The Justice Project:
The Bears Ears debate really stuck with me and how Native Americans and many other people want to make it a National Monument to protect sacred land from being but the people that don't want to make it a National Monument because it would limit access to the land which they don't want to happen. Here is a justice monologue I did on the topic:
There have been a lot of arguments about sacred lands that I didn’t know about until this year. Now, I am not the type of person to keep up with the news or what’s going on in the world around me- I know I should but I don’t enjoy or find any interest in listening to people argue with each other and being negative when there is always a solution to a problem that they can agree on and make some type of peace.
That said, I did find The Bears Ears National Monument debate to be a very interesting debate/argument because San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman believes that the proposal could interfere with tax pay and that is something the government relies on to pay for students to get an education and to pay the teachers that give that education. Lyman is Facing up to a year in jail for leading dozens of ATVers on a protest ride on the Bureau of Land Management land which is off limits to 4-wheelers and says that he didn’t do anything wrong. Lyman also said, “going to jail is not what scares me- living in a country where you can go to jail without having broken any laws is what scares me.” Now I do agree with how he says that we live in a country where we can go to jail without having broken any laws, but obviously we go to jail for something, it isn’t nothing. I also believe that he did break a law: He knew that it was prohibited for 4-wheelers to ride on the land, but he lead the protest ride and in my opinion it is honestly disrespectful to the Navajo Tribes because it is considered sacred land and all of Bears Ears has meaning and to go and ride on the beautiful land making trails that didn’t need to be there is honestly heartbreaking.
Bruce Adams says that the proposal is “just too big,” and that National Monument status can limit public access to certain roads and that the people need to be able to access those roads. There can also be no new industries built on the land and in my opinion, they are just in it for the tax pay and money. “Leave it the same, keep it, protect it. We’re gonna use it the right way, that’s what we want.” Says Jonah Yellowman, Navajo Spiritual leader. To me the most just way to balance our energy and economic needs, human and environmental health and protection of sacred land is to just meet in the middle, respect each others beliefs, find peace and overall find a solution that respects beliefs, religions and that meets in the middle, it is really all we as a country can try to do.
Another thing I took away from this project was true justice and how it should be instead of what it is, I also did another Justice monologue on true justice and it is below:
Justice is often seen as fair treatment and fair punishment such as the death penalty for murderers. But,some see it differently. The Dalai Lama challenged this and believes that you must see through compassion in order for people to benefit. A lot of people may see this as injustice or being weak but he says, “It does imply that such a stand should be nonviolent. But nonviolence is not a sign of weakness but rather one with self-confidence and courage.” I agree with what he is saying because it is true, to truly benefit from it you have to be able to have compassion. Without compassion everything would be so violent.
An indication of strength would be maintaining an attitude of calmness and nonviolence. If you pay attention to what is happening in the United States you would know about all the ‘peaceful protests’ that turn violent leading to people getting run over or people burning down businesses; it is violent and unnecessary. Forgiving them is the right thing to do because they were trying to prove something that was important to them and that they are human and we all make mistakes. Dalai Lama also states that the legal system will not serve genuine justice and I think we could all agree that it is true. Not everyone has fair treatment or fair punishment and that just proves that our legal system won’t serve genuine justice- and all we can do is turn it into a lesson for the wrongdoers because like I said, everyone is human and everyone makes mistakes.
For my final project I did a lot of research on Uranium Mining and the Navajo people and I learned a lot while doing this project and how horribly Navajo miners were treated and put it all into an essay and my goal of my final project to bring light to the situation and try and get people to come together to try and prevent something like it from happening again.
