As Soon As You Put Me Down I Run Away

When my friend Natasha did Reiki on me a few weeks ago she noted that in my solar plexus chakra there was an intense and deep seated well of shame.  Juxtaposing this, as she worked on this area she got a very clear image of her child running away joyfully with his father chasing him.

Before she was even halfway through describing this image of her child I was welling up with tears.

That child was me.

As soon as I could walk - I was running.  Ironically I detest running now, but as a toddler and child you couldn't stop me.  It was such a common thing that it became a trope of telling childhood stories about me.  In fact while Natasha was recounting this I thought of one image in particular, one that hasn't left me since.

There's a home movie I've seen a few times of my Dad and I in Tahoe, probably in the summer as I don't remember there being snow.  I think he and my Mom are laughing as they film me.  Or maybe they were just laughing when they showed it to me.  Either way, my Dad is holding me and then he puts me down -- and I promptly take off running in the opposite direction of both of them. I'm small, so he is able to keep up with me fairly easily, but it really was remarkable to watch.  If they'd taken their eyes off of me for a second I'd have gone quite a ways before they could have caught me.  But they're clearly used to this.

I was a fearless child.  I gave exactly zero fucks and you couldn't tell me anything.

I don't really remember now what that felt like.

See, remember the other thing that Natasha got from my chakra energy?  Shame. Intense shame.

That child?  Didn't make it past elementary school.

I guess maybe that's normal.  We do a lot of growing in those years.  But by the time I hit junior high school you wouldn't have recognized me in that child.  Hell, you wouldn't have recognized me as that child by the time 4th grade came to an end.

Part of me is glad of this.  That child was starting to grow into someone that was arrogant and self-righteous.  I can still be rather self-righteous, so gods only know what would have happened if I was left unchecked to develop.  Actually, I think I do kind of know -- I probably would have turned out a lot like Jennifer Lawrence.  I have a lot of empathy (and endless critique) for J Law because gods do I see her.  Do I know her.  Us Leos are SO MUCH if we never learn how to be humble.

Another part of me is kinda pissed that things turned out as they did.  Because through bullies and a constantly anxious mother and poor boundaries I turned into someone who takes everything deeply personally, who was shamed repeatedly for who I was, who felt fear of the world around me and closed myself off to so many experiences because of it.  My teenage and adult life have been spent trying to get 1/8th of that fearless confidence back.  And it's only now, in my early 30s, that maybe I'm just starting to get there.

And yeah maybe that kid would have turned into an asshole if left unchecked.  But they weren't one yet.  They were just a little tomboy femme wanting to experience the world, trusting that their parents had their back, that if they fell down they could get back up, that if they bumped their head they'd be ok after a good cry.  She just wanted to express herself fully, to sing, dance, express -- to enjoy life.  And when I think about her I want to cry, for so many reasons but perhaps foremost because I know they were me, but they feel like a stranger.

Can I re-integrate that energy and harness it for good?  Can I experience that fearlessness and joy again?  Can I come to a humility that isn't based in shame and second-guessing my self-knowledge but in compassionate, non-judgmental and honest assessment of my actions?  I hope so.  That's what I'm working on now.

Decolonizing Whiteness

Well worth a read for anyone who is classified as White by Western hegemony.  Thank you to Cecelia Rose LaPointe through whom I found this piece.

“Do you know the people you come from?” 

This is the one question most commonly asked by the world’s Indigenous peoples to people of European heritage. For the large majority of us in America, Europe, and elsewhere, the honest answer beyond simple genealogy is, “I don’t know.”

Unfortunately, this not knowing is part of a deep disconnection that has serious consequences for ourselves and others.

Traditional Indigenous people understand this unknowing lies at the heart of the political, social, and economic systems that have caused, and continue to cause, colonization and genocide of their people as well as destruction of life on Mother Earth.

At the personal level, the lack of being rooted in a culture of place brings spiritual disconnection, shallow sense of self, and historical trauma from the lost ancestral roots and lost way of life that shaped our physical, emotional, and spiritual health for tens of thousands of years.

People of European heritage are often called hungry ghosts because we don’t know our selves. This trauma of disconnection is profound, causing us to constantly grab for anything of spiritual meaning – even if it does not belong to us. This taking leads to cultural theft and appropriation, spiritual materialism, and the silencing of authentic native voices. Worse, we spread this dysfunction to others, including people of color, through the dominance of Western cultural values.

Read the rest here: Tribes of “Europe” – Why Decolonize?:

A Day of Thanksgiving: Challenging Colonialist Myth

Thanksgiving in the United States is wrapped in colonialist/nationalist myth that most of us learn from pre-school/day care and on.  I don't think most of us are ever taught the realities of "Thanksgiving;" why the holiday exists, what cultural narratives it perpetuates, what present realities it obscures.  In an annual effort to challenge the fucked up colonial underpinnings of this holiday, I give you the debunking of myths most of us probably learned growing up.


Myth #1: “The First Thanksgiving” occurred in 1621.

Fact: No one knows when the “first” thanksgiving occurred. People have been giving thanks for as long as people have existed. Indigenous nations all over the world have celebrations of the harvest that come from very old traditions; for Native peoples, thanksgiving comes not once a year, but every day, for all the gifts of life. To refer to the harvest feast of 1621 as “The First Thanksgiving” disappears Indian peoples in the eyes of non-Native children.

