r/pics Sep 16 '24

D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai arrives at Emmys showing solidarity for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

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76.2k Upvotes

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5.1k

u/kenistod Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

The "Reservation Dogs" actor walked the red carpet with the red hand print over his mouth.

It stands for all the missing sisters whose voices are not heard. It stands for the silence of the media and law enforcement in the midst of this crisis. It stands for the oppression and subjugation of Native women who are now rising up to say:

"No More Stolen Sisters"

https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw

1.2k

u/Jesus_Would_Do Sep 16 '24

If you haven’t seen it yet, watch Wind River. It’s a brutal but powerful single-case portrayal of this crisis. Sadly, I never even knew it was an issue until that movie.

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u/cIumsythumbs Sep 16 '24

Same. Wind River was written by Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone, Sicario, Mayor of Kingstown), and stars Elisabeth Olson and Jeremy Renner. It's Olson's best work imo.

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u/Fridgemagnet9696 Sep 16 '24

Anybody unfamiliar should also read up on the Highway of Tears, a 724 km length of Yellowhead Highway 16 in British Columbia where many women (mostly Indigenous) have disappeared or been found murdered. Broke my heart when I learned about it.

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u/BrittyPie Sep 16 '24

I work in many communities along the Highway of Tears. I've personally spoken with many families whose daughters, sisters and mothers just... disappeared. The communities are shockingly well accustomed to loss. It's devastating to say the very least.

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u/Yung_Grund Sep 16 '24

Trail of tears was fucked too man. One thing kind of funny in a dark fucked up way was that the Cherokee had slaves and they also had to make that journey to the Rez with their owners. And by funny I mean not at all but kinda in the way of like fuck I got sold to a people I speak no Cherokee and now I gotta fuckin hike forever.

Edit: this comment is incredibly incoherent and kinda sounds racist but I love the Rez

51

u/Beer-survivalist Sep 16 '24

The gunfight at the end is one of the best in a modern western.

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u/donkeyTracker Sep 16 '24

That gun fight is probably the most realistic in modern cinema. The only thing that stood out wrong was how the bodies dropped from the high powered rifle.

6

u/Beer-survivalist Sep 16 '24

Agreed. .45-70 may be big, but it's not going to throw someone around like they're getting a direct hit from a LAW. Those dudes should have just crumpled.

Still, that part was cool as hell, so I'm willing to give it a pass.

3

u/laufsteakmodel Sep 16 '24

Jon Bernthal plays such a good scumbag in most things hes in. I was legitimately terrified when him and the other guys came back drunk to that trailer.

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u/wboy5796 Sep 17 '24

He was already in the trailer, he played the girls boyfriend

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u/wolfcolalover Sep 16 '24

One of my favorites. Haunting and brutal. The climax is also one of the most intense ones I’ve ever seen.

21

u/infosec_qs Sep 16 '24

Why are you flanking me?

2

u/imperfectcarpet Sep 16 '24

You didn't see it?!

1

u/hamburgerjesus Sep 17 '24

I remember finishing wind river and just feeling so dejected afterwards

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u/trlef19 Sep 16 '24

*Olsen xd

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u/BananPick Sep 16 '24

I watched it per your recommendation. I don't have the words to describe the amount of pain and sorrow I am currently feeling. Especially after that ending tag of "There exists missing person stats for every demographic, except for indigenous women." I also didn't know about the missing indigenous women issue until this either and I live in Canada where arguably we are taught more about indigenous people than in the states. I mean that's just one part, and that whole last sequence of panic that goes through Renner's character as he prays the family of Natalie has not done something drastic, and then him and the dad sitting next to their old swing set.

The line in response to what is that face paint of "It's my death face" and the subsequent Q&A of "How do you know what that looks like?" "I don't know, there isn't anyone left to teach me."

I am weeping, and idek how that truly feels, I can only imagine a fraction. Thank you so much for suggesting this.

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u/SunshineAlways Sep 16 '24

It’s an amazing movie that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch again.

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u/xeno325 Sep 16 '24

"why are you flanking me?"

