Maah Xopini Shųųshuke (Vincent)

The Indian Affairs committee is debating the Lumbee Fairness Act. It's a clash over process and precedent.

Should one group have different rules than others? How does this matter for the federal recognition system?

mrw1zard.substack.com/p/rules-are-...

#Lumbee #FederalRecognition #IndianCountry

Indigenous leaders sign compacts for economic survival. The price is a piece of their sovereignty.

These are new age treaties. It happens with water rights, mineral leases, and now cannabis. Natives Nations are forced to accept terms that are always set by states.

open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard...

So I came from Twitter and posted different over there. It was a lot more than just a person who writes as a grain of sand on the beach. Somewhere I made a distinction between being a goofball who is mouthy to just being mouthy. Anyways, look at this photo of me being super serious.

Dig if you will a future. Where a Native Nation's success is measured only by its own people's well-being and its businesses money stays within, building and sustaining for generations. The only gaming compact a tribe needs is with its own vision for the future.

open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard...

The Office of Indian Education just had 7 of its 9 people cut. This shows what the U.S. shutdown means for Native Nations.

It's not closed offices. It is a halted legal obligation.

The stakes beyond the politics.
open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard...

#TreatyRights #TrustResponsibility #IndianCountry

The National Indian Education Association reports demand for accurate resources. Research confirms students who learn complex history develop stronger critical thinking. The Pequot are already raising funds to host 36 more teachers next summer, proving Indigenous commitment outlasts political change

A National Congress of American Indians report shows most states fail to adequately teach Indigenous histories. Curriculum often stops at 1900, erasing modern Native existence. This gap persists as states like Oklahoma review their educational standards in an attempt to widen the divide further.

The Pequot refused to let its teacher institute end. Using its own funds and community partnerships, the Nation hosted 36 educators in July. Educators examined primary sources and learned directly from Pequot instructors in its territory.

In April, the Mashantucket Pequot Nation's $81,490 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities was terminated. The Department of Government Efficiency eliminated hundreds of humanities grants. The funds were redirected to support the Trump administration's "patriotic education" agenda.

The distraction pulls focus away from the source of the struggle.

1. Follow and continue to amplify SRST directly.
2. Support their legal battles via the Native American Rights Fund.

The goal is clean water and sovereignty, not to debate a corporate fine. #StandWithStandingRock

The message is crystal clear: support an Indigenous female-led movement, face financial ruin.

This "chilling effect" is the point.

If a corporation can do this to Greenpeace, what chance do smaller groups have? It's a threat to public participation and environmental justice everywhere.

This lawsuit is a "SLAPP" (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation).

Its primary goal isn't to win, but to punish Greenpeace for supporting #NoDAPL and to intimidate against another world stopping moment. It weaponizes the legal system to silence dissent by imposing massive legal costs.

While the fine is debated without end, the Dakota Access Pipeline still operates. It crosses underneath the Missouri River just half a mile upstream of the Standing Rock Dakota's territory. A single spill would be culturally & environmentally catastrophic.

This is their every single day reality.

I saw this headline "Judge slashes Greenpeace penalty to $345M."
But that's a distraction.
The ongoing story is what this corporate lawsuit tries to erase: the Standing Rock Oyate's fight for their water against the active Dakota Access Pipeline.

A thread. 🧵

BH Governance | Breaking History What me, worry? A couple of news rimes to get us started:

I spent the weekend in Vancouver on the campus of the University of British Columbia for a conference on Beyond Fires and Floods; Indigenous views about climate change. A lot to think about … so much of what we talked about will percolate in the weeks ahead. open.substack.com/pub/marktrah...

The USDA calls it "food insecurity."

But on paper, that term hides the design behind the crisis. Underfunded Native Nation programs, delayed reimbursements, and underbuilt infrastructure.

Hunger is measurable. So is neglect

Maah Xopini Shųųshuke (@mrw1zard) Hunger has been written into Indigenous history for centuries. Today, SNAP cuts threaten nearly a million children living off-reservation. Read more: #NativeHistory #FoodInsecurity #SNAPCuts #Nativ...

From the 1930s to today, federal food aid has defined Native nutrition - often without local input.

Powdered milk, canned meat, and processed flour became survival staples. That legacy still shows up in SNAP spending patterns and health disparities.

open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard...

During recent SNAP reviews, the USDA found that processing delays can stretch past 40 days in rural areas.

For families without savings or pantries, that's 40 days of improvising hunger.

Across Indian Country, nearly 25% of enrolled Indigenous citizens live 30+ miles from a grocery store. When SNAP budgets tighten, fuel becomes part of the food bill. My piece maps the geography of access and what happens when the roads to food run dry.

Roughly 1 in 4 Native households relies on SNAP to eat.

Yet food programs are funded as if hunger were temporary. Federal reports show Native families face food insecurity 2.5x higher than the U.S. average.

My story traces how that gap became generational.

When the food runs out, I think of my niece and her two little ones. SNAP is their safety net, and it's fraying.

Hunger On the Menu Urban Native families are especially vulnerable to SNAP reductions, threatening food security for thousands of Indigenous American and Alaska Native children nationwide.

The government shutdown isn't just politics. It's a fridge running empty in Native homes. SNAP cuts mean nearly a million Indigenous kids could miss meals this month.

#NativeNews #SNAP #IndigenousChildren #FoodSecurity

open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard...

😜🫣

Indigenous man stares directly at the camera. The photo is from chest up. He is wearing a denim jacket, black hoodie and black T-shirt. He had one wired ear bud in ear and a mask is hanging from the wire.

Listen, you would not like to hang out with me. I know my worth and I can smell hustle. I got a big mouth, a silver tongue and I'm nosey as fuuuuuk. So when it goes down, I speak right up because I was raised to. Rural rez and urban Indins made sure survival was the least of my worries.

Completely unrelated.

I need directions to the Bern Historical Museum in Switzerland. Additionally I need a group of people interested in creating a flash mob inside the Bern.

I just want to check out Mato-Tope's exploit robe and do not want to be DISTRACTED while I do it

#fights_with_strength_of

Photos: Where Dr. Johnson's bag was, how close Dr. Johnson was to her bag, the place she moved her bag to. The 4th photo shows after she moved her bag, I got up and sat in the chair where Dr. Johnson's bag was on the floor and the picture shows how far I was away from her bag before she moved it.

This is at the Behavioral Health & Children and Family Services Conference. Dr. Johnson, @mayoclinic.org. Her actions cut deep and do real damage. These microaggressions pile up. They shape how safe Natives feel in spaces meant for care & healing. If we can't face that truth, what is learned?

I tried to stay focused. Bright lights, full room, cameras rolling. But the harm settled in fast. My mind shifted from learning to surviving. The shame, the frustration. This is how bias shows up, in moments that steal focus. Even worse when it comes from someone who works with children and families

The movement changed the room for me. I'd made a careful, respectful choice to give space. Her reaction spoke louder than words. Moving her bag said, "I don't trust you near my things." She's a @mayoclinic.org doctor, a speaker. I'm an attendee. That's a clear power dynamic and a quiet form of harm.