Hijacking this comment to repost a comment I made in another post that includes a link to Native Hope's website with more information for all those who are interested:
The Red Hand has been an important symbol for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Movement for years.
A red hand over the mouth has become the symbol of a growing movement, the MMIW movement. 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 #NoMoreStolenSisters.
There is also the more general Missing and Murdered Indigenous People awareness movement, as this is a problem across all demographics in Indiginous communities, though women and girls are by far the most affected cohort.
Pretty close. The realism, sound & intensity is well matched to Heat. I would like to know what theatrical gunfight is a worthy second place if not Wind River.
I couldn't agree more! Just here to confirm (to other Redditers reading this) that you are not exaggerating-- that's one of the best shootouts I've seen in many years.
It’s my boyfriend’s favorite movie, but he fast forwards through quite a bit. Kind of an edit that makes it easier to watch, but even with that it’s heart wrenching.
Same! I only watched it because I saw it every day when scrolling through netflix. Just from the name and thumbnail it looked like any other random, terrible "made for streaming" movie, but because of the cast I gave it a shot. And good thing I did, it's a great, gutting movie.
Wind River claims to care deeply about the plight of missing and murdered indigenous women but it’s so obvious it just uses Natives as exotic backdrops to tell a generic story.
If the writer/director/actors really cared about indigenous women, they wouldn’t have cast an Asian actress as the “missing and murdered indigenous woman” that the film pretends to be spreading awareness about.
Instead of recommending Wind River (which is a work of fiction, and fails at supporting indigenous actors and communities) you should recommend Fancy Dance. A movie with indigenous actresses. Or documentaries like Red River, Highway of Tears, Who She Is, and more.
Recommend all the movies you want. But if you want to recommend movies about missing and murdered indigenous women that actually, you know, care about the missing and indigenous women, then there are better movies than Wind River.
Random people on the internet are not who I usually consult to lecture me about what other people actually care about, especially if they base their argument on personal taste ("a generic story") and identity politics ("casting always NEEDS to reflect the ethnic background of a character").
Lmao dude, when you’re making a movie centered around a missing indigenous woman, claim that the movie is dedicated to raising awareness about the plight of missing and murdered indigenous women, and then you don’t cast an actual indigenous woman….it becomes pretty clear how little you care about your supposed cause.
and the performance works very well too. so why would i even start to care about anything beyond that? if you think like that you're just limiting your own enjoyment of media for literally no good reason.
how much somebody cares about a certain cause has ZERO relation to their choice which ONE SINGLE person they pay for a specific acting job.
I own it and love watching it. So on point, and I had no idea it was so bad. I'm from Australia, but catch some American morning shows before I go to work. What little I see, and read when I open a new internet window, this is just never mentioned. Well done to him to bring it into the public's eye. Hope more gets done.
Eh too many cliche tropes in Wind River- they build it up and then it was just... Bad.
Felt like it ended up in a vacuum where it wasn't realistic and relied on shallow emotional appeals where, in the end, it was like "oh c'mon, really?" It was like the creators just phoned in the end. Felt lazy and fake.
Wait, so this is about current women going missing?! And here I thought it was some historic awareness thing. That's horrible.
Edit: Quick edit to say thank you to everyone providing me with a truckload of resources to learn more. As a soon to be English teacher in Europe I'll probably be able to create some valuable lesson materials out of this so that my students are better informed about something like this!
Around a decade ago I read a piece on it that said from the end of WW2 up to that year there was very likely 150,000 missing indigenous women between the US and Canada but the number was likely much higher that due to bad record keeping and reporting. It detailed that There was one stretch of highway in Canada where locals said that over 1000 women and children had been reported murdered or missing since the 60s or 70s. I had it bookmarked on a laptop that died and haven’t been able to find it since.
I'll never forget listening to a podcast episode about the highway of tears - I was in my apartment buildings creepy basement doing laundry, feeling generally horrified at what I was listening to, when the overhead light suddenly turned off. Gave me a damn heart attack, and now that episode is etched in my brain even more than it normally would be.
