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Posts tagged colonialism
The way colonial America is referred to as “the new world” even today is an example of the erasure of thousands of years of pre-colonial history and culture that existed here. It is another way they try to make us invisible by starting American History only when Europeans arrived.
861 notes (via analogbrain & karonhiake)
The first immigrants to Europe arrived thousands of years ago from central Asia. Most pre-contact Europeans lived together in small villages. Because the continent was very crowded, their lives were ruled by strict hierarchies within the family and outside it to control resources. Europe was highly multi-ethnic, and most tribes were ruled by hereditary leaders who commanded the majority “commoners.” These groups were engaged in near constant warfare.
Pre-contact Europeans wore clothing made of natural materials such as animal skin and plant and animal-based textiles. Women wore long dresses and covered their hair, and men wore tunics and leggings. Both men and women liked to wear jewelry made from precious stones and metals as a sign of status. Before contact, Europeans had very poor diets. Most people were farmers and grew wheat and vegetables and raised cows and sheep to eat. They rarely washed themselves, and had many diseases because they often let their animals live with them. Religion infused every part of Europeans’ lives.
Europeans believed in one supreme deity, a father figure, who they believed was made of three parts, and they particularly worshiped the deity’s son. They claimed that their god had given humans domination over the earth. They built elaborate temples to him and performed ceremonies in which they ate crackers and drank wine and believed it was the body and blood of their god, who would provide them with entrance into a wondrous afterlife called heaven when they died. Many wars were fought over disagreements about the details of this religion, each group believing their interpretation was the right one that should be spread across the land.
Now imagine that is part of a textbook that has entire chapters on the Mississippian polities of the 1200s and a detailed account of the diplomatic situation of the southeastern provinces in the 1400s and 1500s, an enormous section that goes through the history of the rise of the Triple Alliance in Mexico and goes through the rule of each tlatoani and their policies, the heritage of Teotihuacan and its legacy in later Mesoamerican politics, elaborate descriptions of the trade routes that connected and drove various nations in North America. Long explanations of the rise of various religious movements such as the calumet ceremony and Midewiwin, and how they affected political agendas and artistic trends. Pages and pages and pages going through the past thousand years of American history century by century.
And these three paragraphs are the only mention of European history before the year 1500.
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Before they came out the caves, we were already the masters of science, mathematics, writing and culture. #wisdom #timbuktu #mali #ghana #africa #blackexcellence #knowthyself
it would be helpful if there were some links to news reports and perhaps pdfs or translations or something but here:I was taught just last term in my Archaeology class that Africans had no written documents.
Fall 2012, folks.
yep.
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colonialism is knowing that your ancestors died so that you could be here but knowing none of their names, or the words that died with them.
1,395 notes (via glockgal & scarlettsexual)
D.I.Y & LOCALLY MADE FOOD: What the hipsters din’t tell you
I got this patches from 1384 screenprinting at the last anarchist book fair in Los Angeles right after a horrible white fucking person yelled at a beautiful brown mama for selling chicken at the gathering. The horrible person, skin waste and excess population was so fucking violent towards the brown lady that her gorgeous chubby lil brown kid felt embarrassed and was telling her mama they should go home. This pisses me off A LOT, pero for reals whats up with the amnesia? Who the fuck are the people that create the most waste and use up the most resources in the world? Who da fuck is related to the people that own Monsanto and all that horrible shit? Who da FUCK are the people that colonized, rape and took over land and COLONIZE indigenous foods?GUESS! So yeah amnesia pisses me off.
Como si fueramos nosotrxs who made up the horrible meat industry, como se fueramos nosotrxs who own those fuking meat businesses. como si nosotrxs no supieramos lo que es comer real food. Fuk that shit! Our muxeres are the reason why this world still revolves, they are the ones that use plastic containers for pots, to pack lunch, to store their money, to keep their legumes….they are the ones that cross seeds from one country to another, LAS SEMILLAS NO TIENEN BARRERAS EUROPEAS. Our muxeres are the ones that make sure that the food is eaten to its last bite. Our muxeres are the ones that plant flowers and make homes and entire neighborhoods beautiful full with plants that attract colibris and birds and all that magical shit.