Myth #2: The people who came across the ocean on the Mayflower were called Pilgrims.

Fact: The Plimoth settlers did not refer to themselves as “Pilgrims.” Pilgrims are people who travel for religious reasons, such as Muslims who make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Most of those who arrived here from England were religious dissidents who had broken away from the Church of England. They called themselves “Saints”; others called them “Separatists.” Some of the settlers were “Puritans,” dissidents but not separatists who wanted to “purify” the Church. It wasn’t until around the time of the American Revolution that the name “Pilgrims” came to be associated with the Plimoth settlers, and the “Pilgrims” became the symbol of American morality and Christian faith, fortitude, and family.

Myth #3: The colonists came seeking freedom of religion in a new land.

Fact: The colonists were not just innocent refugees from religious persecution. By 1620, hundreds of Native people had already been to England and back, most as captives; so the Plimoth colonists knew full well that the land they were settling on was inhabited. Nevertheless, their belief system taught them that any land that was “unimproved” was “wild” and theirs for the taking; that the people who lived there were roving heathens with no right to the land. Both the Separatists and Puritans were rigid fundamentalists who came here fully intending to take the land away from its Native inhabitants and establish a new nation, their “Holy Kingdom.” The Plimoth colonists were never concerned with “freedom of religion” for anyone but themselves.

Myth #4: When the “Pilgrims” landed, they first stepped foot on “Plymouth Rock.”

Fact: When the colonists landed, they sought out a sandy inlet in which to beach the little shallop that carried them from the Mayflower to the mainland. This shallop would have been smashed to smithereens had they docked at a rock, especially a Rock. Although the Plimoth settlers built their homes just up the hill from the Rock, William Bradford in Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, does not even mention the Rock; writing only that they “unshipped our shallop and drew her on land.” The actual “rock” is a slab of Dedham granodiorite placed there by a receding glacier some 20,000 years ago. It was first referred to in a town surveying record in 1715, almost 100 years after the landing. Since then, the Rock has been moved, cracked in two, pasted together, carved up, chipped apart by tourists, cracked again, and now rests as a memorial to something that never happened.

It’s quite possible that the myth about the “Pilgrims” landing on a “Rock” originated as a reference to the New Testament of the Christian bible, in which Jesus says to Peter, “And I say also unto thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18) The appeal to these scriptures gives credence to the sanctity of colonization and the divine destiny of the dominant culture. Although the colonists were not dominant then, they behaved as though they were.

Myth #5: The Pilgrims found corn.

Fact: Just a few days after landing, a party of about 16 settlers led by Captain Myles Standish followed a Nauset trail and came upon an iron kettle and a cache of Indian corn buried in the sand. They made off with the corn and returned a few days later with reinforcements. This larger group “found” a larger store of corn, about ten bushels, and took it. They also “found” several graves, and, according to Mourt’s Relation, “brought sundry of the prettiest things away” from a child’s grave and then covered up the corpse. They also “found” two Indian dwellings and “some of the best things we took away with us.”  There is no record that restitution was ever made for the stolen corn, and the Wampanoag did not soon forget the colonists’ ransacking of Indian graves.

Myth #6: Samoset appeared out of nowhere, and along with Squanto became friends with the Pilgrims. Squanto helped the Pilgrims survive and joined them at “The First Thanksgiving.”

Fact: Samoset, an eastern Abenaki chief, was the first to contact the Plimoth colonists. He was investigating the settlement to gather information and report to Massasoit, the head sachem in the Wampanoag territory. In his hand, Samoset carried two arrows: one blunt and one pointed. The question to the settlers was: are you friend or foe? Samoset brought Tisquantum (Squanto), one of the few survivors of the original Wampanoag village of Pawtuxet, to meet the English and keep an eye on them. Tisquantum had been taken captive by English captains several years earlier, and both he and Samoset spoke English. Tisquantum agreed to live among the colonists and serve as a translator. Massasoit also sent Hobbamock and his family to live near the colony to keep an eye on the settlement and also to watch Tisquantum, whom Massasoit did not trust. The Wampanoag oral tradition says that Massasoit ordered Tisquantum killed after he tried to stir up the English against the Wampanoag. Massasoit himself lost face after his years of dealing with the English only led to warfare and land grabs. Tisquantum is viewed by Wampanoag people as a traitor, for his scheming against other Native people for his own gain. Massasoit is viewed as a wise and generous leader whose affection for the English may have led him to be too tolerant of their ways.

Myth #7: The Pilgrims invited the Indians to celebrate the First Thanksgiving.

Fact: According to oral accounts from the Wampanoag people, when the Native people nearby first heard the gunshots of the hunting colonists, they thought that the colonists were preparing for war and that Massasoit needed to be informed. When Massasoit showed up with 90 men and no women or children, it can be assumed that he was being cautious. When he saw there was a party going on, his men then went out and brought back five deer and lots of turkeys.