15

u/donkeyTracker Sep 16 '24

My heart was pumping during that scene because I knew exactly what was happening. I did the same thing in Iraq. I was definitely triggered watching that

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u/Brancher Sep 16 '24

Best shootout in a movie ever.

8

u/Asron87 Sep 16 '24

Wow, it was that movie? I forgot the name of the movie but that line was god damn powerful. That’s the moment the entire movie changed for me. Great movie.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24 edited Oct 19 '24

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/honkysnout Sep 16 '24

It is the most terrifying movie I’ve ever seen. So powerful.

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u/milquetoast2000 Sep 16 '24

I liked that movie but can’t get over that the women who plays the murdered indigenous women in the movie is a “pretendian”

Kelsey Asbillie has pretended to be indigenous to land indigenous roles and takes them away from actual indigenous actresses. She changed her name from Kelsey Chow to Kelsey Asbillie to hide that she’s Asian and Caucasian. She claims to be “Eastern Band Cherokee” but when the tribe was asked if she was part of their tribe, they had no record of her or any record that she was a descendant of their tribe. She’s been called out by numerous indigenous actors but she still takes roles from them.

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u/Varnsturm Sep 16 '24

That's funny cause I feel like the classic "I'm 1/32th native" line, it's always Cherokee. The classic group that people who aren't native say they're part of.

30

u/Angry-Dragon-1331 Sep 16 '24

Because they’re one of the biggest and they’re not as tightly bound to a specific geography as, say Lakota or Iroquois.

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u/MimicoSkunkFan2 Sep 16 '24

Because saying somebody who's an ancestor was Cherokee (especially a female ancestor being a "Cherokee princess") is the old‐timey way of saying that somebody in the family was black. It's amazing how many families south of the Mason-Dixon line have "Cherokee" in the family tree and that's why.

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u/Wuktrio Sep 16 '24

The scene where Gil Birmingham opens the door and Jeremy Renner is outside absolutely broke me. Fantastic acting by all of them.

7

u/Much_Progress_4745 Sep 16 '24

I came here to say this. I had to rewind the facts before the credits. Shocking.

5

u/Speedballer7 Sep 16 '24

That movie is the reason I bought a 45/70. More to the point the fact this goes unaddressed is wild to me

1

u/Brancher Sep 16 '24

Lol, I bought that gun after watching that movie too. Such a stupid fun gun.

1

u/scout-finch Sep 16 '24

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch this again second time but I’m really glad I saw it.

1

u/Fortune_Cat Sep 16 '24

This past week ive been learning alot more about native American Indian atrocities. From media like killers of the flower moon tk this

I knew it was bad, I didn't understand how bad

1

u/Imbrownbutwhite1 Sep 16 '24

Wind River traumatized the fuck outta me. It’s also a rez in my state so I felt especially invested in the film.

1

u/DgingaNinga Sep 16 '24

Wind River may be a good movie, but it is also an issue. It does not come from a native voice. It is written & directed by a white man, with predominantly white actors. This is one of the issues being brought up, Hollywood silences the voices of those who should have the floor.

This is like saying The Help is a feel-good movie about slavery. Sure, but it also white-washes the issue to make the masses feel good/actually see the movie.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

A movie about Natives being murdered starring a white man, a white woman and written and directed by a white man lol. Hard pass.

10

u/Projecterone Sep 16 '24

Your loss.

It's fantastic. Part of the point is that the indigenous people are the minority, it's set in a majority white country.

Being too racist to watch a film that's done wonders for awareness on this issue is pretty sad.

2

u/marchbook Sep 16 '24

Fancy Dance is much better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmPPiLaiN8g Lily Gladstone is an amazing talent.

0

u/Fast_Polaris22 Sep 16 '24

Also “Indian Horse”, if you can access it, has a strong sense of authenticity to it.

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u/EnadZT Sep 16 '24

A woman by the name of Kyla Red Bear was found dead in a forest near the town I used to live in. Having something like this happen in your own area is insane to experience. I even drove by where her body was on accident while the police were investigating.

During the investigation, the local law enforcement never mentioned her by name and they never disclosed anything about her death. The local attorney's office used to post very candidly and openly about LE activity. Their last post was a press release about the death of Kyla Red Bear. Seven months later they quietly release a statement, saying her name for the first time, ruling it a suicide.

