The prior blog post, which I didn’t expect to do much, did less than expected as it only seemed to get sixty views as of this writing. I’m really disheartened, but it’s not going to stop me from emailing Congress regarding my concerns every single weekday, if necessary. I realized, only a few weeks after writing it, that I should probably edit each of these essays arguing in favor of Native American human rights in the US into a single book and self-publish it. A single book might do better instead of having a long list of large essays about various topics pertaining to discriminatory laws in the US still in effect today against Native Americans, which is the main cause of the MMIP tragedies.

I wanted to see if I could learn how to do more to help, so I decided to go to a public Zoom meeting that NIWRC was hosting as part of their work to help Indigenous women suffering domestic abuse and they briefly mentioned that their call centers stopped receiving creepy calls from unknown male callers going into lengths dramatizing their dick sizes after the first six months in which the Indigenous women started their call center. Their call center work seems to be expanding to help Indigenous people going through sex violence beyond just domestic abuse more recently and please keep in mind approximately 84 – 86% of the sexual violence Indigenous women suffer are perpetrated by non-Native men who the Indigenous victim has no relationship with. I was surprised that the general timeframe they mentioned seems to match my first blog post about Indigenous human rights issues from last year. I have no way of knowing if it is just a coincidence or if I’m making any strong headway. Also, I learned that since they’re taking Federal grant money, they can’t actually use the questions or critiques I emailed them, because it goes against Federal grant policies. That is, any organization operated by Federal grant money cannot comment or send criticisms to the US Federal government for the specific policies that may pertain to that Federal grant. So, any emails that my friends and I send to the US Congress directly may have actually been doing more of a positive than I had expected it to, because we’re completely unaffiliated with Indigenous non-profits that accept Federal grants and therefore not subject to the Federal grant restrictions. Overall, it was very informative and made me feel a bit more confident that sending emails to the US Congress wasn’t the proverbial equivalent of howling at the wind. Unfortunately, I may have given them a bad impression, because I mentioned some ideas about using Indigenous mythology in fiction and I only realized too late despite the relaxed conversational style, that choosing a Zoom meeting about serious human rights issues may not have been the appropriate format and may come across as tone-deaf; there was also this particular older Indigenous woman who was gazing at the screen in dismay, possibly at my suggestion since I probably didn’t communicate what I meant effectively or they may just disagree on principle because they have legitimate fears that their culture could be mocked again as it has been historically. I honestly still view it as a missed opportunity of untapped potential for clearer recognition of Indigenous peoples’ human rights and their cultural contributions to the US. An aspect that hiding one’s culture out of fear of ridicule ignores is that there are people with a more positive degree of curiosity who genuinely want to learn and understand, even if they may not agree with everything in their own interpretations of others cultural values.

On the Google search app on my phone when scrolling through the newsfeed, I came across this tragic missing persons’ example of a young girl who still hasn’t been found, and in solidarity with MMIP day, I thought it best to share the information.

From WDIO ABC News (link is clickable through clicking the lengthy red quotes from the news article):

As Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls (MMIWG) Day approaches, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the Bemidji Police Department is bringing attention to the search for 17-year-old Nevaeh Kingbird.

Nevaeh was only 15 years old when she went missing from her home in Bemidji, Minnesota on October 22, 2021. Nevaeh is described as 5’4″ tall and 120 lbs. when she was last seen. She has brown eyes and brown hair. Authorities believe that Nevaeh may have traveled out of the state.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls (MMIWG) Day ia May 5 and it raises awareness for the girls who have gone missing within the Native, Indigenous, and Tribal communities. NCMEC not only wants to shine a light on Nevaeh’s case, but keep the focus on all the Indigenous girls who are missing.

On a more positive note, and I hope it doesn’t come off as tone-deaf after sharing a news story about a Missing Indigenous person in recognition of MMIP day, I finished watching Dragon Quest: The Adventures of Dai on Netflix and then Hulu (Netflix had the subbed version, but only season 1, so I switched to Hulu but Hulu only had the dubbed version) and I’ve beaten two routes of SaGa: Emerald Beyond, Tsunanori and Siugnas. I had more fun with the latter, since he’s a Vampire King going into different worlds, brainwashing people, and turning them unto obedient puppets to use for some future dark purpose. Siugnas also had seven worlds that players could experience; Tsunanori only had four. I’m currently playing Bonnie and Formina and they have more than seven judging from the fact I beat two worlds already, but got a list of a full seven worlds that I could continue choosing from in the menu screen when selecting which world to go to. Insofar as the Adventures of Dai . . . the Baran vs Dai fight was arguably the best moment of the show and most of the things before and after were kind of forgettable for reasons I’d have to make a review blog post for.

I tried continuing to write my own fantasy novel and the progress has been horribly bad. I just get too focused on worldbuilding and then perfectionist tendencies tend to keep flaring up. We live in an age where if you write a shitty book like Meg LaTorre, you have Youtubers who thoroughly list all the plot holes, stupid plot points, and shallow characters viciously because they’re paid and voted to do so by their subscribers asking them to tear down the books. On the one hand, this possibly means we have good quality standards and expect quality writing; on the other hand, it could just be a cesspit of negativity over every aspect of something. It’s sometimes hard to tell which is which. I tend to lean more on the former side since it’s clearly not as biased as people make it seem. When something is legitimately bad, like Zack Snyder’s second Rebel Moon film, it gets torn to shreds whereas something of good quality like the second Dune film is celebrated. But mainly, I think my subconscious perfectionist tendencies keep holding me back and I never quite know how to grapple with that. I’ve tried different strategies, but nothing really works. At the very least, I made a clearer list of sources for the worldbuilding I want to do with this current fantasy story.