Community | July 29, 2008 | 39 comments

Censored in the USA: Hush Words

source: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2008/07/censored-usa-hush-words

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TouchArt
Respected American Indian journalist Brenda Norrell writes about how censorship operates in Indian Country and the rest of America.

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Censored in the USA: Hush words

Posted by Brenda Norrell - July 28, 2008 at 5:42 pm By Brenda Norrell

I didn't see it coming. After 25 years of writing American Indian news, I didn't really expect to be blackballed and censored out of the business. But, then again, any journalist writing serious news in the United States should expect to be censored. There are some hot topics that get U.S. journalists fired, including investigating the war in Iraq. U.S. Presidents realize the power of words and song to move the masses. It was Buffe Sainte Marie's "Universal Soldier," during the Vietnam War that led to her being blackballed and censored out of the music business in the U.S.


In Indian country news, there are also hush words, words to be used sparingly, if at all. For editors, those words include two names "Russell Means" and "Leonard Peltier." Also, in Indian country, reporters know it is unlikely that editors will publish any serious criticism of the war in Iraq or the Bush administration. Reporters also know it is unlikely that their articles will be published if they point out how the elected American Indian tribal councils sell out their people and their land, air and water for energy royalties and energy leases. At the same time, those councilmen and tribal chairmen give voice to the need to protect sacred Mother Earth.

While on staff at Indian Country Today in 2004, the managing editor, a non-Indian, demanded that I halt writing about "grassroots people and the genocide of American Indians." When I continued, I was reprimanded again. Eventually I was fired without a reason given.

It taught me about history and the soul of America. In the United States, there is this hole in history, and this hole in the hearts of the people, which disallows for these facts: the genocide of American Indians, including the butchering of women and shooting of little children, and the kidnapping, enslavement, torture, rape and murder of blacks.

Read entire article at link -
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2008/07/censored-usa-hu...
_____________________________________
From TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com
where Charleen Touchette knows first-hand about
being censored, blackballed, and banned.
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39 comments // Censored in the USA: Hush Words

  • zenbeer
  • fauxsherrrr
    • 0
      fauxsherrrr  

    • So, it's not about a blame game, it's about making people aware that things need to change in those parts of America. The native peoples have sadly been forgotten, but that kind of was the whole point of the genocides anyways.

    • 3 years ago
  • fauxsherrrr
    • 0
      fauxsherrrr  

    • "Why is it that Americans have no problem reaping the benefits of their ancestors' crimes against Indians and others, but whine when they are asked to take some responsibility and contribute to remedying the continuing damage of genocide?"

      Thank you TouchArt,

      People can be so insensitive when discussing American history.

      "Everyone has an agenda. EVERYONE. You posting this article = agenda. What matters is what is the purpose in pointing things of this nature out. To make it better? To improve conditions or just fully blame someone and make their life a living hell because you were burned? "
      -J_Hammer

      Yes, there needs to be an agenda to make things better. What's wrong with making people aware that Native Americans are still suffering the consequences from the genocides hundreds of years ago?

      Aboriginals who have been displaced all around the globe are all having very similar problems. Whats wrong with trying to fix them?

    • 3 years ago
  • Brockie
  • WorldPeaceTV
    • 0
      WorldPeaceTV  

    • And Columbus kidnapped many original Americans and brought them to Europe and into slavery...Haiti is a good example...so, kids, Columbus not only discovered America, he committed some serious ungodly crimes against humanity. Many blessings to the native American, they truly respect nature and life.

    • 3 years ago
  • Bren589
  • Egnatius212
  • onechance
    • 0
      onechance  

    • So sad and so damn ORWELLIAN!!!! they have EVERYONE running scared.

      Bunch of damn sellouts.
      To Shrub and his criminal bastard friends... SUCK IT!
      EAT AN ASS!!
      You're a waste of skin!
      Peltier was a great person who stood against what was corrupt, wrong, and morally terrible about his people's slaughter and perging from society.

      Whew, I know I feel better at least...

    • 3 years ago
  • rightbrain
  • Hawkmang
    • 0
      Hawkmang  
    • Image

    • By the way, to add to this subject here is a link to a story from Slate that I posted on Current back in May. The article is about Michael Crichton's 1993 prediction of mass-media extinction.