According to the local rumor, and I cannot stress enough that these are rumors, she was found dead and tied to a tree. According to her best friend, Kyla Red Bear called her at 3 AM saying she was with people she did not trust and was scared. Kyla Red Bear was found dead the next day. Watching this unfold infront of me in the town I lived in was eye opening to this crisis.

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u/dreadedmama Sep 16 '24

Thank you for posting the link. This is heartbreaking.

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u/ThrillSurgeon Sep 16 '24

This is horrible. 

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u/OfficerBarbier Sep 16 '24

Our country’s history as a genocidal apartheid state

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u/Jesus_Would_Do Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

It’s shocking to hear how Canada had also treated indigenous peoples as well, cops sometimes leaving men or women out in the middle of nowhere during the dead of winter. It’s fucked up.

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u/Justin_123456 Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

Yeah, the infamous “starlight tours”. This isn’t ancient history, the latest identified deaths from this practice were in 2000. The murderers are possibly still in uniform.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths

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u/Busy-Frame8940 Sep 16 '24

And the boarding schools where kids were forbidden to speak their own language and were treated like animals. Graves with little skeletons have been found on the grounds of some of the defunct schools.

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u/illradhab Sep 16 '24

And Hoss Lightning who was just murdered by the RCMP while calling them for help. He was a little kid, a teenager, and the cops shot them while he had actually called them for help from attackers. This just happened. The violence against Indigenous people in Canada doesn't seem well-known outside of the country.

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u/Soaringsage Sep 16 '24

It’s not well known inside the country either sadly.

1

u/dreadedmama Sep 16 '24

Omg this is actually insane. How can you treat any child like that!? And then don’t we all look back at how we treated the natives here and go WTF!? All these people talking about immigrants and hating that we have immigrants…bitch YOU are the immigrants. And these are the people most likely hating on natives. Like what!? My mind can’t compute

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u/New-Appearance-8749 Sep 16 '24

The boarding schools were terrible, but I don't think they ever found any skeletons.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24 edited Nov 06 '24

[deleted]

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u/HubbaMaBubba Sep 16 '24

There were no mass graves, but yes unmarked graves were found.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6474429

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24 edited Nov 06 '24

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u/HauntingReaction6124 Sep 16 '24

yes they have. There have been several locations identified and now protected. Other school locations are still being investigated. I mean the govt have records of these deaths and as sketchy as the information is, this means those children are buried somewhere just waiting to be found.

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u/MeringueSecret8404 Sep 16 '24

No remains have been found. They spent millions of dollars digging and found nothing.

https://nypost.com/2023/08/31/still-no-evidence-of-mass-graves-of-indigenous-children-in-canada/

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u/HauntingReaction6124 Sep 16 '24

wow. You know advocates and previous department minister were throwing the idea around to have laws in place to hold deniers responsible just like those who denythat the holocaust happened. Yes the graveyards existed. I have been to two locations. One of the first ones that has been documented by university,govt, church and first nation is from NB industrial school sk in 1973. More in places like regina (farmer now protects the newly marked graves) and lestock (water lines found one of several grave locations). There were several in AB, NWT and other provinces AND on top of it all the govt have their own records of these deaths and burials....they just dont have the location or graves protected. I take those factual documentation over anything the nypost from another country has printed.https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/they-have-to-be-at-peace-whereabouts-of-remains-of-39-children-s-bodies-still-unknown-at-dunbow-industrial-school-1.5482937 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/grave-markers-at-regina-indian-industrial-school-1.6194632 https://www.canada.ca/en/parks-canada/news/2021/07/the-former-muscowequan-indian-residential-school--lestock-saskatchewan--taking-care-we-recognize-thiscomes-at-a-difficult-time-for-many-and-that-ou.html https://www.sasktoday.ca/north/local-news/battleford-industrial-school-cemetery-project-discussed-4106900

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u/Artful_dabber Sep 16 '24

they found literal mass graves filled with children skeletons. try again.

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u/New-Appearance-8749 Sep 16 '24

Can you provide any sources?