The lady selling the pupusas, tamales, tacos in the corner WITHOUT fucking permits, maybe without fucking papers are THE REAL FUCKING REVOLUTIONARIES, FUCKING RADICAL ASS BEEZHIES.
We are hella DIY, some of our people don’t even need dishes cause they wrap their food with leaves. Some of our people don’t even need to buy dipers cause they use those 100% cotton panales to re-use and re-use. Some of our mamas used reusable fucking pads before being an eco-feminist was “in”. Some of our people had almost ZERO negative effects on mother earth cause they lived up in las montanas y en el rancho. Some of our people eat meat in minimal quantities, and guess WHAT some of our people still kill their own food. Some of our people have never had cars pero have hella tight nice walking/running legs. GUESS WHAT ELSE! The colonial food system, that McShit, Wendy BS, Burger Caca ALL that white trash food that is killing our people and creating an epidemia of diabetes WAS NOT CREATED BY OUR PEOPLE. My people drink fucking REAL fruit juice with honey, bitch.
So yeah let’s eat local! Let’s pick fruits from the trees in our neighborhood, let’s support our local corner muxeres huslting, let’s TIP our muxeres. Let’s honor the REAL DIY queenz that make trash into magical useful things. Let’s honor our muxeres that use the little money they make in this patriarchal racist system to fill their children tummies with ancestral beans, corn, potatoes and all that beautiful foods that are truly BROWN and from this continent.
DECOLONIZE VEGAN, DECOLONIZE LOCALLY MADE FOODS, DECOLONIZE D.I.Y, DECOLONIZE EVERYTHING!
If you are into vintage bags check out my grrl ARTE CON ALMA!
2,612 notes (via dickensian-werewolf & lalobalocaart)
TRANSCRIPT.
(Freshly typed. I’m not a professional, but I think I caught everything. Um… no idea how to parse the sentence, but whatever.)
Woman: Uh, everything about our nation and god and everything.
Man: Uh, huh.
Woman: I just want to know, how much do you love your country?
Man: What is your nationality?
Woman: I’m confused.
Man: About your heritage.
Woman: so what is my nationality, what colour are all y’all?
Man: Alright. Let me explain. Let me help you out. Let me help you understand.
Woman: defend it, I love all of you.
Man: At one time, Jewish people lived in Germany, you understand that right ?
Woman: I’m German as well.
Man: I know, that is why I asked you what is your nationality. At one time Jewish people lived in Germany, didn’t they?
Woman: Did they?
Man: And during WW1 they fought for Germany, they loved Germany. Until one day Adolf Hitler begins to exterminate them and then they turned on their country and went for a land of their own.
Well, this is what you have to understand: we have served this stinking country. There is nobody more patriotic than Black people. We are the people that die in your wars, build your cities, and raise your children and bleed in your all of your wars and reap none of the benefits.
There is nobody more patriotic than us. There is nobody that served America more than us, until one day we found out that this is the land of our oppressor, this is not our homeland. So we decided to go found our own land. So we decided to go find the land of our ancestors, just like the Jewish people did in Germany.
Know what the, the problem with white people is? You don’t respect anybody’s humanity except for your own. You don’t respect anybody’s pain, except for your own.
You expect Jewish people to hate Hitler and hate the Nazis, but you can’t understand why we should hate you. You can’t understand that because you’re not human. And you’re cruel. And you’re selfish. And if you had any love and compassion in your heart, you would know how much you deserve to be hated. If you had any love in your heart.
You white people are merciless. And you hate to look at anybody as a human being.
How dare you ask us: “have you loved America?”!? [background woman crying, ‘you’re horrible’] We have loved you for forever. And you have always hated us.