In addition, both the Wampanoag and the English settlers were long familiar with harvest celebrations. Long before the Europeans set foot on these shores, Native peoples gave thanks every day for all the gifts of life, and held thanksgiving celebrations and giveaways at certain times of the year. The Europeans also had days of thanksgiving, marked by religious services. So the coming together of two peoples to share food and company was not entirely a foreign thing for either. But the visit that by all accounts lasted three days was most likely one of a series of political meetings to discuss and secure a military alliance. Neither side totally trusted the other: The Europeans considered the Wampanoag soulless heathens and instruments of the devil, and the Wampanoag had seen the Europeans steal their seed corn and rob their graves. In any event, neither the Wampanoag nor the Europeans referred to this feast/meeting as “Thanksgiving.” 

Myth #8: The Pilgrims provided the food for their Indian friends.

Fact: It is known that when Massasoit showed up with 90 men and saw there was a party going on, they then went out and brought back five deer and lots of turkeys. Though the details of this event have become clouded in secular mythology, judging by the inability of the settlers to provide for themselves at this time and Edward Winslow’s letter of 1622, it is most likely that Massasoit and his people provided most of the food for this “historic” meal.

Myth #9: The Pilgrims and Indians feasted on turkey, potatoes, berries, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and popcorn.

Fact: Both written and oral evidence show that what was actually consumed at the harvest festival in 1621 included venison (since Massasoit and his people brought five deer), wild fowl, and quite possibly nasaump—dried corn pounded and boiled into a thick porridge, and pompion—cooked, mashed pumpkin. Among the other food that would have been available, fresh fruits such as plums, grapes, berries and melons would have been out of season. It would have been too cold to dig for clams or fish for eels or small fish. There were no boats to fish for lobsters in rough water that was about 60 fathoms deep. There was not enough of the barley crop to make a batch of beer, nor was there a wheat crop. Potatoes and sweet potatoes didn’t get from the south up to New England until the 18th century, nor did sweet corn. Cranberries would have been too tart to eat without sugar to sweeten them, and that’s probably why they wouldn’t have had pumpkin pie, either. Since the corn of the time could not be successfully popped, there was no popcorn.

Myth #10: The Pilgrims and Indians became great friends.

Fact: A mere generation later, the balance of power had shifted so enormously and the theft of land by the European settlers had become so egregious that the Wampanoag were forced into battle. In 1637, English soldiers massacred some 700 Pequot men, women and children at Mystic Fort, burning many of them alive in their homes and shooting those who fled. The colony of Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay Colony observed a day of thanksgiving commemorating the massacre. By 1675, there were some 50,000 colonists in the place they had named “New England.” That year, Metacom, a son of Massasoit, one of the first whose generosity had saved the lives of the starving settlers, led a rebellion against them. By the end of the conflict known as “King Philip’s War,” most of the Indian peoples of the Northeast region had been either completely wiped out, sold into slavery, or had fled for safety into Canada. Shortly after Metacom’s death, Plimoth Colony declared a day of thanksgiving for the English victory over the Indians.

Myth #11: Thanksgiving is a happy time.

Fact: For many Indian people, “Thanksgiving” is a time of mourning, of remembering how a gift of generosity was rewarded by theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many from disease and gun, and near total destruction of many more from forced assimilation. As currently celebrated in this country, “Thanksgiving” is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.

Source

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. A time set aside to acknowledge/mourn those we have lost because their bodies and lives as trans people are still so hated in our societies.

Light a candle, say a prayer, take a moment of silence, whatever it is you do.

And don't forget.

♥

The names of those we have lost this year can be read here:  http://www.transgenderdor.org/memorializing-2012

Brandy Martell

Location: Oakland, California

Cause of Death: Gunshot

Date of Death: April 29th, 2012

Brandy was 37 years old.

Rest in Peace.

Rest in Power.

On Columbus Day, Indigenous Activists Urge Celebration of Native Culture & Teaching of the Americas’ Genocide

From Democracy Now:



Let's celebrate a history worth celebrating: resistance.

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!

Retire Columbus Day - Day of Indigenous Resistance SF

Facebook Event Page

My Hero(ines): A Tribute to the Women Who Made Me Who I Am

When I started writing my thesis, one of the first things I wrote out concerned my childhood and how the fictional characters I loved affected me in lasting ways; how I modeled myself after them.  Out of that writing came a section in my Introduction called "Modeling: Lessons Learned Watching TNG" where I talked at length about Star Trek: The Next Generation's portrayal of Counselor Deanna Troi and Tasha Yar, and what those portrayals taught me about womanhood and femininity.  While this is, I think, a really strong section and I am happy with it, there was a lot more in my original conception of this idea of "modeling" that got left out (and rightly so: I needed to focus in on the pieces most relevant to the overall project).  It is that which got left out that I want to return to, perhaps briefly, now.  It's a return I wanted to make for some time, but I got the kick in the ass I needed from the Heroines Zine project, where I plan to submit some version of this piece.

A Chronological Tribute Poem Thing

To the woman who taught me to sing, Ariel (The Little Mermaid).

To the woman who taught me to read, and that it's ok to be "strange," Belle (Beauty and the Beast).

To the woman who taught me to feel, to empathize, and that perceiving the world through feeling is ok, Counselor Deanna Troi (Star Trek: The Next Generation).

To the woman who taught me to fight, to defy unjust authority, and to hold myself with dignity, Princess Leia Organa (Star Wars).

