Ajijaakwe: February 2014

Friday, February 28, 2014

Time for an Ice Break

Equine yoga.

Prehistoric pony? [Actually, just shaking off the effects of that nasty halter.]

At long last, horsey heaven.

Little does he know the indignities still in store: March will mean the farrier, and vaxes, and a check-up, and if there's money, getting his teeth floated. Forget alfalfa — we should've just fed him a bale of greenbacks.

La Plaza: Priorities. We Don't Haz 'Em.

When the lead news story in the state is the fact that NMSU has suspended an Aggie guard for his role in a postgame brawl, it's pretty obvious that the priorities of both the state's [alleged] policymakers and its punditocracy are sadly misplaced.

Or nonexistent, even.

The New Mexico Lege concluded its "short session" last week. Sessions alternate: A so-called "full session" occurs each odd-numbered year, which is to say, 60 whole whopping days out of 365. That's it. That's a full legislative session in New Mexico. Even-numbered years, like this year, are limited to 30-day sessions. Fewer days than in the entire month of January.

It's a disgrace.

Coda:

In memory of Jesse Washington.

In memory of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis.

A haunting reminder that our work is not done.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

American Horror: The Lynching of Jesse Washington

Postcard photo of the crowd at the lynching of Jesse Washington

Note: This post first appeared as a diary at Daily Kos on May 18, 2011. It was deleted without my knowledge, permission, or consent. It was written by me, it is my intellectual property and work product, and I retain copyright. On the penultimate day of Black History Month and a day after the second anniversary of the lynching of another seventeen-year-old Black man, Trayvon Martin, It is posted here with very minor edits.

First, a warning. What follows below the fold are very blunt, very graphic depictions and descriptions of lynching in the United States. If these depictions will cause too much distress, do not read further.

Second, an admonition. The purpose of this diary is to bear witness. It is not "violence porn" offered for prurient interest. If that is your reason for reading, please move along. I will not engage on this deadly serious topic in that manner.

Third, an apology. I have found it impossible to depersonalize this subject. What follows, then, is simply a deeply personal recording of my own attempt, now 98 years later, to remember Jesse Washington, and to accord his life and death the respect they deserve.

41 Years Ago Today: Wounded Knee, '73

Note: A version of this was first posted at Daily Kos on March 4, 2014, as part of my weekly series, This Week In American Indian News; it appears here with minor edits for currency.

Wounded Knee '73: 41st Anniversary of Occupation's Start

Today, February 27, marks the 41st anniversary of the beginning of the American Indian Movement's occupation of Wounded Knee, on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Its conception and launch were led primarily by two of AIM's founders: Carter Camp (Ponca) and Dennis Banks (Ojibwa). [Note: This is not to say that others did not play major roles, both during the planning and execution; it simply credits the two most significant driving forces appropriately, as most media never do. Please also note that the link above implies no endorsement on my part of the article's content — on many grounds. Finally, I include here a link to the wiki on both the 1890 massacre and the 1973 occupation — and again, inclusion does not imply endorsement of all content.]

Lost Arts and Found Letters

What Wings and Q spent yesterday afternoon doing. By hand. Not many people who can do that anymore. The rest of the fence gets repaired today, if the weather holds long enough.

My own contribution was wrangling six horses. Solo. Six horses absolutely wild with spring fever. Also done the old way, with just a rope. They're mostly pretty good, and I'm bull-headed enough to outlast even Shade when she balks. Took me about twenty minutes for all of them.

A few programming notes:

A couple of pieces are going up today. Found letters. The first is a repost of a piece I did last year as part of my round-up of Indian news, because today's an important anniversary in our contemporary history. An especially poignant one, for reasons you'll see immediately.

The second is one I mentioned yesterday in my piece on another poignant anniversary: that of the lynching of Trayvon Martin. This is one I wrote three years ago for the then-95th anniversary of the lynching of another seventeen-year-old Black man, Jesse Washington. Otherwise known and dismissed as The Waco Horror.

Both will post this morning, with minor edits. They may not be new to everyone, but I had to re-read them both yesterday, and it was worth doing. Sometimes we need to be shocked anew.

I'll be doing a lot of cross-posting of my old work: sometimes for context, sometimes for folks who missed it the first time, sometimes just because it's mine and I think it was done well enough to post. Of course, the same applies to new pieces, too: The reasons are many, and don't always need explaining. Some of them will be intensely personal, so fair warning. Some of them will not seem to have any political purpose, and they probably don't. But whether written in the first person or the third, they're important to me.

