This one was discussed in the old group, but the posts haven't been reposted yet. Exploiter in Tuscon aimed at the LGBT community. She and her supporters got pretty violent and racist and abusive last time. Here's an account from Debunking Debunkersrule by Hawk.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Debunking_debunkersrule/message/76?l=1"Re: Ku Istan - She never gives up
Sure, It was a while ago, but this is what I remember:
In the summer of 2003, DNH had a slam poetry reading at Pima community College. The theme was cultural appropriation. We managed to get about 50 people interested in a protest. We got together and
wrote out a collective statement, took up a collection and created flyers to pass out to ppl coming to the sweat. We showed up on Ontario Street just before Ku's big summer solstice sweat. We had
called the Pima County health department and voiced our concerns about holding a sweat in the summer – 2003 was a really hot dry summer here. They were going to look into the public health concerns we raised. Ku was ready for us.
She came outside and confronted us. Her face was beet read and she was breathing really hard. She wasn't exactly what I'd call coherent, but she started to yell about how we were threatening her
livelihood and that we were all racists being influenced by people who weren't representative of the Native perspective on the issue.
She went on and on about how hateful we all were and how we were all jealous of her and full of negative energy. When we refused to leave the public street, she insisted that we all give her our names and show her some Id because she was going to sue us for the "federal offense of interfering with commerce." Of course we all goofed on her and gave her ridiculous fake names. I was Connie Lingus, of
course. This just infuriated her more. She told me if she ever saw me anywhere around her property again she'd "blow my fuc king head off" There was some guy who claimed to be from American Indian
Studies with gray hair with her who seemed coaching Ku. He got up in my face and made a lot of crass comments about my being a dy ke and basically threatened to r ape me to teach me a lesson.
Ku continued to vent her spleen about her right to make a living and referred to some of the other protesters as "trailer trash sp ics" and "ignorant casino nigge rs."
It got uglier and more heated when some of the participants came out. The women were the most hateful. They all boasted about being Cherokee or adopted Lakota or some such thing and started telling us about how ignorant we were about all things spiritual. They were all screaming at once about how we were violating their rights to free expression of religion. They wouldn't take the flyers or discuss the matter rationally. One of them grabbed a bunch of flyers and set them on fire with her lighter. A lot of them had beers and cigarettes in their hands.
They were yelling things like, "Indians who don't want to share should just shut the fuc k up and go back to the casinos". They were saying things like people from the reservation didn't deserve their
spirituality because they were all "fat smokers who eat spam and shop at Wal-mart." There were a lot of statements about the Native women in the protest being "fat, stupid and lazy spi cs." One of the
blondest women said she hoped all the "fat stupid Indian women all got rape d by their drunken men that night". Several of the mob claimed to have guns and threatened to "blow our ignorant fuc king
heads off."
By this time, a couple of us had called the cops on our cell phones, but in Tucson, you're lucky if you see a cop 2 hours after you call.
A blond woman with blue eyes who was about a foot shorter than me grabbed me by the arm and tried to spin me around with my arm pinned behind my back. She wasn't tall enough or strong enough to pull it off so I just broke her hold and stepped back and laughed at her.
That set her off. She came at me and tried to knock me down by running into me full force. That didn't work Then two of her friends came along and claimed that I tried to assault their friend. At this point, Ku's supporters were all starting to shove our protesters so we decided it was time to leave.
I'm 6 foot 1 and I was even getting intimidated by their aggressiveness.
There man with gray hair from AIS seemed to be orchestrating the whole counter-protest. He claimed to be Lakota and said Ku had permission from Leonard Crow Dog to conduct ceremonies and that she
was a "pipe carrier." and that we should all "fuc k off" because this was "none of our fuc king business." His whole spiel was very rehearsed - he seemed to know just what to say. I got the impression that he was trying to escalate the protest into a violent encounter. Since I'm was so much taller than most of
the people there, I didn't want the protest to be misinterpreted. I knew they would make it look like I tried to start something. These people were definitely looking for any excuse to present themselves
as a persecuted religious minority and the way politics are in Tucson, they probably would have been successful in getting public sympathy on their side.
If we do another protest, it would have to be very controlled and organized. Ideally, I would like to get someone from Access Tucson to video tape it so the public could see who these people really are.
--- In Debunking_debunkersrule@yahoogroups.com, "educatedindio"
<educatedindio@...> wrote:
> Hi, I'll be sure and pass this along in NAFPS. You mentioned physical threats. Could you tell us more?
> Al
> --- In Debunking_debunkersrule@yahoogroups.com, "d0n0harm"
> <d0n0harm@> wrote:
> > Hello ppl!
> > I know you must get tired of hearing this, but my LGBT ppl are embarassing me again by refusing to stop exploiting Native spirituality.
> > Ku Istan is holding a "men's sweat" this Saturday, May 27, 2006 from 3-5 - the hottest part of the day.
> >
http://www.wingspan.org/content/evt_details.php?event_id=1594> >
> > This is particularly insane since the temperature in Tucson should reach around 100 degrees on Saturday and it's hazy and the air quality is really poor this week. While I've been busy working with No More Deaths to stop the deaths of people trying to cross into the United States, my gay brothers will be deliberately sitting in a sweat lodge in the Tucson heat. The irony always escapes the well intentioned. It frustrates the shit out of me that my LGBT brothers and sisters still insist on holding sweats for money despite the numerous protests we've held over the past 4 years.
Unfortunately as long as there's one voice telling them it's ok to exploit Native spirituality, that's the voice they'll choose to listen to.
> > In light of the physical hostility last time, we're limiting our protests to phone calls and e-mails. It wouldn't hurt if enrolled folks could contact Wingspan and try to explain to them that Ku
is a fake. She's changed her tribal affiliation so many times now it's hard to keep track of who she is. The last time I checked, she claims to be an enrolled Apache and a Lakota Pipe carrier. She
also changed her brocures and no longer claims to be a "medicine womon".
> > She thinks that minimal cosmetic changes will be enough to keep
us quiet.
> > Any help or support would be greatly appreciated.
> > You can contact Ku herslef at:
> > 520-690-0546
> > or you can contact Wingspan at:
> > 425 East Seventh Street
> > Tucson, AZ 85705
> > Tel: 520-624-1779
Wingspan Executive Director
> > Kent Burbank (ext 12)
> > e-mail: kent@
> > Director of Programs
> > Cathy Busha (ext 16)
> > e-mail: cathy@
> >
> > Thanks
> > Hawk"