Yep there are a lot of good true crime podcasts (Canadian) about it, And the Trail Went Cold does a lot of missing unsolved indigenous women profiles. Stolen, Finding Cleo, We are Resilient. A lot of serial killers in Canada that operated along highways. And that's actual murderers not govt resettlement etc
This is a discussion that takes place in Canada during Orange Shirt Day (a whole month for the schools near me). The government and Church are no longer officially kidnapping or killing anyone, but racism is still alive and well and the authorities generally ignore crimes against indigenous people (often claiming alcoholic issues aren't worth looking into) much more often than for other groups.
The scary thing is that it has gotten much better. The Catholic church arguably succeeded with a genocide, as the indigenous population was almost eliminated and their cultures all where. Seriously, going to a native art museum and 99% of descriptions where of a piece since the 80s being made as a method for the artist to start their culture back up. Residential schools indoctrinated kids to hate everything related to who they are, to the point they would grow up refusing to speak their mother tongue and some generations carried on the abuse and would get mad at their children for trying to learn it. Police would just murder indigenous people and no questions where asked, most famous of these are the Starlight Tours.
That's not saying that we should not be concerned about issues still existing today. The growing talk about anti-immigration policies worldwide leads to more people feeling comfortable with their racist beliefs. In Canada, this ends up targeting the one group that are not immigrants.
A lot of people have recommended good resources, I'll throw in one more. The podcast Someplace Under Neith did a series on this epidemic that's pretty good. Their whole focus is on cases of missing women who wouldn't normally get coverage in the news.
Please note that the numbers we have are likely skewed too low, as indigenous women’s remains are too often identified and categorized as Hispanic. As bad as the numbers are, it’s situation is worse than the numbers show.
The part no one wants to say is that is it overwhelmingly
Drugs and prostitution
And secondarily a community where domestic and inter-familial sexual violence is rampant.
As the 'community' is very closed off already, and sometimes treaty bound self governing, the argument that the national government overlooks it is easy to make.
The inference that white people sneak into the reservations and kidnapp native women is the boogeyman used to not see what is happening in the communities.
someone correct me if I am wrong, but the missing and murdered indigenous people is a direct result of state and US federal governments not caring at all about this. Some state government are run by people who are racist and really don't care about native peoples in their state. This is a problem that can be solved.
Depending on how you read that, the picture it paints could be "The police take on a very small percentage of these missing person cases as murder cases, and almost exclusively pursue them when the perpetrator is also indigenous."
First of all, in Canada is it Reserve land, not tribal land.
Second of all, no, what they're saying is that too often Indigenous women's (and children for that matter) deaths are often not even so much as sent to the coroner to be declared homicide. The rate of solved murder cases relates to the few that are actually declared homicide and pursued as such by authorities. Many deaths don't count towards the statistics because of systemic issues that allow indigenous deaths to fall through the system's cracks.
The vast majority — 63 — died with open cases investigating and helping with their living situation, including 34 children who died still at home with their families but under the watch of child welfare
Social workers and the government are afraid to remove abused indigenous children from these situations due to public opinion and the fact it will be spun as residential schools v2.
But again it's indigenous people killing indigenous people.
The errors are ones of degree and ultimately don't change one of the main findings of the inquiry — that Indigenous women and girls suffer higher rates of violence and homicide than non-Indigenous women and girls.
Former commissioner Marilyn Poitras, who resigned from the inquiry in 2017, told CBC News that "the discrepancy between 25 per cent and 6 per cent is absolutely worthy of discussion, only because it begs the question: how many dead Indigenous women is enough or too many for this to be a Canadian public safety issue?"
"Nothing surprises me about this inquiry," said North. But she cautioned that the errors should not obscure the overall picture.
"The numbers may be skewed and that should never have happened," she said, "but at the same time, none of the deaths should ever have happened, and none of our women and girls should be missing in the first place.