All this, I guess, is my way of saying that a lot of what gets posted here may make some folks uncomfortable. If it does, all I ask is that you simply return some other day, when the topic is less searing.

And, of course, as always, if do like what you read here, discomforting or not, and you'd like to keep it going, pennies in the kitty at the upper right are not unwelcome.

Copyright Ajijaakwe, 2014; all rights reserved.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Two Years On

Photo credit Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin

Two years on, and America's still standing its ground on the broken, bloodied bodies of dead young Black men.

Two years ago tonight.

Two years since another young Black man, just at the threshold of his life, was gunned down simply for being who he was.

Simply for being.

I cannot imagine the depth of the pain that Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin's mother, still feels every minute of every day. On Friday, she will speak at the University of Connecticut in Hartford, where she is expected to address not only her own son's murder in the service of racism, but that of Jordan Davis.

Ms. Fulton has channeled her pain and her grief and what can only be her outrage into something important. With her ex-husband, Trayvon's father Tracy Martin, she has formed the Trayvon Martin Foundation, with a mission as follows:

The Foundation’s purpose is to create awareness of how violent crime impacts the families of the victims and to provide support and advocacy for those families in response to the murder of Trayvon Martin. The scope of the Foundation’s mission is to advocate that crime victims and their families are not ignored in the discussions about violent crime to increase public awareness of all forms of racial ethnic and gender profiling educate youth on conflict resolution techniques and to reduce the incidences where confrontations between strangers turn deadly.

It's important work. But Tracy Martin testifies that the pain has not lessened one iota, adding bitterly— and quite rightly — that the dominant culture cares more about retaining access to handguns than it does about the lives of young Black men.

As Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post put it last week, in a column entitled, not at all facetiously, "I'm Black, Don't Shoot Me":

I know it’s important that the next Zimmerman or Dunn be convicted of murder, if that’s what the evidence says. But I’m so very tired of funerals and trials. I want to know what we can do to keep the next Trayvon Martin and the next Jordan Davis alive.

I have no answers. I'm not even sure I have any questions. I know the answers to most of those already, as does virtually every Black person in the country.

I think it's time I cross-posted a piece that I wrote three years ago, about the lynching of Jesse Washington. Perhaps tomorrow. It's like laying a transparent slide over an old sepia-toned photo and finding that, despite the fact that a century has come and gone, the images match up. The means may differ, but the ends are the same. Young Black men are lynched for being who they are.

Simply for being.

By the way, the questions are not rhetorical in the slightest. If you haven't read it yet, you need to visit a post at Daily Kos by one of my Spirit Sisters, shanikka: Hey America! Can you please stop killing our (usually) innocent Black male children now?

Read it and weep.

And then get angry.

And then do something.

You can start here, by supporting the work of the Trayvon Martin Foundation. Then you can get active in your community. In your networks, online and off-. Among your family members and friends and coworkers.

We need allies. Because it's 2014, and still, "stand your ground" is nothing more than lynching. Sanitized, prettified, inverted and twisted and stood on its head, but it's lynching.

Our young Black men deserve better. They deserve lives. Good ones; safe ones; happy ones. They deserve simply to be.

Copyright Ajijaakwe, 2014; all rights reserved.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

New Native Art: Vintage-Style Sculpture and Pipes

All of these are by Ponca sculptor Randy Roughface, who carves his animals in the traditional "vintage" style. He uses mostly local rock: slates, sandstones, alabasters, and occasionally pipestone. His specialty is running horses — classic Indian ponies — but he's been known to do an occasional buffalo or bird. This is the first time he's done a deer for us — powerful medicine around here. This beautiful spirit animal is carved from a solid block of brown slate, changeable in the light from golden bronze to deep ombre, with an almost ore-like texture and finish. About 4" long by about 4.5" high. $125 + $15 s/h/i.

And a back view of Deer:

These two little guys could be own horses: Ice and Miskwaki. Here, they look a little like Ice and Fire, captured in miniature.

These two carvings are really the size of large fetishes: roughly 3" X 2" and 3.25" X 1.75", respectively. The white one is carved of alabaster, with a delicate gray matrix, and so smooth it feels like soapstone. The red one is another departure for Randy, this time, the material: It's Mexican onyx, which is cool and smooth to the touch, but with brilliant fiery reds shot through the stone. Each is $45 + $10 s/h/i.

