It was 30 years ago this month that a couple of college students in Kennewick, Wash., stumbled upon a rare archaeological discovery — one that would help trigger a war between science and racial identity politics, or what we now call “DEI.” Three decades later, it’s clear that if we don’t act quickly, it’s a fight science will probably lose.
What the students found was a 9,000-year-old skeleton that was soon nicknamed Kennewick Man. It was certainly one of the most precious anthropological finds ever. At the time, it was the oldest human skeleton ever found in North America, and it had signs of an injury from an arrow or a spear. More intriguingly, it seemed to have less in common with the skeletons of Native Americans than with those of ancient Japanese peoples, thus potentially changing our understanding of how humans first arrived in the New World.
But that’s when the federal government stepped in. Under a law called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, skeletons found on federally owned land (as Kennewick Man was) must be turned over, or “repatriated,” to the Native American tribes they’re related to. NAGPRA was written in response to the actions of 19th- and early 20th-century archaeologists who sometimes engaged in practices that would be unacceptable today to acquire specimens, and it requires not only the “repatriation” of human remains, but also of “funerary objects” — that is, things buried alongside bodies.
Kennewick Man was far older than any existing tribe and not related to any of them. Nevertheless, tribal officials insisted that the bones be kept away from scientific study and turned over for reburial, which would destroy their usefulness for scientific research. In compliance with those demands, federal officials confiscated the skeleton and buried the Kennewick Man site under 600 tons of rock and fill to prevent any further discoveries.
Scientists sued, arguing that NAGPRA simply doesn’t apply to objects that old. After years of litigation, federal courts ruled in their favor. Indeed, the courts found that government officials had acted in bad faith and awarded the scientists $2 million in attorney fees. A year later, even though DNA research revealed that Kennewick Man was closest to South American indigenous peoples, an executive order by then-President Barack Obama forced the scientists to turn Kennewick Man over to a group of Northwest Coast Native American tribes who destroyed the bones forever.
That was bad enough, but in the years since, tribal activists and sympathetic politicians have taken increasingly aggressive positions in demanding the “repatriation” of specimens — many of which have no true connection to tribes, and others that aren’t even particularly old. Some museums have even “repatriated” artworks made in the 1980s and purchased from gift shops — as if these were sacred remnants of someone’s ancestors.
Today, in museums across the country, it has become common to see empty display cases, featuring signs like the one spotted recently at the San Diego Museum of Us: “As part of our decolonization process, these items have been moved to a sanctuary space.”
Equally absurd are cases in which scientists are forced to relinquish animal bones — literally the trash our ancestors threw away — on the theory that they’re somehow “funerary objects” that should be off-limits out of racial or religious sensitivities.
What’s more, some museums have adopted rules based on tribal practices to govern how scientists handle objects in their collections. These sometimes bar female scientists from handling specimens, since that’s sometimes prohibited by Native religious taboos. Museums are also required by federal regulation to have “advisory” committees that include practitioners of tribal religions. Christians, Jews, and Hindus aren’t given the same preferential treatment.
It’s hard to imagine a starker example of the collision between racial identity politics and the scientific rationality that our social and technological progress depends on. Out of deference to politically correct race politics and irrationally romanticized conceptions about “stolen land,” the institutions where science should reign supreme are being suborned into erasing the accumulated knowledge of centuries. In effect, an entire field of scientific inquiry has been placed at risk by an overzealous activist movement using the regulatory power of the state.
The study of human remains and artifacts isn’t just some antiquarian hobby. It provides critical insights about present-day issues like climate change and provides insights that can help police officers solve crimes. But entire areas of anthropological research may now be shutting down, thanks to the aggressive use and misuse of NAGPRA.
The science of anthropology can still be saved if we act now. Museum officials and state governments can push back. For one thing, many “repatriation” efforts aren’t actually required by NAGPRA. Museum leaders should refuse to be cowed by activist demands that fall outside the law. And states should adopt legislation prohibiting the return of specimens that are too old to be associated with a tribe or too young to be a “funerary object.” They should also forbid any museum from following rules that discriminate on the basis of sex or religion.
Science is too precious to be sacrificed to the political demands of DEI and the wishful thinking of angry activists who prioritize race over research, discovery, and progress.
***
Timothy Sandefur is the vice president for legal affairs at the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation.
Elizabeth Weiss is a professor emeritus of anthropology at San José State University and author of the Goldwater Institute report, “<a href="https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/policy-report/the-reburial-of-the-southwest/">The Reburial of the Southwest: Closing Off Native History and Archaeology</a>”

FRANCE-SCIENCE-ANTHROPOLOGY-MUSEUM-PREHISTORY-RESEARCH

Identity Politics Is Burying Science

American History

Anthropology

Archeology

DW Opinion

Kennewick Man

Native Americans

Natural history

Science

Woke Culture

The Native American tribe whose ancestral land includes Billie Eilish’s Los Angeles mansion has something to say about her Grammys virtue signaling, when the singer declared, &#8220;no one is illegal on stolen land.&#8221; 
“As the First People of the greater Los Angeles basin, we do understand that her home is situated in our ancestral land,” a spokesperson for the Tongva tribe <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15521241/billie-eilish-grammys-ice-speech-home-native-tribe.html">told</a> The Daily Mail, noting that the singer had not yet reached out regarding the ownership rights of her $3 million Hollywood Hills home.
“Eilish has not contacted our tribe directly regarding her property… we do value the instance when public figures provide visibility to the true history of this country,” the spokesperson went on. “It is our hope that in future discussions, the tribe can explicitly be referenced to ensure the public understands that the greater Los Angeles Basin remains Gabrieleno Tongva territory.” 
The 24-year-old singer has been mocked and called a hypocrite ever since spouting her leftist talking points during the awards show on Sunday night.
“As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything, but that no one is illegal on stolen land,” Eilish said from the stage as fellow celebrities cheered and nodded in the crowd.
“&#8217;F*ck ICE’ is what I wanna say,” she added.
Social media commenters have been pointing out the hypocrisy of Eilish’s statements.
“You cannot simultaneously believe that (1) all borders are fake and should not be policed, and (2) that land can be ‘stolen.’ This is one of the most braindead beliefs a person can hold,” one person posted on X. 
“Oh, gee, this ‘stolen land’ nonsense again? Maybe she should step up and forfeit her Southern California mansion since it is supposedly on ‘stolen land,&#8217;” Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis <a href="https://x.com/RonDeSantis/status/2018342732972843355">shared</a>.
This isn’t the first time Eilish voiced opinions that got her mocked. In November, the singer called Elon Musk a “f*cking pathetic p*ssy b*tch coward” for not giving away more of his money to her preferred causes.
“If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties,” she said at the time.

