White Saviors Need Not Apply.

Stop Mass Incarcerations Network sponsored a children's march on the anniversary of Tamir Rice's death at the hands of the Cleveland police (a katz / Shutterstock.com)

Stop Mass Incarcerations Network sponsored a children’s march on the anniversary of Tamir Rice’s death at the hands of the Cleveland police (a katz / Shutterstock.com)

In this post, I wrote about problematic white people at the Očeti Sakowiŋ camp. Certainly this does not apply to all white people, there are plenty of thoughtful, mindful white people who get it. As with most people who manage to do the right thing, they get to be unsung heroes, because it’s more important to talk about people who are serious problems, big ol’ roadblocks when it comes to any sort of social progress. I have no doubt there are plenty of times when white people feel as though they are constantly picked on, but it’s desperately important to understand that there are many good reasons for that.

Here in uStates, and in way too many other places in the world, people have been brought up and raised in a drowning pool of colonial kool-aid. Colonial thinking is extremely bad, it’s bad for everyone and everything. It’s destructive, dismissive, disrespectful, condescending, and unthinkingly arrogant. It’s short-term thinking, which is the very worst kind. There’s no looking to the past, through the present, into the future. Colonial thinking does not allow for a time bridge, or the importance of all generations, past, present, and yet to come. Look at the photo up there ^. Look at that child’s face. Every child’s face should reflect trust and happiness. That so many children, all over the world, know fear, distrust, and suspicion at such young ages is wrong on every possible level. That so many children, if they are not white, are viewed as sufficiently mature to be a threat, therefor, it’s okay for them to be gunned down by cops and citizens. Wrong. So wrong. That’s racism run amok, when you target children and think it’s okay to do that, for those children.

I know I’m not alone in being very tired of the fact that in spite of everywhere, in every way, every. single. thing. is made better, easier, softer, kinder for white people, yet they still manage to complain if the sugar-coating on a bitter pill isn’t thick enough.

I have mentioned, so many times, that I’m half white, and it’s that half which shows on the outside. When I’ve been at the camps, frinst., and someone is speaking about wašiču, and not in a nice way, I don’t take offense, I don’t get upset in any way. I listen, because generally speaking, I know I’m going to hear something valuable. Sure, I often hear things which hurt, but that happens when you’re trying to always learn throughout your journey on this earth. When you do hear things that hurt, it’s important that your hearing isn’t overwhelmed to the point that you miss bitterness, generational trauma, and/or the pain of deep wounds from the speaker. When you miss things like that, you miss the opportunity to understand. When you miss the opportunity to understand, you lose the opportunity of forgiveness and healing. When you lose the opportunity of forgiveness and healing, you lose the ability to be an ally. When you lose the ability to be an ally, you lose the possibility of peace.

When you’re white, at least here in uStates, it’s so very easy to be dismissive of the deep wounds of generational trauma; to handwave horrible acts because that was X amount of years ago. Ask yourself, if you have been hurt, does it help if someone tells you to get over it already? It’s not possible to “get over something” when that something has never been addressed in any meaningful way. It’s not possible to “get over something” when a majority of people refuse to even consider said harmful acts, and the repercussions echoing down the generations. Would white people consider it helpful if I simply posted: “White people, get over yourselves!”?

Then there’s the problem of white people trying to help when they have no understanding and little respect. Then you get people who are determined to be white saviors. No one is looking for white saviors. People of colour have already had long histories with white people who considered themselves saviors to the “lesser” races. Being an ally, that’s good. A wannabe savior? Bad. Lorraine Berry has a very good article up about the selective doubt of white people, and the savior problem. It’s in-depth, so just a bit here, click on over for the full read, and it’s a good one.

White people spend a lot of time telling black folks what their stories mean. If it’s not white writers insisting that they can tell a person of color’s story better than a black writer can, or Trump running mate Mike Pence telling black people that they talk about systemic racism too much, or Iowa Congressman Steve King telling Colin Kaepernick what his protest against police brutality “really means,” or folks who insist that “slavery wasn’t that bad,” there’s no shortage of white folks who insist that they know better than black folks when it comes to interpreting what happens to black bodies. It would be tempting to dismiss it all as the ravings of a minority of kooks if it weren’t for the ubiquity of the phenomenon. Everywhere, it seems, white people just can’t help themselves.