To the woman who taught me to never give up, to think things through and to embrace my own power, Agent Dana Scully, M.D. (The X-Files).

To all the women who fired my imagination and made me look at myself and womanhood a little differently: Thank You.  I would not be who I am with out you.

Important Shit I Have Been Reading: Pollution, Poverty, People of Color: The factory on the hill

via Environmental Health News:

"While most coastal cities breathe ocean breezes mixed with traffic exhaust, people in north and central Richmond are exposed to a greater array of contaminants, many of them at higher concentrations. Included are benzene, mercury and other hazardous air pollutants that have been linked to cancer, reproductive problems and neurological effects. People can’t escape the fumes indoors, either. One study showed that some of the industrial pollutants are inside Richmond homes. 

It's the triple whammy of race, poverty and environment converging nationwide to create communities near pollution sources where nobody else wants to live. Black leaders from the Civil Rights Movement called the phenomenon environmental racism, and beginning in the early 1980s, they documented the pattern at North Carolina's Warren County PCBs landfill, Louisiana's "Cancer Alley," Tennessee's Dickson County, Chicago's South Side, Houston's Sunnyside garbage dump and other places across the country. 

About 56 percent of the nine million Americans who live in neighborhoods within three kilometers of large commercial hazardous waste facilities are people of color, according to a landmark, 2007 environmental justice report by the United Church of Christ. In California, it’s 81 percent. Poverty rates in these neighborhoods are 1.5 times higher than elsewhere. 

Those numbers, however, reflect a miniscule portion of the threats faced by nonwhite and low-income families. Thousands of additional towns are near other major sources of pollution, including refineries, chemical plants, freeways and ports. 

Richmond is one of these beleaguered towns, on the forefront of the nation's environmental justice struggle, waging a fight that began a century ago."

As you've probably heard, the Chevron refinery in Richmond had a fire a couple of days ago.  This fire left huge toxic clouds which are now going to make their way around the bay area (in fact, currently, in my direction).  Environmental racism is a deathly real thing, and I think it's very important that we understand that it's part of a long pattern of behavior.  This is not simply "an accident," it is part of a historical trajectory that says low income people, people of color, and Native people (in particular) are fair game to be slowly poisoned and their lives risked for the profit of an upper crust of normative White people.  This article does some of that work, and so I share it with you.

Imagining Social Justice Through Sci-Fi TV: From "Trek" to "Torchwood" (Part Four: The Star Trek Universe 2)

Previous installments:
Part One: Introduction
Part Two: Reviewing the Literature
Part Three: The Star Trek Universe (part one)

CHAPTER TWO: THE STAR TREK UNIVERSE (part two)

Section Two: A Palestinian Allegory

"Stories teach in memorable ways. In that sense, they are much more valuable than rote learning and memorization" (Gaskin 10)

While the previous discussion is one of a general transition from The Original Series to The Next Generation wherein we may observe how the imaginings of their time of creation influence and contain the raced and gendered future created by their writers and producers, I want to move now to a more specific example of the working-out-of contemporary concerns on screen.  While there are many themes to choose from, I have decided to choose an allegory that proved to be a long standing influence on the franchise.  I choose this particular allegory not only for its widespread use across three Star Trek series (Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager) but because it remains a current topic of contention in USian society, and most of all because it is an excellent example of the way stories allow conversations on topics that, when engaging with their real world counterparts, are typically silenced.

This allegory is that of the Israeli occupation of Palestine as told through the experiences of two alien species and their planets: Cardassia and Bajor, as seen from a USian perspective through the Federation.  While executive producer Rick Berman has said that these stories came from an amalgamation of various occupied/colonized peoples, particularly "the Kurds, the Palestinians, the Jews in the 1940s, [and] the boat people from Haiti” (Nemecek 178), it is my contention that given the time these episodes aired, and the way the storyline progressed, the most relevant allusion is indeed to Palestine/Israel.  In fact, the official editorial for the VHS version of the episode “Ensign Ro” on Amazon.com reads, in part: TNG’s “take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…introducing the dispute between Cardassians and the displaced Bajoran people” (Spletzer). This interpretation of the Bajoran/Cardassian conflict remains a contentious one in the Star Trek fandom, as evidenced by its wide discussion online (DevilEyes) and the diversity of opinion within those discussions (quinnox, Bernardi, Anonymous). 

The Palestinian allegory is rejected outright by those who maintain the Bajorans are only the generalized amalgamation Berman professes to have intended, as well as those who see potential antisemitism in the equating of Bajor with Palestine (and thus Israel with the evil Cardassians) (TVTropes), or those who subscribe to the Zionist ideology of Palestine as a land abandoned and then (rightfully) returned to by a non-Arab Jewish population.  For this last group of fans in particular there is nothing reminiscent of Zionist Israelis in the colonialist Cardassians, because the Cardassians are not attempting to “reclaim their ancestral homeworld” (sic) (Anonymous).  However, I reject these arguments, and particularly reject the Zionist foundations of the last.[1]  Instead, after careful consideration of these spirited debates, the words of the producers, and my own critical viewership of the episodes in question, I continue to believe and will argue below that the most accurate allegory remains that of an alternately radical/liberal anti-colonial critique of Palestine under occupation, and the imagining of Palestine and Israel as at “peace”[2] as two separate nation-states. 