Billie Eilish

Billie Eilish’s ‘Stolen Land’ Rant Blows Up As Tongva Tribe Says Her Mansion Sits On Its Land

Native Tribe Agrees, Billie Eilish's Mansion Is On 'Stolen Land'

Celebrities

Entertainment

Grammy Awards

Virtue Signaling

Every year it’s the same story. Thanksgiving rolls around, and suddenly half the country is being told to feel guilty about eating turkey. According to the Left, Thanksgiving isn’t about gratitude or family — it’s a celebration of genocide, colonial oppression, and white supremacy.
That’s right. Headlines in the Washington Post and Time have called the holiday a “harmful lie” and blamed centuries of violence on the Pilgrims. In 2021, the Post ran a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/11/23/violence-root-our-thanksgiving-myth-has-been-hemispheric/">piece</a> titled, “The violence at the root of our Thanksgiving myth has been hemispheric.” In 2019, Time Magazine published an <a href="https://time.com/5457183/thanksgiving-native-american-holiday/">article</a> titled, “The Thanksgiving Tale We Tell Is a Harmful Lie.”
&#8220;Indigenous&#8221; writers and progressive outlets talk about “decolonizing” Thanksgiving, claiming that the story we learned in school—Pilgrims and Native Americans sharing a feast—isn’t just inaccurate; it’s a cruel myth hiding the truth of colonization. In 2023, The Nation published a <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/thanksgiving-debate/">piece</a> arguing, “Thanksgiving’s roots are intertwined with colonial aggression.&#8221;
&#8220;I do not think we need to end Thanksgiving. But we do need to decolonize it,” it said.
Some go even further. The World Socialist Website <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/11/27/uynt-n27.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com">paints</a> Thanksgiving as a symbol of everything wrong with America today: millions going hungry while billionaires swim in cash, AI replacing workers, and government programs cut to the bone. For them, that turkey on your table is just a reminder of a bankrupt social order, not a family meal. And activists have signed a change.org <a href="https://www.change.org/p/end-the-wall-street-journal-s-thanksgiving-insult-to-native-americans">petition</a> telling newspapers like Wall Street Journal to stop publishing Pilgrim accounts, calling them racist. On social media, activists and progressives argue that celebrating Thanksgiving honors oppression rather than gratitude.
Conservatives, of course, see this differently. To us, Thanksgiving is about more than a history lesson — it’s about what makes America…well, America. Yes, history was messy. But it wasn’t all darkness. The Pilgrims and the Wampanoag made a treaty, shared a meal, and cooperated — a model of people from different backgrounds working together. That first feast shows grit, ingenuity, and faith in God. The Mayflower Compact? That’s the first written constitution in the New World, the kind of experiment in self-government that would later inspire the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Those are things worth celebrating.
We don’t deny the wrongs in history. But leftist attacks on Thanksgiving are less about truth and more about hatred of anything that celebrates America’s virtues. Gratitude, family, cooperation, hard work—these are values that built this country, not lies to hide injustice.
So when the woke brigade tells you Thanksgiving is a holiday of shame, remember: it’s really about remembering who we are, what we’ve survived, and what we can still be thankful for.
And maybe, just maybe, pass the turkey without an apology.

Marching bands and patriotism celebrated in Plymouth’s annual America’s Hometown Thanksgiving Parade

Thanksgiving Under Siege: Choose Gratitude Over Woke Outrage

Activists

Leftist

Thanksgiving

In recent years, California&#8217;s K-12 schools, colleges, and universities have increasingly begun classroom sessions and meetings with land acknowledgements. 
For those unfamiliar, the California Community Colleges (CCC) website explains that a <a href="https://www.cccco.edu/About-Us/land-acknowledgement">land acknowledgement</a> is &#8220;a formal statement that recognizes and respects the Indigenous peoples as traditional stewards of this land, the enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous peoples and their traditional lands.” The CCC further argues that “all of California is Indian land” and that these acknowledgements are a recognition of “the original people who have been living and working on the land from time immemorial.”
Reading this language for the first time can be jarring for the uninitiated. It’s one thing to acknowledge and show respect to indigenous tribes of the past, it’s another to require school children and administrators to publicly recite these statements.
It is true, much of North America was inhabited by a wide variety of Indian tribes. The westward push of European settlers brought an inevitable clash of civilizations with Indigenous peoples. Some encounters led to trade and cooperation, while others descended into violence. Many tribes were nomadic and waged war against rival tribes and settlers alike. But as American settler populations grew, treaties were broken, land was seized, and tribes were forcibly moved.
Given this history, it is fair to ask what ultimate purpose land acknowledgements serve today. While they are said to honor Indigenous history and affirm their continued presence, it remains questionable what actual, positive impact these statements have. They do not appear to improve living conditions or economic outcomes for Native Americans — nor do they provide concrete restitution or reform. Instead, they often operate as a type of forced ritual that foments resentment toward America and Americans of European descent. 
Take, for example, a land acknowledgement currently used in a Southern California school district:
<blockquote>I want to recognize that our District and school campuses are located in the Village of Pasbenga. I want to acknowledge that this land we refer to as Orange County, is the unceded and traditional lands of the Gabrielino Tongva Nation, and the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians Acjachemen Nation. These lands were taken through a process of colonization, physical, and cultural genocide. I want to pay my respect to elders, both past and present, as well as the Tongva and Acjachemen Youth who have attended and are currently attending our schools in the neighboring districts.</blockquote>
I find this not only unhelpful but grossly inappropriate — particularly for pre-kindergarten or elementary-aged children, who are subject to various versions of these acknowledgements through ethnic studies programs like the <a href="https://www.liberatedethnicstudies.org/uploads/1/6/1/9/16198322/ch_1_pk-2_one_voice_many_people.pdf">California Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum</a>. Children in public schools are exposed to highly politicized narratives about guilt, victimization, and responsibility — long before they are able to grapple with such complex or contentious historical realities.
One of the central flaws of land acknowledgements is that those who promote them rarely pair acknowledgment of past wrongs with any tangible action to remedy them. It reveals an institutional comfort with empty, performative statements: moralizing language that resonates in assemblies and boardrooms but does not foster improvements for Native communities. If academic institutions truly believed their own rhetoric, the only meaningful next step would be the return of their own land — or substantial, material investment. Yet there are no examples of these institutions actually returning any land.
For educators and administrators, the ritual of land acknowledgement belies a more insidious lesson for students: that words without action are sufficient, that virtue is to be signaled but need not be practiced. Children are perceptive. They know, or eventually learn, when adults say one thing but do another. In the long run, this undermines trust and models a kind of hypocrisy — a failure to follow words with real change.
There is another critical aspect frequently overlooked: land acknowledgements fundamentally bypass the authority of parents to determine how values are taught to their own children. In California’s educational system, land acknowledgements are often treated as mandatory and thus serve as vehicles for moral instruction. They transmit a particular worldview about history and justice which may conflict with what some parents believe and wish to impart themselves. The primary function of public education is not to instill contested moral values, but rather to equip students with knowledge and analytical tools. Land acknowledgements risk inverting that focus, making politics rather than learning the centerpiece of the classroom experience.
Finally, the most serious issue may be that land acknowledgements overlook or even erase the substantive progress that has been made to address historical wrongs. Over recent decades, the U.S. government has implemented extensive settlement and reparation processes in recognition of the suffering endured by Native Americans. The <a href="https://www.bia.gov/bia/history/history-indian-land-consolidation#cobell-settlement-and-land-buy-back-program-2012-2022-2">Cobell settlement</a> in 2009, for example, allocated $3.4 billion in compensation for government mismanagement of tribal funds and resources. There have also been concrete land returns, such as the <a href="https://www.npca.org/articles/2779-the-milestone-for-public-lands-you-ve-never-heard-of-and-why-it-matters">restoration of Blue Lake</a> to Taos Pueblo, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havasupai_Indian_Reservation">acreage </a>to the Havasupai, and <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/04/26/a-step-towards-healing-and-restoration-california-to-support-the-return-of-ancestral-tribal-lands-and-lands-management-projects/">tribal land initiatives in California</a> involving over 38,000 acres transferred back for stewardship and management.
Neither California nor the federal government can ever fully undo the harms of the past. Rather than engage in hollow, performative gestures, educational leaders should actively support positive, meaningful efforts like investing in Native communities, supporting language and culture, and teaching students the full truth of history along with contemporary progress.
We must move beyond symbolic language and show California’s students and families, by example, what real partnership, restitution, and responsibility look like.
* * *
Walter Myers III is a Southern California-based Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Land Acknowledgement