    • 3 years ago
  • Hawkmang
    • 0
      Hawkmang  

    • The following paragraph from Norrell's article is so true. Though I would extend her chosen examples and include just about any subject (fill in the blank):

      "The important point is not to be fooled by the newspapers, do your own investigating. The editors, publishers and owners have their own agendas. These days, very little of it has to do with truth. If you want to learn about the destruction of sacred places and all the corporations rushing to poison the land, air and water where you live, you'll need to search out the information. Don't expect to read about it in your newspaper."

    • 3 years ago
  • TouchArt
    • 0
      TouchArt  

    • Current posters who think the genocide of American Indians is a thing of the past are the product of a media that has, from the beginning, 1492, obscured the true story of the brutal conquest of America, denigrated and dehumanized Indians, and censored news about Indians and Indian Nations.

      Genocide continues throughout Indian America today.

      So does the denial and angry attacks by people who refuse to take responsibility for the actions of their ancestors in the past, and for the actions of their own governments today.

      Why is it that Americans have no problem reaping the benefits of their ancestors' crimes against Indians and others, but whine when they are asked to take some responsibility and contribute to remedying the continuing damage of genocide?

    • 3 years ago
  • iknew
    • 0
      iknew  

    • Why not just let the truth come out, or don't do anything wrong so we don't have to teabag, i mean blackball anyone.

    • 3 years ago
  • dearmat23
    • 0
      dearmat23  

    • The reduction of the North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a vast genocide, there's no way around it.

    • 3 years ago
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • dearmat23:

      And the sum total is not 12 million minus 237,000 as a great many were born during that time. It has been estimated that in total, some sixty million (and counting) Native Americans have been killed one way or another. This makes it History's biggest and longest genocide.

    • 3 years ago
  • Psychedelic
  • J_Jammer
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  
    • J_Jammer:

      I guess they're not then, because they didn't do anything even close.

      No one traded blankets intentionally infected with smallpox to the settlers. And no Native Americans ever went back on their word in armistice treaties.

      They were slaughtered, and you know it.

      Why do you defend the wrongdoings of the U.S.? Does it really bother you that much to know that we have a history of wrongdoing? Does it earnestly affect your ability to be proud as an American?

      No other angle makes sense.

    • 3 years ago
  • J_Jammer
    • 0
      J_Jammer [removed]  
    • J_Jammer:

      It bothers me people act like they are fighting for the "good" side when their "good" side was no better. And by no better I mean they were not without fault. And by fault I mean they did enough bad things to make them not so great.

      It's like stating the German Army (WWII) were evil and everyone was the good guys. There are accounts of German soldiers being, while imprisoned, just because they were German and not because they did anything to merit such aggression.

      I'm not going to muster empathy for a people that are no longer being slaughtered.

      I'm not going to muster empathy for the black person that is going to sit there and wallow in self pity over things that were done in the past when they could make due with what is in the here and now.

      They did not suffer, their ancestors suffered.

      But if were are going to get emo points for suffering then sign me up for the suffering of the Japanese at the hand of all those who claimed to have suffered. Because it was Indian, black, white army personal who took them and placed them in interment camps.

    • 3 years ago
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  
    • J_Jammer:

      Actually it was just whites, and you were just being selective yourself.

      No one is saying they didn't do anything bad. No one is fighting for good here.

      What we are fighting is you justifying the slaughter of a people with utter shit.

      No one is innocent, what relevance does that have to wrongdoing?

      You claim an argument of grandeur on our side, but no one is saying that Native Americans were saints. On the contrary, you're arguing that all ill actions can be equalized, which is utterly offensive.

      Plenty of crimes WERE committed against the Nazis, and historically speaking they were victims of WWI. That doesn't change the fact that they carried out one of the most brutal wars mankind has ever seen and one of the most terrible exterminations of people ever conceived.

      Crimes cannot be equalized on the basis that the victims committed crimes as well.

      No better than is NOT the same as without fault. Not at all. There is hierarchy of malice.

      That's like saying that the man that spat in someone's face is no better than the man that shot him in return.

      It's utterly ridiculous and your intent shines through clear as day as evidenced by your selection in comments and topics with this argument.

    • 3 years ago
  • onechance
  • Vierotchka
  • TouchArt
    • 0
      TouchArt  

    • To those who respond, "the Indians did their fair share of rape and murder", such statements show how brainwashed most Americans are by the school system, westerns and the media.