Imagining Social Justice Through Sci-Fi TV: From "Trek" to "Torchwood" (Part Three: The Star Trek Universe 1)

Previous installments:
Part One: Introduction
Part Two: Reviewing the Literature

CHAPTER TWO: THE STAR TREK UNIVERSE (part one)

“We are never simply consumers of popular cultural texts, but in and through our very ‘reading’ of them we actively (re)create them” (Sullivan 189).

The first section of this chapter will discuss broad themes of the Star Trek universe spanning the original series and The Next Generation.  This survey is not meant to be an exhaustive one, that would be impossible for a project of this size, but I do want to touch on several themes and conventions I have noticed in my own watching and re-watching of the series’ in question.  The second section of the chapter is dedicated to an analysis of a specific storyline that begins on The Next Generation and is developed more fully on Deep Space Nine.  Instead of overarching themes, in this section I have chosen to zoom in on two specific episodes to examine closely: TNG’s “Ensign Ro” and DS9’s “Duet.”  It is my hope that this combination of the broad and the specific will give even the fan-scholar a unique perspective on the potential, and on the successes and failures, of the Star Trek universe as a social justice project.

I feel it is also important to reiterate here what I mean by “social justice.”  As I use it here, “social justice” means “a project in pursuit of positive social/cultural change.”  This is similar to Cymene Howe’s “televisionary activism,” defined as: “a mediated form of social justice messaging that utilizes the pervasive, popular platform of television to create new ‘visions’ of social transformation to shape and change, in the words of advocates, ‘culture’”  (Howe 54).  This is a very broad definition and includes within it work from many, sometimes contradictory, political philosophies.  For example, Star Trek, which is an assimilationist and US-centric project.  Social justice can be framed in a radical or liberal way, though it’s rootedness in change precludes it from being traditionally conservative.  This definition does not mean, however, that the franchise in question never reinforces what I view as harmful social structures in its pursuit of what it sees/projects as “change.”  They do.

I want to be very clear here.  I love Star Trek.  Next Generation, Voyager and more recently Deep Space Nine have been incredibly important shows to me on a personal, intellectual and political level.  But these shows are not perfect.  Even the elements I label as “positive” are often a mixture of elements I consider both “good” and “bad” in pursuit of the social change I would like to see.  There is no purity in this analysis.  That is because, as Avery Gordon reminds us: “life is complicated” (Gordon 3).  I take that axiom just as seriously as she; it is not just “a banal expression of the obvious, but…a profound theoretical statement” (3).  I refuse to shun complication in pursuit of a more “tidy” theory-making, or in the face of the possibility of confusion.  Confusion and complication can be useful tools, they can frustrate, but they can also bring a deeper understanding once trudged through.  I also reject purposeful obfuscation, and do not aim to purposefully frustrate my readers; I ask only that you keep in mind that there are always multiple layers to the topics I discuss below.

First, I look at the transition from the rudimentary 1960s identity politics representational practice on original Star Trek to the neoliberal “multicultural” politics and casting decisions of Star Trek: The Next Generation.   While it is easy to simply say both practices are flawed, I want to look more deeply at what each approach (both of them rooted in liberal-humanism) challenges and reifies.  Second, I analyze the use of Cardassians and Bajorans on Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as an allegory for the colonial conflict occurring in Palestine/Israel.  This analysis serves two main purposes: first, to exemplify how stories can be utilized to call attention to gaps in hegemonic knowledge, and second, to point to the way stories can provide a forum for discussions that are shut down in the real world.  Finally, the over-arching argument I am building is that these works matter because before something can be done, it must first be imagined.  And the spaces of our imaginings show us (the viewers and imaginers) the futures that we are collectively working to build (and social justice activists where we might, or must, intervene).  My work here is an effort to critically analyze the imaginings of my chosen texts, to deconstruct some of their messages and to ask how fan-scholar-activists might use those messages towards ever-better social justice work.

Re-Broadcasting a Call to Action to Support the Winnemem Wintu Nation's War Dance

Help our tribe’s peaceful ceremony of resistance, our spiritual commitment to protect the Coming of Age ceremonies for our young women from public interference and harassment.

Please note we are expecting more than 400 supporters to converge on the ceremony site to help our War Dance. We will be holding the ceremony without a U.S. Forest Service permit, and it is possible there will be arrests.

Though we are simply holding a ceremony that has existed since before the Forest Service, it will be considered by the authorities as an act of civil “disobedience.” Please prepare as needed and remember this is a non-violent, ceremonial action.

When: Thursday afternoon, May 24 – Sunday May 27, 2012
Where: McCloud Bridge Campground on the McCloud River, Shasta-Trinity National Forest north of Redding, Calif.
Bring: Camping gear, TP, food donations, first aid kits, canteens, inflatable boats,inner tubes, canoes, kayaks, trash bags, walkie-talkies, life preservers and a peaceful, humble willingness to help.
If you have a pre-existing health issues (such as allergies to bee stings, pollen, etc.), remember to bring your own medications. There is also a chance of rain. Bring rain gear. Highs are unexpected to be in the mid-70s to 80s.
Remember: There is no cell phone service at the site. There is phone service at the Hirz Bay campground about eight miles. Also, try to car pool. Parking will be limited.