We have loved you consistently for 400 hundred years. We prayed to that white Jesus. And we saluted your flags. And we died in your militaries. And you beat us like dogs.
How dare you ask us, “Have we loved you?”!?
I have a question for you. When in the hell have you loved anybody but yourself? [woman crying and pointing, saying ‘you’re horrible’]
Give me Ezekial 35 (? Not sure what is said here)
I’m looking at you square in your eyes and tell you this:
That you are completely cruel. And you know why your heart is broke? Because I’m telling you the truth for the first time in your life.
Your whole life you thought that you’ve been compassionate and caring, but meanwhile, you know what you are? Just another white girl standing on stolen ground, [background, ‘what? what?’] reaping the benefits of bloody fathers.
Woman: You’re horrible.
Man: That is what you are. Even though you think you’re so liberal and so kind. All you are is another child benefiting off the murder of your father. That is who you reall are. And you should face it. And you should fall on your knees and beg repentance, for your evil, cruel, corrupt selfish life. That you’ve lived here on the bones of the North American Indian, on the bones of the slaves, on the bones of the Puerto Ricans, on the bones of the Mexicans, on the bones of all the poor people. That your father murdered so that you could go to college. And so that you could get drunk and high, and have a good time.
Your father had to murder for that privilege. You understand that, don’t you? Your father had to kill. Your grandfather had to steal. So that you could live like Pamela Anderson [background woman crying, ‘you’re horrible’] in America.
Give me Ezekial 45. That is the truth. I’m sorry. I’m showing you love! That’s love. I’m telling you the truth. Ain’t that real love?
[Woman sobbing. Cuts to music video]/end transcript
someone was asking for a transciption again…
Still relevant
note that her reaction to his words is to yell and cry that he is horrible
she’s not crying because he’s talking about the pain of PoC in this country
and the atrocities and lives destroyed and lost
she’s crying for herself
typical
I think she’s also flipped that them white girl tears didn’t get not a blink.
I love this video. He’s preaching but she ain’t getting the word.
Yeah, but he’s not talking for her because he knows his message no matter how he delivers it will never penetrate. He’s talking for the bystanders listening. Most of the time, that’s who you’re really talking for. He’s only talking to her to 1) teach the bystanders if they’re open and 2) to let her know that not all Black folks are swallowing her stale, cliched bullshit and in fact, see right through her ass.
This is so fucking real. Gave me chills.
(Source: icaruscalling)
2,216 notes (via glitterlion & icaruscalling)
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe invites relatives to testify about children lost to South Dakota’s foster care system! Sat Apr 20, Grand River Casino, Mobridge, SD, 9-5 PM OR Fri Apr 26, Prairie Knights Casino, Fort Yates, ND, 5-9PM. Lunch served! For ride call 701-854-3095. Also please sign our petition to Congress!http://lakota.cc/XkHLCA
46 notes (via lakotapeopleslawproject)
The Ugly Side of the Adoption Industry - ICTMN.com
On Tuesday the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case ofAdoptive Couple v. Baby Girl. The facts of the case are straightforward: A South Carolina couple is seeking to force Dusten Brown, an Iraq war veteran and member of the Cherokee Tribe, to give his daughter Veronica up for adoption. Brown, who is now raising Veronica at his home in Oklahoma, has prevailed so far in every court that has considered this matter, including after a full, four-day trial by the South Carolina Family Court and in a decision by the South Carolina Supreme Court.
Poke beneath the basic facts, though, and you will find the ugly underbelly of the American adoption business. All across this country—but especially in states that are home to multiple Native American Tribes—unethical adoption attorneys are purposely circumventing the federal law that is meant to protect Native American children. Even worse are the continuing attempts by some adoption lawyers to take advantage of active duty service members in the process of being deployed to combat, or in active deployments.
Brown’s case is a sad example of both of these disturbing trends. At its very heart, this case is about a father’s deep desire to raise his daughter, named Veronica. Veronica’s mother and Brown were engaged when she was conceived, but her mother broke off the engagement while Brown was serving in the Army and stationed at Fort Sill, Okla. Unbeknownst to Brown, his fiancé began the process of placing her child up for adoption.