Uranium Mining and the Navajo People
Uranium Mining has been a problem for decades and it is an ongoing issue that not a lot of people are recognizing. I want to try and bring awareness to the people that don’t know a lot about Uranium Mining and the Navajo workers. So, here is my attempt to do just that:
Uranium Mining mainly occurred in the Southwestern U.S. and drew in a lot of Native Americans and others to work in the mines and the mills. Navajo miners were not educated nor informed about the hazards of Uranium mining and those hazards include: lung cancer in which they weren’t provided with protective equipment or ventilation, and radioactive contamination which actually killed thousands of miners and their families. A survey of cigarette use by Southwestern Native Americans was done in 1968 which revealed that only 4.4% of male Native Americans smoked more than 1 pack per day while some 33.3% of the male non-Indian population smoke more than 1 pack per day. It was reported by many Navajo miners that their bosses were mainly white men and they didn’t spend as much time in the mines. Eventually, the government provided Navajo people with healthcare and in 1990 U.S. congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) which acknowledges responsibility for the historical mistreatment of uranium miners by the US government and made provision for financial compensation to miners with diseases that could be related to their mining experience. Many miners with illnesses were either denied claims under the state workers’ compensation systems or never filed claims. In the 1950s, the US public health service started a study of uranium miners in the Colorado Plateau, through concerns that the European experience implied that the radon in the US mines would cause lung cancer and the study failed to inform the miners of the risks being studied. Initially the study focused mainly one white miners, but the first full report gave mortality rates for non-white populations. It is actually estimated that 500-600 uranium miners who worked between 1950 to 1990 died of lung cancer and most of these deaths were associated with radon exposure and that a similar number would die after 1990.
“The people were given a choice of two yellow powders. They chose the yellow dust of corn pollen, and were instructed to leave the other yellow powder- uranium- in the soil and never dig it up. If it were taken to the ground, they were told, a great evil would come.” In 1958 there were 7,500 reports of uranium finds in the US with over 7 million tons of ore identified, and the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) announced in 1948 that it would guarantee a price for and purchase all uranium ore that was mined in the US. Over 1,000 uranium mines gouged the earth in the Navajo land, during a 30 year period beginning in the 1950s. By the mids of 1970 there were 380 uranium leases on Native land and only 4 are on public or acquired lands. In the US there is more than 15,000 abandoned uranium mines alone, in South Dakota there are 272 uranium mines in which 169 of them are within a 50 mile radius of Mount Rushmore. The Navajo Nation has 523 abandoned uranium mines. 1 mine is threatening to open on the south rim of the Grand Canyon and a lot of people see it as a natural attraction but it is also ancestral homelands. 75% of uranium are on or near indigenous lands. Uranium is actually still being used for energy and weapons production but primarily energy. They are trying to sell uranium as a “green” alternative energy to fossil fuels.
As you can see there is a lot of health problems caused by uranium mining, and the Navajo Nation is still struggling to address the impact of the abandoned mines on the reservation, as well as the health impacts. At first, Navajo miners weren’t educated on the hazards of mining and risked their lives everyday without knowing. Navajo miners were treated horribly and would have to move their families to mine camps pretty often just so they could see and provide for their families because it was just about the only job available. The government and industry was fully aware of the way uranium mining was impacting the health of workers and their families on the land which the descendants would come to live. It shouldn’t have been that way, Navajo miners shouldn’t have had to risk their lives without knowing it, risking their families lives. It was wrong how it all happened and there is nothing anyone can do to change what happened now, but there is something we can do to prevent something like this from happening again. We could help the Native Americans and the Navajos speak out, point out the wrong that other non-indigenous people can’t see, help them realize how mistreated Indigenous people are. Many Native Americans and Navajos have tried getting workers compensation but were denied. I believe they deserve more than just being provided with health care. Imagine if the uranium mining was flipped and white miners were being neglected and putting not only their life in danger but their families and the government wasn’t doing much about it? No one would like it, so why should it be different with indigenous people?
Project Defense and Reflection
What did you end up doing for your project?
I ended up writing basically an essay about Uranium mining and how Navajos were pretty much neglected.
How did your project reflect your personal philosophy of justice?
My project reflected my personal philosophy of justice because I feel strongly about everyone no matter their race or history, should be treated the same, we all commit crimes and break laws, we all make mistakes, we’re all human beings.