Boat Information

We will be blockading a 400-yard stretch of the McCloud River on Friday and Saturday definitely. We may possibly do it on Sunday.

Please bring canoes, kayaks, inner tubes, rafts and anything that floats. We will have an air-up station set up for inflatable crafts. Also, bring life preservers.

People who are bringing boats on trailers can come put their boats in the water at the McCloud Bridge campground and then they can find parking 8 miles south at the Hirz Bay campground. It costs $8. There will be limited free trailer parking at Dekkas campground. We will escort you to the parking spaces.

Be aware that there is no gas or grocery stores for 30 miles from the campground. The closest stores are in Lakehead and City of Shasta Lake.

Please bring T-shirts that are yellow, red, black and white – we will be wearing a different color for each day.

For directions and more information please go to: Call to Action: Help, Volunteer, Donate

UPDATE (May 31, 2012): Grassroots River Closure, Coordinated Boater Harassment Highlight Winnemem Wintu’s War Dance

On May 27, just as the tribe was about to complete their final dance of the ceremony, a fleet of seven motor boats and three jet skies motored back and forth through the ceremony site at speeds greater than the 5 mph speed limit, flipped off tribal members, stared down young women holding infants and did doughnuts near the tribe’s sacred sites.

“It was pretty much about as racist as you can get without going to jail or being violent,” said 25-year-old Winnemem War Dancer Arron Sisk.

“I was angry about it,” said 17-year-old Nick Wilson, who was flipped off by one of the jet skiers. “I wouldn’t go into a church and yell and make noise like that. It really didn’t belong in our ceremony.”

Another tribal member, Doug Scholfield had previous talked to the boaters about avoiding the ceremony area, and he, like the rest of the tribe, believed it was clearly an organized, pre-meditated act, he said.

Sisk said that about 10 Forest Service law enforcement officers and a leashed K-9 were quick to descend on the ceremony when they raised the banner, but were nowhere to be found when the boaters aggressively invaded their ceremony space. A volunteer crew aboard a Coast Guard auxiliary boat also instructed recreational boaters to ignore the closure and proceed through the ceremony, tribal members said.

Two Things on this Beltane May Day

Happy May Day!  And happy Beltane!  What a perfect combination.


1)  Today, I hope to see you out in the streets.  I'll be going, at the very least, to the immigrant rights/workers rights/anti-racismo march out of Fruitvale in Oakland at 3pm.  You'll also find what I think is a comprehensive list of the Bay area actions for tomorrow below.  Whatever you do, do something!  All labor is work, no human beings are illegal, and we've got to come together in struggle.

2) I met with my thesis committee today, who told me that, yes, in fact, I have a final draft of my thesis!!!  A few typos and some grammar to clean up here and there but hardly anything really.  I am beyond relieved and starting to get really excited.  Because of this, and because the project went through quite a few drafts, I will be taking down the earlier drafts I posted here and posting my sections in different increments over the next month.  Hope you enjoy it!


Occupy (Decolonize) Oakland's Schedule of Events:


6AM: Support Golden Gate bridge & Transit Workers pickets
Meet at 19th & Telegraph to reinforce pickets throughout SF. Buses will be available.

8:30AM – NOON: morning strike actions
Decentralized actions leaving from 3 points on the edge of downtown at 8:30am. These actions can take the form of "strike enforcement brigades" such as pickets, blockades, snake marches etc. Strike stations will be set up at each of these locations starting at 8am with coffee, snacks, water, propaganda etc.

Station 1  anti-capitalist: Snow Park – flying pickets to shut down banks and the Chamber of Commerce
Station 2  anti-patriarchy: 1st & Broadway – occupy Child Protective Services, called for by OOP
Station 3  anti-gentrification: 22nd & Telegraph – flying pickets to shut down Uptown & Downtown Business Associations

NOON – 1PM: Everyone Converge on Downtown
Mass rally from noon to 1pm at 14th & Broadway including speakers, food, music activities, etc.

NOON: Occupy Oakland poets will begin continuous readings at Oscar Grant plaza.

1PM – 3PM: Themed Actions & Marches Around Downtown
After the rally, those in attendance have the opportunity to stay downtown or join one of the autonomous actions that will be departing from 14th & Broadway to continue shutting down various capitalist institutions in the downtown area.

1PM: No Borders! No Stay Away Orders! Anti-repression Crew picket at Oakland City Hall/ Oscar Grant Plaza.

3PM: March for Dignity and Resistance
All are encouraged to join the march starting at Fruitvale BART station at 3pm, marching to San Antonio Park and Oscar Grant Plaza (14th and Broadway).
From Mujeres Unidas y Activas:
Oakland Sin Fronteras 2012 DEMANDS: 
LEGALIZATION FOR ALL UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
SUPPORT WORKERS RIGHTS
STOP THE DEPORTATION OF ALL IMMIGRANTS
STOP THE CRIMINALIZATION OF IMMIGRANTS BY FEDERAL AND LOCAL POLICE
END U.S. MILITARY AGGRESSION & OTHER POLICIES THAT DISPLACE COMMUNITIES GLOBALLY
DEFEND AND EXPAND ETHNIC STUDIES 

6PM – 7PM: Reconvergence downtown to coincide with the march arrival
Everyone back downtown to rally and celebrate together as the March for Dignity and Resistance arrives. Convene and rally at 14th and Broadway. In the event of police interference meet at 19th and Telegraph.

