Resistance and Decolonizing

The Taínos Refused to Grow Food. 

The Spanish Starved. Rebellion against invasion triggered a series of events that would take a “swift and violent toll” on a Caribbean island’s native biodiversity.

This act of rebellion, writes environmental historian Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, “stemmed from the native population’s recognition of their control over the food supply.” She dubs it “the New World’s first food fight.”

The colonists were desperate for food. But, lacking knowledge and fearful of the untamed forests, they were unable to take advantage of the island’s native vegetation. (“It is a sad fate to die slowly from hunger within a few minutes’ walk from a seemingly endless supply of mangoes, papayas or avocados,” laments Paravisini-Gebert.)

To compensate, “the besieged conquerors resorted to eating everything in sight, with dire consequences for some species of fauna—and themselves,” Paravisini-Gebert writes. This first food crisis set several species on the path to extinction, including the Taínos’ mute hunting dogs and several endemic species of rodent. The colonists were so desperate that they even ate lizards, salamanders, and snakes.

Decolonizing in body, heart and mind. (CEPA)

CEPA is a project that designs and facilitates encounters rooted in practices to heal accumulated trauma from our being. It’s part of a movement of people working to transform their relationships and everyday life to co-create freedom, centering all marginalized peoples especially Puerto Rican women, gender nonconforming, trans, queer folx. To manifest a just future, we honor the wisdom of the earth and of our ancestors as we work to heal.

Decolonization for us is a process that begins as a personal questioning of one’s conditioning (what we value, how we learn) and ends with the autonomy of our lands. Our body is the first territory we can decolonize.Decolonization is:°A practice of remembering who we are, and of listening to and strengthening our intuition and our internal knowing.°Decolonization is not a metaphor. It is an undoing that has physical, psychological,social and cultural dimensions and they operate simultaneously and continuously.Decolonization is something we must practice. It is a series of actions: questioning,investigating, unlearning, practicing and sustaining. It requires a cultural shift in our collective conditions; and only we can manifest it together.°It creates the conditions where we are all guardians of the earth: it is a practice of recognizing, validating and expressing gratitude to the earth and other non-human beings that live on the planet with us.°We have witnessed the massive sale of Boriken that urges us to reclaim lands as away to allow us to return, remain and live a dignified life.

"Mascots don't offend me" (But they should!)

By Claudia A. Fox Tree

Sketch by Claudia A. Fox Tree

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. ~Frederick Douglass

Not all opinions are created equal, nor should they be. There were "opinions" that women shouldn't have the right to vote, own property, inherit land, work, marry while being a teacher, get custody of children in a divorce, get a divorce, etc. These "opinions" were institutionalized as laws and cultural codes/ rules. I think we can agree that opinions like "women should NOT have rights" and "women SHOULD have rights" are not equal in weight. Why can't "Mascots don't offend me" be seen as not relevant to the conversation of historical oppression when folks are seeking equity and justice?

The opinion that "slavery should not end" does not have the same weight as "slavery should end." These are issues of human rights. Why can't "Mascots don't offend me" be seen as not relevant to the conversation of seeing humanity in others, and as not seeing people as a stereotype or object?

Opinions that the Earth is flat versus round don't carry equal weight because one has science to back it up. There is sociological and psychological research showing the damage of stereotyping for EVERYONE, not just the group being stereotyped. Why can't "Mascots don't offend me" be seen as the stereotype also affecting your own humanity and community?

This isn't an "in my opinion, broccoli is better than carrots argument" which really is YOUR personal opinion. This is about systemic, historical, and institutionalized unfairness couched as "opinion." Why can't "Mascots don't offend me" be seen as not relevant to you, personally, but relevant to the public display denigrating a group of people, most frequently without adequate counter narratives?

Most people don't think "white• folks" are all like the Simpsons or Family Guy because they can see that those shows are the exception and there are many, many examples of white families for comparison. In institutions, like schools, legal settings/ laws, publishing houses/ books, and movies, reflect back successful people, so there is never a question of having comparison role models and images for white people. That is not the case for Indigenous people and other people of color, and their families, culture, and history. Why can't "Mascots don't offend me" be seen as an irrelevant  comment, since it is essential that stereotypes be removed, especially in the absence of positive images and history?

Opinions that "I've never seen racism" are not evidence for racism not existing. If someone says, "I've never had a house fire, therefore they don't exist" we would all see that statement as ridiculous. Why can't "Mascots don't offend me" be seen as not relevant to the conversation because it is just as ridiculous to enter a debate with someone who believes it doesn't exist because it doesn't impact them, even though it clearly has affected others.

It is just as important for non-targeted people (those not represented in mascots, statues, images, etc) to eliminate stereotypes. Aren't they allies? Besides co-creating a healthy community, these images create implicit bias by associating "Native Americans" with "warlike characteristics, etc." In the absence of accurate information, those biases become the only association and then emerge and affect decisions like who to hire, fire, give raises, find guilty in court, include in school curriculum, etc. Why can't "Mascots don't offend me" be seen as a way to maintain a status quo, reminding everyone of who is in power, and putting Indigenous people in their place? "Mascots" are part of preserving a racist history and not part of creating an equitable community.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. ~Frederick Douglass

* I use the word "white" in conversations about race for several reasons, including that signs and laws said "Whites Only." This is a conversation about racism, so that's the word to use. Racism, as defined by David Wellman, is "a system of advantage based on race." System means not individual acts of meanness and prejudice, but institutions and cultural rules.