Lastly, another new item from him: Pipes! Now, these are not ceremonial or sacred pipes; those are not something that should ever be sold, and indeed, we would never buy or sell one. These are simply art pieces, carved vintage-style. They're nearly-identical styles, but differing sizes; both pipes are made of local red cedar, and the bowls with horse effigies are all one piece, carved from pipestone.

The smaller pipe is roughly 8.5" inches long, with a bowl some 2" X 1.75".

$110 + $15 s/h/i.

The larger pipe is about 13" long, with a bowl that measures roughly 3" X 2.5".

$125 + $15 s/h/i.

We also have some of Randy's small sandstone horse sculptures in stock, but these are all brand-new items. For more information, leave me a comment, e-mail me, message me through Facebook, or contact me through our Web site.

Note: The items with the higher shipping costs require special packing.

All photos copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

Monday, February 24, 2014

For Love of a Child

Let me introduce you to Katie.

She's the stepdaughter of my friend, Patricia Hughes, and the biological daughter of Patti's husband.

She needs your help.

It's a situation involving shared custody with another parent allegedly battling addiction. There is now a third party in the picture, along with allegations of domestic violence. And Katie says she was physically injured.

These situations are legally difficult, financially ruinous, and psychologically devastating. The first problem can be alleviated a bit if Patti and Rob can hire an expert lawyer. But that gets to the second problem. And that's where we all come in.

So that we can prevent the third problem from occurring.

The retainer's going to take $7,500. That's just a first step; these are long-haul battles, and the costs rise accordingly. The immediate goal is double that: $15,000. Believe me, it's modest.

We're already in for $25. It's not much, but if everyone who reads this matches it, we're talking a few hundred already. And if everyone in your networks matches it, pretty soon, the retainer's covered.

Here's the GoFundMe page. If you can, please give. If you can't, please share. With everyone.

For love of a child.

Yeah, I should be so lucky.

Busy day today ahead of me. The next edition of La Plaza likely won't be up before tomorrow at the earliest, and probably not much else. I'll be doing well to get any chance to take Grover's (and Dave's) advice.

But it's a good sound to have in my head for the day.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Have a pony:

as a thank-you.

For this. We made it! $1,400 for Horace in something under 7 hours.

He will be able to get the apartment; he'll have money for the security deposit, rent, utility deposits and installations, and even a little left over for food and other necessities.

And that's because of you. Thank you to every single one of you who tipped, rec'd, liked, shared, tweeted, e-mailed, donated, and otherwise helped us with moral support. Each of you has my personal and profound gratitude.

Ice says thank you, too.

Community Fundraisers: Walking a Mile In Another Man's Moccasins

In my post of last Saturday, I said that one of the subjects of this site would be helping people who need help.

That time is now.

Come with me. I want to take you on a little walk in another man's moccasins. It will likely be a very different path from those to which you're accustomed. In that way, it will difficult for you to follow it. The shoes won't fit properly. They will be uncomfortable, and the way will be unfamiliar, and perhaps you'll find yourself feeling disquieted, discomfited, even a little scared.

I'm going to ask you to stick with the trail anyway. Because these are things we all need to see and grasp and fully understand. And because a friend needs our help.

A lot of you no doubt know my friend and fellow Kossack, Horace Boothroyd III. His road has long been a difficult one, for many reasons. Right now, there are seemingly insurmountable roadblocks in his path — obstacles that, for most people, not only don't exist but aren't even on their radar. And yet, once they're there, they're nearly impossible to go over, under, around, or through. And there comes a point when body, mind, soul, and spirit are too pain-wracked and weary to keep trying to scale those hurdles anymore.

But we can help fix that.

Come with me.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Sometimes you just have to count your blessings:

Wednesday was a milestone for this little girl.

On November 19th, she was diagnosed with diabetes. [That's the result of starvation and severe malnutrition the first year of her life, before she found us.] She already had a cataract forming at the back of her right eye. The vet told us then that she would be fully blind in both eyes within two months.

She passed that marker on January 19th.

Of course, I asked whether there was anything we could do to prevent it, and was told that the absolute best we could hope for, at the very outside, was four months before it her blindness complete. At that point, we knew with benefit of hindsight that she'd already been ill for more than a month, so effectively, that left no more than about 2.5 months for her vision.

Of course, when I want something, I've got a skull like a buffalo. So I did my research. Besides the dietary changes and insulin injections, she's getting daily supplements.

And at the moment, the right eye seems no worse, and there's no evidence of change in the left.

