Adrianne Chalepah. Photo from Twitter
Adrianne Chalepah, a member of the Kiowa Tribe, explains why Native women are fighting against racism, stereotypes and violence:
Last Sunday, a group of indigenous women and children chalked statistics, quotes, and hashtags on the downtown sidewalks of Durango, Colorado. I was one of them. We wanted to start a dialogue about why indigenous women in the U.S. and Canada, the smallest demographic, have the highest rates of violent and sexual assaults. We shared statistics like one out of every three American Indian women are raped in their lifetime, higher than any other ethnic group in the U.S. This problem isn't one that exists only within the reservation boundaries. Per "the Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Department of Justice, and Office of Justice Programs at least 70 percent of the violent victimizations experienced by American Indians are committed by persons not of the same race." This brings me to what happened the other night. Within one minute of writing my first statistic on the sidewalk, a young man walked up and began asking me questions. I expected this. I expected curiosity, indifference, support, or even annoyance all to be displayed by the passing residents of this small tourist town. However, what I didn't expect was to be asked, "What would you do if I raped you?"Get the Story:
Adrianne Chalepah: Making Noise, Yet Still Invisible (Indian Country Today 11/21)
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