Land Acknowledgements In California Schools: ‘All Of California Is Indian Land’

Land Acknowledgements In California Schools: 'All Of California Is Indian Land'

California

Colonialism

Education

Gavin Newsom

indigenous

Land Acknowledgements

Opinion

Public Schools

Whites

When Warrior Chief Kaʻiana discovers he&#8217;s been manipulated into massacring the peaceful villagers of the island of O’ahu, Apple TV+&#8217;s &#8220;Chief of War&#8221; reveals a disturbing truth about power that transcends any single culture or era. This historical drama, starring Jason Momoa, follows the former Kauaʻi chief who made his home on Maui in self-exile, disgusted by the violent nature of Kauai’s King Kahekili. When Kahekili draws him back under false pretenses — claiming the young king of O&#8217;ahu poses a threat to Maui — Kaʻiana reluctantly participates in what becomes a massacre that turns out to be a peaceful farming community whose king honored the same peaceful ideals Kaʻiana himself embodied.
Set against the backdrop of increasing British arrivals and the looming unification of Hawaiʻi under Kamehameha I, the series examines the collision between noble intentions and brutal realities. Kamehameha&#8217;s unification campaign involved systematic warfare across the island chain, employing both traditional Hawaiian tactics and newly acquired Western firearms — a cruel irony that mirrors the show&#8217;s central themes of violence in pursuit of ostensibly noble goals. This historical trajectory proves grimly prophetic: the unified Kingdom of Hawaiʻi eventually fell to American and European colonization in 1893, became a U.S. territory in 1898, and was subsequently admitted as a U.S. state in 1959 — exactly as the native Hawaiians had feared when they first witnessed increasing numbers of white men discovering their islands.
&#8220;Chief of War&#8221; weaves together several powerful themes: preserving the cultural identity of native Hawaiian people, examining the practical ideals of unification alongside the horrific violence that ensued in this pursuit, and exploring the moral complexities of leadership during times of both internal warfare and external threats from forces seeking to subjugate the kingdom. These themes resonate well with contemporary American political discourse, where we continually hear from the progressive left that America is fundamentally a nation of occupiers and usurpers — a country built on the backs of those it has enslaved and subjugated, requiring comprehensive amends for historical injustices against enslaved blacks, native Americans, and islanders now under its rule. This narrative has shaped everything from reparations debates to land acknowledgments, creating a political narrative that often reduces complex historical realities to simple victim-oppressor dynamics.
<div id="attachment_964015" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-964015" class="size-large wp-image-964015" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2225039360-864x576.jpg" alt="KAPOLEI, HAWAII - JULY 18: Jason Momoa attends the world premiere of the Apple TV+ drama series &quot;Chief of War&quot; at Ko Olina Beach Park on July 18, 2025 in Kapolei, Hawaii. (Photo by Darryl Oumi/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2225039360-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2225039360-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2225039360-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2225039360.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />KAPOLEI, HAWAII &#8211; JULY 18: Jason Momoa attends the world premiere of the Apple TV+ drama series &#8220;Chief of War&#8221; at Ko Olina Beach Park on July 18, 2025 in Kapolei, Hawaii. (Photo by Darryl Oumi/Getty Images)</div>
While America should fully acknowledge its horrific past of enslavement, betrayals, and subjection of indigenous peoples, these actions represent examples of the universal human condition rather than uniquely European evil. In &#8220;Chief of War,&#8221; we witness the violent, power-hungry Kahekili betraying his own nephew, manipulating him as an instrument of war against the peaceful people of O&#8217;ahu. This demonstrates that even without the threat of European colonization, the capacity for both evil and good exists within all cultures and peoples. The primary difference lies in scale — violence, war, and betrayal among a small group of islands operates by the same moral principles as similar actions across an entire continent.
This pattern of moral complexity extends particularly to American slavery. Few Americans are aware that without direct African involvement, there would have been no trans-Atlantic slave trade. Professor and historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. notes in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/opinion/23gates.html">New York Times opinion</a> article that colonial conquests of Africa&#8217;s interior didn&#8217;t occur until the late 1800s. For centuries prior, European explorers remained close to coastal forts, depending entirely on Africans to sell those they had enslaved to European traders who would transport these slaves to the New World — accounting for 90% of the slave trade. Gates poses the salient question we should all consider: why do Americans place blame solely at the feet of Europeans when their success was entirely dependent on the slave-trading kingdoms of western and central Africa?
Similarly, we should also examine the argument that pre-Columbian America was entirely populated by peaceful natives prior to European colonization. Historical evidence reveals this narrative is incomplete. While European arrival undeniably brought devastating new diseases, conflicts over land, and systematic violence as settlers expanded into the continent&#8217;s interior, warfare and conflict among tribes existed long before this period. Archaeological evidence confirms ongoing competition for resources and territorial disputes among various Native American tribes.
This analysis doesn&#8217;t suggest that Europeans were justified in their atrocities against other people groups. America&#8217;s history is written in blood, and there can be no denial of the utter brutality involved in its making. However, judging historical figures by contemporary moral standards is highly problematic. All humans are creatures of their time, and many of us descend from those who formed America, for good or ill. Thus, no one in the present day can reasonably (or should) claim how they would have responded to any given circumstance in the distant past.
We must recognize there is only one race — the human race — and only one condition — the human condition. &#8220;Chief of War&#8221; reminds us that moral complexity, the capacity for both violence and nobility, isn&#8217;t unique to any particular people — it is the universal burden and potential of being human. &#8220;Chief of War&#8221; ultimately challenges viewers to abandon the comfortable simplicity of America’s increasing echo chambers of tribal thought by embracing the difficult work of understanding humanity&#8217;s capacity for both cruelty and compassion across all cultures and eras.
* * *
Walter Myers III is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