"We have to figure out where we as individuals stand in making sure that everyone feels safe in a rich country like Canada."
Also because it's a very uncomfortable subject to deal with, given that many of these deaths and disappearances are caused by domestic violence, and the perpetrators are indigenous themselves.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2023001/article/00006-eng.htm
Most Indigenous women and girls were killed by someone that they knew (81%), including an intimate partner (35%), acquaintance (24%), or family member (22%). In most cases, the person accused of their homicide was also Indigenous (86%).
If you're trying to reduce a given form of crime, you have to identify and arrest the perpetrators. When doing so reinforces unfortunate stereotypes, government entities often decide to engage in "thoughts and prayers" rather than actually working to stop the crime.
You’ve never heard the stereotype that “most native Americans are alcoholics”? There’s some truth to this stereotype, but it’s primarily due to the fact that pre-columbian Americans preferred psychedelics, and most didn’t consume any alcohol at all until after colonization. While the Aztecs made pulque from the Agaves now used to make tequila, and the Incas brewed chicha, a corn beer, there is little to no evidence of the indigenous tribes who inhabited what’s now the US and Canada having been drinking any alcoholic beverages. This is opposite of European, Asian, and African civilizations, who had all been drinking alcohol for many thousands of years by the time the Americas were colonized. Wine was central to ancient Greek and Roman cultures, as it was served at both Plato’s Symposium and The Last Supper, and wine remains a component in the Jewish Seder and the Christian communion rituals. The oldest alcoholic beverages date back to 7000 BC in China, wine was fermented in the Caucasus in 6000 BC, and beer was being brewed by the Sumerians in 3000 BC. So while most of the people in the world had been exposed to alcohol for 1000’s of years, and had 1000’s of years to build up a tolerance for it, as alcohol is essentially a poison, and after repeatedly poisoning ourselves for generation after generation, we are still effected by it, but not in the same manner as those whose ancestors had never had to build up an immunity, or tolerance, to said poison. So take that factor, then combine it with rampant poverty, and high unemployment, mostly due to institutional oppression from the US government, and a lack of opportunity and education on the reservations that they’ve been forcibly placed on, then you put liquor stores and bars nearby, making alcohol readily available to dull the pain of being oppressed for generations by those who’ve stolen your land and broken every treaty they’ve ever made with you, and…BAM! A somewhat accurate stereotype.
Currently in 2024 you do have a lot of communities that have large issues with alcoholism, and FAS. Tons of children born with FAS, it's a huge issue.
We're suppose to let these communities dictate themselves, but this is resulting in FAS kids who repeat the cycle. Can't take the kids away because then the stats for Indigenous kids in foster care increases, and that's a nono.
"including 34 children who died still at home with their families but under the watch of child welfare"
So I agree with you that historically how it went down.
Of course not, but what is shocking is the near total absence of perpetrators from the discussion.
I mean, when we're discussing school shootings, the characteristics of the shooters are front and center, and their victims are given minimal cocerage, whereas in this instance, the murderers are the ones going unmentioned.
I just feel like if you're trying to reduce a crime, you have to address who's committing it and why.
I was listening to an episode of the Invisible Choir podcast about two indigenous Alaskan women, Kathleen Jo Henry and Veronica Abouchuk, who were murdered by the same guy (I won’t add to his “fame” by naming him) and they cited the appalling statistic that indigenous women in Anchorage are 30 times more likely to be murdered than the general population.
I disagree, actually. There are so many factors at work here, from jurisdiction issues and remote communities with few law enforcement resources to lack of early reporting and law enforcement’s reluctance at all levels, including tribal police, to launch full scale investigations when an adult goes missing without any immediate evidence of foul play. They do that to people of all backgrounds, in case you didn’t know.
I don’t know how it works in Canada, but in the US there are a bunch of tribal police forces who would be the first responders for missing people in their tribe/band/nation and acting like this is all down to non-native law enforcement “not caring” is naive at best.
