{"id":68566,"date":"2015-07-24T06:55:23","date_gmt":"2015-07-24T12:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=68566"},"modified":"2015-07-26T21:12:19","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T03:12:19","slug":"cowboy-rabbit-and-border-town-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/07\/cowboy-rabbit-and-border-town-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboy, rabbit and border town violence"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Albuquerque<\/a>

Will Keightley \/ Creative Commons<\/p>

Albuquerque at sunset. (photo cc info<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

Most people probably don’t think of Albuquerque as a border town. But Din\u00e9 (Navajo) Melaine Yazzie squarely defines the central New Mexico city as a classic one.<\/p>\n

Surrounded not only by Native and trust lands, Albuquerque and its suburbs are built on an old indigenous land base that now hosts geopolitical and economic powerhouses such as Sandia National Laboratories, Kirtland Air Force Base and Intel Corporation.<\/p>\n

“There’s the contradiction,” Yazzie told FNS<\/span>. “Border towns are established on Native land but power and money is not with Native people.” Although more than 50,000 Native Americans reside in the Duke City, the indigenous community does not possess local political representation, Yazzie added.<\/p>\n

Yazzie, who works with the new activist organization The Red Nation, spoke to FNS<\/span> at the beginning of a vigil\/memorial held in the Duke City this past weekend.<\/p>\n

As thunder and lightning choreographed a graying summer sky that soon splashed city streets with priceless rain, Yazzie and dozens of others assembled on an East Central Avenue corner July 19 to protest violence against Native Americans and honor two Dine men, Allison \u201cCowboy\u201d Gorman and Kee \u201cRabbit\u201d Thompson, who were viciously beaten to death<\/a> July 19 a year ago while they slept on an empty lot off Central Avenue.<\/p>\n

Three teenagers, Alex Rios, Nathaniel Carrillo and Gilbert Tafoya, stand accused of a crime that shocked the city, the Navajo Nation and even the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cCowboy and Rabbit: We Remember,\u201d \u201cNative Lives Matter\u201d and \u201cStop Racist Violence against Natives\u201d were among the messages on signs memorial participants waved at passing motorists on the Central Avenue main drag.<\/p>\n

Grasping flowers and listening to prayers, the attendees included members of Thompson\u2019s family, local residents and activists from The Red Nation, the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the anti-police brutality organization ABQ Justice and other groups.<\/p>\n

Mourning over the loss of friends, one tearful Native woman broke into song for a few moments. \u201cI want my friends back, but they\u2019re not coming back,\u201d she sobbed.<\/p>\n

As at least three Albuquerque Police Department (APD) units monitored the gathering, tense moments developed when a beefy driver for Greg\u2019s Towing attempted to haul away a car driven by KOB news reporter Stephanie Claytor that was parked on a property behind the memorial site where a Circle K convenience store and a McDonald\u2019s do business.<\/p>\n

A small crowd rallied and formed a wedge between the tow truck\u2019s rear and Claytor\u2019s car, \u201cliberating\u201d the vehicle from the creeping menace of a lowered\u00a0 truck ramp and allowing the reporter enough time to wiggle the vehicle out of its\u00a0 predicament. Arms folded, the hapless tow truck driver insisted that he must remove the vehicle, but was unable to act.<\/p>\n

A transit cop appeared and barked at the crowd, \u201cIf you don\u2019t want to get arrested, get off the property now!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBoycott Circle K!\u201d the crowd shot back.<\/p>\n

But the real focus of the day was on victims of violence like \u201cCowboy\u201d Gorman and \u201cRabbit\u201d Thompson.<\/p>\n

In a press release announcing the vigil\/memorial, The Red Nation called on the public to take action: \u201cThis pattern of violence and racism can longer go unnoticed. Too many families have suffered. It must stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘I don’t think any human being should die like that’<\/h3>\n

In conversations with FNS<\/span> both during and after the memorial, members of Thompson\u2019s family shared memories of their loved one. Sister Veda Yazzie, aunt Louise Yazzie and nephew Ivan Yazzie described Thompson as a fun-loving, helpful and outgoing man who enjoyed basketball, cooking, traveling, playing cards and heavy metal music.<\/p>\n

According to relatives, Thompson herded sheep in the summer and looked for construction jobs the remainder of the year. \u201cHe comes and goes and comes back,\u201d said Louise Yazzie, who raised Thompson from the time her nephew\u2019s mother died until he when he went out into the world after his 18th birthday.<\/p>\n

Switching her words between English and Navajo, Yazzie said Thompson liked to help \u201cthe girls\u201d bake cakes. He loved food, especially roast mutton, fried bread, tortillas, mild and hot chile, and \u201call kinds of stews,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Yazzies are from Church Rock, N.M. Three days prior to July 19, the\u00a0 small Din\u00e9 community not far from Gallup marked another grim anniversary. On July 16, 1979, the breach of a uranium mill tailings pond<\/a> sent a river of contamination gushing down the Rio Puerco, wreaking havoc on the ecosystem and Dine lives.<\/p>\n

Veda Yazzie spoke of her brother\u2019s violent death in Albuquerque as an unimaginable event.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was devastating for me. I didn\u2019t think we\u2019d lose him that way. It was a shocker. I never imagined anyone dying like that, the way he did,\u201d Yazzie said. \u201cI don\u2019t think any human being should die like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ivan Yazzie said his uncle\u2019s murder and the subsequent arrest of three teenagers for the crime shook his outlook to the core. \u201cIt made me lose hope in the judicial system and our country as a whole,\u201d the young man said.<\/p>\n

