Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on the campaign trail. Photo by Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.
After spending decades insulting the first Americans and denigrating women, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is finally being abandoned by his party as the November election quickly approaches. Robin Annette LaDue, a member of the Cowlitz Tribe, explains why a 2005 video of the candidate is so damaging to Native women:
As I watched the video and listened to the callous and vicious words of Trump and his sidekick, Billy Bush, I flashed back thirty-one years to a situation I had to deal with as one of the only Native psychologists working on reservations in the State of Washington. I had come in on a Monday morning to find a mother and her twelve children crowded into my tiny office. Over the course of the weekend, her alcoholic non-Native common-law husband boarded up the doors and windows of the home with the family inside and set fire to the house. It was only through the quick thinking of the two oldest sons that the family was able to escape through a basement window. As I watched the video and listened to the laughs of Trump and Billy Bush, I recalled two young women who had come to me to report being sexually abused by a cousin. I recalled the looks on the faces of those brave young women when the white Auburn Police Officer refused to file the case, stating he believed my two brave clients were “sleep walking” and were not to be believed.
The Washington Post: Donald Trump in 2005
As I watched the video and listened to the disgusting words of Trump and Billy Bush, I thought of Misty Upham lying dead at the bottom of a ravine in Auburn, Washington near the Muckleshoot Reservation. She wasn’t important enough for the Auburn Police to search for her under an endangered adult order. She wasn’t important enough for the Auburn Police to mount a search. Family friends and members found her after missing eleven days. The Auburn Police vigorously denied these allegations but the reality speaks for itself. As I watched the video and listened to the mocking words of Trump and Billy Bush, I thought of the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada and Alaska, women not worth being found judging by the lack of reactions and efforts of the authorities. I thought of a young First Nations woman who was abducted from her jail cell and taken to the home of an RCMP officer, where she was raped.Read More:
“When You Are A Star, You Can Do Anything You Want” – The Ugly Truths of Donald Trump (Native News Online 10/9)
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