Additional info here!!

Star Trek: The Next Generation, And the Making of Me

As many of you probably know, I'm a graduate student.  And I'm in my last semester, in the process of writing my thesis.  It's coming along ok and it's an interesting change of pace having only this one thing to work on for once, a first in my academic career.  Anywho, over the winter break in prepping for this project I kept being bothered by some very personal reflections that demanded to be written down.  Who am I to argue with my subconscious?  So I wrote them down.  That is what follows.  It's, yeah, very personal, and will be reworked before it's printed up in my thesis pages, but I thought I might as well share it with you in it's initial form to give you a taste of what I'm thinking about lately and why so many of my posts are reposts, links and action alerts.
Enjoy.

How did you become the person you are today? This is a question that has been haunting me for the past few years. It is a question that is probably unanswerable, as the events which shape my life slip in and out of what I consciously remember and bubble somewhere beneath the surface of that memory, ready to emerge at (in)opportune moments.

The roots of this question lie in another question, one that all feminist scholars are at some point initiated into: nature, or nurture? Essentialism, or constructivism? I take for granted my own conclusion that we are some combination of both, where what is essential about us can probably never be proved, but where we can trace some of the elements we have taken into ourselves and allowed to change us.

A search for those elements in myself, to better understand myself, my perspective on the world, my attractions, my insecurities, my place and function in the world around me led me back intuitively to television. And not just to television, but to very specific television, to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

There are other places I could have landed.  Books I read and re-read like Pollyanna or A Little Princess or the American Girls series' or The Hardy Boys.  I could have gone back to other shows I watched religiously as a child like The Wonder Years or The X-Men or Boy Meets World, or later The X-Files (and indeed The X-Files almost ended up in this project as well).  Or it could have been films I loved like Star Wars or Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid.   Or the music I spent hours upon hours in my room memorizing the lyrics to and in fact still listen to like Green Day or Garbage or Alanis Morissette.  But even as I have thought on all the ways I learned to be who I am today, none has quite the resonance of The Next Generation.

Still, I could easily write another thesis on the complexities of the Disney movies I watched, on the femininity played out there that I adored from afar and felt like an impostor trying to embody, on the years I spent trying to embody it anyway and hating myself and other women for its limitations and my failure to live up to it as the less than graceful tomboy I was and am. But, that is not where I landed in my search. And as I have thought on it, much of these same things were represented on The Next Generation (TNG) too, and in fact they seem to have lodged themselves much deeper in my psyche by virtue of being so.

Perhaps that is because, as I remember it anyway, the watching of TNG was a family event. My Mom didn't care for the show, but my Dad, brother, and I all loved it, and sat down once a week for nearly the whole seven seasons to watch it together. One vivid memory is of my little brother and I flinging ourselves to the sides of the television set as the Enterprise zoomed diagonally across the screen over and over during the now iconic opening credits. I remember us laughing as we pretended the Enterprise might come out of the screen and run us over if we didn't get out of the way. Looking back on it, this moment illustrates well just how real these characters and events were to me, even as I knew they were fiction. No wonder then, that on re-watching the series I would discover such moments as Captain Picard expressing a perspective on knowledge and education that I have long held as my own (“Samaritan Snare”). It is this viewpoint that led me on the educational journey now culminating in this project.

Tucson school district bans books by Chicano and Native authors

On Doctor King Day, how about another edition of "shit that makes whatsername's blood boil," care of the narcosphere:

The decision to ban books follows the 4 to 1 vote on Tuesday by the Tucson Unified School District board to succumb to the State of Arizona, and forbid Mexican American Studies, rather than fight the state decision.

Students said the banned books were seized from their classrooms and out of their hands, after Tucson schools banned Mexican American Studies, including a book of photos of Mexico. Crying, students said it was like Nazi Germany, and they were unable to sleep since it happened.

[...]

"the last time a book of mine was outlawed was during the state of emergency in apartheid South Africa in 1986, when the regime there banned the curriculum I’d written, Strangers in Their Own Country, likely because it included excerpts from a speech by then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela. Confronting massive opposition at home and abroad, the white minority government feared for its life in 1986. It’s worth asking what the school authorities in Arizona fear today."

Indeed [emphasis mine].

Banned books include:
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years
The Tempest (yes, the Shakespeare play)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos
The House on Mango Street
Black Mesa Poems

Ceremony
The Devil’s Highway
Like Water for Chocolate
Ten Little Indians
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven
Ocean Power, Poems from the Desert
...And many more, apparently.

Instructors from the former Mexican American studies courses have also been told "to stay away from any class units where "race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes.""

Yeah.

Can't have the youth thinking about oppression, gods forbid, they might decide to work against it!

Despite knowing that book banning is NOT new to America, it still makes my blood boil (or at least it feels like it's boiling...).

I mean, really, when has banning books EVER led to or been a part of anything good? Isn't "our freedom" why we've been told "the terrorists hate us"? How can the same people who spout that line not see how fucking un-free actions like this are?

Oh, that's right, because they are hypocritical "Libertarian" assholes who think everything is ok as long as it's the US doing it... We're special fucking snow flakes that way.

