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.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

(If anyone knows who took this photo I would love to know, a friend posted it on Facebook but they didn't know where it came from originally)

The list of the dead

Candles are lit for you tonight, sisters.

#DecolonizeOakland Saturday, November 19th! Day of Action to Expand the #Occupy Movement

Via hella ♥ east bay:

Indigenous Solidarity Teach-Ins at #DecolonizeOakland

From Facebook:

Press Release/Announcement
Decolonize Oakland (DeOccupy Oakland)
Sunday, 11/13, 5:00-6:00
Monday, 11/14, 4:00-5:00
Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland, California
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
Indigenous Solidarity Teach-Ins will explore some of the questions raised at the Occupy Oakland General Assembly on October 28 when the Memorandum of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples passed by a 97% voting majority.
 
What does it mean to acknowledge the United States as a colonial and imperial nation? What is colonialism and imperialism?
 
What does it mean to acknowledge that Oakland is already occupied land? Who are the Chochenyo Ohlone people?
 
What does decolonization and deoccupation of the United States and Oakland mean? What can it mean?
 
Come discuss and learn with each other.
 
Contact:
Joanne Barker
jmbrkr62@gmail.com

Beautiful Poster for General Strike in Oakland

Via DignidadRebelde:

To learn more about the Oakland General Strike please click here!

Who Are The Real Cybermen? Reading the Ruptures in Doctor Who Novel Made of Steel

Pulling together the arguments of Tania Modleski (Loving With a Vengeance) and Janice Radway (Reading the Romance), I contend that the Doctor Who series of novels creates for the sci-fi geek what the Harlequin romance is for the (predominantly) women who read them.  Like Harlequins, these books are not taken seriously as “literature” but understood to be simply “fun” (read: not important or worth thinking about).  Eminently consumable, Doctor Who novels follow a known formula (The Doctor faces down monsters and/or aliens and he wins in the end) that has been popular enough to keep both the television series and accompanying books in production for nearly fifty years.  Through examining a recent “Quick Reads” Doctor Who novel, Made of Steel, as one star in a constellation of texts that I read across (Felski 512) I attempt to pinpoint what ruptures are allowed by this formula.

The mass market paperback: cheaply bound, 100-250 pages, fast paced stories meant to attract and satisfy as wide an audience as possible; a model championed and mastered by the Harlequin company (Modleski).  The appeal may already be obvious; such novels are easy to pick up and set down and do not require a huge commitment of time, and there is a known emotional “pay off” at the end because of several common formulas, of which readers may choose their favorite.  Similarly, such books are easy to produce cheaply, making even a very low sell-price profitable for the publisher.  Couple these elements with a wide readership and you have hit pay dirt; a highly consumable book form perfectly suited to the needs and desires of both a capitalist market and industrial society (During 193). 

Thus it should be no real surprise that in 2006, after the BBC’s “reboot” of British sci-fi classic Doctor Who was proving to pull in the ratings like few other television shows on the UK airwaves, they decided to continue the now common strategy of “branding across formats” (During 199) and re-mobilize their literature section in the production of Doctor Who themed novels.  Yet, this time around the BBC was not satisfied with producing only the standard 250 page versions of these books, opting to also begin a new line of all-original “quick reads” meant to “promote reading” by being an even more manageable 100-150 pages  (TARDIS Index File).  In addition to their shorter length, the production and distribution of these novels follows in the footsteps of Harlequin romances: they are only ever produced in mass market paperback (or ebook) forms and carry a price tag of just £1.99, making them incredibly affordable for both producer and consumer (Radway 13). 

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.

Decolonize Oakland October 10th #occupywallstreet

Via Dignidad Rebelde

Why have I titled this post "Decolonize Oakland"?  Because of this Open Letter to the Occupy Wall Street Activists and other similar critiques I've been reading this week.  I am sharing this event with you in particular because 1) it is local and that has always been a focus for me here and 2) it seems to acknowledge the important linkages between decolonization, indigenous resistance and this emerging "occupation" movement.

For more information on the event check out Occupy Oakland's Twitter account. Next planning meeting is TOMORROW.