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    Colleen Echohawk aims to be Seattle's first indigenous mayor: ‘We have to find ways to change’

    Colleen Echohawk, a Native American woman and key advocate in Seattle’s homelessness crisis, is running for mayor of the Pacific north-west city and laying the groundwork for it to potentially elect its first indigenous mayor.Echohawk, an enrolled member of the Kithehaki Band of the Pawnee Nation and a member of the Upper Athabascan people of Mentasta Lake, is a progressive Democrat, but one, she said, “with strong roots in pragmatism”.Her success in the race would be truly distinctive. It would mean the city that over 150 years ago approved an ordinance expelling the Native community, would be run by an Indigenous woman.As the founder of the Coalition to End Urban Indigenous Homelessness, she said she launched her campaign after recognizing over the summer that the city needed to do much more to help its homeless population amid the Covid-19 pandemic.“The status quo has been failing a lot of people in this city and we have to find ways to change, we need a fresh face up there in city hall and a prudent person who can make decisive visionary decisions because this is really a once in a generational chance,” said Echohawk, speaking to the Guardian from her campaign headquarters in the basement of her house.Echohawk is not Coast Salish, but she has lived in Seattle for 24 years. And before she announced her candidacy, she said she called the leaders of a few of the region’s tribes – Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Suquamish Tribe and Tulalip Tribes – to let them know she was considering a run.“This is their territory and I will continue to lift them up in every way that I possibly can,” said Echohawk, who since 2013 has been the executive director of the Chief Seattle Club, a non-profit aimed at supporting the city’s Native American and Alaska Native residents, through food, housing assistance and healthcare.Echohawk is one of only a few people who has announced her candidacy after Jenny Durkan, Seattle’s mayor, revealed she would not seek a second term. But others are expected to join the race before the May filing deadline.Addressing homelessness, which has been at crisis-levels in Seattle for years, will be a key focus for Echohawk. She said she will look to ramp up affordable housing and permanent supportive housing. But she also hopes to employ more innovative ideas, while bringing together people of color, some of whom have been pushed out of the city because of soaring prices, to help develop alternative affordable housing solutions.The city’s police system is another important issue for Echohawk. At a time of nationwide reckoning over police violence and as some in the local community are calling to defund the police department altogether, she said she was prepared to start reimagining law enforcement in Seattle.She explained she has seen some great officers in the city. But added: “I’ve also seen some who have been completely brutal to some of my relatives out there experiencing homelessness. That means we have to have accountability, true accountability.”A revamp would probably involve removing some funds from the agency, and establishing a public safety department filled with mental health workers and neighborhood liaisons who could address mental health and homelessness issues. It would also mean taking law enforcement out of homeless encampment outreach.“A person who’s experiencing homelessness already has so much trauma and pain going on and then all of a sudden they’re expected to interact and try to get services from a uniformed police officer? It’s just not effective,” she said.Echohawk would also like to create an elder leadership group that, if she’s elected, she would be able to meet with every couple of weeks in an effort to receive feedback on her ideas.“That’s the traditional value that I’ll bring that other mayors might not bring because I’ve been taught to value and listen to elders and to hear from their wisdom,” she said.Echohawk’s own ancestors have been on her mind a lot since making the decision to run. She’s descended from the Pawnee people, who saw their numbers violently and dramatically reduced in the face of white expansion in the 19th century.“They suffered and they worked so hard so that I could be doing this work that I am right now,” she said. “And I hope that they’re really proud of me. I feel that they’re proud of me. I feel them with me.”This article was amended on 3 February 2021 to clarify that Echohawk is executive director, not founder, of Chief Seattle Club. More

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    Biden must be our 'climate president'. He can start by ending pipeline projects | Faith Spotted Eagle and Kendall Mackey