MixCollage-22-Aug-2025-09-06-AM-328

‘Chief Of War’ Challenges The Myth Of ‘Peaceful Natives’ Before Colonization

'Chief Of War' Challenges The Myth Of 'Peaceful Natives' Before Colonization

Apple

Hawaii

Hollywood

Jason Momoa

A Native American tribe in California whose leaders aggressively back Democrat candidates has raked in millions of taxpayer dollars for needy families while operating a lucrative casino, a watchdog found. 
The American Accountability Foundation released a <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Trump-Hating-Tribe-Thrives-on-Casino-Profits-and-Government-Largesse-.pdf">report</a> Tuesday, first shared with The Daily Wire, revealing that the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians has taken $28 million in federal grant funding since 1996 while operating one of the largest casinos in the country. The bulk of the money, roughly $27 million, has come since 2008, six years after the casino opened.
“The Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians has been quietly raking in millions of taxpayer dollars for years — while openly attacking President Trump and conservative Americans,” American Accountability Foundation President Tom Jones told The Daily Wire, saying that the tribe should lose funding because of its partisan advocacy and lucrative casino revenue. 
Tribal leaders, many of whom live in million-dollar homes, openly campaigned against President Donald Trump and for Democrat candidates like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. Chief Mark Macarro has given thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and has been pictured aboard Air Force One with former President Joe Biden, according to the report. 
Other key tribal leaders also have a history of partisan advocacy, the American Accountability Foundation found. 
Victor Rocha, Macarro’s cousin and an official with the Indian Gaming Association, has a history of donating to Democrats. On a Threads account appearing to belong to Rocha, he <a href="https://www.threads.com/@victorpechanga/post/C8yM9x-RPW8?xmt=AQF0p-umsAdqzJfGGO9GbCwwntbrKy7oyR3biF3KkRmZug">posted</a> that it was “okay to punch Nazis and Heritage Foundation members in the face.”
Tribal council members Catalina Chacon and Joe Murphy, Tribal Treasurer Amy Minniear, and Tribal Secretary Nichole Sutter all have links to the Democratic Party.
Neither Macarro, Rocha, nor any of the tribal council members responded to a request for comment.
Chacon, Minniear, and Sutter have all given hundreds of dollars to Democratic candidates, while Murphy has <a href="https://www.facebook.com/joe.murphy.1004/posts/pfbid0jGb9gQiqyj9EuhiLEiN2CRofFgyLEpTAB4JNzEPejJA686JfBmoNggfeHcAZ85Qql">urged</a> voters to “Make America Deep Blue Again” and be a “climate voter.” Minniear has been pictured with Democratic Senators <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10224543524750942&amp;set=pcb.10224543526870995">Alex Padilla</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10224543524990948&amp;set=pcb.10224543526870995">Mark Kelly</a>.  Chacon, Minniear, and Murphy all have or have owned million dollar homes, the American Accountability Foundation found.
Since 2008, the tribe — which has around 1,823 members — has <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/search?hash=6e48f55c2210b8cf3df2c1a000670eee">taken</a> over $13.4 million in grants from the Department of Health and Human Services, around $6.9 million from the Environmental Protection Agency, $2.4 million from the Department of the Interior, $2.2 million from the Justice Department, and hundreds of thousands more from the Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, and others.
At the same time, the tribe operates a casino that generates an <a href="https://growjo.com/company/Pechanga.Net">estimated</a> $484.4 million in annual revenue. A 2012 CBS <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/casino-tribe-outcasts-claim-they-were-unfairly-expelled-over-greed/">report</a> found that members of the tribe made over $20,000 per month from casino revenue, while one ex-member put the number at around $30,000.
Since 2011, the tribe has received over $12 million through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) grant program, according to the American Accountability Foundation. In 2018, the tribe received over $900,000 in TANF funding, the same year the Pechanga Casino <a href="https://blogs.pechanga.com/newsroom/newest-largest-casino-west-coast-pechanga-resort-casino-unveiled-grand-opening-march-3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">completed</a> a $300,000 million expansion. 
“Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to bankroll the Perchanga tribe’s lavish lifestyles and radical views, especially when individual tribe members are raking in tens of thousands a month from casino profits. That’s not an ‘impoverished community,’ it’s a corrupt one,” Jones said. “Time to shut the spigot off and stop subsidizing them!” 
In addition to TANF grants, the tribe was given $368,583 from the EPA in 2024 to purchase a new dump truck and water tanker to promote “clean air.” In another EPA grant from 2025, the tribe was given $100,000 under the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” to fund an ozone monitoring system. 
In 2023, the tribe was given $185,000 “to develop or enhance climate action plans that establish near-term and long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction goals and develop strategies to address the highest priority sectors to help the tribe(s) or territory achieve those goals.”
Macarro, who the watchdog reports lives in a $3 million mansion in Temecula, has a long history of donating to Democratic candidates. In 2024, he <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=MACARRO%2C+MARK">contributed</a> over $2,000 to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign and has given thousands of other contributions to the campaigns of Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Al Franken. 
“Vice President Harris has been a critical voice behind the Biden-Harris administration’s unprecedented accomplishments for tribal nations,” he <a href="https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/081424_harris_native_voters/">said</a> in a YouTube endorsement video. “As president, Kamala Harris will continue this progress. She respects our ideals of self-governance and self-determination.”
He met with Biden on Air Force One in December 2024, where he <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ncai1944/posts/pfbid02Jd8sozpPSZMomiC4jkBYeJq7Bg2YGrnJrDM5KLxjgqKaq2mmKoTgSyTfhhqh1Daql">spoke</a> to the president about granting clemency to Leonard Peltier, an American Indian radical activist convicted of murdering two FBI agents. In one of his final acts in office, Biden <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fbi-agents-association-blasts-biden-for-commuting-sentence-of-cop-killer">commuted</a> the sentence of Peltier, allowing him to transition to home confinement from federal prison. 
<div id="attachment_946855" style="width: 1163px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-946855" class="size-full wp-image-946855" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-14-at-2.28.39%E2%80%AFPM.png" alt="" width="1153" height="879" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-14-at-2.28.39%E2%80%AFPM.png 1153w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-14-at-2.28.39%E2%80%AFPM-300x229.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-14-at-2.28.39%E2%80%AFPM-756x576.png 756w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-14-at-2.28.39%E2%80%AFPM-768x585.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1153px) 100vw, 1153px" />Facebook photo.</div>
Maccarro has vocally opposed Trump, decrying cuts to American Indian boarding school research and Trump’s plan to shut down the Department of Education. 
“Let us be clear: This is not just an administrative change — it’s an attack on the fundamental right of Native students to a quality education that reflects their identity, history, and sovereignty,” Macarro <a href="https://www.ncai.org/news/ncai-condemns-executive-order-to-dismantle-the-u-s-department-of-education">said</a>. “The trust and treaty responsibilities of the United States are not optional. Dismantling the Department of Education is a betrayal to Native Nations and future generations.”
Macarro and his wife, Holly, a political strategist, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C5owUJrrp9h/?hl=en&amp;img_index=1">were guests</a> at a state dinner hosted by the Bidens at the White House in April 2024. Holly was also a vocal advocate for commuting Peltier’s sentence, and has been <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/ClEpJ1uPmd4/?hl=en">pictured</a> with Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

