by Elisa Thorp

Created on: February 22, 2009

Scenario one: Imagine an environment where your children become ill from drinking the water from a source your family has used for thousands of years, and the only source available. Imagine that your source of water contains deadly toxins and contaminates the food you grow. Imagine watching your mother go from a strong, robust woman to a frail, weak person waiting to die from the work-related disease that riddles her body. Imagine that your spouse has already died from cancer before their 40th birthday, and now it is in your body too. Imagine that this same scenario plays out in the homes of each one of your neighbors. Now, imagine that this all takes place on land stolen (eminent domain) from your family, and the government is aware that their activities are causing this devastation, yet continue with their destructive activities, and disregard any effects on local communities. (Uranium mining on Indian lands)

Scenario Two: Your teenage daughter and her BFF go out on a Friday night. They excitedly head to a community event for a special celebration. There is a similar event taking place in a neighboring community, and you are aware the girls will be traveling the 45 minutes with friends to visit this neighboring event as well. Seen in a car on the highway between events, they never arrive, and no one sees them again.

In a neighboring town on the same night, a 17-year-old cheerleader celebrates her team's victory with many friends. As the celebration winds down, our cheerleader heads for home, but she never makes it to her front door. She does not know the girls in the first scenario, and they do not know her.

Three days pass, and around midday the bodies of our first girls are discovered in scrub bushes off the side of the highway. They have been badly beaten, sexually assaulted, shot, and stabbed numerous times. Within hours, the body of our third girl is discovered in an empty lot in her neighborhood. Sexually assaulted, she has a single gunshot wound to the head.

The local newspaper carries a three-paragraph article, without photos, about the tragic deaths of the two girls. A detective (one) is assigned to investigate their deaths. After two weeks of minimal searching, the detective gives up and the case goes cold. The newspaper never addresses the issue again. The two girls are Native American.

In the same newspaper, on the same day, the front page is plastered with photos of our cheerleader, accompanied by an article long enough to be carried onto another

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