      Read "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee." Then, try to tell me it's anywhere the same in numbers and savagery.

      American Indian journalists like Brenda Norrell have walked their talk for decades. Google her. What about you?

    • 3 years ago
  • J_Jammer
  • victimofcoal
    • 0
      victimofcoal  

    • Freespeech in America is a slogan and not a reallity. Try to inform the public about chemical company pollutants , or the myth of "clean coal" and you will be ignored, blacked out, and ridiculed. Just watch how the sheeple all follow along as the rest of their "rights" are taken from them. Hugo Chavez stood up to American corporations and would not allow the enslavement of his people. He put a stop to the corporate polluters in Venezuala and was promptly made a part of the " Axis of Evil" If you ask me , the Axis of Evil starts at the White House and radiates outward to encompass all but the poorest Americans. Much easier to label someone without the resources to speak up as a liberal socialist than to face the reallity of Fascism in America.

    • 3 years ago
  • gentjim
    • 0
      gentjim  

    • how are we going to change it , we are the ones who see whats going on we are hear now lets find solutions.

      yes us hear on current.

      give your self permision,

      stop by any time ,

      gent jim

    • 3 years ago
  • ArtLiquidBlogspot
    • 0
      ArtLiquidBlogspot  

    • All American's have the right to disagree,The last 7 years

      alot illegal snooping into people's e-mail's,blogs,etc......

      These people are anti Americans.?????...........................

    • 3 years ago
  • J_Jammer
    • 0
      J_Jammer [removed]  

    • They are rebuilding Greensburg and they made a documentary about it. I keep seeing commercials for it when I go to the movies.

      And the Indians did their fair share of rape and murder. If I am to take anyone seriously they need to acknowledge evils on both sides and not play the tiresome blame game of he's worse let's blame him and we are without fault. No she didn't state she was without fault or her people that she is defending...but she didn't say they had one either and leaves it to such an assumption.

      Everyone has an agenda. EVERYONE. You posting this article = agenda. What matters is what is the purpose in pointing things of this nature out. To make it better? To improve conditions or just fully blame someone and make their life a living hell because you were burned?

      I think there are times to visit the past and that is when one is teaching history. To visit it to make a point of how bad someone is as a whole race is pointless. Look the future. Those that live in the past are creating more of the problems in which they whine about.

      Did the Indians get a raw deal? Yes. But what do they want their land back? Technically it's no longer "their" land...as in the ownership of any land in this world isn't anyones cause they sure they hell didn't create it.

    • 3 years ago
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  
    • J_Jammer:

      I'm getting tired of this agenda bullshit.

      There is a difference between intent and agenda.

      An agenda is an ultimate political goal to achieve personal power.

      You can post something and not believe in it to follow an agenda.

      An intent is something you earnestly believe in. For instance, someone posting this with the intent of revealing a hidden story.

      There is no agenda there unless the INTENT of the person posting the story was to gain power for themselves, for instance gaining journalistic credibility to act as a wedge to prop up Native Americans.

      An agenda has a PLANNED, ULTIMATE goal.

      An intent CAN benefit an agenda, but it doesn't have to. Someone could do something based solely out of a strong emotion or a psychological desire.

    • 3 years ago
  • J_Jammer
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  
    • J_Jammer:

      No, there is no such thing as good guy or bad guy, just opposing points of view.

      I'm just tired of you trying to discredit arguments (only arguments you don't like by the way) with this trivial bullshit.

      There IS a difference. An agenda is a very specific word and you're misusing it.

    • 3 years ago
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  
    • J_Jammer:

      Indians doing their fair share of rape and murder was an ignorant comment. You should be ashamed, your showing your ignorance and its embarrassing to all of us who have to read your misinformed comments.

    • 3 years ago
  • Vierotchka
  • CaptB
    • 0
      CaptB  
    • J_Jammer:

      I can't believe you just stated such things about native Americans. I think your analogy is like stating that the Jews during WW2 hurt the Nazis and it was a fair exchange. Essentially you just stated that the Indians had it coming and just need to look towards the future and ignore everything that occurred to them. I am still in awe.

      However, white supremacist still have 1st amendment rights.

    • 3 years ago
  • bluestranger
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • What hypocrites. Everybody in a position of power or responsibility seems to be on the take these days. No one is immune to the lure and seduction of the big buck.

    • 3 years ago
  • CarolynGillis
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