MixCollage-14-Jul-2025-03-39-PM-5701

Trump-Hating Native American Tribe Gets Millions In Taxpayer Dollars As Leaders Hobnob With Dems

Democrats

Donald Trump

Joe Biden

Taylor Swift kicked off her Toronto concert Thursday night with a &#8220;land acknowledgment&#8221; a common practice among left-wing activists who believe they live on &#8220;stolen land.&#8221;
&#8220;We acknowledge that we are performing today at Rogers Centre, located on Treaty 13 lands,&#8221; read a graphic projected on stage before Swift&#8217;s performance. &#8220;We acknowledge the First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples whose original and treaty territories we stand upon.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Taylor Swift put out a Native American land acknowledgment at her concert tonight. She has single handedly solved injustice. You go girl ✊🏿 <a href="https://t.co/q95fTDtf8O">pic.twitter.com/q95fTDtf8O</a>
— Cam (@cam0795) <a href="https://twitter.com/cam0795/status/1857214353562357988?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> 
Treaty 13 refers to the <a href="https://mncfn.ca/the-toronto-purchase-treaty-no-13-1805/">Toronto Purchase of 1805,</a> in which the British government purchased the land that is now Toronto from the Mississauga tribe. Swift has become increasingly political in recent years, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dnc-targets-young-voters-for-kamala-with-taylor-swift-themed-snapchat-filter">endorsing</a> Vice President Kamala Harris and praising Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for being pro-abortion.
Once a feature of far-left organizations, land acknowledgment have become popular among liberals in recent years. The 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/dnc-opens-land-acknowledgment-forcibly-removed-tribal-nation">opened</a> with a statement that the convention was taking place on land where a Native American tribe had been &#8220;forcibly removed&#8221;
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-school-districts-across-the-country-say-america-was-built-on-stolen-land">reported</a> earlier this year that over 100 public school districts in the United States have “land acknowledgement statements,” many of which say the United States was built on “stolen land” and committed genocide.

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift Opens Toronto Concert With Land Acknowledgment

A clip of Vice President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/kamala-harris">Kamala Harris</a> voicing her support for changing <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/columbus-day">Columbus Day</a> to Indigenous Peoples&#8217; Day is circulating online, and the Trump campaign has responded.
Harris made her opinion of the holiday and its honoree clear during her failed 2020 presidential campaign and during her time in the Biden-Harris administration, as it was the first to issue a presidential proclamation of Indigenous Peoples&#8217; Day to be honored alongside Columbus Day, a federal holiday established by Congress.
“Every October, the United States has recognized the voyage of the European explorers who first landed on the shores of the Americas,” Harris said during the speech at the National Congress of American Indians Conference in 2021. “But that is not the whole story. That has never been the whole story.”
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MATT WALSH&#8217;S &#8216;AM I RACIST?&#8217; COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28</a>
“Those explorers ushered in a wave of devastation for tribal nations — perpetrating violence, stealing land and spreading disease,” Harris continued. “We must not shy away from this shameful past. And we must shed light on it and do everything we can to address the impact of the past on native communities today.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Kamala Harris on Columbus Day:
&quot;European explorers ushered in a wave of devastation, violence, stealing land, and widespread disease&quot; <a href="https://t.co/3XijDf5Ldo">pic.twitter.com/3XijDf5Ldo</a>
&mdash; End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1845805483539472438?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 14, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Trump campaign addressed this issue in a <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/news/7c40eb9a-9c4b-475e-b410-cf72bb72457e">press release</a> on its official website. The document noted that Harris had exclusively celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day over Columbus Day each year and that she told a voter she would support renaming the federal holiday for good.
“Kamala Harris is your stereotypical leftist. Not only does she want to raise taxes and defund the police — she also wants to cancel American traditions like Columbus Day,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
“President Trump will make sure Christopher Columbus’ great legacy is honored and protect this holiday from radical leftists who want to erase our nation’s history like Kamala Harris,” Leavitt added.
“For generations, Indigenous people have protected their lands, languages, knowledge, and traditions. On Indigenous Peoples&#8217; Day, we honor these many contributions and recommit to working alongside Indigenous people to ensure their communities thrive for generations to come,” Harris <a href="https://twitter.com/VP/status/1711425541872484390?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">tweeted</a> last year on Columbus Day.
“On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we pay respect to Tribal Nations and indigenous history. Today and every day, let us continue to celebrate and uplift the rich contributions of Indigenous peoples—their leadership has made our country stronger,” she <a href="https://x.com/VP/status/1579480621788774400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">shared</a> in 2022.

