"You hear those cops coming? They’re not going to help you. My daddy is a cop in this town, and nothing is going to happen to me. You fucking niggers are going to jail.”
- Jacob Caswell
It's a modern-day Indian War... or massacre, if you will. The city of Fernley, NV, has essentially declared war upon Native Americans in general and the Bonta family in particular, with truth and humanity among the first casualties.
In brief, the war began on May 24th, 2011, when a truckfull of skinheads picked a fight with the Bontas, a family from a local Native reservation. When the Bonta family fled, the skinheads chased them down, ran them off the road, jumped out, and beat several members of the Bonta family with bats, knives and a crowbar. When the police and paramedics arrived, however, it was the victims, not the attackers, who got hauled off to jail.
One of the skinheads - Jacob Caswell - is the son of a retired Fernley sheriff. While Caswell went home to brag about the attack on his Facebook page, badly-beaten Johnny Bonta was arrested, taken to jail, and hled in a cell while being denied medical treatment for six days. The Bonta car was seized, and the family was handed a bill for damages. This was just the beginning.
When word spread about the attack, the city's authorities closed ranks to protect the attackers. The local press reported the crime as if the Bonta family had started the fight. The police refused to investigate, and the FBI investigation has thus far been stonewalled by an ongoing wall of silence. Even the Reno Gazette Journal joined the fun, interviewing the attackers but not the victims. As far as I've been able to trace, Jacob Caswell has yet to be arrested or charged, despite having bragged about the beating on Facebook. Oh, yeah - and he and one other attacker are apparently members of the U.S. Army, too... and have reportly terrorized other Natives who remain afraid to press the issue because the police refuse to hear them.
Good ol' American boys, carrying on a proud tradition with the full support of their community.
So dear fellow Burners, FUCK their community.
Fernley, Reno, Sparks, and other local towns make millions of dollars a year selling food, supplies, gas, lodgings, and more to folks traveling to and from Burning Man.
This year, DON'T GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY.
Supply yourselves elsewhere, or don't go to the Burn at all.
Seriously, how can anyone celebrate Oneness, Peace, Love, Magic and all that other cool stuff while giving money to communities that openly support violence and hate against this land's original people?
We're not talking about something that happened decades ago, but an an attack less than two months back that still enjoys overt and covert support in the cities of Fernley and Reno.
To hell with them, then. Don't. Give. Them. Your. Money.
Some people have argued that a boycott will hurt merchants who don't support Caswell and his thugs. But if those merchants truly cared about the state of their communities, there'd be a massive outcry and mass resignations, firings and jailings among what passes for Fernley's "law-enforcement" and "journalistic" communities. Right now, that's not happening.
Until that day comes - until not only Caswell and his friends but every deputy, paramedic, editor and newswriter involved is either in the unemployment line or jail - any monies spent in the city of Fernley supports hate crimes and the ability to get away with them.
Supporting a city that gives a free pass to skinhead violence is a mockery of every Burning Man ideal.
So long as this travesty remains unpunished, money spent in Fernley supports racism, terror and a literal white-washing of justice.
PROTEST.
BOYCOTT.
SPREAD THE WORD.
Otherwise, Burning Man is just another carnival for rich white posuers dancing on the backs and the graves of the oppressed.
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More details at these links:
http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/0 ... in-nevada/
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.c ... skinheads/
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/06/a ... alked.html
http://www.federaljack.com/?p=84256
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/11/f ... an-family/
http://fernleynews.ning.com/profiles/bl ... t-attorney
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/hate- ... -americans
(Yes, that last link is from Al-Jazeera. When the leading Muslim news source has more details about this crime than the Fernley News, you know you're in trouble.)
Also, see:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Justice-f ... 4812459997