[Read more…]

The 2016 NAMA Winners!

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The winners of the 16th Annual Native American Music Awards were announced earlier this month at the Seneca Allegany Resort & Casino Event Center in Salamanca, New York. Rapper and Black Eyed Peas member Taboo was inducted into the NAMA Hall of Fame while acclaimed Flutist Joseph FireCrow and Actor/Motivational Speaker/Writer/Artist Saginaw Grant received the Lifetime Achievement award and Living Legend award respectively. Comedy duo Williams and Ree, who were at the inaugural NAMA show in 1998, were voted Entertainers of the Year.

A highlight of the festivities hosted by Comedian/Actor Paul Rodriguez was a two-part tribute honoring John Trudell by two of his musical collaborators. Annie Humphrey performed DNA followed by Thana Redhawk with Ancestors Song featuring Trudell’s vocals.

A special appearance was made by the family of Joseph Flying Bye, who was nominated posthumously for his Putting The Moccasins Back On recording in the Best Historical/Linguistic Recording and Best Traditional Recording categories. His son, Allen and another ten family members drove from Standing Rock, North Dakota to the event. They received an overwhelming response of solidarity from the attendees supporting their opposition of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Seneca President Maurice John recently visited with Standing Rock Tribal Chairman David Archambault II and NAMA nominees contributed their songs to two free Water Is Life CD compilations to support the Standing Rock Sioux Community.

Twelve year-old hand drummer, Nizhoo Sullivan, the youngest NAMA nominee, was one of several Traditional performances that included Theresa Bear Fox and the Akwesasne Women Singers along with Joseph Fire Crow. Artist of the Year Shelley Morningsong sang and played the flute accompanied by her husband and musical partner Fabian Fontenelle resplendent in his regalia. Best Pop Recording winner Spencer Battiest and his brother Doc impressed the attendees with their renditions of a ballad and hip hop song.

Late singer/songwriter, Chairman of The Confederated Tribes of The Colville Reservation, and Native icon Jim Boyd won Record of the Year for his final recording, Bridge Creek Road. Boyd’s widow Shelly accepted the award accompanied by 15 members of his family including their children. The final performance of the night was a tribute performance to Chairman Boyd by Keith Secola with long-time Boyd drummer Alfonso Kolb, Annie Humphrey, and Sage Bond.

There’s much to check out: http://www.nativeamericanmusicawards.com/nama-16  Also, Women of Heart, who won Best Traditional Recording, have made their winning album free to download.

Via ICTMN.

Solidarity from the South.

Left to Right: Eriberto Gualinga (Sarayaku), Franco Viteri (Sarayaku), Kandi Mossett (IEN), David Archambault II (Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman), Nina Gualinga (Sarayaku), and Leo Cerda (Kichwa, on Amazon Watch staff). Courtesy Josue Rivas/Indigenous Rising.

Left to Right: Eriberto Gualinga (Sarayaku), Franco Viteri (Sarayaku), Kandi Mossett (IEN), David Archambault II (Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman), Nina Gualinga (Sarayaku), and Leo Cerda (Kichwa, on Amazon Watch staff). Courtesy Josue Rivas/Indigenous Rising.

Indigenous leaders from Ecuador joined the protectors at Standing Rock recently to show solidarity and share information, as their community has had some victories against oil companies and politicians in the past few years.

[…]

In an interview on September 14, Viteri explained the reasons for the visit and outlined the connections between indigenous communities in the north and south. News of the struggle at Standing Rock had reached them, and Viteri and his group had been selected by the Sarayaku communities to “stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters,” the veteran activist and leader said.

“We came from the Amazon jungle with a message of strength and solidarity for the Sioux,” Viteri said. “My people are very conscious, because of our history and our tradition, just like the tribes here, of our connection with nature, with Mother Earth; we know that this is what gives balance to life here on Earth. The transnational corporations, like those trying to build this oil pipeline, are blind because they don’t understand the language of nature.”

