General > Non-Frauds
NAFPS Is Proud to Work With Or Be Used As a Resource By...
educatedindian:
The list of sites that used us as a resource vs exploiter James Arthur Ray keeps growing. So far:
NY Times (freelancer John Dougherty)
Chicago Tribune (reporter Daniel Simmons)
CBS News- Early Show (reporter Elizabeth Bacelar)
WNYC Radio- The Takeaway (producer David Fazekas) request for interview, unfortunately I was busy teaching at the time.
Anderson Cooper 360 of CNN (producer Ismael Estrada) same as above
People magazine (reporter Howard Breur)
Arizona Daily Star http://regulus2.azstarnet.com/blogs/senorreporter
NY Travel Writers Assn http://nytwa.info/edwetschler
Rodale magazine http://www.rodale.com/deaths-sweat-lodges?page=0%2C1
Body + Soul magazine http://www.wholeliving.com/
educatedindian:
We've gotten a couple of nice compliments in the mail and another magazine is using us as a resource, Dreamcatcher magazine online which is Native owned and run with a Hopi publisher.
Also one Native Hawaiian group and a Jewish man.
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Thank you for your work! We are fighting the same fight with Huna books and people who say they are teaching Native Hawaiian traditions. I found you through an article in the New York Times. Blessings to you.
Makana
Makana Risser Chai
author of "Hawaiian Massage Lomilomi: Sacred Touch of Aloha"
recipient of the Hawai'i Tourism Authority "Keep It Hawai'i" 2008 Award
for authentic portrayal of Hawaiian cultural traditions
www.LomilomiBook.com
editor of "Na Mo'olelo Lomilomi: Traditions of Hawaiian Massage and Healing"
from the Bishop Museum
http://www.lomilomibook.com/namoolelobook.php
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Shalom friend,
I love your site! As one who has been very interested in Native American culture I am glad your site exists! I feel for you, just like our Torah has been bastardized by Christians and has led to the death of millions of Jews and Native Americans, I try my best to correct the ignorance people have of Native Americans. Both of our religions were nearly wiped out repeatedly in the past, and now crooks are trying to do it from within to both of us (see Messianic Jews for example).
Jews and Native Americans share all to much in common and I stand by you brothers and sisters! Shalom and may your site bring light to others who are trying to destroy that which you hold dear. For a Jew, a spiritual holocaust is worse than a physical one, for we rather give up our life than give up our sacred beliefs and traditions.
-Vladoianu
04-2106-johanna:
i want to personally thank you for your input on the az sweatlodge deaths under national, at indian country today. reading the comments there i found this site. I have a AIM question but don't want it public. how can i ask you without putting it on the board?
debbieredbear:
You can PM Al, Educated Indian by going to his profile.
educatedindian:
Got this nice message.
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Your site inspired me to write an article; enjoy!
"The Fine Line: Between Partnerships and Plunder"
- Robert Animikii Horton, Anishinaabe, Rainy River First Nations
Many of our generation, partnerships built and cultivated and maintained across once great ethnic and cultural divides and boundaries, speak and aspire to ideals; the ideals of circumstance, progress, and improvement in days ahead where the fires of justice extinguish the dark dusk of inequity. However, those placing value and promise on the benefits of future partnerships and collaborations across the cultural and racial rifts to create and shape a world that yields most painfully to change may continue to find, upon these lands and abroad, both the intentional (and unintentional) sabotage of the wondrous mechanisms found in shared aspiration; in which this sabotage is Theft.
Let us reflect and apply the legacy of memory; the multigenerational bandit mask (not of heritage but of conduct of character) has been passed to a successor numerous times; Indian Agents wore the cloak of thievery towards our traditional means to govern, the Churches and Residential Schools stole our children and family legacies, the Federal and Provincial powers continue to seek to plunder our traditional territories, and modern times reveal a pilferer functioning in the same light as the suit and the black robe; appropriating the most sacred of what we have left and what each past malefactor sought to take; culture.
Today’s thieves, whether they realize or not, have assumed duty to finish what those that came before started; to appropriate, to exploit, to steal, to acquire, to minimize, and capture a sacred culture; for personal, obsessive, or profiteer reasons.
The issue of "culture-vulturing" and cultural appropriation remains a strong issue of ethics, decency, and injustice; likewise a matter where such exploitation continues fanning the flames of mistrust within a great number of our People across the ethnic line; stifling progressive partnerships of many due to the unsavoury greed of a few; both greed of capital in exchange for “plastic shaman” services and personal opportunism and ego due to inadequacy, lack of moral compass, or the vain wish to be reborn within an objectifying obsession and fascination.
The same suits and black robes of yesterday are those that adorn bandit masks in the eyes of many today; the self-absorbed tie-dyed hipster invading ceremony, the New Age appropriating "Shamanic Healer", the swank “visionary” self-promoting himself as an elder and a majestic, the fraud without roots but claiming self-styled wings as he who is called “Dreams of Eagles”, the profiteering non-indigenous self-nominated “vision quest guide”, and those that live out their romanticized fantasies by minimizing a People and a culture down to the jewellery one makes and sells, the “Indian at heart” they claim as a “should have been”, or the sports team logo upon one’s chest. It is not limited to these examples, but facts are facts;
Thievery is thievery.
Appropriation is appropriation.
Exploitation is exploitation.
Minimization is minimization.
Objectification is objectification.
Frauds are frauds and facts are facts.
Meaningful partnerships are based in respect, integrity, ethics, and trust.
We all deserve such and a future based upon such ideals. If we truly collectively wish to close the divides born of rooted mistrust, efforts must be undertaken and responsibility assumed to uproot the continued mistrust by separating the past victimization and thievery from the present and a future of more of the same. The grave-robbers of yesterday are those that pilfer the mounds of memory today for personal gain. If memory and continuity of culture equates survival; than the clumsy digging of open-pit mines into the sacred by the selfish is a significant disrespect to the very survival some wish to unjustly cling to and drain from.
Such flagrant opportunism minimizes another People and culture; minimizing much from the respective levels of sacred cultural autonomy of protected foundations for our future generations of our People; down to the parallel of mere Halloween costumes which sacred ceremonies, teachings, and cultural affinity can simply be worn by the self-justified, the ignorant, the most well-intentioned, or those that claim they do not know any better.
It is my contention that it is not only a slight against our ancestors, against our true spiritual leaders, and against the cultures that are pilfered by such characters; but against our Nations, as well; as the very foundations of our Nations, our culture and spirituality, are undermined and trivialized by such.
And again, mistrust caused by few eviscerates much promise of personal and collective investments towards many seeking effective partnerships and valuable progressive relationships; potential is lost.
So exploiters, exploiting due to personal obsession or profit; If you truly value progressive partnerships and work towards a more just society for all, built of integrity and respect for many rather than the betterment of few; then hang up the delusion, the illusion, and the thievery, Plastic Shamans. Plunder Divides Partnerships. Culture vultures, stop picking the bones of ancestors clean, because one who appropriates for the reason that they “love the culture and respect the Native”; neither loves or respects the exploited any more than the pornographer loves and respects the actress.
No matter how one justifies or pacifies;
Exploitation is exploitation.
Facts are facts.
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