Christopher Columbus

Clip Of Kamala Bashing Columbus Day Resurfaces, Trump Camp Promises To ‘Protect This Holiday’

Biden-Harris administration

Columbus Day

Elections

Kamala Harris

Politics

Adapted from &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>&#8221; on DailyWire+
You know, I was so impressed with the Democratic National Convention, I’ve decided to change the format of my show to make it more like the DNC. So, for instance, before I begin today, I’d like to acknowledge that the land I’m podcasting from is the traditional home of the Cherokee or the Chickasaw or the Chickamauga or the Chick-Filet or whatever the hell these primitives called themselves while they sat around half-naked in ridiculous little conical tents smoking pipes full of God-knows-what before the Europeans came and brought air conditioning and civilization and things like that.
And I want to honor with gratitude the land itself which, okay, doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense since it was just a bunch of dirt before we built stuff on it like Yankee Stadium and superhighways and other things the Indians didn’t think of because, let’s face it, they never even invented the wheel. They just sat around most days wondering why it was so hard to get the wagons to move until they finally went back to smoking their pipes because, really, who needs wheels when you’re stoned out of your mind?
Still, we honor the land, because we want to sound as spiritual as the Democrats at their convention or in fact as spiritual as any bunch of unintelligible paganized atheists gleefully returning to the bloody practice of human sacrifice or women’s healthcare or whatever they’re calling it nowadays. 
So we honor the land and all those who lived upon the land until one day they looked up and saw ships that had crossed the entire Atlantic ocean while they were sitting around smoking and wondering why their wheel-less wagons were just gathering dust like a pile of useless two-by-fours — or, who even knows, maybe one of them tried to say something like, “Hey, wait, if we put some big circular objects underneath these wagons, we could roll them somewhere,” but he probably got the old arrow — Pfft! — right in the forehead, because the rest of the tribe was, like, hey, keep it down, we’re smoking here and watching those beautiful ships coming this way — from what they probably thought was another planet since they didn’t even know there were other continents and, meanwhile, the Europeans were zipping around from one continent to another until they could take over that Indian land and, thank God, start building something useful on it.
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Now some of you may be thinking, well, wait, you say Europeans took the land from the Cherokees, but didn’t the Cherokees take it from the Chickasaws who took it from the Chick-Filets who took it from the Dixie Chicks so that basically the whole history of the continent was just a bunch of half-naked chicks fighting, like at that bar I sometimes go to with the mud pit and the wet t-shirts. Man, I love that place.
Anyway, all these half-naked chick tribes were busy killing one another until suddenly they looked up and there were the Europeans and it was, like — Boom! — how do you like my AR-15 firestick, Indian-man? And the Indians were, like, “Holy crapum, we should’ve invented the wheel, then we could have rolled our wagons to the gun store and bought some of those firesticks so we could wipe out these Europe guys like we did with the Chickadees or the Chick Magnets or whoever it was we were killing when those ships arrived from another planet.
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But all the same, I want to acknowledge them because they were people too almost, and just like the Democrats at their convention, I want to give them the sense that I care about their suffering without actually caring about their suffering or indeed without actually doing anything, except what I’m doing right now which doesn’t cost me a thin dime but makes me feel great about myself.
So that’s my Democrat-style land acknowledgement, and if its cynicism and insincerity make you feel hypocritical, you can always comfort yourself by using your iPhone to order overnight delivery of a laptop from Amazon, and kick back and enjoy the wonderful fruits of European expansion. Then, just like the Democrats, we can all finally stop blaming ourselves for settler imperialism and get back to blaming the Jews.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. He is the bestselling author of the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks">A WOMAN UNDERGROUND</a>,&#8221; is now available for PRE-ORDER. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Day Four Of The 2024 Democratic National Convention