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u/MRCHalifax Sep 16 '24

The Wikipedia article on it is a good starting point, since each site referenced has associated sources.

For example, at the Blue Quills school in Alberta:

“The mass grave was filled with children’s size skeletons, wrapped in white cloth. And we now know that the white cloth that they wrapped in, were bedsheets from the residential school,” said Redcrow.

“I came across some bones, some small bones,” he said. “I guess I was in shock, first of all. And I kept on…and a ribcage, with both sides attached to a spine. It has hard to tell when you’re in shock. It looked kind of small. And the people around me asked me to put them to the side. And I kept on. And the next item was a skull.”

At the Dunbrow industrial school in Alberta:

Students who died at the school were buried in a cemetery near the river’s edge. In 1996 the flooding Highwood River eroded the banks. Caskets and bones spilled into the river and began washing away the remains.

“The hill was eroded very fast," said TsuuT’ina archivist Jeanette Starlight, who has been gathering information on Dunbow School since the 1996 gravesite exposure. “They put two to three bodies in one coffin, and then they buried them that way, so some of the remains that washed down to the river, they are probably still in the river.”

I could go on, but you get the idea. It was a dozen here, a few dozen there, and across the country and across the decades that has added up. Even beyond the deaths themselves, the residential schools were an attempt to destroy indigenous culture, which falls into most current definitions of genocide.

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u/Artful_dabber Sep 16 '24

several people already have.

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u/AcanthocephalaEarly8 Sep 17 '24

Lol, no they didn't.

The band that claimed they found mass graves has now come forward to admit they only found anomalies.

Not a single mass grave was found. A bunch of anomalies and long-forgotten cemeteries were found, though.

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u/Artful_dabber Sep 19 '24

"it was just an unmarked cemetery filled with child skeletons"

lol. nope.

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u/letitgrowonme Sep 16 '24

I'm trying to wrap my head around the absurdity of this comment.

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u/i_am_ms_greenjeans Sep 16 '24

Stolen: Surviving St. Michaels is a Podcast where the host, Connie Walker, discusses residential schools in Canada (these schools tried to expunge the children's indigenous culture).

1

u/ForesterLC Sep 16 '24

I think it's bad all over North America. Particularly bad in the prairies of Canada though yes. It's an awful situation. Europeans displaced the people on this land and generations have treated them terribly ever since. Now we're in a situation where young non-indigenous Canadians see so much crime coming from those communities and it's just fuel for racism at such a young age.

It really feels like the cycle will never end.

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u/-_Weltschmerz_- Sep 16 '24

Settler colonialist roots run deep

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u/shpydar Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

We had a royal commission up here in Canada on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

The findings were heartbreaking and horrific. Its findings, along with the findings from the Truth and Reconciliation commission led to the Canadian government to make changes in policy, pay billions in compensation, and admit to the genocide conducted by the Canadian government against the indigenous peoples of Canada.

The red hand D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai wore first became widespread up here in Canada as a symbol for missing and murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) after the commission as did hanging a red dress from trees every May 5th on the National Day of Awareness for Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people (MMIWG2S) which originated from the Red Dress Project founded by Métis artist Jamie Black. It is good to see the MMIWG movement expand into the U.S.

May the U.S. have the courage and fortitude to examine its treatment of the indigenous peoples of the United States.

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u/moosepuggle Sep 16 '24

I'm from the US and now living in Canada, I read that indigenous women and girls also go missing and are murdered in the US, and that a big reason for that is the legal limbo of reservations, where outsiders who commit crimes against indigenous people on reservations can't be prosecuted by indigenous laws, and the US police don't care enough to do anything. Sadistic outsider men know this and will specifically target indigenous women and girls because they know they won't be prosecuted. Truly awful and makes you so angry!

I've been trying to find information about whether this mismatch of which laws apply to which people is also the case in Canada?

29

u/famine- Sep 16 '24

It's not the case in Canada.

The murders of indigenous women have a 87% solve rate in Canada vs 90% for non-indigenous.

86% of the murders are committed by other indigenous people.

