Comments on The Liberator Magazine :: Art. Culture. Education. Politics. Truth...: Quote of the day: "South African-style struggle......

I was present when actor Adam Beach announced that...

2007-12-24T12:39:00.000-05:00

I was present when actor Adam Beach announced that he and his Law and Order SUV co-star, Ice T will soon announce a new record label. Mr. Beach told an audience of students last month that the new record label will be called Red and Black.

as i thought, you are missing it.what i said was t...

2007-12-20T18:50:00.000-05:00

as i thought, you are missing it.

what i said was that i see the oneness of the land issue in palestine and the colonialization of america.

i personally think it matters a GREAT DEAL.

i then went on to say that you ought to be able to see why native colonization will NOT be as big of an issue as Palestine in the eyes of Americans... (i should have said anytime soon -- and that is my own personal pessimistic view given the my strategic observations)

i then went on to say that if they let the mainstream conversation go there they undermine their ENTIRE civilization/supremacy.

ideologically i think both Palestinians and native Americans deserve to have their land returned to them. PERIOD.

the only DIFFERENCE i see between native America and south Africa/Palestine, is that it is actually a strategic likelihood that should Palestinians/south africans eventually get around to taking their land back, they are likely to be able to accomplish it given their population strength.

while for native Americans i am not optimistic because the numbers are not there for it to be strategically likely.

if you have some strategic observations that might give me more optimism, please do share them with me.

but for now, because i am pessimistic about that due to my strategic observations, i also must be honest and admit that my sentimentality with this land called America is not strong enough to motivate me to fight for it given those odds. knowing what i know now, i'd most likely go elsewhere before doing that.

Your point is something like... there aren't enoug...

2007-12-20T15:33:00.000-05:00

Your point is something like... there aren't enough Native Americans for anyone to really care.

if you think that by what i said, i'm expressing t...

2007-12-17T14:02:00.000-05:00

if you think that by what i said, i'm expressing that i don't think your story is meaningful i think you're missing my point.

I think I am sometimes guilty of doing the very th...

2007-12-17T13:15:00.000-05:00

I think I am sometimes guilty of doing the very thing I dislike the most. For instance, while it is true that family members, myself, have been homeless at certain times... I don't like too see people put that tragedy forward. I suppose nobody does. I wrote here that I have been homeless in a place where my grandparents have lived for millenia. I went to an event titled, "Homeless in the Homelands" and realized that there is hardly a good way to recuperate the idea of being homeless. History of course is a dialectic... in other words history itself is animated by an infinite number things... and the only way to fish out a story from all of it that is meaningful is to construct a story. And I realized of course that maybe I have been telling a story that is meaningful to me and not others... because I haven't taken the time to construct it so that it might be meaningful.

U.S. Constitution fourteenth Amendment section 2"R...

2007-12-17T12:20:00.000-05:00

U.S. Constitution fourteenth Amendment section 2

"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of person in each state, excluding Indians not taxed."

Indians would not become citizens until...

U.S. Citizenship Act of 1924

"Be it enacted by the Senate and house of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, that all non citizens Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided that the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property.(Approved June 2, 1924)

sounds like you're frustrated.

2007-12-17T00:05:00.000-05:00

sounds like you're frustrated.

forget it.

2007-12-16T13:11:00.000-05:00

forget it.

Certainly, immigrating to the Carribbean would be ...

2007-12-14T18:54:00.000-05:00

Certainly, immigrating to the Carribbean would be a unique strategy for a lot of us from the north, it's a interesting thought.

i refer to native culture as Cheikh Anta Diop or C...