The Red Nation\u2019s Melanie Yazzie said the murders of Cowboy and Rabbit helped inspire the formation of her group late last year. Co-founder Sam Gardipe placed the emergence of The Red Nation in the context of long struggles for survival.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a government policy of extermination at one point and we aren\u2019t supposed to be here. We\u2019re supposed to be in a museum..\u201dGardipe said. \u201cWe\u2019ve survived all of it. It\u2019s the resilience, it\u2019s the Native. We know how to survive, but it isn\u2019t easy. The beauty of Native folk is that we can survive in our homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Pawnee veteran of many struggles, Gardipe said The Red Nation unites older activists like himself with those from a new generation like Melanie Yazzie who are articulating both historic and contemporary concerns.<\/p>\n

The Red Nation defines itself as a coalition \u201cdedicated to building a widespread movement to liberate Indigenous peoples from colonialism.\u201d<\/p>\n

While not underrating the importance of environmental and sovereignty struggles, The Red Nation fills a void by focusing on urban Indian issues of violence, poverty, homelessness and health care, Yazzie said.<\/p>\n

Seventy percent of Native Americans live off the reservation in urban centers like Albuquerque, she stressed.<\/p>\n

The Native activist said the particular site of the July 19 anniversary memorial for Thomspon and Gorman was selected because it\u2019s located in an impoverished part of the city where many Natives live.<\/p>\n

As if no additional proof was needed of the conditions prevailing along East Central, a woman independently working from a truck off to a side of the memorial gave away free burritos to a steady file of people coming in from the streets to fill their stomachs.<\/p>\n

The urgency of addressing the issues raised by The Red Nation and others was further reinforced only days before the memorial. KOB and other local news media reported this week that APD is searching for a purple SUV<\/a> linked to a July 11 attack on a Native homeless man in southeast Albuquerque. The attackers tossed fireworks at the sleeping man, setting him on fire.<\/p>\n

Quoted by KOB, APD spokesperson Tanner Tixier said the still publicly unidentified victim has spent more than two weeks in intensive care.<\/p>\n

‘When is this nightmare going to end?’<\/h3>\n

As one of its first actions, The Red Nation staged a February 2015 demonstration in Gallup that protested violence against the local Native community. According to Yazzie, The Red Nation has counted 170 \u201cunnatural deaths\u201d in Gallup between 2013 and April 2015 from causes that include murder, hypothermia, alcohol, and run-overs by trains and automobiles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guarantee you, (the death toll) is higher now,\u201d Yazzie added. \u201cIt seems that nobody cares.\u201d<\/p>\n

FNS<\/span> asked Yazzie about anecdotal reports of Din\u00e9 women being abducted on or near the Navajo Nation. \u201cThere is no reliable source for numbers,\u201d Yazzie said. \u201cI have heard plenty of stories of Native women being kidnapped in border towns like Gallup and trafficked into sex trafficking,\u201d Yazzie said.<\/p>\n

In a broad historical sense, The Red Nation\u2019s border town protests weave a loop with the indigenous mass activism of the late 1960s and 1970s. \u201cIt has come full circle,\u201d Gardipe observed. \u201cThe next generation wants to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a 17 year-old, Gardipe said he marched during the times when organizations that included the National Indian Youth Council, the American Indian Movement, the Coalition for Navajo Liberation, and the UNM Kiva Club mobilized thousands for protests in Gallup, Farmington, Window Rock and Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

The grievances ranged from the exploitation of Native crafts and culture in tourist-oriented Gallup to the beating deaths of Dine men by white teenagers in Farmington.<\/p>\n

The Farmington atrocities attracted the attention of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, with an advisory committee to the Commission filing a landmark 1975 report<\/a> after conducting an independent investigation and holding a field hearing.<\/p>\n

Following a comprehensive examination of conditions facing the Farmington-area Native community, the advisory committee \u201cconcluded that Native Americans in almost every area suffer from injustice and maltreatment,\u201d according to a University of Massachusetts summary<\/a> of the report.<\/p>\n

Forty years later, Gardipe assessed the earlier movement as having some positive but not enduring effects. \u201cI think it got better for awhile, but it didn\u2019t last,\u201d Gardipe reflected. \u201cI don\u2019t know if the city officials didn\u2019t care or if the people didn\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu of sorts, Gardipe said The Red Nation was contemplating upcoming actions that include a protest in Farmington, where more recent spates of violence against Native men recall previous years.<\/p>\n

Members of Kee \u201cRabbit\u201d Thompson\u2019s family said they plan to monitor the trial of the three teens charged in a brutal murder. Thompson\u2019s relatives expressed fears that the trio of alleged killers would get off the hook and not be held accountable for their actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they get away with it, they\u2019re telling society, hey guys, you\u2019re on your own, and it\u2019s not just Natives,\u201d sister Veda Yazzie said. Thompson\u2019s sibling said life imprisonment justice would be fitting justice for the alleged killers of her brother. Urging parents to take responsibility for their young, Yazzie added that Thompson\u2019s murder inflicted a pain that \u201cdoesn\u2019t go away\u201d or let her know when it will stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really hard,\u201d she concluded. \u201cAt times I think, when is this nightmare going to end?\u201d<\/p>\n

Frontera NorteSur<\/a>\u00a0is\u00a0a U.S.-Mexico border news service run by the Center for Latin American and Border Studies at New Mexico State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people probably don’t think of Albuquerque as a border town. But Din\u00e9 (Navajo) Melaine Yazzie squarely defines the central New Mexico city as a classic one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2732,"featured_media":66499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,142,709,143],"class_list":["post-68566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-albuquerque","tag-crime","tag-native-americans","tag-race-and-ethnicity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}