[L-I] Fighting on in the very strange Gem State

POCATELLO AREA ANTI-RACISM COMMITTEE TOOLING UP  [HUNTER BEAR]

Note by Hunter Bear:  I have written this in slightly shorter
form [because of conventional space limitations]
for the excellent bi-lingual  bulletin/newspaper,
Our Struggle/Nuestra Lucha -- edited
by our fine colleague, Duane Campbell, and published
quarterly by the DSA Anti Racism Commission
and the Latino Commission.  The journal warrants the
financial and moral support of all persons concerned
with racial and cultural social justice.  If interested,
we suggest a contribution of $15 a year which should be sent to

Our Struggle/Nuestra Lucha
Box 162394
Sacramento, California 95816

---------------------------------------------------

Our Pocatello Area Anti-Racism Committee [PARC] is gathering much indeed on
regional racial and culturally ethnocentric prejudice and discrimination.
This is in preparation for action stuff on those and related fronts - and a
conference we are planning for next Fall.  PARC is composed of American
Indians, Chicanos, Asians, African Americans, and Africans.

PARC is open to the participation of Anglos of good will and certainly
expects that as we go along.

We are fighting on several  issues right now.

Many of the local police show inordinate interest in "minority vehicles" -
often stopping them for reasons either flimsy or simply non-existent. A high
proportion of minority people are followed in stores and, when checking out,
are asked for multiple IDs. [I, myself, was for all practical purposes
accused of stealing a shirt  I was wearing- a shirt, threadbare at one
elbow, which I had bought more than a decade earlier in North Dakota!] Few
minority people hold supervisory - or major jobs in general -- in retail and
related endeavors.  There is some evidence of housing discrimination. When
by themselves - or with young peer friends - African women students are
frequently psychologically bullied in restaurants and public facilities by
middle aged Anglo men who stand directly in front of them, blocking their
view and forcing them backward.  There is a notable absence of Indians on
the Mayor's Police Committee -- and at least three major efforts by some
Committee members to seat me have been vetoed by police officials.

When unarmed Felipe Galloway, a 22 year old Shoshone Bannock , was shot to
death by regional police on an extremely minor matter in December 2002, we
raised Hell. No minority person has been killed by lawmen in this area since
then. PARC is also committed to full justice in the still unsolved murders
of three Indians in North Dakota. Robert and Damian Belgarde were shot to
death in rural Grand Forks County in September 2001 -- and 19 year old Russ
Turcotte  was murdered in a remote area west of Grand Forks in July 2002. We
have been making a major effort to involve the NAACP in both the
Eastern Idaho and North Dakota racial situations. [If able to travel some
distance, I may well go to North Dakota at the end of the summer.]

The developing conference is called Racism, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
in the Pocatello Area. It will focus on issue identification, strategies and
organizing, and local/regional hate groups [e.g., National Alliance].

Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear] Regional DSA Anti-Racism Coordinator --
and a member as well of SPUSA, CCDS, Solidarity, UAW, and
United Association for Labor Education [Workers Education
Local 189]

HUNTER GRAY  [HUNTER BEAR]
www.hunterbear.org

In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the
game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the
high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own
inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down
on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings.  Then
it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and
remembering way. [Hunter Bear]









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