Long Hair

Long hair has a long tradition among many Native American Nations. This song, Indian Drums, speaks to ways NA's have been forced to conform, including hair cutting.

Here is a story about the "6th sense" that long hair provides backed up by U.S. Military experiments.
Hair is an extension of the nervous system, it can be correctly seen as exteriorized nerves, a type of highly evolved ‘feelers’ or ‘antennae’ that transmit vast amounts of important information to the brain stem, the limbic system, and the neocortex.
Not only does hair in people, including facial hair in men, provide an information highway reaching the brain, hair also emits energy, the electromagnetic energy emitted by the brain into the outer environment. This has been seen in Kirlian photography when a person is photographed with long hair and then rephotographed after the hair is cut.
When hair is cut, receiving and sending transmissions to and from the environment are greatly hampered. This results in numbing-out .

Significance of long hair here
http://www.whitewolfpack.com/2013/08/elders-talk-about-significance-of-long.html

Here is a story from among a nonNative community.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/jt-gaskins-cancer-survivo_n_1241873.html
A boy who is a cancer survivor is growing his hair to donate to Lock for Love.  He was suspended for three days because it is against school policy.

Here is the story again
http://www.sott.net/article/234783-The-Truth-About-Hair-and-Why-Indians-Would-Keep-Their-Hair-Long

More about research from Vietnam
http://www.realfarmacy.com/the-truth-about-long-hair/

"Why is his hair so long?"
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-canvasser/why-is-his-hair-so-long_b_5195341.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063
Not about Native people, specifically, but very important thinking about hair.

The New Book (Where I Contributed a Chapter on Native Americans)

I write during the summer or other available times. I've had poetry (3 poems in process right now) and articles for magazines published, but this is my first book chapter. Actually, I wrote it about 5 years ago, when my life with kids was not so busy with 5 teenagers, and it took this long to get to print! I received the proofs in March (a very exciting moment!). This book will be a college text book that costs about $183 (no surprise there!).  UPDATE:  Now out in paperback for $36.00 here.

The book is called Covert Racism: Theories, Institutions, and Experiences (Studies in Critical Social Sciences) and my chapter is "Aren't They All Dead: Passive Racism Against Native Americans." I use school examples mixed in with other stories to explain the issues.

Day of Mourning (a.k.a. Thanksgiving)

At noon on every Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth, MA, Coles Hill transforms into a place to remember the oppression of Native People (National Day of Mourning) and the many other cultural groups which continue to be oppressed around the world, while also honoring the Native culture with tradition and ceremony. A statue of Massasoit stands atop the hill.
















It is also a day to dedicated to Leonard Peltier. Post Office Square is a stop on the protest march, as it is where another fighter for NA rights, Metacom (aka King Phillip), son of Massasoit, had his head posted on a stake for twenty years.

The protest march led to arrests a few years ago. A plaque now explains the day. This is one of the results of the court case filed against the town on behalf of Native Americans.

(Anti-) Thanksgiving Sites & Links

I use many of these articles (and some books) to present multiple viewpoints on November as Native American Heritage Month, the origins of the Thanksgiving holiday and the myths surrounding it, the Native perspective, and general background details often missing from the conversation.

The official presidential proclamation for National American Indian Heritage Month
The Truth about Thanksgiving
The Story of Thanksgiving
James Loewen's First Thanksgiving Analysis
Fact or Myth?
Investigating the First Thanksgiving
A Native American View of Thanksgiving: Hope and the Hidden Heart of Evil
Thanksgiving Day Myths
Are You Teaching the Real story of the “First Thanksgiving”?
Mistakes, Lies, Misconceptions About American Indian People: The Thanksgiving Myth
The often quoted article in the Christian Science Monitor – The First Thanksgiving
Teaching About Thanksgiving - Debunking a Lesson Plan
General Thanksgiving Links

Published on Sunday, November 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
How I Stopped Hating Thanksgiving and Learned to Be Afraid by Robert Jensen, 2009
Why We Shouldn't Celebrate Thanksgiving by Robert Jensen, 2007
No Thanks to Thanksgiving by Robert Jensen, 2005
Rethinking Thanksgiving from Rethinking Schools
First Genocide, Then Lie About It. Why I Hate Thanksgiving by Mitchel Cohen from Radical ProFeminist
To Thank or Not to Thank

Columbus Video Clips

Video Clip Compilation
Columbus Day - Sanitized

500 Nations - A Class of Cultures (NOTE:  WE ARE NOT EXTINCT!)

Traditional Columbus Tale below:

Reconsider Columbus Day. I know people in this video. They are my family and friends.

The Canary Effect

This is a clip from the award winning documentary, The Canary Effect. It has actual quotes from the journals of Columbus (as transcribed by Bartolome de las Casas), images of the wood block prints which were used in propaganda, and includes an interview with Ward Churchill.
 

Kolumbus Day in Amerika

This clip has the wood prints, electronic music and voice narration, and brings the atrocities begun by Columbus up to modern day. It does have swear words.

Columbus: Continuation of a Genocidal Legacy

This is really intense, and yet so true. Here are statistics on Native American genocide as compared with other "mass exterminations." The video is set to heavy metal music, and then transitions into "Für Elise" as it posts quotes from the journal of Columbus and flashes those wood block prints. This is one okay to use with kids in terms of language, but obviously the content is difficult.

Ganjaman Columbus

This is "auf Deutsch" (that is, it's in German) and has a reggae beat, neither of which detract from the message. Uses explicit language and not for the faint of heart.