2007-12-14T15:37:00.000-05:00

i refer to native culture as Cheikh Anta Diop or Chancellor Williams might refer to "African Civilization".

some africans don't like that some do. i, being a pan-africanist, do.

so i carry that same science of finding the cultural/spiritual/political/economic similarites of peoples who shared the african continent without interference for so long... i carry that over and apply it to the natives who were on this continent without interference for so long.

we could argue about that. but that's my ideological view. i'm not belittling the unique specific cultural pracitces but i am EMPHASIZING the cultural/spiritual/political/economic similarites when i speak of "native" culture, or "african" civiization.

and i mean in my own ideology i see the oneness of the land issue in palestine and the colonialization of america. but seeing it through the white supremacist's eyes you can see why native colonialization will NEVER be as big of an issue as palestine.

if they let the mainstream conversation go there they undermine their ENTIRE civilization.

ideologically i think palestineans deserve to control their land. period.

politically, i'm glad that it is an inevitable moderate "win" or clear "win" for palestineans. i'm optimistic about the future there.

either palestine will end up with an independent state or

one day palestineans will OUTNUMBER jews in israel (a key difference in the comparison of that situation and native americans in america) and fight for their equal rights (in a south-african-like struggle) and attain the majority power share.

i'm not so optimistic about native americans or black american's future in the u.s. for that matter. i don't have much faith in the idea of a multi-cultural america where power is truly balanced. black power showed that they ain't going for that without a serious fight. and how are native americans going to get this land back when you make up a fraction of the population? if anything, we all need eachother if we're seriously strategising on how to take power from a white supremacist structure. is it worth trying still? YES. is it worth putting all my eggs in this basket? no. i've learned from history and i ain't putting my family and community to the slaughterhouse. therefore i MUST consider alternatives as to where i want to be and build. the continent of america does not mean enough to me, especially when there are what i consider better alternatives for me -- strategically, politically, security-wise, etc... where i can at least begin to explore investing some energy in some fertile soil that is welcome to me. rather than fighting trying to plant seeds in a land that has been taken over and locked down by aggressors and colonizers. one idea: maybe north american natives might consider migrating to africa or the carribean too.

No I don't "feel you". Everyone else has stories i...

2007-12-14T14:34:00.000-05:00

No I don't "feel you". Everyone else has stories in this place, family etc. No, I claim a right to selfishly feel this way. I have a fairly good handle on American History, pre-colonial, slaveocracy, colonial, revolutionary, progressive, etc. While I have educated myself on African/African-American History spanning hundreds of years, I am going to ask you or anyone else, what can you say you know about Native people here? You referred in your last post, to "native culture" as if there were one or maybe two cultures here at the time of European colonization. So, no. I don't feel you, as you say... because I have never felt that there is a real sense of reciprocity.

And in the life of this mind, there is so much more at stake here than identity politics. The context for this brief dialogue was about an "South African-style struggle" and using that language to characterize what is happening on the West Bank. It is an important conversation that a lot of Native columnists in Indian Country (a legal term) follow to see where these discussions go and can American Indians expect to hear these same debates around an American occupation of Native American lands. To that end the obvious answer is probably no, Palestine was occupied, and Isreal did not treat with
Palestinians as Americans Indian leaders did with European governments, and then eventually with American leaders.

It's rare that I just sit down exasperated and say I just wish everybody would get the hell out, but that is what I did, and it felt good, and I am going to claim that moment for what small amount it is worth to me. And it's really not for or about anyone else but me and mine.

Next, within this conversation about Isreal and Palestine I would like to say that this issue regarding a political solution is linked in very real ways to certain debates about the state of Isreal's nuclear arsenal. On the subject of nuclear power: Writer and Pueblo Activist Leslie Marmon Silko wrote a book titled Ceremony in which she described how the mining of uranium was linked to the ability of the United States to make war and bomb the Japanese at the end of WWII. Part of that project was to point out that the uranium used to make those bombs was mined very near the Laguna Pueblo reservation where she grew up. So, the telling of a story of how one is related to the land is a real story about the state of the world in real political and economic terms. And so I would suggest that those stories that are really about the land are extraordinarily informative from a Native woman's point of view.

So when we talk about Isreali relationship to the West Bank and a political solution an agreement with Palestine and Palestinians, how do you understand that relationship to the land?

My mother's mother was miseducated and poor to the point that not even title to her own land allotment (small as it was) was enough to keep her from not being able to care for her own children. Land by itself does not improve upon wealth and does not create status. Economic goals do not always trump political ones, interestingly enough.