In the final months of pregnancy, the mother cut off all communication with Brown and worked closely with an agency and attorney to place the child with a non-Indian couple from South Carolina, the Capobiancos. Brown was not informed of Veronica’s birth on September 15, 2009. Instead, Veronica was placed with the Capobiancos three days after her birth in Oklahoma, and they relocated her to South Carolina shortly thereafter.
Four months later, the day before Brown’s scheduled deployment to Iraq, the couple’s lawyer (who was also the lawyer for the adoption agency) finally served Brown with notice of their intent to adopt Veronica. The notice was served to Brown in the parking lot of a mall.
Immediately, Brown went to court to request a stay of the adoption until after his deployment (which, because of his military status, is provided for by federal law). He also began the legal steps to establish paternity and gain custody. He was then deployed to Iraq. Because the Capobiancos waited until just days before Brown was deployed, the adoption hearing was not completed until he returned home.
At this hearing, the South Carolina Family Court denied the Capobiancos’ petition to adopt and ordered Veronica’s transfer to her father. The court found that federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) applied in this case, that Brown had acknowledged and established paternity, and that an exception to ICWA called the “Existing Indian Family Exception” (EIFE) was inapplicable. Most decisively, it found that Brown had not voluntarily consented to the termination of his parental rights or the adoption.
The Capobiancos appealed to the South Carolina Court of Appeals to stay the transfer of custody, where they lost. They then appealed to the South Carolina Supreme Court, which upheld the family court’s decision. Last October, they asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. In early January, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted review.
The tragedy of this case is the failure of some of the adoption lawyers involved in that process - failures that have caused great heartache for all of the families involved. Had the adoption lawyers done their jobs from the start, the child would never have left Oklahoma.
The adoption lawyers knew from the outset that the father was Native American and that, once he learned of their plans, he intended to fight them to be able to raise his daughter. The adoption lawyers also knew from the start that ICWA would protect the rights of the father and the child.
Nonetheless, the lawyers forged ahead, ignoring the law, providing inaccurate information to Oklahoma authorities, and removing the child from the Cherokee Nation prematurely.
Brown’s cause is supported in briefs filed with the Supreme Court by U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli on behalf of the United States of America, 19 state attorneys general, current and former members of Congress, and a wide array of other groups. Many of the briefs highlight the findings of the South Carolina Family Court, which found that “the birth father is a fit and proper person to have custody of his child” who “has convinced [the Court] of his unwavering love for this child”; these findings upheld by the South Carolina Supreme Court.
Unfortunately, though, Brown’s case is not unique, and other fathers in his position—particularly those serving in the military—are not able to battle the adoption system in the way he has. It is time for the Congress to hold hearings and expose for all to see the tactics of lawyers who are continuing to evade the federal law designed to protect Native American families.
The co-authors are the executive directors of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), and the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA). The Tribal Supreme Court Project, a collaboration between NCAI and NARF, monitors litigation in which Native people have a significant stake and coordinates strategy among a network of over 250 tribal leaders, attorneys, and law professors.
John Echohawk, Executive Director, Native American Rights Fund (NARF); Jacqueline Pata, Executive Director, National Congress of American Indians (NCAI); and Terry Cross, Executive Director, National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA).This op-ed also appears in Politico.
The sole albeit major problem with this piece is that it propagates the notion that such ethnocidal corruption and tragic mishandling constitute the “seedy underbelly” and “ugly side” of adoption.
Nope. There has never, ever, ever been a “beautiful” side to the adoption industry.
It’s not enough to say Brown’s case is “not unique.” Shit’s been rotten from top to bottom even before us “orphans” got to be in critically short supply.
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Now imagine you’re an “objective” racist white scientist who decides to give a group of black men a STI and, instead of treating them for it, watch them slowly suffer from it so you can study it FOR SCIENCE.