Why was your project a just way to address your issue of injustice? How did it bring about more justice or if you were trying to raise awareness, why were the ideas/arguments/messages you were expressing through your work/writing/art more in line with justice than other ideas?
My project was a just way to address injustice because I just provided information on the issue of uranium mining. I stated how we can come together and help each other prevent something like this from happening again because there is nothing we can do about what happened decades ago.
Did you do sufficient research and background work to pull off your project, take an informed stance or succeed in your endeavors? Explain!
I did do a lot of research to pull off my project, I listened to a podcast and read a lot of articles on uranium mining. I really learned a lot myself with this project and I’m happy I know what I know about Uranium mining.
Your reflection needs to answer the following questions:
I was successful in meeting my goals by completing my paper and having a lot of different information on uranium mining hopefully helping other people understand the injustice of the mining.
In what way were you successful in meeting the goals you established in your proposal? What contributed to your failures? What did you do to try to overcome the obstacles? What should you have done differently?
Procrastination and time management really contributed to my failures at meeting one of my goals which was to create a drawing. I should’ve had better time management to have completed my goals successfully.
To what extent did you SHOW UP for this project? How engaged/committed/involved were you in the work? How much did you strive to create beautiful work worth doing? To what extent were you accountable to yourself and others if relevant?
I was committed to getting a lot of research done but I wasn’t really there to fully commit to my project, which is kind of disappointing to me because I was actually excited to do this project especially with the artwork.
What TWO key lessons did you learn from this project that you can apply to your senior project? Think about how senior project involves choosing a project you’re passionate about that is viable in the time provided, completing multiple steps over the course of a semester, potentially collaborating with other organizations or people, fundraising, spreading the word, and so much more! The Justice Project was like practice for the big game, rehearsal for the broadway show, an appetizer to the 5-course meal!
Two key lessons I learned from this project was to have better time management and to really focus on the project I’m doing rather than waiting to do it a couple days before it is due. I also learned that I get distracted easily and I can get off track easily so I need to take away all the distractions I have for senior project.
There have been a lot of arguments about sacred lands that I didn’t know about until this year. Now, I am not the type of person to keep up with the news or what’s going on in the world around me- I know I should but I don’t enjoy or find any interest in listening to people argue with each other and being negative when there is always a solution to a problem that they can agree on and make some type of peace.
That said, I did find The Bears Ears National Monument debate to be a very interesting debate/argument because San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman believes that the proposal could interfere with tax pay and that is something the government relies on to pay for students to get an education and to pay the teachers that give that education. Lyman is Facing up to a year in jail for leading dozens of ATVers on a protest ride on the Bureau of Land Management land which is off limits to 4-wheelers and says that he didn’t do anything wrong. Lyman also said, “going to jail is not what scares me- living in a country where you can go to jail without having broken any laws is what scares me.” Now I do agree with how he says that we live in a country where we can go to jail without having broken any laws, but obviously we go to jail for something, it isn’t nothing. I also believe that he did break a law: He knew that it was prohibited for 4-wheelers to ride on the land, but he lead the protest ride and in my opinion it is honestly disrespectful to the Navajo Tribes because it is considered sacred land and all of Bears Ears has meaning and to go and ride on the beautiful land making trails that didn’t need to be there is honestly heartbreaking.
Bruce Adams says that the proposal is “just too big,” and that National Monument status can limit public access to certain roads and that the people need to be able to access those roads. There can also be no new industries built on the land and in my opinion, they are just in it for the tax pay and money. “Leave it the same, keep it, protect it. We’re gonna use it the right way, that’s what we want.” Says Jonah Yellowman, Navajo Spiritual leader. To me the most just way to balance our energy and economic needs, human and environmental health and protection of sacred land is to just meet in the middle, respect each others beliefs, find peace and overall find a solution that respects beliefs, religions and that meets in the middle, it is really all we as a country can try to do.