    As we prepare to turn the page on 2020, and inaugurate Joe Biden as president on 20 January 2021, the incoming administration has a climate mandate to listen to people across America – and keep fossil fuels in the ground. This means stopping the Keystone XL, Dakota Access and Line 3 pipelines on day one.While Trump props up failing fossil fuel companies, including through government handouts from Covid-19 stimulus packages to the tune of $15bn, Biden has already committed to transitioning the United States off oil, holding polluters accountable, honoring treaty rights and stopping the Keystone XL pipeline.In August, Joe Biden laid out his $2tn climate plan, which has the support of Indigenous peoples and their allies, Black communities and environmental voters. Biden’s climate plan is the most ambitious plan of a major party presidential nominee ever. To be the most ambitious climate president ever, Biden must implement a climate test on all federal permitting and projects, to ensure any project not aligned with tackling the climate crisis and keeping warming under 1.5 degrees does not move forward. A meaningful climate test must keep fossil fuels in the ground.Just last week, Biden announced the New Mexico congresswoman Deb Haaland as his nominee for US secretary of the interior. Haaland is a member of the Pueblo Laguna tribe; if confirmed she will be the first Native person to serve in the role. We hope her leadership will help protect our public lands and Indigenous sovereignty as we phase out fossil fuels.As we write, communities across Minnesota are rising up to protect land, water and treaty rights as Line 3 pipeline construction begins and lawsuits are filed in opposition. Meanwhile, communities in South Dakota are mobilizing to pressure Biden to rescind the permit for Keystone XL and end the project once and for all.If built, Line 3 would release as much greenhouse gas pollution as 50 new coal-fired power plants, violate Ojibwe treaty rights, and put Minnesota’s water, ecosystems and communities in harm’s way. Keystone XL would have a similarly devastating impact on water, land, people and the Oceti Sakowin tribes’ treaty and inherent rights.Both pipeline projects have blatantly refused meaningful consultation with the tribes impacted. This is glaringly disrespectful to grassroots dedication in territories that have stood up to this invasion for years, as well as a denial of the irreversible impact these pipelines will have on cultural and spiritual sites.Projects like Line 3 and Keystone XL are also directly linked to violence against and trafficking of Native women and girls, due to the installation of temporary housing for mostly male pipeline workers, known as “man camps”. These man camps are also a hotbed for Covid-19, drawing thousands of out-of-state workers. South Dakota is at a crisis point with Covid-19 cases, yet the threat of Keystone XL construction looms.There is increasing anticipation of violence from militarized police partnered with Enbridge, the Canadian pipeline company backing Line 3, triggering memories of violence against water protectors and allies in the fight to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).In the shadow of centuries of genocide and erasure of Indigenous peoples, Barack Obama halted DAPL and rejected Keystone XL. Now, Biden has a chance to build upon this legacy and stop Line 3, Keystone XL and DAPL.Stopping these pipelines is completely within Joe Biden’s purview and responsibility. Through executive action, Biden can order an immediate pause on oil pipeline construction, and a moratorium on any new projects or expansions, as he reviews Trump-era approvals for conflict or undue influence from the fossil fuel industry. Biden must also reverse over 100 environmental and climate protection rollbacks brought on by the Trump administration.But to be a true climate president, Biden must go further. Just as pipelines will inevitably spill, any new or existing fossil fuel project would inevitably fail a climate test. There is no safe or clean way to extract, transport, or refine coal, oil or gas without poisoning our communities and driving us past 1.5C of warming. In addition, the construction, transport and burning of fossil fuels have grave impacts on public health and safety, including premature death, lung cancer and increased rates of Covid-19.From the Keystone XL Promise to Protect to the Line 3 Pledge of Resistance, tens of thousands of people are prepared to wield our sacred and patriotic duty to stop these toxic and unnecessary fossil fuel projects. In addition, thousands of people have already sent petitions to Joe Biden urging him to halt these projects.It’s time to make polluters pay for the damages done to our communities’ health, land and wellbeing. This starts with stopping fossil fuel projects and returning land to Indigenous peoples. Ultimately, we must dismantle existing projects and fund a just and equitable transition to a regenerative 100% renewable economy.The stakes are higher than ever – economically, socially and politically. Biden must show guts in holding coal, oil and gas executives accountable for knowingly bringing climate disasters, pollution, sickness and death to our doorsteps.It’s our time to leap toward a renewable energy revolution that centers Indigenous sovereignty, community health, and a safe, livable future for all.Faith Spotted Eagle is a Yankton Sioux Tribe member, an opponent of pipeline projects including Keystone XL and the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the first Indigenous person to win an electoral vote for president
    Kendall Mackey is 350.org regional campaign manager More

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    ‘Timing is critical’: Native Americans warn virus may overwhelm underfunded health services

    Health services officials are urging the US government to distribute already-designated funding, but it’s blocked by red tape Native American health leaders are urging the US government to distribute urgently needed equipment and funding to help contain the spread of coronavirus among tribal members, amid mounting concerns that the pandemic could overwhelm chronically underresourced tribal […] More