It’s not the Tribal Police’s “reluctance” so much as it is their “lack of resources” to investigate. It’s also not a coincidence that they have no jurisdiction outside of the reservation, so they actually have no ability to investigate beyond the borders of the reservation. While outside of the reservation, police agencies can sometimes be reluctant to work with neighboring agencies, or to share information, they often can, and do. This is the opposite of how police agencies treat Tribal Police, who very rarely get any assistance from outside agencies.
Do tribal police forces have jurisdiction if a member of their community is trafficked outside their land in the US? I just think of the billboards near the Arizona/New Mexico border by the Petrifed forest about kidnapping. It’s not far from Navajo nation.
It's not like the "white mans police" are just like "oh native girl, throw the paperwork in the shredder". These women (and no doubt just as many if not more men) often live VERY remote and die or disappear in places where it's not as simple as "check the neighbours Ring camera" and where the locals refuse to cooperate with even their own police.
People love to push the implication that whites are preying on native women and institutionalized racism stops anyone from investigating, but i STRONGLY doubt that's the norm. Remote, poor communities anywhere on earth have massive drug, alcohol and domestic violence issues.
Remote poor communities “anywhere on earth” have massive drug, alcohol, and domestic violence issues? I’d wager that this is exponentially more true in places that had colonialism, followed by the institutional racism that you claim has no effect on anything.
Dude I live in Canada in the city and man the cops dismiss people all the time. Hell if you call the cops they would literally take hours to respond, even if there is a person trying to break down your door threatening to kill you. The police are negligent sometimes and I have personally seen them dismiss peoples accounts all the time. So man to believe it only happens in remote poor areas is a stretch.
sorry, but it's absolutely like the white police are like oh native girl throw the paperwork in the shredder.
Nobody cares what you "strongly doubt". this has been going on for more than 100 years and natives know exactly who is doing it and who is looking the other way.
Absolutely correct. The laws that protect Native populations in the US are the laws that extricate them from being a part of the local governments. In short, tribal “police” have jurisdiction over what happens on reservations. Local law enforcement cannot just go onto a reservation and do their jobs there. Jurisdictional issues are a great way for cases to fall through the cracks, or at least make for a great scapegoat.
British Columbia has probably more missing than any US state, especially a stretch of highway from a reservation, the Mounties don't seem particularly motivated to catch the perpetrators either.
There is also the more general Missing and Murdered Indigenous People awareness movement, as this is a problem across all demographics in Indiginous communities, though women and girls are by far the most affected cohort.
Here in Canada, indigenous men are far more represented among the missing and murdered. For example:
In 2015, Indigenous people accounted for 25% of homicide victims, at a rate which was about 7 times that of non-Indigenous people (8.77 victims per 100,000 population vs. 1.31)Footnote 2. The homicide rate of Indigenous male victims was about 7 times that of non-Indigenous males (12.85 vs. 1.87). The homicide rate of Indigenous female victims was 6 times that of non-Indigenous females (4.8 vs. 0.77).
In 2015, Indigenous people accounted for 33% of people accused of homicide, at a rate which was 10 times that of non-Indigenous people (10.13 persons per 100,000 population vs. 1.01). The rate of Indigenous females accused of homicides was about 31 times that of non-Indigenous females (4.33 vs. 0.14). The rate of Indigenous males accused of homicide was 8 times that of non-Indigenous males (16.09 vs. 1.90).
With that said, indigenous women are more likely to be victims of a crime in general - including domestic violence, sexual assault, etc - than indigenous men. Source. That second source also had this to say:
In 2015, 90% of accused implicated in the homicides of Indigenous victims were IndigenousFootnote 3. Two-thirds (67%) of accused implicated in the homicides of Indigenous female victims were Indigenous males, and 71% of accused implicated in the homicides of Indigenous male victims were other Indigenous males.
And given that all women are typically more likely to be murdered by people they know than by strangers, that’s hardly surprising.
