoned and then disappeared; in Spain, investigating the stolen children of the Franco era and beyond; in Russia, criticizing the despicable treatment of their children exported abroad; in indigenous American Nations, parents reclaiming their stolen progeny. This list grows longer every day.

"I invoke this term (abolition) fully aware of its weight as concerns the movement to abolish slavery, and to clarify this usage, I define adoption as follows:

Adoption is, in and of itself, a violence based in inequality. It is candy-coated, marketed, and packaged to seemingly concern families and children, but it is an economically and politically incentivized crime. It stems culturally and historically from the “peculiar institution” of Anglo-Saxon indentured servitude and not family creation. It is not universal and is not considered valid by most communal cultures. It is a treating of symptoms and not of disease. It is a negation of families and an annihilation of communities not imbued with any notion of humanity due to the adoptive culture’s inscribed bias concerning race, class, and human relevancy...

The New Abolition: Ending Adoption in Our Time

"As our activism has grown over this near decade, I have been greatly inspired by adoptees in South Korea, for just one example, who have helped shut down adoption in that country as of this year. Other source countries are following suit, and I am further heartened to see an expansion of this activism, here citing just a few examples: mothers in Guatemala, demanding the repatriation of their kidnapped children; in Argentina, demonstrating for an accounting of the infants born to the imprisoned and then disappeared; in Spain, investigating the stolen children of the Franco era and beyond; in Russia, criticizing the despicable treatment of their children exported abroad; in indigenous American Nations, parents reclaiming their stolen progeny. This list grows longer every day.

"I invoke this term (abolition) fully aware of its weight as concerns the movement to abolish slavery, and to clarify this usage, I define adoption as follows:

Adoption is, in and of itself, a violence based in inequality. It is candy-coated, marketed, and packaged to seemingly concern families and children, but it is an economically and politically incentivized crime. It stems culturally and historically from the “peculiar institution” of Anglo-Saxon indentured servitude and not family creation. It is not universal and is not considered valid by most communal cultures. It is a treating of symptoms and not of disease. It is a negation of families and an annihilation of communities not imbued with any notion of humanity due to the adoptive culture’s inscribed bias concerning race, class, and human relevancy...

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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

“I am Not Alone Anymore” a Short Story by Karl Minzenmayer

“I am Not Alone Anymore” a Short Story by Karl Minzenmayer

“I am Not Alone Anymore” a Short Story by Karl Minzenmayer

“I am Not Alone Anymore” a Short Story by Karl Minzenmayer

“I am Not Alone Anymore” a Short Story by Karl Minzenmayer

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Yes to berries, no to salt

Native man goes back to his roots in order to lose weight, live healthier

Friday, August 24, 2012

Thursday, August 23, 2012

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