By Eden |
A border wall designed to keep Mexican, Central American, and South American immigrants out because of racist stereotypes was bad enough. But it just got worse.
Early in February 2020, the Donald Trump regime began blowing up Native American gravesites, which is also part of a national park, on the border without consulting the Tohono O’odham Nation, according to Arizona congressman Raul Grijavla.
Government officials told reporters that the reason for desecrating a burial site was to build a 30-foot tall steel wall that will run for 43 miles across the Monument Hill national park.
Photos from yesterday of #BorderWall construction in Organ Pipe Cactus NM and the heartbreaking graveyard that’s being left in its tracks. New 30ft wall now stretches almost completely from the base of Monument Hill to just 9 miles east of Quitobaquito Springs.. pic.twitter.com/H2qhahL3wh
— Maxie Adler (@maxie_adler) January 18, 2020
“Regardless that it isn’t within our reservation boundaries anymore, but it’s clear, we have inhabited this area since time immemorial. They’re our ancestors. They’re our remnants of who we are as a people, throughout this whole area. And it’s our obligation, it’s our duty to do what is necessary to protect that,” tribal chairman Ned Norris Jr told the Arizona Republic.
Norris had previously written to the Customs and Border Protection, stating that “The Nation categorically opposes the barrier construction projects, because they directly harm and threaten both the lands currently reserved for the Nation and its ancestral lands that extend along the international boundary in Arizona.”
That’s right. The government is blowing up and damaging Native Americans’ ancestral lands, ignoring Native Americans’ voices and breaking the law to build Trump’s racist ego monument.
What is this if not modern-day colonialism? White supremacists trample over the rights of Indigenous Peoples to serve their own agendas and use special rules like the Real ID Act of 2005 to get away with it.
Honoring and respecting the dead is an important part of every culture. For the Tohono O’odham Nation’s dead to be deprived of that honor and respect is inhumane and racist. This never should have happened in the first place. It is incredibly hard to imagine something like this ever happening to a white graveyard without some sort of consultation process.
Every day that Trump remains in office is another day he will disrespect Indigenous Peoples and their heritage. Trump and his cronies must be removed from power as soon as possible in order to halt the construction of the border wall and preserve what remains of the Tohono O’odham Nation’s land.