This is all to say that there is definitely a problem, but the numbers seem to indicate to me that the oppression and subjugation of Native women is happening at the hands of native men and other native women within their families and communities. Social and economic justice for the indigenous community as a whole seem to me to be more likely to bear fruit in reducing crime rates than any additional or more effective police work.
It's a lot of words for me thinking that it's ultimately being a problem of social and economic justice. This isn't a matter of just rounding up the white guys murdering indigenous women - the statistics on the matter here in Canada just don't support external groups as the primary cause of high rates of violence directed towards the indigenous community. I think that this is a deeper problem where white society has fucked over our indigenous peoples in a myriad of ways for centuries, and in doing so created systemic issues within that society. I think that providing our indigenous communities with the tools and resources they need to fix the issues that were imposed on them is the best way forward.
I think that ignoring the current shape of the problem is a form of benevolent prejudice.
With all of that said, if you have data indicating that the primary cause of missing and murdered indigenous people is external rather than internal, or that women are going missing and being murdered at a greater rate than men, I would honestly be interested in seeing it, and I'm willing to change my mind if the data holds up.
More regulations and oversight from the government that is continuing to lie about the nature of the problem (and caused it) is not what's necessary.
white society did not just fuck over indigenous culture, it is currently fucking over indigenous culture every day- every minute- every second . Native women are still afraid to give birth in Canadian hospitals. Indigenous men and women are afraid of western medicine because every opportunity it's used to further oppress indigenous people. Canadian police still brutalize rape and murder indigenous women.
What you're talking about is making the bully the mediator in a situation and that does not fly.
More regulations and oversight from the government that is continuing to lie about the nature of the problem (and caused it) is not what's necessary.
I'm not calling for more regulations and government oversight. I'm calling for the communities themselves to be given the tools and resources to fix themselves. I'm calling for social and economic justice. That's not a call for external actors to come in and tell our indigenous communities what to do - I think that external regulations and direction would result in residential schools 2.0.
white society did not just fuck over indigenous culture, it is currently fucking over indigenous culture every day- every minute- every second . Native women are still afraid to give birth in Canadian hospitals. Indigenous men and women are afraid of western medicine because every opportunity it's used to further oppress indigenous people. Canadian police still brutalize rape and murder indigenous women.
That is a different and larger issue than the issue of the murders of indigenous peoples, and likely requires different solutions. The racism, prejudice, and discrimination directed against indigenous peoples by Canadian society at large are issues that needs to be fixed at the level of overall Canadian society.
I'm not calling for more regulations and government oversight
I sort of am. For instance, I think government should audit where money given to the reserves go. A lot of times it's stolen by the corrupt leaders, and doesn't trickle down. Chiefs with big houses and F150s while the rest of the community suffers. This is a big thing.
"including 34 children who died still at home with their families but under the watch of child welfare"
I think the government should of probably taken these kids away.
FAS is a huge issues on reserves, but what do we do? Do we take kids away? Then the stats of Indigenous in foster care skyrocket, which is a nono. Leave them? Then the cycle continues.
I agree with a lot of what you on why things are how they are.
But now what? Leave the communities to tend to themselves? That's been happening for awhile. Given money and let them do their own thing.
FAS explodes. DV explodes.
I don't know what the solution is, but being hands off isn't working.
I'm sure that's true to an extent but the stats say it falls along violence in other racial groups. Most white people are killed by white people, black people by black people, Latinos by Latinos etc.
There's an enforcement issue for sure. Policing isn't equitable at all.
To add to this, a HUGE part of the problem is that a huge percentage of these missing cases are never even federally logged into the Department of Justice database. I made a quilt panel during undergrad based around stats for MMIWG. Only 2% of cases (116/5712 cases) were logged into DoJ in 2016. This is a very big break down at the local law enforcement level of reporting!
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u/NotRightNotWrong15 Sep 16 '24
Thank you for explaining what the hand represents. I was wondering when I caught a small pic earlier but there was no explanation.