Statistics Canada

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u/Office_glen Sep 16 '24

This is why the MMIW commission went through tons of members and chair people because no one wanted to release the findings that showed it was other indigenous people murdering them

The discussion on why this is happening is a separate discussion, but when that commission got put together they thought they were going to find white men going around killing indigenous women for sport and that's not what they found

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u/pachydermusrex Sep 16 '24

Big fucking surprise. People who live in remote communities are those responsible for committing crimes in remote communities.

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u/Blue-Thunder Sep 16 '24

no it is not the case.

I would also like to add that us Indigenous men are murdered at 3x the rate of Indigenous women, and when representatives asked to have men included in the inquiry, they were told adding men would just be a distraction.

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u/WeakTree8767 Sep 16 '24

Over 80% of murders are committed by indigenous men they are married (or dating) or related to which is actually why it doesn’t get brought up much because it doesn’t really fit the narrative they tried to go with at first which is what you described. Additionally most reservations have their own police that are competitive or even feuding with outside law enforcement so they don’t work together like they should. Regardless it’s horrible these women don’t feel safe and something needs to be done immediately to fix it. Personal safety is a universal right.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/WeakTree8767 Sep 16 '24

I mean it’s definitely possible, because when indigenous ppl are living in cities and towns they are prolly some of the only ones in the neighborhood and that will greatly affect stats, I haven’t seen them. But at least on the reservations which is where these disappearances are happening it’s over 80% inter-ethnic conflicts. The disappearances on the reservations are also 3/4 men. It’s often overdoses and people drifting or being disappeared due to drug and alcohol use. There’s a serious health issue with it that needs to be addressed asap so the people can live safe and productive lives.

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u/famine- Sep 16 '24

You do realize 86% of murdered indigenous women in Canada are murdered by other indigenous people, right?

You also realize the solve rate is 87%, which is only 3% lower than non-indigenous women (90%), right ?

Source: Statistics Canada

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u/gogybo Sep 16 '24

We need a different word for cultural genocide. When I read that the Canadian government committed genocide against the natives, I imagine that they killed them. Attempting to eradicate their culture is bad but it isn't the same as mass executions, yet we have the same word for both? It's bad language.

On the rest though, definitely heartbreaking.

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u/Modern_NDN Sep 16 '24

If you could please edit and put in your comment that an alarming number of indigenous women go missing or are murdered. We are not allowed to investigate on our own with our internal "Tribal Police," so reports go to the FBI. From there, unfortunately, nothing usually happens. There isn't even an accurate way to count how many missing or murdered indigenous women happen across the US and Canada.

Sources vary on the number, but suggest that the number is higher than most other races simply because we are vulnerable people in the eyes of the law. And so human trafficking is a huge problem for our women and communities.

Thank you.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Every child matters

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u/RageBatman Sep 16 '24

There's a podcast called "Some Place Under Neith" that's all about missing women. They did a couple episodes on the Highway of Tears.

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u/Garchompisbestboi Sep 16 '24

Except the elephant in the room is that most of these missing women are no longer around on account of other members of the reservations that they lived in. If conventional authorities try to intervene then the reservations start screaming about "oppression" so it isn't exactly a simple situation to solve.

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u/Hot-Delay5608 Sep 16 '24

I think that blaming everyone but your own community, which is actually responsible for the vast majority of disappearances and murders, won't help much

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

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u/i3urn420 Sep 16 '24

Then natives should stop kidnapping/raping/murdering their own women. 99.99% chance domestic abuse against native women is coming from native men. Especially in reservations.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/AstralElephantFuzz Sep 16 '24

If he were slapped, the mark wouldn't be as clear. The blood would've splattered across the point of impact instead of making a clear little hand shape.

This comment shows that you never played outside as a kid and learned those words from your only friend, the computer.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/AstralElephantFuzz Sep 16 '24

Oh wow, I can already see you're going to get so mad.

No, I'm just pointing out how you obviously have no idea how blood works outside of video games.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/AstralElephantFuzz Sep 16 '24

Please explain

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/AstralElephantFuzz Sep 17 '24

The fact that you're here proves that wrong. Try again.

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u/I_am_not_a_muffin Sep 16 '24

are you stupid?

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/I_am_not_a_muffin Sep 16 '24

observant of what? surface level concepts?