We Will Not Leave our Village

[In late 2008, a five-minute video clip titled ” Gaon Chodab Nahin” (literally, “We Shall Not Leave our Village”) came into circulation among activists and grassroots NGOs in the forest highlands of eastern India. To those who watched and passed on the video throughout the eastern Indian states of Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Orissa, it summed up the plight of adivasi or “tribal” populations in the region as they battled an emerging state-corporate nexus whose plans for rapid industrialization in India relied on greater access to forest and mineral resources.]

Prof. Uday Chandra’s paper Primitive Accumulation and “Primitive” Subjects in Postcolonial India: Tracing the Myriad Real and Virtual Lives of Mediatized Indigeneity Activism

Assistant Professor, Government, Georgetown University, Qatar 

Non-Human Animals as Commodities, Tradition, and the Cancellation of the Jinhua Hutou Dog Meat Festival

“In the Mao era, the Communist Party condemned pets as a byproduct of bourgeois decadence.”

“I personally think dog meat is like alcohol. They are both components of our ancient Chinese culture.”

“The tradition of feasting on dogs originated when Hu Dahai, a rebel battling Yuan Dynasty rulers in the 14th century, ordered all the dogs in Jinhua to be slaughtered because their barking had warned rebels in the city.”

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The Jinhua Hutou Dog Meat Festival, as it is called, was abruptly canceled last week after local officials were shamed by an online campaign begun by animal rights advocates. Gruesome photographs taken at past festivals that show canine carcasses, some bloody and others cooked, circulated on Chinese microblogs, creating popular pressure against the festival, which was set for October.

Full article: After Online Campaign, Chinese Dog Meat Festival is Cancelled (The New York Times)

The Unfinished Oscar Speech

(Daily Kos | February 26, 2016)

Despising “celebrity” in every Hollywood sense of the word, Marlon Brando used his fame to make statements, bring awareness, and create change. Blatantly against any form of racism, Brando marched in 1963 during the Civil Rights Movement in DC, and often carried his fight for equal rights into his movie roles. In one film, Brando insisted that his air-force pilot character in Sayonara marry the pilot’s Japanese lover at the end. This was in 1957 during a time when America was steeped in Japanese racism. In 1967, Brando was the first leading actor to play, in a sympathetic way, a closeted homosexual military officer in Reflections in a Golden Eye.

But Marlon Brando’s most renowned example of human rights activism took place in 1973 when he forfeited an Oscar for The Godfather in order to bring international awareness to the wrongs being committed against American Indians. After the winner of the category Best Actor was announced, Sacheen Littlefeather went up on stage and spoke on behalf of Marlon Brando. The actress and activist gave a short eloquent and provocative speech which was received by the live audience, and around the world with mixed reactions.

Here is the entire speech (which can also be found here (The New York Times)):

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — For 200 years we have said to the Indian people who are fighting for their land, their life, their families and their right to be free: ”Lay down your arms, my friends, and then we will remain together. Only if you lay down your arms, my friends, can we then talk of peace and come to an agreement which will be good for you.”

When they laid down their arms, we murdered them. We lied to them. We cheated them out of their lands. We starved them into signing fraudulent agreements that we called treaties which we never kept. We turned them into beggars on a continent that gave life for as long as life can remember. And by any interpretation of history, however twisted, we did not do right. We were not lawful nor were we just in what we did. For them, we do not have to restore these people, we do not have to live up to some agreements, because it is given to us by virtue of our power to attack the rights of others, to take their property, to take their lives when they are trying to defend their land and liberty, and to make their virtues a crime and our own vices virtues.

But there is one thing which is beyond the reach of this perversity and that is the tremendous verdict of history. And history will surely judge us. But do we care? What kind of moral schizophrenia is it that allows us to shout at the top of our national voice for all the world to hear that we live up to our commitment when every page of history and when all the thirsty, starving, humiliating days and nights of the last 100 years in the lives of the American Indian contradict that voice?

It would seem that the respect for principle and the love of one’s neighbor have become dysfunctional in this country of ours, and that all we have done, all that we have succeeded in accomplishing with our power is simply annihilating the hopes of the newborn countries in this world, as well as friends and enemies alike, that we’re not humane, and that we do not live up to our agreements.

Perhaps at this moment you are saying to yourself what the hell has all this got to do with the Academy Awards? Why is this woman standing up here, ruining our evening, invading our lives with things that don’t concern us, and that we don’t care about? Wasting our time and money and intruding in our homes.

