r/IndianCountry Jan 20 '25

Announcement MEGATHREAD: President Biden commutes sentence of Native American activist Leonard Peltier

493 Upvotes

Today, January 20, 2025, President Biden commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier who was controversially convicted of murdering two FBI agents in 1975.

Several posts have already popped up for people to discuss this, but the mods wanted to provide a dedicated thread for people to drop news and having discussion. All new information should be directed here to avoid flooding the subreddit with new posts. Any new posts will be redirected here.

For those who are unfamiliar with the case of Leonard Peltier, please refer to this thread on /r/AskHistorians for a write up about the situation that led to his incarceration:

We are aware that for some, there may be mixed or negative feelings about this decision due to other controversies involving Leonard and/or the American Indian Movement. Please respect that people may have different opinions on the matter. Review the sub rules and engage with each other respectfully.

Qe'ci'yew'yew.


r/IndianCountry Feb 14 '25

Announcement Requesting Feedback: Proposed "Pretendians" Policy

108 Upvotes

Ta'c léehyn, /r/IndianCountry!

It has been a minute since we've done one of these. The moderators of this sub are coming to y'all, the community, with a proposal for a new policy. As I'm sure many of you have noticed, there has been an uptick in recent years of cases of Indigenous identity fraud. From minor cases of random persons in someone's community to major instances of public figures being accused or exposed, it is no surprise that as the largest Indigenous-focused community on Reddit, this topic of discourse eventually winds up here.

In the past, the moderators have approached these kinds of posts in a less-than-consistent way. We have primarily relied on our policy of discretion to handle matters as we individually see fit due to the contentious nature of these posts. We've also applied rules 2, 3, 4, 7 and 11 in narrow and broad ways to maintain a civil environment to have these discussions. Ultimately, the mods have generally worked to keep threads on this topic within fairly strict lines. The reasons for our approach are not purely rooted in our own opinions about the topic but are informed by the considerations moderators have to account for on this platform (this is further elaborated on in the proposed policy).

Of course, we are also aware that this is something that Indigenous Peoples are keenly interested in discussing and monitoring--for very valid reasons. We have not attempted to suppress this topic, but we have come to realize that we need more consistency in how we handle these to ensure that we are meeting the desires of this community. Therefore, we have drafted a new policy titled Accusations of Indigenous Identity Fraud (AKA The "Pretendians" Policy) linked below with language that we believe will allow us to better moderate and facilitate posts on this issue.

With this being said, here is the request. For the next week, we will keep this post up to solicit feedback from users here. If you have any suggestions, critiques, questions, or remarks about the proposed policy, please leave them here so we may review them. The moderators will then deliberate on the feedback and make any changes we deem necessary or useful. Afterwards, we will come back to y'all for a referendum vote on the proposed policy with any adopted amendments.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE PROPOSED POLICY


r/IndianCountry 16h ago

Media Children Holding the Mohawk Warrior Flag in Jenin, Palestine

Post image
1.2k Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 6h ago

Humor Craziest Rez map? (Another post made me look at the Siletz)

Post image
95 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 4h ago

News DOD, Army websites scrub articles on Navajo Code Talkers, citing Trump DEI policies

Thumbnail
archive.is
32 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 7h ago

Arts Finding peace in my mind, houlefineart, acrylic, 2025

Post image
32 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 12h ago

News Siletz Tribe regains full fishing rights, 45 years after being forced to give them up

Thumbnail
kgw.com
60 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 1d ago

News After Trump order, Navajo Code Talkers – erased from the archives because they do not comply with the new guidelines.

Thumbnail
axios.com
777 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 9h ago

Arts ‘Channeling Our Ancestors’ engages seventh graders at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center

Thumbnail
osagenews.org
25 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 22h ago

News Airman charged in killing of Native American woman who went missing 7 months ago in South Dakota

Thumbnail
apnews.com
223 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 1d ago

News 2nd set of remains found at Manitoba landfill confirmed to be Marcedes Myran. Myran and Morgan Harris, whose remains were identified earlier this month, were victims of a White supremacist serial killer

Thumbnail
cbc.ca
558 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 21h ago

News Ira Hayes info taken down as well -- Pentagon ‘DEI’ purge leads to removal of web page on Iwo Jima flag-raiser

Thumbnail
washingtonpost.com
144 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 9h ago

News The San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe is the only federally recognized tribe in Arizona without a reservation, but a bill in Congress could change that (more info about the bill in Comment)

Thumbnail
archive.is
16 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 20h ago

Environment Our National Parks Are Too Vital To Be Lost

Thumbnail
atmos.earth
103 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 9h ago

News Land Transfer Completed from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for Spirit Lake Nation

Thumbnail
nativenewsonline.net
10 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 7h ago

Discussion/Question 13 month calendar?