Now imagine you’re the white supremacist sexist medical establishment that denies women the right to get their tubes tied unless they already have loads of kids and require them to get their husband’s permission while at the same time forcibly sterilising legions of native and black women.
Now imagine you’re an “objective” racist psychologist who decides that slaves wanting to escape is a psychological disorder called “drapetomania” and the “cure” for that is lashings and cutting off toes.
Now imagine that you’re the “objective” and “scientific” medical establishment that deems queerness a disorder and decides that electroshock treatments or lobotomies are the effective solution or feels the need to “intervene” by surgically altering the bodies of intersex infants to fit your perceptions of what genitalia should look like.
Religion has done a lot of fucked up shit. But I’m sick and tired of people acting like SCIENCE hasn’t been involved in wars, death, and genocide either. And it’s the assumptive bullshit notion that ALL religions are somehow stupid and not worth your consideration that perpetuates this colonialist bullshit approach that white people have now upon Native and other individuals when tribes fight for the right to their sacred lands of, “Oh you’re religion is just hooey!”
First they “civilised” us with religion and now it’s science and repatriation. Stealing native lands and native artefacts and native bodies FOR SCIENCE so you can profit off of them.
If you’re going to lay in on the death religion causes, IMO you better realise that there’s a difference between the bastion of white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy that is modern Christianity and other religions which have little in the way of social power in comparison. AND you better recognise that science can be just another extention of white supremacist cisheteropartiarchy too and FURTHER the goals of that power structure rather than being as “objective” as they claim and countering it.
Haha. Imagine that.
Also, Ricky Gervais is a jerk.
May I add to this the cephalic index and institutionalized, eugenicist programs wherein orphaned and homeless children constitute “threat to mankind.”
6,656 notes (via glitterlion & onlytruthmatters)
![bossymarmalade:
phenomenon-intervention:
nastyshitwhitepeopleeat:
Homemade SPAM
Only a white person would make homemade artisanal SPAM
The End of SPAM Shame: On Class, Colonialism, and Canned Meat (Sylvie Kim, Hyphen)
In 2010’s Asian American/Asian Research Institute (AAARI) Summer Series, Robert Ji-song Ku, Visiting Professor in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at SUNY Binghamton and self-professed lover of Spam, spoke of the meat and other foodstuffs in the context of his manuscript Dubious Gastronomy: The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA.
“Due to their long entangled history with the US military, these two places [South Korea and Hawaii] along with Guam lead the world in per capita consumption of the pink gelatinous pork. Immediately following World War II, the American GIs stationed in Asia and the Pacific curried favor with the impoverished natives by handing out such luxuries as chocolate, cigarettes and Spam which as part of the US Army’s monotonous C-Ration was an object of scorn and mockery by most of the rank and file. Here in the US, Spam is widely regarded as vulgar, farcical and an affront to the very idea of real or whole food. To millions of devotees in and across the Pacific Ocean however, Spam is not only an essential part of the local indigenous cuisine, but a luxury commodity as well.”
I didn’t know it then, and perhaps it would have been futile to try to explain it to my peers, but my Spam consumption was largely the result of American military and political expansion abroad. I grew to love a food that was championed as a symbol of American ingenuity despite being denigrated by Americans themselves. I eat Spam and am judged for eating Spam because of America. Both Asian Pacific Americans and Spam were the butt of a cruel joke: Please value what we deem subpar and make us money in the process. It’s a terribly heavy load of symbolism to place on a pink block of meat.
SPAM is a perfect example of food that white people created, doled out to POC, looked down upon us for embracing, and now, apparently, are reclaiming as “hipster fare.” It’s all come full circle.
Yes, exactly this — Trinidad and Tobago was a stop for the US Military as well. My dad says when he was a kid, him and his friends used to go where the US soldiers were stationed and hope that the soldiers would throw down gum and sandwiches and things for them.