I may seem stubborn, and the world may move around me, but at the moment I prefer to be more like the rock... than the burning bush. That is to say not as prophetic as the next person. I heard Salmon Rushdie give a talk a couple of years ago at school, and he talked about a world with too many borders that is no longer open to travel and an exchange of ideas as it once was. I mourn that world too, though I am sure I have never experienced as he did in his youth. We may be thinking much more globally very soon, borders may begin to disappear... the questions you seek to answer may not mean as much soon. I assure I am quite comfortable to let Europe answer it's own questions.

Anti-Agent/Tasha: Here is an interesting article a...

2007-12-14T13:32:00.000-05:00

Anti-Agent/Tasha:

Here is an interesting article about the EU/AU summit.

alex: i think it's very very important to reconnec...

2007-12-14T12:42:00.000-05:00

alex: i think it's very very important to reconnect however far back as you can go. the past is empowering, and i think its healthy for all white people to discover more about their pasts before becoming "white" so they can have a cultural existence that doesn't rely on the race paradigm and the superficial identity of "white", because as mizzy said "american" doesn't really cut it either, because there is already an native "american" culture that was here.

Mizzy: sorry if that sounded disrespectful. wasn't meant to be.

i'm speaking of MY experience. can't speak for you or yours really.

so when i talk about being/remaining here MORE for political/economic reasons THAN sentimental ones or ties to the land, i'm saying i too have stories that are dear to my heart. family history in this place.

BUT i'm also saying when i think of a vision for my future in 2007, i realize that those stories and sentimental ties that include the land and stories ties to the land, stories of land ownership, of houses stolen, of family suckered out of land, of taxes pushing family out of their land/homes, of family building churches and building church communities, of my childhood memories tied to this geographical place... all of that would NOT be enough to keep ME here.

in fact, i MOSTLY remain, i think because this place is more of a political and economic safety net. i'm not ready to move to africa or europe or the caribbean RIGHT NOW. where would i live? what job would i have? could i vote? how would i become a citizen? would i have a community to be apart of? do i need to get married first? could i marry someone from a place so drastically different? what about my parents? how would i convince them? can i afford to buy them some land? a house? how often would i be able to travel back here? how could i maintain ties to the people i care about and love here? feel me? i'm not sure how many of those questions i need to answer before i begin that migration but i know i need to answer more of those what i think of as functional political/economic questions before i feel empowered enough to make that type of move.

Achali writes: "i'm mostly here more for political...

2007-12-14T10:33:00.000-05:00

Achali writes: "i'm mostly here more for political/economic reasons then sentimental ones or ties to the land."

As a native person I can't not be here for political and economic reasons. I mean I guess the U.S. could have succeeded in its earlier 19th century wars and native people would be entirely erased from high school history textbooks. In the 1880s, it was said that it cost more to fight Indians than to send them to school. Or I guess I could pack up and move to Europe. I have often thought about it, and I could say that I moved for political reasons. That I was primarily interested in writing for local papers and blogs because I was invested in a transnational space for engaging in political and economic discussion. It is also true that lots of white people see themselves as a emerging from a mythical American soil. Much like Theodore Roosevelt described when he made sweeping remarks about the "New" man, the American. But, that is my particular bent. No.

How could ties to the land be sentimental? It is not a longing for an unchanging, eden before the fall. No, it's not a form of American transcendalism. It's not the crying Indian of 1970s public service announcements.

My family's life is tied to the story of a place... and I will spare rhyme and verse for the sake of blogspace, but please don't tax my sense of history before thinking about what you mean to say when talking about the politics of land in America as it concerns me.

I meant responsible not complicit

2007-12-14T05:33:00.000-05:00

I meant responsible not complicit

That's the difficult thing for me. I dually feel s...

2007-12-14T05:32:00.000-05:00

That's the difficult thing for me. I dually feel strong ties to the land(not the government or most of the people for that matter) and feel somewhat complicit in the colonization. As a white person (commence ripping on me:) I don't culturally have any connection to Germany, Switzerland, or England where my ancestors are from. Perhaps that sounds wierd, but those cultures aren't that different from the US in being colonized by white protestants. After all, "white" people (christians) colonized other "white" people (heathens) in Europe before spreading self-hate to Africa or Native America...
it's the land that speaks to me, not these bastardized cultures. I think I'm doomed to live a subcultural existence, but whatever.

similar point was made in the second issue of the ...