I think the answer to those unspoken questions is that the motion picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and making a mockery of his character, describing his as savage, hostile and evil. It’s hard enough for children to grow up in this world. When Indian children watch television, and they watch films, and when they see their race depicted as they are in films, their minds become injured in ways we can never know.

Recently there have been a few faltering steps to correct this situation, but too faltering and too few, so I, as a member in this profession, do not feel that I can as a citizen of the United States accept an award here tonight. I think awards in this country at this time are inappropriate to be received or given until the condition of the American Indian is drastically altered. If we are not our brother’s keeper, at least let us not be his executioner.

I would have been here tonight to speak to you directly, but I felt that perhaps I could be of better use if I went to Wounded Knee to help forestall in whatever way I can the establishment of a peace which would be dishonorable as long as the rivers shall run and the grass shall grow.

I would hope that those who are listening would not look upon this as a rude intrusion, but as an earnest effort to focus attention on an issue that might very well determine whether or not this country has the right to say from this point forward we believe in the inalienable rights of all people to remain free and independent on lands that have supported their life beyond living memory.

Thank you for your kindness and your courtesy to Miss Littlefeather. Thank you and good night.

This statement was written by Marlon Brando for delivery at the Academy Awards ceremony where Mr. Brando refused an Oscar. The speaker, who read only a part of it, was Shasheen Littlefeather.

Our Friends, Beloved Dogs

Actor and musician David Soul, co-star of the 1970s iconic television series, Starsky and Hutch, lends his voice to the growing opposition to end the dog meat trade in parts of Asia. Please watch David’s five-minute video, and then do what you can from the list of actions in the Animal’s Voice website (http://animalsvoice.com/dogs)

 

Vatican: Illuminating our Common Home

Light show: projection of photographs onto the façade and cupola of Saint Peter’s, taken from a repertoire of some of the world’s greatest photographers. These illuminations present images inspired of Mercy, of humanity, of the natural world, and of climate change.

John Trudell

Photo by Matika Wilbur | Project562

[John Trudell, American Indian poet, actor, spoken word artist and political activist passed away on December 8, 2015, at his home, surrounded by his family and friends.

John Trudell was a Santee Dakota activist, artist, actor, and poet, who led a life dedicated to indigenous human rights, land and language issues. He helped spark a spoken word movement that is a continuation of Native American oral traditions. 

 

Born on February 15, 1946 in Omaha, he spent his early years living on the Santee Reservation in northern Nebraska. His father was Santee and his mother was of Mexican Indian heritage. He had a normal life until his mother died at age 6, and the new rock and roll music resonated with him from ages 9-12. He said high school was not good for him and would enlist in the U.S. Navy from 1963 until 1967, to get away. He married Fenicia “Lou” Ordonez in 1968 in California, briefly attended college, thinking he would go into radio and broadcasting.Everything changed in 1969 when Native American students and organizers, Trudell among them, occupied Alcatraz Island from November 20, 1969 to June 11, 1970. That group became “Indians of All Tribes,” and they issued the manifesto,We Hold the Rock, and eventually the book,Alcatraz is Not an Island. The Alcatraz Occupation became an incubator for the nascent Native American rights movement, including the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Minneapolis. The legal basis for this occupation was theTreaty of Fort Laramie of 1868, which said that any abandoned federal property would revert to the Indian Nations. This treaty’s legality would also inspire many more actions across Indian country. Trudell has always maintained that all these political actions were not just moral, ethical issues but were legal issues, according to Native treaty rights and federal trust responsibilities.

Trudell used his broadcasting experience on the airwaves of “Radio Free Alcatraz” (a clip from the program can be heard on the 2005 documentaryTrudell). His marriage would end during this period as he become a leading Native spokesman attracting national attention. The negotiations over Alcatraz, the proposed Indian Center and the occupation itself fell apart in 1971, but so many names of Native activists, organizers, artists, writers and actors from that time would become prominent in the ensuing struggles, movement and documentation.