Allow Me To Give My Democrat-Style Land Acknowledgements

Andrew Klavan

Democratic National Convention

Humor

Satire

When it comes to marijuana, I always go back to the question: Has the legalization of weed in any city made that city better?
You might ask: What do you mean by better?
Well, is that city now a better place to live — for anybody? Has it solved any problem? Has it helped anything? Give me something that has been helped. Show me a city where they&#8217;ve legalized weed and something about that city, something tangible, has improved. Show me. You can&#8217;t, because it hasn&#8217;t. It has not made anywhere a better place to live. There is no example, because it always works the opposite way and we all know it.
Having people walk around stoned all the time has made everything worse. It has improved nothing, absolutely nothing. It has created problems and solved none. So it&#8217;s a bad idea. If you&#8217;re going to do something that is guaranteed to make nothing better, while making a lot of things worse, then you shouldn&#8217;t do it. It&#8217;s really that simple.
And this, by the way, is why I <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9frDNHLvqHY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">changed my mind</a> on it personally.
I was recently debating this on X/Twitter — where all the very fruitful debates happen. Somebody pulled one of my favorite moves where they say, “This is what you&#8217;re saying on this topic now, but let me see if you&#8217;ve always said this exact thing.” And someone “scandalously” discovered that back in 2018 I sent out a tweet where I was advocating for legalizing marijuana.
They didn&#8217;t have to go search through my tweet history; they could have just asked me and I would tell them, “Yes, that used to be my position.”
I used to be in favor of legalizing marijuana. I was. And I was wrong. I changed my mind; you&#8217;re allowed to do that. Just because you say something now, you don&#8217;t have to say exactly the same thing forever until you die. Not only are you allowed to process new information and change your opinion, but you also should. You should be open to new information and your opinion should be open to change depending on that new information.
That&#8217;s what happened with legalizing marijuana. I was never militant about it. It&#8217;s not something I personally want to engage in but I was generally persuaded by the arguments people made in favor of it.
What changed my mind? Well, it really wasn’t an argument anybody made on the other side. I simply saw in practice what happens. I heard all the arguments from the weed advocates saying, “Oh, yeah, we can legalize it, and here&#8217;s what the results will be.” Foolishly, I believed that argument. Then, when we did legalize it, I saw that none of that happened. In fact, everything the prohibitionists said would happen did happen and none of the positive results that the advocates promised panned out. So, of course I changed my position.
It&#8217;s not even a valid position anymore to be in favor of weed legalization because we&#8217;ve all seen the results in front of our faces. There&#8217;s really nothing else to say about it, which is why you then get a bunch of clichéd slogans shouted at you by the potheads.
As an example, I was having this debate recently when someone tweeted this — and I&#8217;m using this because it is like a rundown of the most clichéd arguments. They tweeted:
<blockquote>Badcall, alcohol and cigarettes are far worse. God created it. [Weed] It hasn&#8217;t killed anybody. Veterans need it for PTSD, etc. A Democrat made it illegal decades ago. Joe Biden is against it and thinks it&#8217;s a gateway. Drug prohibition is unconstitutional.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Bad call. Alcohol and cigarettes are far worse. God created it. It hasn’t killed anybody. Veterans need it for ptsd etc. a democrat made it illegal decades ago. Joe Biden is against it and thinks it’s a gateway drug. Prohibition is unconstitutional.
&mdash; Bobby (@Bobby1493401) <a href="https://twitter.com/Bobby1493401/status/1773527644362998048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2024</a></blockquote>
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I&#8217;m using this as an example because this is the classic rundown of pro-weed arguments we hear all the time. Every tweet that anyone puts out in favor of weed legalization, it&#8217;s always like that or some variation.
There are a few problems with these arguments.
First of all, there are many substances that exist in the natural world that you&#8217;re not supposed to put in your body. So, saying, “God created this stuff” is dumb. Even back when I found the pro-weed argument, legalization argument persuasive, I was never persuaded by that because it&#8217;s so stupid.
What? God created it, so therefore it&#8217;s automatically a good idea to light it on fire and inhale it? There are a whole lot of things God has created that you should not light on fire and inhale. There are a lot of things God has created that you should not consume in any form.
If you&#8217;re lost in the woods, for example, and you&#8217;re starving, and you stumble across some kind of a bush with berries and without any prior knowledge say, “Well, God created these berries, so they must be okay to eat. God created them.” If you make that assumption enough times, you will definitely die because God has created a lot of poisoned berries. There are a lot of poisonous things in the world that you&#8217;re not supposed to consume. So the “God created it” line is true, but that doesn&#8217;t mean that it&#8217;s okay to consume.
As for alcohol and cigarettes, even if alcohol and cigarettes are worse, that still doesn&#8217;t mean that weed should be legal. By that logic, all you’ve done is add to the problem. And saying that it hasn&#8217;t killed anyone is just false. For one thing, it ignores the deaths caused by people under the influence and ignores all the volumes of research about all the negative health side effects. Even if I agree that alcohol and tobacco products are just as bad or worse, that&#8217;s not an argument for legalizing yet another bad thing.
It&#8217;s sort of like, if I was morbidly obese, but I didn&#8217;t drink alcohol, and then you said, ”Well, you&#8217;re already obese. You might as well be a binge drinker too.” That logic doesn&#8217;t make any sense. That only makes sense in a kind of defeatist suicidal way. That&#8217;s quite literally a suicidal argument when you&#8217;re saying, “Well, these other bad things are happening.” So let&#8217;s just add another bad thing? Let&#8217;s give up, basically? That doesn&#8217;t make sense.
Also, alcohol and tobacco have been a part of American culture since the beginning of this country. That&#8217;s one of the reasons why any effort to totally ban them has not been successful — because it&#8217;s just an ingrained part of American culture. Tobacco in particular helped build this country from the very beginning. So did alcohol. Now, I&#8217;m not saying that this is a definitive reason to not ban them, but it is a reason not to ban them. And it&#8217;s a pretty good one, actually. Tradition matters. History matters. Tobacco and alcohol have been a part of our culture. Historically, marijuana has not.
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Somebody brought up that Native Americans smoked it and so it is part of American heritage.
I think it&#8217;s true that Indian tribes had marijuana — I haven’t done a lot of research on this — but I don&#8217;t think that they had it prior to contact with the New World. As far as I&#8217;m aware, marijuana was introduced to the native tribes in the 15th or the 16th centuries. But even if they didn’t smoke marijuana, the native tribes did smoke peyote. They had other kinds of drugs with hallucinogenic properties. So it is probably true that even if it wasn&#8217;t exactly marijuana, it&#8217;s probably true that the drug habits of Native American tribes were closer to the drug habits of Americans today.
Think about that for a second. Native tribes were 5,000 years behind the civilized world. They were stuck in the Stone Age. Many of them didn&#8217;t have the wheel. They didn&#8217;t have written language. Many of them — not all — were nomadic tribes, hunter-gatherers. They were extremely primitive, even by 16th century standards. So the fact that they were also high all the time perhaps should tell us something. We know that a society with people smoke tobacco constantly and drink whiskey from morning to night can also be a highly functional, highly successful society.
We know that because that was our society. That was our society in the 20th century when we accomplished all of the things we accomplished — we were winning world wars and landing on the moon. We went from horse and buggy to the moon landing.
So we know that the greatest civilizations in the history of the Earth have at least had booze, and people were constantly drunk. Our own civilization had tobacco and booze. Now, I&#8217;m not saying that tobacco and booze made us great, exactly, but it did not prevent our greatness. There is no evidence on a societal scale that having easy access to legal tobacco and booze will precipitate a societal collapse. There&#8217;s no evidence of that because we&#8217;ve seen a society that is drowning in nicotine, caffeine, and booze — America has run on those things. So we&#8217;ve seen that. We know that.
What about a society full of stoners and druggies? Can that kind of society thrive? There&#8217;s no evidence of that. There has never been a society of people who are drugged out of their mind, stoned, that has thrived. There are plenty of societies that have engaged in those sorts of activities and they live in mud huts.
They struggled to invent the wheel. That&#8217;s what that kind of society looks like.
And if we want to end up back there, if we want to just decline all the way and take this thing full circle, then that&#8217;s what&#8217;s going to happen.
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Close-up of young adult man rolling a marijuana joint on blur background.

I Changed My Mind About Marijuana. This Is Why.

