Yolanda Fraser is back near a ragged chain-link fence, blinking through tears as she tidies up flowers and ribbons and a pinwheel twirls in the breeze at a makeshift roadside memorial in a small Montana town.
This is where the badly decomposed body of her granddaughter Kaysera Stops Pretty Places was found a few days after the 18-year-old went missing from a Native American reservation border town.
Four years later, there are still no answers about how the Native American teenager was killed. No named suspects. No arrests.
Fraser’s grief is a common tale among Native Americans whose loved ones went missing, and she’s turned her fight for justice into a leading role with other families working to highlight missing and slain Indigenous peoples’ cases across the U.S. Despite some early success from a new U.S. government program aimed at the problem, most cases remain unsolved and federal officials have closed more than 300 potential cases due to jurisdictional conflicts and other issues.
What amazes me is not the injustices done to indigenous Americans in the 19th century. I’m not excusing it, I’m just not surprised with the bullshit idea of manifest destiny. What amazes me is that it’s still fucking happening.
Also, apropos of nothing Kaysera Stops Pretty Places is a terrific name.
What’s so surprising about it? There’s no accountability in this country. All the broken treaties/promises and the lack of care from the white majority. Americans won’t do anything to rectify the shit they’ve done even if it’s a minor inconvenience to the majority.
Wind River is a good movie that deals exactly with this kind of situation.
It’s one of those really good movies you never want to watch again.