It's probably only buying time, but every day that She-Wolf can still see her beloved world is a good day.

Friday, February 21, 2014

Baapaase

Downy Woodpecker.

It's been at least two or three years since any woodpeckers at all have been here, despite the fact that they're native to the area in the winter. And that last time was in June or July, completely out of season.

More casualties of climate change.

He parked himself overhead in the aspen closest to the door and went to work. He was willing to stop and listen to me greet him, and willing to have his photo taken.

This little guy is the first. He may be the only. But I'm glad he's back.

La Plaza: Selling NM's Black History; Undermining Marriage Equality; Risking Young Native Lives

MAJOR LEGACY OF NEW MEXICO'S BUFFALO SOLDIERS NOW AWAITING DESTRUCTION

I wrote a few days ago about the impending threat to Fort Bayard, a state and federal historic site in southwestern New Mexico that embodies a major part of the state's African American history.

Since the 2014 legislative session ended yesterday with no attempt to salvage the historically significant landmark (nor to accomplish much else, as is usual with the state Lege), it appears that the old fort and its campus await destruction, with the land to be sold off to monied private interests.

Obstacles to its sale remain, to be sure, but General Services Secretary Ed Burckle appears to be pushing for a fast track to privatization:

Thursday, February 20, 2014

La Plaza

In the oldest traditional villages across New Mexico, there is still one common feature and feature of the commons: the plaza.

It's the public square, the place where the community meets to talk, share, argue, debate, sing, dance, and join together in common purpose. Here, plazas predated the arrival of the first Europeans by centuries, perhaps millennia. Nonetheless, like so much else in New Mexico, the old words for it are long since lost to public use, supplanted, accurately or not, by the Spanish labels.

And so it is with la plaza.

So I've chosen it as the name of a new series on this site: a semi-regular round-up of New Mexico news, issues, problems, causes, and whatever else from the state seems worthy of mention.

Most of the time, it won't feature the big national stories. You can read those anywhere. I want to focus on the stories that fly below the radar, the ones that have significant impacts in ways that are not necessarily immediately obvious, the ones that embody the essential New Mexico.

This doesn't mean I won't write about subjects in the headlines; I may very well do a dedicated piece to, say, the leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant [WIPP] near Carlsbad. Or I may incorporate a story like the one out of Valencia County, where a 15-year-old stands accused of the brutal murder of his 12-year-old friend, into a larger piece about the problems of youth violence in this state. But those are more likely to be stand-alone pieces, not part of the series. And pieces that do appear in this series may very well serve as springboards for lengthier analyses of their subjects.

With any luck, the first edition will be coming up later this evening. I hope you enjoy it.

Copyright Ajijaakwe, 2014; all rights reserved.

Indian Child Removal: New Developments in South Dakota

Yesterday, I cross-posted my piece from a year ago on South Dakota's practice of stealing Indian children and placing them in white foster "care" situations" in the service of racism and financial profit. Despite being more than a year old, the piece tragically is not outdated in the least. That said, there are new developments, so I reposted it primarily to provide the backstory for anyone not yet familiar with it.

On Monday, February 3, four separate American Indian groups formally asked the Justice Department to investigate the public scandal that is the so-called "child welfare" (i.e., removal, foster care placement, and adoption) in Indian Country. The four groups are the National Congress of American Indians [NCAI], the Native American Rights Fund [NARF], the National Indian Child Welfare Association [NICWA], and the Association on American Indian AffairS [AAIA].

The request, delivered via letter, was typically polite but also pointed:

[T]he groups wrote that a lack of federal oversight had led to Indian children being improperly placed with non-Indian families by child welfare workers and that tribal representatives were too often left out of custody proceedings. They also accused adoption agencies of sometimes ignoring the tribal membership of children in their care.

“Although these civil rights violations are well-known and commonplace, they continue to go unchecked and unexamined[.]”

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Indian Child Removal: Racism, "Perverse Financial Incentives," and Willful Violation of the ICWA

Author's Note: This post first appeared at Daily Kos on February 2, 2013. It is cross-posted here with very minor edits.

On January 31, 2013, the Lakota People's Law Project submitted a report to Congress documenting allegations first reported via an NPR investigation in 2011: that South Dakota's state child welfare officials were stealing Indian children from their homes and families and placing them in white foster care - in part for "perverse financial incentives," and all in direct and repeated violation of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act [ICWA].

