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Are You Aware? The Consideration of the Ongoing Colonizing Project of Education
This is part V in our “Nation to Nation” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. “They steal, then they take your memory of the theft.” — Shad (2018) I sit here, in my living room, by my window overlooking the intersection in downtown Provo, Utah (if there is such a place). On the four corners are the Provo City Center Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the county health department, an auto body shop, and the apartment building where I live — Church, state, commerce, and home. Cars buzz by. So do the clouds. The sky is blue. And today is Pioneer…
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Are You Aware? COVID-19 in Indian Country
This is part IV in our “Nation to Nation” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. The effects of COVID-19 in Indian Country have been devastating. COVID hit Indian Country later than many other places in America. The Navajo Nation was the first. The Navajo reservation is the size of West Virginia, making it the largest reservation in the United States. With 170,000 people living there, it is sparsely populated. The Diné (their preferred name) keep themselves fed and warm by sheep herding. The sheep are used for food and sheared for the wool to make yarn for weaving. Known worldwide for their beauty, Navajo rugs are…
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Are You Aware? Who Are We, America?
This is part III in our “Nation to Nation” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. Recently, I was in the lobby of a radio station with a city law enforcement officer who is a criminal investigator (CI). The two of us were waiting to be interviewed on the radio about missing and murdered Indigenous people. The criminal investigator spoke to me about a case that happened downtown. She said she responded to a call where police officers told her they found a deceased Native American woman inside an apartment. The lead officer told the CI that the Native woman died from suicide. Upon investigation, the CI…
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Let Us Be Patriots
There are visionary ideas that have become symbolic beacons to the American people, directing our gaze toward higher planes, helping to define us while at the same time chiding us to do and be better than we are. Think about the Constitution, the creation and purchase of the Statue of Liberty, the Emancipation Proclamation, “I Have a Dream,” and even the first public library. Embedded in each of these landmark moments was one inspired individual with an idea that would ultimately create an outsized impact, far exceeding anything they could have conjured in their wildest dreams. While I’m no historian, I imagine few would argue against the Declaration of Independence topping…
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Are You Aware? Five Things You Can Do Right Now to Fight Ableism
This is part V in our Awareness Wednesday series on disability. Read the other posts in the series here. 1. Learn about the history of disability. In order to understand current experiences of disability, we need some information about how disability has been experienced. Because disability history is not covered in schools, most people have very little (if any) exposure to it, leaving it up to disabled people to do much of the educating on this topic. Given that disabled people have been around just as long as anybody else, it’s impossible for me to recommend resources that cover all of disability history. But I’ll recommend three resources that I believe…
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We Are Witnesses
On Wednesday, June 3, 2020, MWEG hosted its inaugural Town Hall: “If All Lives Matter, then Black Lives Matter: Turning Frustration into Productive Interpersonal Action.” After inspiring words by featured presenter Dr. LaShawn Williams, MWEG’s anti-racism committee lead, Charlotte Mountain, shared these thoughts. “One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established” (Deuteronomy 19:15). What this is telling us is that it is righteous and good that there be corroboration to any prosecution. We should not be convicted on…
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“This Can’t Be Forgotten”
These are the words of Charlotte Mountain, MWEG’s anti-racism committee lead. Charlotte is a black woman living in America, and her oldest son is a police officer. The video she refers to is that of the murder of George Floyd. A simple internet search for Darnella Frazier, the woman who shot the film, will help you find it. I watched the video twice, because the first time I was absolutely in shock. The second watch was to make sense of what I saw. The video I watched was attached to a news article that claimed George Floyd (unnamed at that time) had later died, and I did not believe that.…
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Are You Aware? How to Be an Advocate
This is part IV in our Awareness Wednesday series on disability. Read the other posts in the series here. My third child, a daughter named Marisa, was born in 1991. The pregnancy and delivery went well, but after she was born, we began to see behavior that was much different than our first two children. She would tantrum (screaming at the top of her lungs) frequently as a baby, and a toddler. Because of the intensity of her crying, I kept thinking she must be ill. So she was taken to many doctors and was poked and prodded, so very many times. All her medical tests came back normal. But she…
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Are You Aware? Life From My Point of View
This is part III in our Awareness Wednesday series on disability. Read the other posts in the series here. It is 2:30 p.m. and I’m sitting on the steps in front of the school waiting for the taxi that will take me, Connie, and Billy home. I’m working on my homework, which is reading. It is fun, and I’m learning more and more. I’m recovering from my first grade year of school in the U.S., where the teacher had no clue how to teach low-vision children. I’m now in a new school and must be transported to another town. The taxi arrives: It’s the white van and that means Ray. Ray…
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Are You Aware? Five Lessons from Raising an Autistic Child
This is part II in our Awareness Wednesday series on disability. Read the other posts in the series here. Like all parents, my world changed forever when I had my first son in 2002. Like a growing number of parents, my world changed forever yet again when I discovered, in 2004, that my son was autistic. Navigating the world of public education, private insurance, and social interaction as the mother of an autistic child for the past 15 years has been a challenging experience, one that has taught me several lessons with respect to how our system works in practice. I share five of these lessons below. Although much of what…