Viteri noted that his Kichwa community had been in contact with other tribes in the U.S. before, but not with the Standing Rock Sioux. He also pointed out that he had seen other indigenous people from Latin America at the camp, and recalled that he had spoken with a few from Honduras, Peru and El Salvador. Another Amazonian indigenous community from Ecuador will be coming, Viteri said. He closed the interview with a message for the protectors at Standing Rock and others throughout North America.

“In the name of all the children, elders, women, the birds, the large and small animals that depend on water to survive, the Kichwa people extend a greeting,” he said, “a sacred greeting of respect for nature and for the life of all the peoples of the North, because we know that if water is destroyed, life on Earth will end.”

Rick Kearns at ICTMN has the full story.

Sunday Facepalm: Piss Christ, Still Pissing Off Priests.

Immersion, Andres Serrano.

Immersion, Andres Serrano.

“Christ immersed in urine”  “To depict Christ in a bucket of urine”

Before we get anywhere at all here, I just need to yell a bit about the above idiocy. That’s manufacturing hysterical drama. No one went back in time, found out whether or not Christ actually existed, then kidnapped him, dunked him in a person sized bucket of urine, took his photo, then sailed back to the current time. It’s a cheap plastic crucifix in a glass of urine. Encouraging cheaper and cheaper versions of religious icons wasn’t Serrano’s idea, that belongs to the church. It’s also on the church that it was some sort of good idea for people to carry and wear a miniature execution device. Dunking a bit of plastic gimcrack into a glass of piss is not at all the same thing as dunking an actual person or god (if you can find one) into a bucket of piss without their consent. Okay, on to the outrage:

Now the American’s most infamous image – P*** Christ [sic] – will be shown at a politically-charged exhibition called Torture at the Void Gallery on October 8.

The exhibition also features images depicting the Hooded Men – a group of 14 men arrested at the height of the Troubles and, according to the European Court of Human Rights, subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. In 1987, Serrano received international attention for P*** Christ, igniting heated debate on the freedom of artistic expression and the public financing of controversial artworks. The image will go on show in Derry along with a second piece from the Immersion series, Black Supper, a dark re-imagining of da Vinci’s Last Supper.

A photo from the exhibition entitled 'Torture' by Andres Serrano.

A photo from the exhibition entitled ‘Torture’ by Andres Serrano.

Rev Roger Higginson of Coleraine Free Presbyterian Church said the artist’s desire to shock could be his way of hiding a lack of talent.

Oh lord. Here we go.

He added: “Men like these artists are actually quite cowardly because they make a mockery of Christ in a way that they wouldn’t if it was Mohammed or the Muslim faith because that would put them in danger.

Oh for fuck’s sake, not this bullshit again. Is this idiocy never going to die? As for Immersion (Piss Christ) being a mockery, it wasn’t intended that way by the artist, it actually had to do with the cheapening of religious icons. A great many people didn’t perceive of it as mockery, either. If the Muslim faith encouraged followers to festoon themselves with a cheap plastic instrument of execution, with someone hanging on it, I’d be happy to dunk it in some piss and photograph it. We’re once again faced with the particular idiocy of pretending that we’re talking about a different religious belief, too. Same basic story, same basic beliefs, same god, so please, shut up.

“It is easy for people like him to take a cheap shot and mock Christ, mock Christian people and mock the Bible.

Really? Like you’re making it easy? People who actually take the time to mock Christianity often find themselves in danger, subjected to death threats and massive harassment from the so-called faithful flock. You don’t even need to indulge in actual mockery. Just saying something Christians don’t like is often sufficient. It’s ridiculous to pretend otherwise.

“His depiction of the Lord is offensive, not just to me as a man but it offends me greatly because this is how he portrays the Lord who gave up his life for all of us and this artist has thrown that sacrifice back.