At the time the NPR story was released (October, 2011), Meteor Blades wrote a brutal, soul-searing report here at Daily Kos, documenting both the current outrages and this country's long and terrible history of stealing Indian children. In it, he made the point that what people regard as "history" isn't even past, telling the story of Kossack Carter Camp. In the diary and comments are other stories from other Indian families: those of Meteor Blades, of navajo, of myself, of Wings. Carter and Wings are both survivors of such programs themselves.

But in 2011, we could hope that the worst abuses were at least now only in our pasts.

In 2011, we had no idea how bad it still is.

A Note On What's to Come: More on Our Stolen Children

Just a quick heads-up about some of the content that will be appearing here in the days and weeks to come.

One set of topics I plan to cover in depth involves the myriad forms of cultural genocide still being practiced against our peoples. That includes everything from environmental dangers like the Keystone XL pipeline to the theft and misuse of our cultural ways to the literal stealing of our futures by way of our children.

I've written on most of these (and many other related) topics over the years at Daily Kos. I'll be cross-posting those pieces here, often — as will happen today — by way of providing context for what's to come.

Just over a year ago, I posted a diary there about the state of South Dakota's insidious practice of stealing Lakota children from the families and cultures, in the service of both racism and profit. This story is in the news again, as the tribes in that state continue to fight for their children — and thus their very future existence. I'll be cross-posting that piece here today as a launching point; I'll follow up with new information in the coming days, weeks, and months.

So if it looks familiar to you, it probably is, but don't be put off by last year's date. These evils are ongoing, and they need our continued pressure to bring them to a halt. and I'll be coming to you for help with that.

Chi miigwech.

* And of course, if you think these topics are important and you like the work you see here, please consider dropping a few pennies in the kitty via the PayPal link above to keep the work going.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

NDN Silver Showpieces: Snowflake Obsidian

Every now and then a piece comes together just perfectly, to create something that is much greater than the sum of its parts in nearly indescribable ways. This is one. It's a very heavy-gauge sterling silver cuff bracelet with incredible precision hand-stamping in Eye of Spirit and squash blossom patterns. Additional powerful symbols chase both edges of the band and the inner band. Across the top: three large oval cabochons of snowflake obsidian, each set into a scalloped sterling silver bezel. The obsidian cabs are flanked by a round deep-red garnet cab on either side, each in a sawtoothed bezel. $725 + $20 s/h/i.

Below, a coordinating solitaire ring:

Matched, overlapping lodge symbols chase the length of the sterling silver band. At the top, an oval snowflake obsidian cabochon rests in a scalloped sterling silver bezel.

And from the top, with a good view of the stone:

$325 + $10 s/h/i.

So new, they're not even on the Web site yet.

NDN Silver Showpieces: Stone Mountain Turquoise

This stunner of a cuff can be worn by either a woman or a man. Made of very heavy-gauge sterling silver, the outer band bears hand-stamped Eight Sacred Directions symbols (i.e., cardinal and ordinal points), while the inner band is chased with Eye of Spirit designs. Each edge of the band bears evenly-spaced Sacred Hoop patterns. Across the top, set in sawtoothed bezels, are five spectacular matched cabochons of mysterious Stone Mountain turquoise, almost seafoam green, with beige and ivory hints in the matrix. $725 + $20 s/h/i.

So new, it's not even on the Web site yet.

NDN Silver Showpieces: Coral and Silver and the Turquoise Mountain

A hand-made heart: a translucent blue-green Royston turquoise cabochon with a warm golden-colored matrix is nestled in a scalloped sterling silver bezel and trimmed with twisted silver. Offset atop the heart, a tiny bezel-set cab of old natural coral. Hand-stamped symbolism accents the hand-made bail, and the pendant hangs from a long strand of hand-strung traditional-style old sterling silver beads.

And the back view:

Powerfully integrated symbolism surrounds a hand-stamped central heart: thunderheads matched together form kiva spaces, joined into a pattern representing the Four Sacred Directions, while directional arrows at the ordinal points trace a counterclockwise path. $575 + $15 s/h/i.

So new, it's not even on the Web site yet.

NDN Silver Showpieces: Spectacular Symbolism

Heavy-gauge sterling silver triangle wire, meticulously hand-stamped in chased thunderhead and cactus blossom patterns. A scalloped bezel, trimmed in twisted silver, holds an oval cabochon of black-on-white magnesite colloquially known as "White Buffalo." Inner band is hand-stamped, as well. $575 + $15 s/h/i.