Recommended Reading on Thanksgiving

Full disclosure: yes, my family gets together on this holiday and does the turkey dinner, and we thank Spirit for what we have been given that year and wish blessings on our own and the world in the coming days.  This has never been about the Pilgrims or in ignorance of the genocide that has built this country, but it does mimic the traditions passed down in the historical mythology of this settler colonial nation, and while I love this day for seeing family I don't get to see often and eating good food with them I am increasingly ambivalent about the holiday, even in the form we "celebrate" it.  At the very least I think that while we are giving thanks, it is a good time to also meditate on the things in our nation and communities that need to change, the destructive and violent cycles that need to end and that (in the national mythology) we trace to this event of The First Thanksgiving.

In that spirit I share this piece, please click the link to read the full essay: Original Occupation: Native Blood & the Myth of Thanksgiving

Intro to that first occupation

We are talking widely among ourselves about “occupying” Wall Street — taking the center of an empire back for the people of the world. We are talking about “Occupy Everything” — sharing our dreams of taking all society away from banks, police, and the heartless authority of money. We hope this moment marks a beginning of the end for them.

And yet, just such a moment cannot be understood without remembering that other occupation — the one that marked the beginning of their beginning.

Arrogant invaders occupied a land using the most naked forms of genocide. They invented new forms of slavery, slave trade and profit making. They arrived with their high-tech arms and bibles. They declared all was theirs by divine right, while they took it all with raw force.

Put another way:  That first occupation was a sweeping nightmare that starts with Columbus. It has continued for 500 years. For the Native peoples of today (and therefore for us too) it remains an ongoing story of domination and removal. The nation-state who today labels millions of indigenous descendants “illegal aliens” arrived in boats with only royal decrees and their holy book as documents of legitimacy.

Every schoolchild in the U.S. has been taught that the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony invited the local Indians to a major harvest feast after surviving their first bitter year in New England.

Here is the true story of that Thanksgiving  — a story of murder and theft, of the first “corporations” invented on North American soil, of religious fundamentalism and relentless mania for money. It is a story of the birth of capitalism.

This piece is intended to be shared at this holiday time.

Pass it on. Serve a little truth with the usual stuffing.

When Columbus got off the boat...

Via Fierce...Flawless...:

"When Columbus got off the boat, he asked us who we were. We said we’re the Human Beings, we’re the People. Conceptually the Europeans didn’t understand that, it was beyond their conceptual reality. They didn’t see us. They couldn’t see who we were. Historically speaking, we went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans. It’s five hundred years later and they still can’t see us. we are still invisible. They don’t see us as human beings, but we’ve been saying to them all along that’s what we are. We are invisible to them because we are still the Human Beings, we’re still the People, but they will never call us that. They taught us to call ourselves Indians, now they’re teaching us to call ourselves Native Americans. It’s not who we are. We’re the People. They can’t see us as human beings. But they can’t see themselves as human beings. The invisibility is at every level, it’s not just that we’re tucked away out of sight. We’re the evidence of the crime. They can’t deal with the reality of who we are because then they have to deal with the reality of what they have done. If they deal with the reality of who we are, they have to deal with the reality of who they aren’t. So they have to fear us, not recognize us, not like us. The very fact of calling us Indians creates a new identity for us, an identity that began with their arrival. Changing identity, creating a new perceptual reality, is another form of genocide. It’s like severing a spiritual umbilical cord that reaches into the ancestral past. The history of the Indians begins with the arrival of the Europeans. The history of the People begins with the beginning of the history of the People. The history of the People is one of cooperation, collectivity, and living in balance. The history of the Indians is one of being attacked and genocide, rather than a history of peace and balance. The history of the People under attack, the Indians, in an evolutionary context, is not very long, it’s only five hundred years. The objective of civilizing us is to make Indian history become our permanent reality. The necessary objective of Native people is to outlast this attack, however long it takes, to keep our identity alive."

- John Trudell (Santee Sioux)

Fuck Columbus

This is probably my least favorite holiday. I can't think of one I dislike more anyway. On the flip side if all goes according to plan I will be joining up with the Occupy Oakland demonstration (in solidarity/conjunction with Indigenous Resistance Day) after class tonight so please send good thoughts our way.

The Continuing Saga of Glen Cove

"Activists continue to defend the ancient indigenous burial ground at Glen Cove, south of Vallejo, California, against plans by the Greater Vallejo Recreation District (a local parks and recreation administration) to build a parking lot, restrooms, paved trail etc on the burial site. June 11th, 2011, marked the 59th day of protest at the site with over 250 people participating. Food for the protesters was brought in by a local Indian restaurant and by the Santa Barbara chapter of the American Indian Movement and the South Central Farmers. Indigenous groups with historical ties to the site include the Ohlone, Patwin (Wintun), Bay Miwok, Coast Miwok, Wappo, and Tule River Yokuts."

(Via Blackamazon is too much)

See previous coverage of this story on The Jaded Hippy here.

Jay Smooth: Martin Luther King on Extremism

Something to think about.

Something I am thinking about as someone who is called an "extremist" from time to time, and who is often in conversations in which the idea that "extremism" is always bad is often touted.

Whiteness and the Past

(via Rags 'n' Bones)