Sigh. The sacrifice was thrown back. I’ve heard that before. How? Exactly how does it do that? It sounds suitably dramatic, but I suspect it doesn’t actually mean one damn thing. It’s true enough that El Shaddai is a nasty, mean, petty minded asshole of a god, but y’know, his kid is supposed to be a tad better on that stuff. So maybe Jesus wouldn’t be all that concerned. Also, this sort of isht coming from a religion which openly states someone who did truly horrible things would get the standard “get out of hell free” card makes this outrage as sturdy as wet paper.

“If you consider artists like Leonardo da Vinci or Rembrandt, they didn’t set out to shock people or be controversial because they had real talent and their work spoke for itself. Perhaps if, as an artist you need to shock and cause offence and outrage to get your work noticed, it may be because of a lack of real talent.”

Hahahahahaha. Oh my. Someone doesn’t know a gosh darn thing about art or artists. If we must talk about a lack of talent, the priesthood seems to be a profession for people remarkably lacking in any meaningful talent. How about we have that chat? There’s a good deal more outrage and asterisked spelling here, I’ve had my fill. The exhibition launches on October 8 at 7.30pm and runs until December 17, at Void Gallery in Derry.

SPECTACULAR.

Interested in documenting one of the oldest animals on Earth, Barcelona-based production company myLapse set to capture the minimal movements of brightly colored coral, recording actions rarely seen by the human eye. The short film took nearly 25,000 individual images of the marine invertebrates to compose, and photography of species, such as the Acanthophyllia, Trachyphyllia, Heteropsammia cochlea, Physogyra, took over a year.

The production team hopes the film attracts attention to the Great Barrier Reef, encouraging watchers to take a deeper interest in one of the natural wonders of the world that is being rapidly bleached due to climate change. You can see more up-close images of the coral species featured in this film on Flickr.

This is in the realm of true awe, and it’s yet another timely reminder of just how much is at stake in our cavalier attitude toward our earth. It isn’t just the lives of human people which are at stake, but all peoples (for those who need translation: all beings, all species).

Via Colossal Art.

Goodbye, Doc, and Thank you.

Dr. Richard Arazi.

Dr. Richard Arazi.

I just found out that my neurologist of close to 20 years has died. Dr. Arazi had planned on retiring in December, so I saw him for the last time in May. He was a man of gentle humour, and quiet pride in his family. We always used to get wonderfully distracted, discussing books or other interesting things. He was an altogether lovely man, and a very caring physician. My thanks, for all your care over the years.

Standing Rock Camp: The Bad.

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Okay, this is the 2nd part of being back at Očeti Sakowiŋ camp on Wednesday, the 28th September. First part is here. The photos are full size, click for readability. It took a considerable amount of restraint to stop myself from titling this post: White People, Please, Sit Down and Shut Up. As I have mentioned before, many times, you’d never know I was any part Indian going by looks. I’m quite white, and and right now, I’d be happier if I dyed myself purple or something, anything to be dissociated from the behaviour on the part of some white people at the camp. Standard Disclaimer: there are a lot of white folks at the camps who are terrific people, helping out, and being a good and important part of the community. Unfortunately, this does not mitigate the behaviour of other white people.

The rules, detailed above, have been in place, but they are now written out and emphasised throughout the camps, and still, white people are managing to be utterly oblivious, and continue to break them, because, well, those rules, they can’t mean me, right? Yes, they mean you, oh great white crunchy saviours.

It’s no secret that a good amount of young white people flocked to the Red Warrior camp early on, months ago. That’s fine, but white people, you really, seriously need to sit down, shut the fuck up, listen, learn, pay attention, and figure out how respect works. Respect is not something which is owed only to white people.

There were even more young blonde women in camp, sporting dreadlocks. Perhaps that’s some sort of attempted connection to Celtic roots, I don’t know, but many of these young women were waltzing about the communal area in full privilege blindness, seeming to think this was a crunchy white person nature camp. It isn’t. It’s not considered terribly respectful to walk around the communal area with one breast exposed because your two year old child might want a drink, either. A tiny bit of sense can go a very long way. A lot of young white people are duly fired up about issues, and that’s fine, but where is your respect for doing things the Indigenous way? These same young white people are continually advocating for going out to the DA work sites and protesting in a decidedly non-Indigenous manner. They talk constantly about going up to “the front lines”.