2007-12-14T03:36:00.000-05:00

similar point was made in the second issue of the liberator on reparations as it related to land and that any land transfer would be superficial without native involvement/blessing:

http://www.liberatormagazine.com/content/1.2/reparations.htm

when i think about it, i'm mostly here more for political/economic reasons then sentimental ones or ties to the land.

Then again, I would hate to see every body go... ...

2007-12-13T14:02:00.000-05:00

Then again, I would hate to see every body go... not that it would ever happen. But, I wish people who were really down for real political change, white, black, asian, native would really seriously consider what a world without blood quantum, reservations, urban reservations, etc would look like. And realize too that what I just wrote goes against thee status quo in the United States.

I feel like everybody who is not Native Indigenous...

2007-12-13T13:26:00.000-05:00

I feel like everybody who is not Native Indigenous North American Indian might consider leaving if they really want to set the world right. Or at least they can just fight their wars elsewhere. And while no indigenous person created the conditions for slavery which brought people to the "new world", I can't say that it is right to claim that African Americans would have any more right to stay than people of European decent. So, yeah, I wish everybody would pack up. Seriously, that is the way I feel sometimes. I have been homeless in a place where my grandparents have lived for millenia. But everyone else leaving is probably not going to happen. Yet, i wish it would. It's a ghost dance wish that all the so called whites would disappear. Everyone who is not Indian. Then everybody would be trying to prove they are at least part Indian. Which would be very ironic... since I am a Native person and I have to prove that to the federal government by providing a documented geneology.

Yeah, I definitely wasn't advocating for us to giv...

2007-12-10T22:29:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I definitely wasn't advocating for us to give up.

And Black Americans have a very big job ahead. We have to build a community with people many of us consider strangers. I'm glad there is a growing number up for the task.

(Suggestion for Anonymous: that was another questi...

2007-12-10T11:41:00.000-05:00

(Suggestion for Anonymous: that was another question, how about you tell what you think a decolonization of the U.S. will look like?)

Tasha: I see what you're saying, but disagree with the ending: just because, if we accept that then it leaves us powerless -- to say that "until they change we are screwed". I think we can continue to organize and unite and continue to resist that interference you talk about. The AU is growing more balls as time goes on. Even at the recent EU-AU summit many heads of state stepped up and resisted unequal trade deals.

And in time I think we can become more independent. Especially as Africa becomes more democratic, which is the number one thing we need to support, along with the strengthening of the AU through making it sovereign over all African countries. Even for black people in America this should be a priority because our human rights depend on having an international ally.

If the AU was truly strong and we had a strong relationship with it, Katrina would have never gone without repercussions. Imagine if one of the Chinatowns had flooded. Or a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. China or Israel would have been all up in George Bush's ears. Many ethnic communities in the U.S. have international political allies -- a necessity.

A lot of neocolonialism depends on puppet and/or corrupt governments. I do completely agree though that Africans will have to work twice as hard to build a nation due to what we can assume will be constant ill-intended or negligent interference.

I'm starting to believe that there is no such thin...

2007-12-09T22:37:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to believe that there is no such thing as "decolonization". When European countries "decolonize", said countries are left with nothing, victims of rape with no therapy. And then after "decolonization" said countries are given "aid" in the form of food drops, camps, money donations.

Real decolonization would mean for the European countries to completely leave the formerly occupied countries alone. They would not try to force a certain kind of government, certain leaders, or try to control religious practices. But what we have seen is that European governments have an almost obsessive need to control all other goverments. This means that unless their way of thinking changes, or they are somehow stripped of power, we will all remain colonized, whether we recognize it or not.

no, not an agent of any gov't. Let me ask... do yo...

2007-12-09T15:34:00.000-05:00

no, not an agent of any gov't. Let me ask... do you decolonization of the U.S. would solve a lot of problems? How can anyone advocate an end to apartheid in S. African, or an end to Isreal's occupation without interogating the possibities of an end to colonization in North America?

Are you a government agent? Why not give a view be...

2007-12-08T12:32:00.000-05:00

Are you a government agent? Why not give a view before probing for the views of others.

Does the Liberator-blog advocate a two-state solut...

2007-12-08T12:24:00.000-05:00

Does the Liberator-blog advocate a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?