AP Images | Richard Drew

In remembering John Trudell, it is worth paying a note of respect to all the people involved in all the activities that helped define an era and led to many changes we enjoy today. Such as: Richard Oakes (my cousin), Adam Fortunate Eagle, LaNada Means, and Alcatraz veterans Richard McKenzie, Mark Martinez, Garfield Spotted Elk, Virgil Standing-Elk, Walter Means, Allen Cottier, Joe Bill, David Leach, John Whitefox, Ross Harden, Jim Vaughn, Linda Arayando, Bernell Blindman, Kay Many Horse, John Virgil, John Martell, Fred Shelton, Rick Evening, Jerry Hatch, Al Miller, Joe Morris, Stella Leach, Cleo Waterman, Al Rickard, Dean Chavers.

Then there was Fred Downey—Coyote 1, Peter Blue Cloud—Coyote 2, and the actor Peter Coyote, Benjamin Bratt, Jack Forbes, Grace Thorpe, Wilma Mankiller, and so many more who turned out to support in the early 70s like Buffy Ste. Marie, Marlon Brando, Richie Havens, Taj Mahal, Dick Gregory, Muhammed Ali, Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis Jr., Anthony Quinn, Jane Fonda, Jonathan Winters, Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael.

A home movie by Bureau of Indian Affairs employee Doris Purdy was made at Alcatraz and captures a snippet of this time, as does the famous LIFE Magazine photo-spread that has Oakes, Trudell and the entire Alcatraz contingent featured. In 1972, the movement was propelled by members of AIM, the National Indian Brotherhood, the Native American Rights Fund, the National Indian Youth Council, the National American Indian Council, the National Council on Indian Work, National Indian Leadership Training, and the American Indian Committee on Alcohol and Drug Abuse who organized the Trail of Broken Treaties, Mel Thom, Clyde Warrior, Gerald Wilkerson, Vine Deloria Jr., Hank Adams, Carter Camp, Shirley Hill Witt, LaDonna Harris, Suzan Harjo, and Louis Bruce.

The 1973 AIM Liberation/Occupation of Wounded Knee included Russell Means, Dennis Banks, Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt, Ellen Moves Camp, Gladys Bissonette, Lenny Foster, Edgar Bear Runner, Stan Holder, Pedro Bissonette, Leonard Peltier, Bob Robideau, Dino Butler, Nilak Butler, Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, Mary Crow Dog, Kamook Banks, Lori Pourier, Winona LaDuke, Phillip Deer, Lee Brightman, Sid Mills, Bill Wahpepah, Ingrid Washinwatok, Billy War Soldier, Floyd Westerman, Joy Harjo. These are the names of just some of the people associated with that time, who knew or worked or debated with John Trudell.

We should also not neglect the memory of Frank Clearwater, Buddy LaMont, Joe Stuntz and the over 200 missing and murdered Natives from either side in the FBI/DOJ/BIA repression after Wounded Knee and the Jumping Bull Ranch/FBI shoot-out.] (from Indian Country Today)

Read more at INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY

 

Modern queer politics forged itself against Blackness. Where will it go next?

A good read

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[…. Even self-proclaimed radical queers, who have often voiced disdain with marriage equality’s position as the central cause of LGBT activism—viewing marriage’s heteronormativity as contrary to the goals of queer liberation—softened their critiques in light of the victory. But for Black queers, reality soon settled in. Celebrating amid the gratuitous violence against Black bodies and the deadening silence of non-Black LGBT activists provoked a question that has dogged the push for marriage equality from the beginning, a question of a darker hue: What good is equality when many of us still are not free, fighting for the right to live?]   Read the full essay | Tyrone Palmer for THE NEW INQUIRY

Running Wild… on so Many Fronts

http://runningwildfilm.com/

Political Correctness as the Ultimate Organ of Supression

Slavoj Žižek doesn’t buy into political correctness. In fact, it frightens him. The famed philosopher and social critic describes political correctness as a tacit form of totalitarianism, an act of coercion built upon the premise that “I know better than you what you really want.”

New York Will Have its Own Tennessee Williams Festival this Fall

[New York will have a mini-Tennessee Williams festival of its own this fall, as playwrights adapt six of his short stories for an off-Broadway theater organization, The New York Times reported Tuesday (April 28).

Among those writers who will be concentrating their talents on Williams’ works for 59E59 Theaters are Beth Henley, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her play “Crimes of the Heart,” andJohn Guare, who wrote the screenplay for “Atlantic City” and such plays as “Six Degrees of Separation” and “The House of Blue Leaves,” The Times said.

The adaptations will be staged from Sept. 1 through Oct. 11 under the umbrella title “Desire.”]

Read the full story | NOLA