That happened while we were there on Wednesday morning. Much agitation about going out to the “front lines”. A whole lot of young people went out, and they didn’t come back. They were all arrested, with one exception. One of the very crunchy, “nature camp” young women, white, took the open mic and was trying to explain the arrests, and what happened, then backtracked to why she was there, speaking. She had taken her toddler with her, and said she was about to be arrested when she brought her child out, and asked what would happen to her. The cops decided to let her go, rather than place her child in the system, since she’s not from here. As she was saying all this, a furious young Native woman, standing by the rule boards in the first photo, slammed her hand down on the appropriate place on the board, and yelled at her for taking her small child, and not paying attention to the rules. The young crunchy woman muttered something, dropped the mic and took off. To say that white people need a lesson in figuring out respect is an understatement, to say the least. This is not your nature camp, and any retaliation won’t land on you, it will land on the people who live here. We don’t need white leaders, we don’t need white saviours, and we don’t need the damn near impenetrable shield of obliviousness so many white people walk around with.

After the arrests, Phyllis Young had something to say. She started out by saying she was going to go easy this time, apparently, the day before, she had been absolutely infuriated by all the front line talk and more. In particular, she seriously dislikes front lines. I agree with her, front lines is a term of war. Ms. Young talked about understanding warmongering, she was a warmonger in her youth, she was at Wounded Knee in the ’70s. That’s not what is happening here and now though, or at least, it’s not what is supposed to be happening here and now. Ms. Young talked about white people playing saviour, and that in doing so, they had only one frame of reference, that of war. The collective memory of white America is nothing but war. There’s nothing else. This is not in any way helpful to all the people at the camps, it is not in any way helpful to all those who actually live here, and who will have to live with the consequences of stupid actions. Ms. Young wanted to know who was going to come up with the bail money, who was going to get everyone out of jail. Who was going to pay the court costs, the fines that will be imposed. I’m willing to bet it won’t be the wannabe white saviours. There’s also the issue of young Native people ending up with a criminal record. White people might consider that some sort of badge of honour, but need to remember they are white. A record won’t impact them nearly to the same extent it will affect a person of colour, especially a person of colour living on a reservation. FFS, is it all that much to ask white people to bloody think?

There have also been pro-pipeline infiltrators in the camps, white people, natch. Again, there’s some young white person agitating, talking about needing to go out to the “front lines” and setting up a time and place. A second person sits up on a hill with a telescope, and informs the cops of the destination. The cops get there first, everyone gets arrested, and no one makes it back to camp. As I mentioned in the first part, the presence of cops has been seriously amped up, and they have a monster mobile command center just past the turn off to Sacred Stone Camp. They have militarized vehicles, SWAT, and are running around with assault rifles. Indigenous people know we cannot afford to make this a war, cops and others are just waiting for an excuse. White people may see all that as a challenge, but that’s entirely the wrong point of view to have at the camp.

In conclusion, white people, please, I fucking beg of you, stop. Just fucking stop. Sit down. Listen. Learn. Pay attention to the rules. Understand that you are an ally, but also understand that you have no particular stake in what happens at Standing Rock. After this, you get to go home and pat yourself on the back for being a “good” white person. Before you deliver that pat, it would be useful to figure out what constitutes a good white person, a good ally. Understand that it is not your camp. Understand that this is not a war, and it’s certainly not up to you to make it one. Understand that you are not a saviour of any kind, nor are saviours being sought. Understand that you are still thinking in a completely colonial way. Understand that colonialism got us into this situation, it won’t help get us out. Learn respect. And please, stop being so damn embarrassing.

For all you wonderful people who are making things or have things to send, this is where:

For those of you who have things to send, this is where:

SHIP TO:

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
attn: Johnelle Leingang
North Standing Rock Ave
Fort Yates, North Dakota, 58538

Much, much, much love, thanks, and appreciation. It might be a small thing to you, but it’s in no way small at all, your generosity and love shines through.