Another thing I took away from this project was true justice and how it should be instead of what it is, I also did another Justice monologue on true justice and it is below:
Justice is often seen as fair treatment and fair punishment such as the death penalty for murderers. But,some see it differently. The Dalai Lama challenged this and believes that you must see through compassion in order for people to benefit. A lot of people may see this as injustice or being weak but he says, “It does imply that such a stand should be nonviolent. But nonviolence is not a sign of weakness but rather one with self-confidence and courage.” I agree with what he is saying because it is true, to truly benefit from it you have to be able to have compassion. Without compassion everything would be so violent.
An indication of strength would be maintaining an attitude of calmness and nonviolence. If you pay attention to what is happening in the United States you would know about all the ‘peaceful protests’ that turn violent leading to people getting run over or people burning down businesses; it is violent and unnecessary. Forgiving them is the right thing to do because they were trying to prove something that was important to them and that they are human and we all make mistakes. Dalai Lama also states that the legal system will not serve genuine justice and I think we could all agree that it is true. Not everyone has fair treatment or fair punishment and that just proves that our legal system won’t serve genuine justice- and all we can do is turn it into a lesson for the wrongdoers because like I said, everyone is human and everyone makes mistakes.
For my final project I did a lot of research on Uranium Mining and the Navajo people and I learned a lot while doing this project and how horribly Navajo miners were treated and put it all into an essay and my goal of my final project to bring light to the situation and try and get people to come together to try and prevent something like it from happening again.
Uranium Mining and the Navajo People
Uranium Mining has been a problem for decades and it is an ongoing issue that not a lot of people are recognizing. I want to try and bring awareness to the people that don’t know a lot about Uranium Mining and the Navajo workers. So, here is my attempt to do just that:
Uranium Mining mainly occurred in the Southwestern U.S. and drew in a lot of Native Americans and others to work in the mines and the mills. Navajo miners were not educated nor informed about the hazards of Uranium mining and those hazards include: lung cancer in which they weren’t provided with protective equipment or ventilation, and radioactive contamination which actually killed thousands of miners and their families. A survey of cigarette use by Southwestern Native Americans was done in 1968 which revealed that only 4.4% of male Native Americans smoked more than 1 pack per day while some 33.3% of the male non-Indian population smoke more than 1 pack per day. It was reported by many Navajo miners that their bosses were mainly white men and they didn’t spend as much time in the mines. Eventually, the government provided Navajo people with healthcare and in 1990 U.S. congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) which acknowledges responsibility for the historical mistreatment of uranium miners by the US government and made provision for financial compensation to miners with diseases that could be related to their mining experience. Many miners with illnesses were either denied claims under the state workers’ compensation systems or never filed claims. In the 1950s, the US public health service started a study of uranium miners in the Colorado Plateau, through concerns that the European experience implied that the radon in the US mines would cause lung cancer and the study failed to inform the miners of the risks being studied. Initially the study focused mainly one white miners, but the first full report gave mortality rates for non-white populations. It is actually estimated that 500-600 uranium miners who worked between 1950 to 1990 died of lung cancer and most of these deaths were associated with radon exposure and that a similar number would die after 1990.
“The people were given a choice of two yellow powders. They chose the yellow dust of corn pollen, and were instructed to leave the other yellow powder- uranium- in the soil and never dig it up. If it were taken to the ground, they were told, a great evil would come.” In 1958 there were 7,500 reports of uranium finds in the US with over 7 million tons of ore identified, and the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) announced in 1948 that it would guarantee a price for and purchase all uranium ore that was mined in the US. Over 1,000 uranium mines gouged the earth in the Navajo land, during a 30 year period beginning in the 1950s. By the mids of 1970 there were 380 uranium leases on Native land and only 4 are on public or acquired lands. In the US there is more than 15,000 abandoned uranium mines alone, in South Dakota there are 272 uranium mines in which 169 of them are within a 50 mile radius of Mount Rushmore. The Navajo Nation has 523 abandoned uranium mines. 1 mine is threatening to open on the south rim of the Grand Canyon and a lot of people see it as a natural attraction but it is also ancestral homelands. 75% of uranium are on or near indigenous lands. Uranium is actually still being used for energy and weapons production but primarily energy. They are trying to sell uranium as a “green” alternative energy to fossil fuels.