Precision hand-stamping of the finest sort marks the heavy-gauge band of this sterling silver triangle wire cuff. One of the finest examples of chase stampwork I've ever seen him create, and that's saying something. Hand-stamped inner band. $475 + $12 s/h/i.

Hundreds of tiny sacred hoops, water droplets, each hand-struck individually, mark this entire cuff. Heavy-gauge sterling silver triangle wire; hand-stamped inner band. $425 + $10 s/h/i.

Another example of fine hand-chased stampwork, this time in kiva steps and lodge patterns. Heavy-gauge sterling silver triangle wire; hand-stamped inner band. $425 + $10 s/h/i.

So new, they're not even on the Web site yet.

NDN Silver Showpieces: Spiderwebs and Serpent Scales and Silver Rings and Things

Sterling silver band hand-stamped in matched tipi patterns. Large square bezel-set cabochon of spiderweb turquoise. This is a very, VERY old natural turquoise stone, originally from his late father's collection, possibly Black Mountain or Indian Mountain. Sizeable. $375 + $10 s/h/i.

Solid sterling silver band with chased stamping that's about as flawless as it's possible to be when done entirely freehand. A hand-scored road edges each side; along the length of the band are diamond-shaped symbols representing the Eye of Spirit. Sizeable. $150 + $10 s/h/i.

Narrow sterling silver band with hand-stamped serpent scales chased across width and length. The symbolism is spiritually powerful. Sizeable. $125 + $10 s/h/i.

Narrow sterling silver band with hand-stamped directional arrows chasing the length of the band. Guidance symbolism expressed with simple elegance. $125 + $10 s/h/i.

So new, they're not even on the Web site yet.

Black History Month in New Mexico III: Blackdom

Photo of David Profitt House, Blackdom; image credit Museum of New Mexico.

This is the last of three posts designed to bring you a taste of the contributions African Americans have made to New Mexico history and culture. Nothing in any of these posts is intended to be all-inclusive; it's merely a sepia-toned snapshot of three distinct points in the state's historical timeline that go too often unremarked and unremembered.

New Mexico makes much of its triracial inclusion and harmony (which, truth be told, is not so much as an inch deep, but that's another diary). What isn't obvious to folks from elsewhere is that the three races to which it refers are, as they are known in the polite version of local parlance, "Anglos," "Hispanics," and "Indians." In most of the state, African Americans aren't even on the public radar screen (nor are Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders, people of South Asian and Middle Eastern descent, or those of Caribbean ancestry - but, again, that's another diary).

According to the 2010 census, African Americans constitute 12.6% of the national population. In New Mexico, that figure drops to a scant 2.1%. [Despite the fact that the U.S. stole this land from Mexico, which in turn had stolen it from the indigenous populations, 68.4% of New Mexico's total population comprises "Anglos," whether "Hispanic" or "non-Hispanic."]

African American history and culture are a bit of a unicorn in this state: occasionally reported, but mostly elusive, and largely invisible to all but those who actually go looking for it. And yet, Black Americans have a long and storied history in New Mexico, with a vibrant presence predating statehood by half a century. It's long past time for that presence to assume its rightful place in the state's past and present.

Come with me. I'm going to take you on a little tour of three New Mexico towns that play a role in African American history.

Monday, February 17, 2014

I need something in my own language . . .

to soothe my spirit tonight.

Five Years Gone

That's our beautiful girl, gone at age 7 to veterinary malpractice.

She adopted me the moment she saw me. I drove in, she and BearGirl came running to meet the car like a pair of large fuzzy bullets, and as soon as I opened the door, she climbed in and wedged herself under my legs on the driver's floorboards. I was hers from that moment on. [BearGirl, the adult, was a little more dignified, but not by much.]

She went through so much, toward the end. Much more than her little body should ever have had to bear. Griffin was inconsolable; he mourned her for a solid year. She was, truly, a furry bundle of unconditional love in its purest form, and the hole she left in my heart will never heal.

The time will be just before 4:30 this afternoon. I'll burn a little cedar for her where her ashes are scattered. I still think I see her sometimes, and I feel her around me every day.

We love you, little girl.

Black History Month in New Mexico II: The "Battles for Socorro"

Photo credit Bureau of Land Management

This is the second of three posts designed to bring you a taste of the contributions African Americans have made to New Mexico history and culture. As I said yesterday, nothing in any of these posts is intended to be all-inclusive; it's merely a sepia-toned snapshot of three distinct points in the state's historical timeline that go too often unremarked and unremembered.