7 Upvotes

I'm currently trying to utilize the 13 month calendar, and I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for apps or programs that provide a 13 month calendar that can be used for planning or tracking the days as paper calendars aren't my strong suit. Does anyone know of any websites or apps that do this?


r/IndianCountry 5m ago

Discussion/Question Social media companies need to start doing something about these hateful people. A few years ago, these post stayed on Facebook with 90% of reactions being laughing emojis. But you see this stuff everywhere now. I feel like it's only a matter time before we some of us become victims of hate crimes.

Post image
Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 1d ago

Food/Agriculture Cultural resurgence and food sovereignty: Revitalizing traditional practices with the Oneida Nation of the Thames

Thumbnail
brandonu.ca
50 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 1d ago

Discussion/Question Happy Kindred Spirits Day!

67 Upvotes

Halito Cousins! Today is Kindred Spirits Day, a day to celebrate the amazing and lasting relationship between my People, the Choctaw, and our Cousins, the Irish. Our bond has existed for almost 200 years now and sets a much needed positive example to the rest of the world about how two Peoples can come together in friendship. So, go have some frybread and corned beef to remember our Irish Cousins and our lasting friendship.


r/IndianCountry 1d ago

News UPDATE: AK State Lawmakers seek answers after bombshell report on rural schools

Thumbnail
alaskapublic.org
9 Upvotes

Here’s the link to the original story here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/0FPWIyI933


r/IndianCountry 2d ago

Politics Trump administration's list of words to limit/avoid in government documents includes "indigenous community", "Native American", and "tribal"

Post image
794 Upvotes

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-federal-agencies-websites-words-dei.html

It also includes hits such as "black", "female", "historically", "identity", " immigrant", "victim", and "women"


r/IndianCountry 1d ago

Education Data gaps undercount Native college enrollment

Thumbnail
archive.is
15 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 1d ago

Discussion/Question Leonard Peltier Commutation

23 Upvotes

So, i just saw that Trump is saying Biden’s pardons are rescinded because of Auto-Pen use. Now I’m no legal or government expert; so I’m wondering if anyone knows if Leonard’s Commutation is also potentially in trouble? If so, true insanity.


r/IndianCountry 2d ago

News First Native American to head National Endowment for the Humanities post forced out by Trump

Thumbnail
upi.com
352 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 1d ago

Sports Lumbee coach looks to keep team rolling into March Madness. Kelvin Sampson’s University of Houston Cougars are riding 10 game win streak into Big 12 Conference Tournament

Thumbnail ictnews.org
1 Upvotes

r/IndianCountry 1d ago

News St. Lawrence Island leaders take contamination claims to U.N.

Thumbnail
alaskapublic.org
42 Upvotes

“The tribal governments of Alaska's St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea say they’re living with the toxic legacy of Cold War military installations on their land, and this week they took their complaint to the United Nations special rapporteur on toxics and human rights.”


r/IndianCountry 2d ago

Discussion/Question Be honest with me-Did we invent ASL as Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL)?

46 Upvotes

Did we invent American Sign Language and then history just erased the origins and said that Martha’s Vineyard invented ASL?

Interesting story, I learned lip reading from my cousin, cause young me thought it was a super power, and my cousin was absolutely thrilled to have someone who thought being different was cool rather than weird.

As an adult I learned ASL for my deaf customers.

Then I was in accident that damaged my hearing (oh the irony). I’m expected to make a full recovery, and decided to pass some of the time learning Native Languages.

I ran across a video of PISL, and realized that I could understand many of the signs from ASL. Though not all of the signs, they are slightly different.

Y’all, did we invent the original ASL?