As you can see there is a lot of health problems caused by uranium mining, and the Navajo Nation is still struggling to address the impact of the abandoned mines on the reservation, as well as the health impacts. At first, Navajo miners weren’t educated on the hazards of mining and risked their lives everyday without knowing. Navajo miners were treated horribly and would have to move their families to mine camps pretty often just so they could see and provide for their families because it was just about the only job available. The government and industry was fully aware of the way uranium mining was impacting the health of workers and their families on the land which the descendants would come to live. It shouldn’t have been that way, Navajo miners shouldn’t have had to risk their lives without knowing it, risking their families lives. It was wrong how it all happened and there is nothing anyone can do to change what happened now, but there is something we can do to prevent something like this from happening again. We could help the Native Americans and the Navajos speak out, point out the wrong that other non-indigenous people can’t see, help them realize how mistreated Indigenous people are. Many Native Americans and Navajos have tried getting workers compensation but were denied. I believe they deserve more than just being provided with health care. Imagine if the uranium mining was flipped and white miners were being neglected and putting not only their life in danger but their families and the government wasn’t doing much about it? No one would like it, so why should it be different with indigenous people?
Project Defense and Reflection
What did you end up doing for your project?
I ended up writing basically an essay about Uranium mining and how Navajos were pretty much neglected.
How did your project reflect your personal philosophy of justice?
My project reflected my personal philosophy of justice because I feel strongly about everyone no matter their race or history, should be treated the same, we all commit crimes and break laws, we all make mistakes, we’re all human beings.
Why was your project a just way to address your issue of injustice? How did it bring about more justice or if you were trying to raise awareness, why were the ideas/arguments/messages you were expressing through your work/writing/art more in line with justice than other ideas?
My project was a just way to address injustice because I just provided information on the issue of uranium mining. I stated how we can come together and help each other prevent something like this from happening again because there is nothing we can do about what happened decades ago.
Did you do sufficient research and background work to pull off your project, take an informed stance or succeed in your endeavors? Explain!
I did do a lot of research to pull off my project, I listened to a podcast and read a lot of articles on uranium mining. I really learned a lot myself with this project and I’m happy I know what I know about Uranium mining.
Your reflection needs to answer the following questions:
I was successful in meeting my goals by completing my paper and having a lot of different information on uranium mining hopefully helping other people understand the injustice of the mining.
In what way were you successful in meeting the goals you established in your proposal? What contributed to your failures? What did you do to try to overcome the obstacles? What should you have done differently?
Procrastination and time management really contributed to my failures at meeting one of my goals which was to create a drawing. I should’ve had better time management to have completed my goals successfully.
To what extent did you SHOW UP for this project? How engaged/committed/involved were you in the work? How much did you strive to create beautiful work worth doing? To what extent were you accountable to yourself and others if relevant?
I was committed to getting a lot of research done but I wasn’t really there to fully commit to my project, which is kind of disappointing to me because I was actually excited to do this project especially with the artwork.
What TWO key lessons did you learn from this project that you can apply to your senior project? Think about how senior project involves choosing a project you’re passionate about that is viable in the time provided, completing multiple steps over the course of a semester, potentially collaborating with other organizations or people, fundraising, spreading the word, and so much more! The Justice Project was like practice for the big game, rehearsal for the broadway show, an appetizer to the 5-course meal!
Two key lessons I learned from this project was to have better time management and to really focus on the project I’m doing rather than waiting to do it a couple days before it is due. I also learned that I get distracted easily and I can get off track easily so I need to take away all the distractions I have for senior project.