Drugs

Marijuana

Matt Walsh

Readers Pass

A newly elected school board in southern Pennsylvania is bringing back one school&#8217;s American Indian mascot.
The school board for the Southern York County School District, about an hour north of Baltimore, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/newly-elected-school-board-pennsylvania-reclaims-indigenous-mascot-rejects-cancel-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener">voted</a> 7-2 on Thursday to let Susquehannock High School bring back its traditional logo.
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The new Southern York County school board defied cancel culture to restore a logo celebrating Native American Indian heritage <a href="https://t.co/iql6Gr7jmw">pic.twitter.com/iql6Gr7jmw</a>
&mdash; Catherine Salgado (@CatSalgado32) <a href="https://twitter.com/CatSalgado32/status/1749833383365181702?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 23, 2024</a></blockquote>
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The school&#8217;s “Warrior Head” logo, which depicts a Native American in a feather headdress with a tomahawk and a pipe, honors the Susquehannock Indian tribe.
The vote comes two months after the district elected five new school board members, who ran on pro-American Indian platforms.
All seven board members who voted to bring back the old logo were elected after another vote to eliminate the logo back in 2020, a move that sparked outrage in the community.
A new logo was created, a &#8220;W&#8221; with an arrow through it, showing &#8220;movement and a forward, upward direction symbolizing the district’s direction in academics, athletics and as a community,&#8221; <a href="https://www.sycsd.org/domain/460" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to graphic communications teacher Wade Bowers.
Critics argued that the push to retire the logo was erasing the area&#8217;s history.
In 2020, the school board&#8217;s diversity committee <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/newly-elected-school-board-pennsylvania-reclaims-indigenous-mascot-rejects-cancel-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> that the Susquehannock tribe supposedly never lived in the area of the district.
However, local historians disagree, saying the Susquehannock people were known to reside in the area.
&#8220;The Susquehannock lived in large fortified towns, the largest of which may have had a population of nearly 3,000 people,&#8221; the Susquehanna National Heritage Area <a href="https://susqnha.org/discover-river-history/susquehannock-native-landscape/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">says</a> on its website.
&#8220;Their communities were located along the Susquehanna, especially in Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, and York counties,&#8221; the website says.
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Nevertheless, the Southern York County school board at the time went ahead with the vote to remove the American Indian mascot despite a petition against it that garnered 3,800 signatures.
Jennifer and Nathan Henkel, the parents of three children, are two of the new school board members who voted to bring back the old logo.
&#8220;This movement was about erasing Native American culture and I wasn’t about to stand for it,&#8221; Jennifer Henkel <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/newly-elected-school-board-pennsylvania-reclaims-indigenous-mascot-rejects-cancel-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Fox News.
“This school was built on Susquehanna land,” one community member said at Thursday&#8217;s meeting. “Those people lived here. You cannot rewrite history. You can’t cancel the past.”
One group that urged the school board to restore the logo was the Native American Guardians Association, which has also <a href="https://wpde.com/news/nation-world/pa-school-district-reinstates-controversial-native-american-logo-cant-cancel-the-past-pennsylvania-southern-york-county-glen-rock-mascot-susquehannock-crisis-in-the-classroom" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pushed</a> for the NFL&#8217;s Washington Commanders to return to its former &#8220;Redskins&#8221; name.
&#8220;The SYCSD school board stands as a role model and blueprint for other communities fighting for their Native names and imagery,&#8221; the group <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/newly-elected-school-board-pennsylvania-reclaims-indigenous-mascot-rejects-cancel-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a statement hailing Thursday&#8217;s vote.

Rear view of chief’s headresses.

Newly Elected School Board In Pennsylvania Brings Back American Indian Mascot

Mascots

Pennsylvania

School Board

School Boards

Social Issues

U.S.

Parents of a young <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/its-a-little-scary-young-chiefs-fan-reacts-blackface-accusations-after-painting-face-for-game" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kansas City Chiefs fan</a> — who was accused of &#8220;blackface&#8221; by Deadspin — are threatening to sue the magazine and reporter after the writer blasted the little fan who painted his face half red and half black for the team&#8217;s last game against the Las Vegas Raiders.
Holden Armenta&#8217;s parents, Shannon and Raul &#8216;Bubba,&#8217; have hired Clare Locke LLP to demand a retraction to its story with a headline that read, &#8220;The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress,&#8221; <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/race-in-america/kansas-city-chiefs-fan-deadspin-defamation-lawsuit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NewsNation</a> reported.
In a letter obtained by the outlet, the Armentas wrote that, &#8220;These articles, posts on X and photos about Holden and his parents must be retracted immediately.&#8221;
&#8220;It is not enough to quietly remove a tweet from X or disable the article from Deadspin&#8217;s website,&#8221; the letter added. &#8220;You must publish your retractions and issue an apology to my clients with the same prominence and fanfare with which you defamed them.&#8221;
The outlet also noted that the Chiefs fan&#8217;s family have threatened further action against the author Carron J. Phillips, Deadspin, G/O Media, and Great Hill Partners.
Last week, Holden and his father appeared on &#8220;<a href="https://x.com/JesseBWatters/status/1730033576404468100?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jesse Watters Prime Time</a>&#8221; to discuss the fan being in the spotlight following allegations of racism from Phillips.
&#8220;It&#8217;s been a lot. It&#8217;s been a pretty crazy couple of days,&#8221; Bubba said. &#8220;I was mad, upset for him. I&#8217;m mad that he&#8217;s upset. He&#8217;s pretty devastated. I mean, he&#8217;s seen the videos and everything posted.&#8221;
Armenta&#8217;s father also said it was &#8220;too late&#8221; for an apology from Phillips.
&#8220;The damage is already done,&#8221; Bubba said. &#8220;It&#8217;s, you know, worldwide. Now there&#8217;s comments all over, there&#8217;s, you know, disrespect towards Native Americans and towards my family. We never in any way, shape or form meant to disrespect any Native Americans or any tribes.&#8221;
Watters then asked Holden how he was holding up.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
EXCLUSIVE: The 9-year-old Chiefs fan, who was falsely smeared as a racist for supporting his team, speaks out on Primetime.
Holden Armenta says this whole thing has been scary and overwhelming. His father, Bubba, says it&#8217;s too late for an apology- the damage is already done. <a href="https://t.co/8T4WsMsvm6">pic.twitter.com/8T4WsMsvm6</a>
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) <a href="https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/1730033576404468100?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 30, 2023</a></blockquote>
&#8220;It&#8217;s OK because a lot of kids at school are getting excited, but it&#8217;s starting to get me a little nervous because if they go a little bit overboard, it&#8217;s a little scary,&#8221; Holden said.
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Holden’s mom later took to Facebook and defended her son, calling out the sports blog.
&#8220;This has nothing to do with the NFL,&#8221; Shannon Armenta wrote. &#8220;Also, CBS showed him multiple times and this is the photo people chose to blast to create division. He is Native American — just stop already.&#8221;
Holden is from an American Indian family, and his grandfather is on the board of the Chumash tribe in Santa Ynez, California, according to <a href="https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-the-young-kansas-city-chiefs-fan-deadspin-tried-to-cancel-over-false-black-face-and-racism-accusations-is-native-american" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Post Millennial</a>.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/its-a-little-scary-young-chiefs-fan-reacts-blackface-accusations-after-painting-face-for-game" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8216;It&#8217;s A Little Scary&#8217;: Young Chiefs Fan Reacts &#8216;Blackface&#8217; Accusations After Painting Face For Game</a>

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