The soldiers also brought with them tinned luncheon meat like Spam, vienna sausages, and corned beef. And long after they left the islands, we kept on eating those things, and let me tell you something: the way we cook them is fucking tasty. Spam in Hawai’ian plate lunches or musubi is delicious. Spam and fried egg sandwiches from Hong Kong Chinese places are amazing. Curried corned beef and tomatoes on rice is unbelievably good.
Eating the food of the Other “ironically” in that fevered hipster fetishistic way is not cute or kooky (see: ramen). Seeking out the cheaper meats that chromatic people have been cooking up in gorgeously mouthwatering ways for years and then in essence gentrifying the market (chicken wings and oxtail used to be SO CHEAP when white people didn’t want them, y’all) is not authentic or earthy or whatever.
Seriously, I have never seen such simultaneous contempt for and fetishization of foodstuffs as I see in North American culture. It’s like an exercise in exhaustion navigating it all sometimes.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/714946266e393206203f508dddf697f0/tumblr_miywx3S9QG1rmo7c6o1_500.jpg)
Only a white person would make homemade artisanal SPAM
The End of SPAM Shame: On Class, Colonialism, and Canned Meat (Sylvie Kim, Hyphen)
In 2010’s Asian American/Asian Research Institute (AAARI) Summer Series, Robert Ji-song Ku, Visiting Professor in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at SUNY Binghamton and self-professed lover of Spam, spoke of the meat and other foodstuffs in the context of his manuscript Dubious Gastronomy: The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA.
“Due to their long entangled history with the US military, these two places [South Korea and Hawaii] along with Guam lead the world in per capita consumption of the pink gelatinous pork. Immediately following World War II, the American GIs stationed in Asia and the Pacific curried favor with the impoverished natives by handing out such luxuries as chocolate, cigarettes and Spam which as part of the US Army’s monotonous C-Ration was an object of scorn and mockery by most of the rank and file. Here in the US, Spam is widely regarded as vulgar, farcical and an affront to the very idea of real or whole food. To millions of devotees in and across the Pacific Ocean however, Spam is not only an essential part of the local indigenous cuisine, but a luxury commodity as well.”
I didn’t know it then, and perhaps it would have been futile to try to explain it to my peers, but my Spam consumption was largely the result of American military and political expansion abroad. I grew to love a food that was championed as a symbol of American ingenuity despite being denigrated by Americans themselves. I eat Spam and am judged for eating Spam because of America. Both Asian Pacific Americans and Spam were the butt of a cruel joke: Please value what we deem subpar and make us money in the process. It’s a terribly heavy load of symbolism to place on a pink block of meat.
SPAM is a perfect example of food that white people created, doled out to POC, looked down upon us for embracing, and now, apparently, are reclaiming as “hipster fare.” It’s all come full circle.
Yes, exactly this — Trinidad and Tobago was a stop for the US Military as well. My dad says when he was a kid, him and his friends used to go where the US soldiers were stationed and hope that the soldiers would throw down gum and sandwiches and things for them.
The soldiers also brought with them tinned luncheon meat like Spam, vienna sausages, and corned beef. And long after they left the islands, we kept on eating those things, and let me tell you something: the way we cook them is fucking tasty. Spam in Hawai’ian plate lunches or musubi is delicious. Spam and fried egg sandwiches from Hong Kong Chinese places are amazing. Curried corned beef and tomatoes on rice is unbelievably good.
Eating the food of the Other “ironically” in that fevered hipster fetishistic way is not cute or kooky (see: ramen). Seeking out the cheaper meats that chromatic people have been cooking up in gorgeously mouthwatering ways for years and then in essence gentrifying the market (chicken wings and oxtail used to be SO CHEAP when white people didn’t want them, y’all) is not authentic or earthy or whatever.
Seriously, I have never seen such simultaneous contempt for and fetishization of foodstuffs as I see in North American culture. It’s like an exercise in exhaustion navigating it all sometimes.
703 notes (via bossymarmalade & nastyshitwhitepeopleeat)
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