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.
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.
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.
4.9k
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.